skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Didn't people used to complain about do-nothing managers looming over their pet projects and padding the payroll with their lackeys?

The investors aren't trying to fix Yahoo. By some estimates, the core business of Yahoo has a negative market value meaning they're not adding anything of value. Yahoo is a dying business and they don't really hold a competitive advantage in anything worthwhile. It may make sense to wind the company down and give back the capital and resources to more worthy ventures. Yahoo tried rebranding and hired a high profile CEO to no avail. It's nothing personal but if it were as easy as cutting a few projects, offering better perks and hiring good people, Yahoo would have done so already.
I think investors could rightfully say that they "are sick of 'online commenters' thinking they know what Yahoo should do without having any skin in the game."

You cannot "aggressively refocus" without cutting something. For a company like Yahoo, resource allocation is a zero sum game. Moreover, if Yahoo sees iPhones and free food as the only things keeping an employee from leaving, aren't they doing themselves a favor by letting those employees quit at will?
SQL charts straight from SQL queries with parameters driven from forms:
http://www.sqldashboards.com/database/mysql-live-charting
Skip to about 40 seconds.
What did I "self treat"? My doctor in India recommended the steroid injection in order to enable me to travel and a first world doctor provided the service. Treating symptoms well enough so that I can travel was the only purpose - the discectomy is what actually solved the problem.

If you want to spend extra money on a non-Indian doctor living in America, have fun. I don't plan to do the same - I've generally found care in India to be equal or superior to care in the US.

I'm not sure what you think I'm selling. I did name drop the doctor/hospital where I went, but they've paid me nothing and probably have no idea I wrote this post.
> The first argument is out the door because now they'll just get a lot of support questions around many more products that don't work.

I'm not so sure about that - I've owned Hue products for a while now and until this moment never knew that they supported any other lightbulbs. I'm guessing most of their other customers didn't either - this was sold to mainstream consumers, not HA geeks.
"the most productive individual in society"

I think this is the crux of the issue. Is Zuckerberg amongst the most productive individuals in the society? As another example, was Steve Jobs so much more productive than his competitors. Can Warren Buffet be considered productive at all, for that matter (we wouldn't have a shortage of insurance companies, sugar water selling companies, furniture and apparel companies if the specific ones Buffet invested and makes his money in never existed)? Note, I'm only mentioning individuals I am a fan of here. There are many worse examples than these.

Just taking Zuckerberg for example, while he obviously did something extremely useful, his greatest "productivity" (as defined by his earnings) was that he happened to be the one whose social network, amongst the many hundreds of combinations being tried at the time, happened to have the right combination of factors that made it extremely popular. Is that reason enough to award him so much more control over the future of society as opposed to the guy who invented Orkut, for example?
"why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market"

Presumably because someone overseas would pay more money for it?
Why are US companies paying their employees to not work, but to "chill" instead?

Why do US workers prefer to "chill" at work, instead of with family, friends, or alone?

Is this a good thing?

Are you hypothesizing here, or do you have any actual evidence that this extra time is "chilling", and not "being present to keep up the appearance of working", perhaps because not doing so might lead to being fired or left out of promotions? (If so, I don't think the extra level of stress is compatible with the term 'chill'.)

Or, to go old school on you, are you an apologist for the excessive demands of the capital owners and their managerial puppets?
You can do 3 free tests with peek - http://peek.usertesting.com/
India: 4%.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
> I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market.

There is a massive amount of used cars in the US, and historically a large demand for these types of vehicles in Africa and the Middle East, where import taxes are lax and it's far easier to register a gray market vehicle than it is in the States. Trucks like this can fetch a much greater premium in those areas, and it is profitable for import/export companies to ship them there.
The harsh criticism feels unwarranted to me as well.

It honestly feels to me like a little bit of misplaced self insecurity.

I kind of get it, but considering that there is no evidence of ill will, I get the sense that people are reacting to something other than what's actually happening here (like their dislike for Zuckerberg's fortunes, how he got it, Facebook privacy issues, etc.)

To put this into context, if a young mother dedicates 99% of her life (but not billions because she doesn't have it) into charity and she does so in the name of her children and their future, I doubt she would be receiving the sort of harsh criticism that Zuckerberg is receiving for the same thing.

It reminds of people's hatred for SUV's (seems to have died down more recently). It was always under the guise of the environment, but really other types of environmental waste were not really villified to the same extent. For example, it's far worse to own a non-SUV and decide to live out in the suburbs and drive to work than to live nearby work and have an SUV.

I'm not a Zuckerberg fan-club member, but what he did would be something I wish I could do someday and it doesn't seem weird at all to me to do this in dedication of my child. I also feel, from a pragmatic point of view, that we need to be encouraging people to donate.
The same Phillips that sent out C&D letters to people who wrote software i2c implementations [1]. Their reputation precedes them.

[1[ http://www.piclist.com/techref/postbot.asp?by=thread&id=I2C+...
For people that do not understand spanish, this is the webpage from a very curious project created by a non-partisan social movement after some expatriated spaniards living out of Spain claimed on internet to have found obstacles to vote in their respective embassies.

Translated from the web in spanish. '[]' are mine:

"The right to vote has been stolen from more than two million Spaniards emigrated.

How does it work?

The system contacts an immigrant who wants to vote [in the next spanish elections] and can not, with someone else who can vote but do not want. Both, in the same Autonomous Community, will receive an email, and from there the process is done privately between the two people and the migrant tells the donor for whom to vote.

Thus, a voluntary abstentionist in Spain, will donate their vote for a forced abstentionist, the Spanish immigrant, exercising their fundamental right".
What do you mean outsourcing has hollowed out programming? You're not able to make a living programming? It's unfair to share the work with other countries?

How could Uber be outsourced?

Without looking at the facts of wages and cost of living, could we not make the same case about the opposers (some investors) of unionization? They are just after $$ right?
I've worked on something similar that allows specifying a hostname/port for the database (mysql/postgresql/mssql/h2..)
http://www.sqldashboards.com/database/mysql-live-charting

Video demonstrates creating a full report with multiple chart types in 3 minutes.
Removing features from something I already bought is bad acting every time.
First, the set of investors at the time Mayer was hired are not exactly the set of investors now, and second, the opinion of the investors now (even to the extent that they are the same investors) that Mayer -- or anyone else -- can turn around the Yahoo! product may not be the same as it was at the time she was hired.
Do programmers use business cards?
Note that he is not suing Ford the manufacturer, but a local dealership, and he is not suing them for the truck ending up with Jihadists, but because the dealership said they would remove the decals before selling the vehicle.

Both being much more reasonable than the what the headline implies.
only if you believe that capital incentives are perfectly aligned with society's interests.
The Most Dangerous Equation
>>In other words, Philips is refusing to build software, for free, to control their competitors' and/or counterfeit products.

Not sure how this works. There are start ups out there who will do anything to get people to download and use their apps. Here you have several hundreds of thousands of users willing to download and use your app for free. Why chase them away?

I think it was Bill Gates who said something to the order that if people were using Pirated operating systems, he would prefer they pirate Windows so that he could convert them to paying users someday.
> Are you saying use <div class="heading"> vs <h1> or even <span class="bold"> instead of <b> or <strong>? because if so I disagree. Just on accessibility grounds this is a terrible idea.

Nothing stops you from styling classes in your CSS while still using meaningful tags in your HTML :)
I look at it the other way: companies "pushing"[1] antidepressants not just on pregnant women, but on all of us, for years on end, should be putting out a very clear message that you should not take these medicines unless absolutely recommended by your doctor, and other, generally more efficacious methods -- such as talk therapy and lifestyle changes -- have been at least explored, and found to be ineffective (or depending on the severity of your case, not immediately effective).

Unfortunately, this is not what these companies are doing, as a rule. And given what we've found out SSRIs -- and the behavior of some of the major players in this industry, in recent years -- no one should be terribly surprised at the findings in the JAMA study (assuming they hold up to scrutiny).

Also:

Restarting the SSRI of course did the trick, but they don't work fast and I lost nearly a year of my life. I currently regard this as the worst decision I have ever made.

With all due respect to your situation -- and not intended in the least to belittle either your suffering, or the thought you put into the decisions you made -- perhaps the bigger mistake was not going off SSRIs (at which point the die may have been more or less cast for you, in the short- to medium-term) -- but agreeing to go on them in the first place.

[1] Yes, this is a loaded term. But I use it quite intentionally. Having not only studied the tradeoffs associated with one major class of antidepressants, but also having worked for one of the market's leading distributors -- and having made a careful study of their marketing materials -- I'd say "pushing" is not a bad description for the aggressive marketing tactics these companies have used over the years.
> Articles reporting negatively on antidepressants should come with a huge disclaimer to those taking them that they should continue to do so unless their doctor / psychiatrist recommends otherwise.

Shouldn't choosing "my wellbeing over that of my child" be a personal choice, not a healthcare provider choice?...
I remember once sitting with the company CEO and going over my spreadsheet estimates of project timelines, sales projections, and department growth. At the end of it all I said to him that I didn't know if any of this was really worth looking at, since it was all just guesses.

His response was that in the early days of the company they had tried doing things without plans, and that bad plans were much better than no plans.

I learned something that day.
The Arabic programming language Qlb shows how computers revolve around the West
WTF? Are they not professionals? Of course they use business cards!
User Error Compromises Many Encrypted Communication Apps
I was going to ask who would believe a plumber from Texas would blatantly give/sell/donate his truck to ISIS. But a linked article says he has received 1000's of phone calls (some threatening).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/1...
I notice how most of those "onboardings" don't even suggest you read the EULA. That's scary. There are a lot of EULAs out there to which you really don't want to agree.
-2000 Lines of Code
It'll get settled out of court. Everyone knows car dealers are a bunch of slime balls and jury pools absolutely reflect that.

I'm convinced it's part of the reason Tesla is doing so well.
Nope. Modern (and even ancient) video codecs can store interlaced data just as efficiently as progressive data - how could it be otherwise? But when you deinterlace e.g. a 30 frames per second interlaced source, either you store the result as 60 frames per second (twice as much data), or you lossily downsample to 30 frames per second.
Robot maker here so had to chime in with an obligatory plug :-)

I produce Mirobot which is designed to teach kids about everything from the engineering aspects of how it's built to programming it using a number of different methods. It's a drawing robot so you can also use it to learn about geometry and maths.

It's all open source and easy to program because it connects via WiFi which means it can all be controlled via WebSockets in your browser. There are a bunch of apps (http://apps.mirobot.io) which include some drag and drop type apps but also an app to program it with JS. But because it's all just async JSON over WebSockets (or raw sockets) you can program it in any program you like really.

It's Arduino compatible which also means you can dig in at that level too.

Check it out if you're interested: http://mirobot.io (15% off with code: XMAS15)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that "philanthrocapitalism" is a term used to obfuscate the issue of billionaires setting up tax havens in the guise of philanthropy. The term implies that philanthropy can be or is a mode of capitalism, whereas in reality it's the opposite because philanthropy deals with altruistic allocation of resources rather than profit-seeking allocation of resources. Let's not use this term, because it's deceptive and doesn't make sense internally.

Instead, let's do some white hat thinking (purely facts, as little spin as possible) about Zuck's new venture. Fact: Zuck has laid down a large chunk of change for a new project, and marketed this project to the public as large scale philanthropy. Fact: Zuck will get a large amount of leeway on taxes and oversight by moving his money in this way. Fact: some billionaires before Zuck have made similar moves that actually turned into fantastic philanthropic organizations that have made tangible positive impact in the world (Gates Foundation)-- but others have used the construct as purely a means to protect their money and get good PR.

These are some of the facts. I do not believe that there is any way to get around or reinterpret any of them without adding opinion, which probably snuck in anyway despite my efforts. At this point, I think that the reactions of those who question Zuck's motives are justified because we haven't had the time to see the program in action disbursing money as it claims that it will. A promise, a wad of cash, and a lot of PR do not make an effective philanthropic organization. Effective philanthropy requires that real, living people and real institutions are altered in an objectively positive way. The proper stance is skepticism and a request for more evidence of good will.

EDIT: I will add that the rabid detractors of Zuck have counterparts with the rabid pro-Zuck crowd... I doubt Zuck is looking out for anyone other than himself, but there is more to life than celebrity-watching, and it seems petty no matter how you slice it.
RethingDB[0] talks WebSockets.

[0]http://rethinkdb.com/
You have a very good idea there. Generate json files with music files metadata and you are well on your way.
It is hard for me to come up with a better strategy for a Tor executive director, than to hire someone who is both a proven electronic civil liberties activist and a competent attorney to lead a project that has already been feeling the heat. Unfortunately, Tor likely will be publicly thrown to the angry mob by an ignorant representative the moment it is politically expedient and be seared on the grill of neocon pundits, all while the USG continues to push it covertly in places where American influence cannot as easily penetrate due to network censorship.

Steele has a long road in front of her, but she seems to be a great person to lead this project to success. Congrats to everyone working on the project; it is truly necessary in places like Iran to see a neutral Internet.
There was a time when this was the way to write, to give depth to your readers. The New Yorker is a classic example of this writing style. It's for people who want to read, and have time to do it. Maybe 150 years ago, people had more time than they had material to read, so this style was perfect.

But now there's so much more to read then there is time to read it in, and this style is a royal pain. Times have changed, and (some) writers haven't noticed. They're still writing like we have more time than we have stuff to read.
Joe Middle-class Consumer does not want to buy their appliances from Craigslist, flea markets, etc. The mass market audience for appliances want to buy new in a store, with a warranty, etc.

I fully expect to see a gradual boiling of the frog. First it will be free features and benefits tied to an online account, then it will be new features that are only part of a subscription plan, and once they have critical mass, killing the free tier or making it near worthless.

Sure there might be a market for used devices, but again, it will be the minority. The rest of the marketplace will be screwed.
hence the name of this dark pattern : http://darkpatterns.org/privacy-zuckering/
I suspect the strength comes in period-on-period reassessment. Make predictions, test them, and update the model. A pseudo-Bayesian approach.

Precision is a moving window in an unknown universe.
Here's an idea:

Don't allow tax deductions on "charitable" contributions.

If, for instance, somebody wants to give $100MM to Central Park, let them do it because they like Central Park that much, rather than because they like it $70MM worth, and the tax payers can cover the other $30MM.

Philanthropy is about giving, period. Not giving when it has financial benefits that make it easier at the expense of others.
I really depends on the situation (Here it certainly would be noticed and questioned), but that really wasn't the main point I wanted to make. I was more going after your argument that true home automation isn't flipping switches: a principle I very much agree with, and in my experience various wireless systems make setting that up relatively easy. Because it is linked to a computer for more complex features, and you can move stuff around within seconds. Just because some of these systems come as only a bridge and a smartphone app doesn't mean that's how people actually use it, as far as I can see. But many start with just a fancy colorful lamp as an effect, which works fine with just the app, and then comes integrating it with the TV, and the alarm, and ...

These basic sets require very low effort to get started, and THEN people are interested.

I hope I got my point across better now, it's kinda late here.
What are the absolute figures? A relative figure is meaningless (or, at least/highly misleading) if the original chance was miniscule.
As a relatively recent Seattle transplant coming from California, WSDoT seems to be one of the worst transportation departments I've seen. The road quality, traffic and general propensity for disaster (in the form of Bertha, bridge collapses, deathtrap viaducts, and destroyed roadways along the mountains lately) seems much higher than I remember in California. Might just be the weather, but I'd love an explanation for why its been so bad.
I'm not sure which headline you're reading, but the one here references both "Ford dealer" and "truck with logo" (I had to shorten from "truck with company logo" to fit Hacker News' 80 character limit)
The value of your view is closer to 0.1 cents. So 100 web clicks a day would cost about a dime to remove ads.
The whole concept of campaigning for an issue like this - of "lobbying" the public - struck me as quite novel for a project of this type (when I was visiting the UK and saw the massive PR campaign). I'm really interested in the emergence of this phenomenon, since at least in Europe it seems fairly new.

Broadly speaking before 1800s this would be a discourse among the elite and aristocracy guiding the houses' opinion. In the 1700s-1900s paradigm the grey power behind such deals would be in the hands of the industrialists. 1950s-2000s paradigm would be to handle this with cabinet-level lobbying or other kinds of nepotism..

In a way it's an obvious improvement - the power of the people and the relevance of public opinion is sort of respected by taking it into account in the first place. But is trying to influence it at such great a cost really respect? It is a noisy world, it is difficult to get people to care about such projects (advocacy for which doesn't gain you social status or warm, fuzzy emotional satisfaction and self-fulfilment unlike many other grass-root efforts could), but both lobbies hiring consultants to compete in shoving their own message down the public's throat on what should be a pretty straight-forward, apolitical, impersonal assessment/bidding process feels perverse...
There is a massive export market in Africa and the middle east for vehicles from North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, certainly other places as well. Most of the importing nations have far less restrictive (or any) restrictions on things like emissions and road-worthiness, and often have highly competitive local secondary markets. New vehicles are often much more expensive then they would be in western markets as well.

Sell any low-cost used 4x4 vehicle in North America and you are likely to at least be approached by somebody intending to ship it to West Africa. East Africa is serviced by huge japanese auction sites such as beforward (http://www.beforward.jp).

Ford and Toyota trucks are highly valued because they're the easiest to find spare parts for. High demand and low supply pretty quickly justifies the expense of shipping over a container and (maybe) paying import duties.

What here needs to be investigated?
The reason that Zuckerberg is singled out is simply because of the scale ($45 billion). The same reason that McDonalds is criticized for unhealthy food instead of Burger King/Wendy's/Carls Jr., or Apple criticized for labor conditions instead of HTC/LG/Samsung.
>Governments do better at providing public goods (defense, say, or education)

Not really. At least not necessarily. Health and education as provided by the government in Brazil is just horrendous. People die in line and student's grades are far, far below private schools. Public security is non-existence, whereas organized communities both poor and rich enjoy relative security with private guards in the streets and electric fences or barber wire on their houses fences. Generals have said Brazil has ammunition for just 1h of war[1]. There was recently a rise in the private education sector, with competition leading to affordable prices for the poor. However, with the current recession I think the sector has slowed to a halt, like all others.

[1] http://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/noticias/exercito-brasileir...
I'm not sure this is a saying