skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Earth is heavy. Lifting cargo in space from Earth is expensive due to gravity. Numbers:

Earth escape velocity: 11,000 m/s, energy to propel 1kg to escape velocity: 60MJ.

Moon escape velocity: 2,400 m/s, energy to propel 1kg to escape velocity: 3MJ.

Moon based interplanetary travel is 20 times more efficient than Earth based interplanetary travel. A robotized Moon base would make economic interplanetary travel a whole lot cheaper. Step 1 for a Moon base is landing on the Moon, so I wouldn't dismiss Apollo just yet. Perhaps they were 100 years ahead of the times, but their heart [and mind!] was in the right place.
They were not genocidal. Just classist.
Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favorite authors. He has some of the most amazing plot lines I've ever seen in SciFi. The guy is a font of amazing ideas.

Reading the reviews on The Affinities (the recommended book on the EFF page), makes it seem like it's not like his other novels. The Spin series is excellent. I can recommend A Bridge of Years, Blind Lake and The Chronoliths.
I wouldn't say there is any singular "point" to insurance such as "decreasing volatility". People buy insurance for multiple reasons.

If a couple buys "trip insurance", it's more about managing risk and uncertainty so they can sleep at night if their cruise ship is cancelled rather than smoothing over price volatility.

Also, I'd just read the parent's quote about "insurance" as a rhetorical device[1] rather than some rigorous financial instrument. The author thought of SOs as "insurance" against missing out on potential upside.

[1] both "insurance" and "lottery ticket" to describe stock options are analogies/metaphors
React-boilerplate: setup for performance orientated, offline-first React.js apps
Replace the X in SpaceX with Shuttle for 35 years worth of time travel. The SpaceX landing is an amazing technical achievement, but it will not bring more change than a radically cheaper manufacturing process for rocket engines would.
Ask HN: How to move from Sr. Level front end engineer to c++ games dev
I'm a senior level front end developer who is well versed in full stack work with Java Ruby and of course JavaScript.

I've done some canvas game development in the past but I'm really interested in joining a triple A studio so I'd like to garner the skills and portfolio necessary to get there.

I feel like I could do the work -- I have a good foundation for sound coding principals and am familiar with compilation and tooling. I've also done some personal work in statically typed languages like Obj C.

Anyone have any advice on making this jump successfully?
If the HFTs pick off uninformed orders, wouldn't that mean that the remaining orders are more informed? That does seem like it would make trading on the exchange itself would get more expensive, though, because this is all basically a mechanism for the HFTs to price-discriminate. But the market did somehow work back in the bad old days of odd-eights and such.
I was responding to a guy/gal that was wondering whether to try it if there is no hard evidence that it is beneficial. My answer to that is: try it, if you like it, it doesn't matter whether there are all those claimed benefits. The fact that you like it is enough a reason to do it.

If you don't like it, even if there are benefits (like there are from working out) and even if you know there are, you likely won't stick to it anyways (like most people don't stick to exercise regimes).
Google Traffic Is Here but What Does It Mean for Iran?
For more info, here is a great writeup by Alex Payne on why he made a large donation to Jacobin and joined their board: https://al3x.net/2015/03/03/jacobin.html

> Democratic socialist politics are my politics. I’m a socialist because I want to live in a just society. More than that, I want to live in a survivable society. The form of capitalism we live under does not present a viable future ecologically, economically, or socially. It is a system designed for the creation and preservation of capital, not human life. I’m a socialist because I believe that the wealth of society can best be harnessed through cooperation, not competition.
Isn't that partially because these vehicles are designed under strict weight and volume constraints, so that they can be launched in one piece?

I imagine being able to cheaply put tons and tons of equipment in orbit and do the build up there would remove all those constraints and maybe allow the use of cheaper construction and technology.
I think the poster is saying if we can launch cheaply, potentially assemble in space, we might find new techniques for doing everything in the space pipeline more cheaply now that the first stage in the pipeline is less prohibitively expensive.

Not sure I agree or disagree but it's a POV.
It's been pretty amicable but I think this incident is where they start putting iron into their gloves and spurs on their heels.
You might find this interesting, or more likely infuriating: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/socialism-marxism-democra...
Has anyone ever wondered why the C^2 in E=MC^2 I'm sure it wasn't chosen at random just because a large constant was needed, it must fall out of some other physics equations.

But still, what does that mean? What does the transmutation of energy into mass or visa versa have to do with the universal speed limit?

I am always struck by the inexplicable power of mathematics to describe the physical laws of the universe, in often simple equations like this. It doesn't have to be that way as far as we know.
Yes, once an endorsement takes place they will share data. It goes further than that, though. Once someone drops out of a race and shares data, donations to the endorsed candidate require a kickback to the original candidate. I don't know the magnitude of the kickback, but the thing I wonder is this: is that money tainted and under the rules of the FEC? Or, can it be spent on anything the once-candidate desires?

This just shows how dirty money makes politics.
Floor Length V-Neck Prom Dress
Apollo 11 was old fashioned it is new one
> The problem with meditation, and similar "experiences that can't be described", is that you never know if you tried it long enough or well enough to actually enjoy it

But this is also true for most activities (playing a violin, playing tennis, or programming). Still, we decide whether any of it is for us by trying it. People who get into it, stay in it for long enough to really learn it and get benefits of it, people who don't get into it, and don't enjoy it on some level drop it quickly. I'm not saying that this is theoretically the best way to explore new activities, it's more of an observation that this is how people generally do it and that meditation is no different. You try it, and it either does something for you (enough to keep doing it), or it doesn't and you drop it.
care to elaborate ?
I've found that people are more accessible than you expect. Try going to a game dev meetup or just sending some emails to local game studios. Be honest about what you want, and ask if you can bring them coffee or lunch to discuss what you should do next.

You might find that 9 out of 10 people are busy and never respond or stop responding to your emails, but you only need that 1 out of 10 to give you advice and possibly give you a warm contact at a local company.
Does anyone has some interesting article on the SpaceX reusable vehicle, how do they do with the vibrations on the structure? How many times can they reuse it? What did they do differently because of reuse? How does the landing shock affect the reusability etc.
What's really encouraging is that Google is investing $1B in them. Musk has the tech, the team, and the track record, and now the backing. It's entirely possible he can get a Mars colony bootstrapped, if that's really the plan here.

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/google-spacex-investment
This was going to be my follow up. To demonstrate competency, you can participate in open source projects. I even got job offers out of my participation.

There are also bootcamp schools that will get you up and running quickly, some even that are free while you are there and they only charge you a percentage of your first year of salary after you finish.
Would SpaceX and rocket technology in general be where it is today without the historical pioneers and stepping stones? The title premise is ridiculous. Apollo 11 was one of the major historical events of the modern era and probably inspired countless engineers and scientists to take up their craft. The reusable rocket development is certainly a keystone of the future of space exploration and SpaceX is on the leading edge of it, but no one is going to remember where they were in 30 years on the day the Falcon 9 landed itself (okay, maybe some of the team and a few others).

What the Apollo missions pulled off is still mind boggling, today: people landed on the moon, walked and drove around, and came back safely.
Manufacturing those items in orbit and/or on the moon might reduce their cost. Cheap to-orbit rates lessen barriers to that sort of technology. Transporting raw materials to orbit would increase the efficiency of the to-orbit trip by increasing cargo density.
Any one who's interested in the details "marrying up" with regards to male & female children, I'd strongly recommend reading The Red Queen.

Omomra is right, though, women have, historically been able to marry up far easier than men.
If I was an NSA employee and the Snowden leaks came out, I'd consider it my opportunity to leak information on the projects that had been making my skin crawl too. You could release the documents without attribution and most would assume it's just more Snowden.
This is not correct. Stock options can decrease volatility and serve as insurance against large increases or decreases. That is the point of hedging.

For example if I have 100 shares of AAPL @108 and I'm nervous of it dropping below $80 in the near future, I may buy a MAR16 put option at $90/share for a few pennies in the hopes that if the stock does actually decrease to a level that makes me feel uncomfortable, the options will increase enough to offset the stock loses.

So they very much can be insurance. It just depends on how you play them.
> Spent hours doing work […] whose purpose I can’t understand (that has been entirely new).

I don't think it is related to the employee condition, but more with sub-optimal top-down communication.

I never worked without knowing the purpose of what I was doing, in my professional life. And I think that I will quit my job if this happens — I didn't choose to work in a startup to work blindly on tasks without context and being able to participate.
While I get the point the article is trying to make, and I think Falcon 9's landing deserves more coverage, the premise is horse shit.

SpaceX couldn't do what it's doing without NASA's prior accomplishments in space flight, including Apollo 11.

Saying the Apollo mission "was never going to lead to anything sustainable" is absolute nonsense. It lead precisely to where we are today.
I don't think that any one is saying it never happened, just that it's more of an exception,or a much rarer occurrence.
until 10.5 or 10.6, OS X still included the classic NextStep and Windows GUI images. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
> The moon landing was certainly extremely inspirational, but it was never going to lead to anything as the rockets always ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Apollo missions are literally the reason that any of us are able to do modern aerospace at the capacity we are. I appreciate the sentiment of the author, but in terms of progress, it's almost like saying that Chuck Yaeger's flight in the Bell X-1 was more important than the Wright Flyer.

Both are extremely important milestones, but landing on the Moon, in under a decade, from near-zero, is more impressive. And I'm biased toward SpaceX.
I have a vague theory that conspiracies tend to spread faster through societies that have opaque, distant and domineering governments. Poor analytical and critical thinking ability among the population is also partially related, though I would like to nip in the bud the assertion that all alternative narratives are conspiracy theories.

Imagine it's the eve of the Vietnam war, but you don't know that there will be a war yet. There's a lot of posturing by the US, and US warships actively patrolling Vietnamese waters. The Gulf of Tonkin incident happens, and the US is at war-- the official story being the Vietnamese attacked the US patrol boats (in their waters). An alternative narrative (smeared as a conspiracy theory by its detractors) from this era would look like someone saying that the US artificially caused a situation in which they could get into a war with Vietnam.

Years after the fact, we now know that the Gulf of Tonkin was a complete fabrication, and the alternative narrative was correct whereas the official narrative was a lie. With documented wrongdoing in hand, the "conspiracy theories" can really begin... governments leave themselves wide open to refutation of their authority when they blatantly lie and fabricate events to get their way.
Well, Soyuz lands on rockets and has done so for what, 60 years? I guess this new technique is flashier, using no parachutes, so that's cool.
Better?

For those of you scoring at home, SpaceX is 1 for 4 on soft landing with spectacular landing failures for CRS-5 and CRS-6. CRS-7 exploded on the pad at launch.

The Apollo program sent 8 missions TO THE MOON AND BACK with only one failure. Everyone returned from every one of those missions and nothing exploded.

If you were going into space, who's rocket would you rather be sitting on top of: NASA's 1969 Saturn 5 or Elon Musk's 2015 Falcon 9?
Higher thrust per unit fuel isn't limited by manufacturing technique. Per-unit cost isn't really a limiting factor for rocket engine development. These things cost tens of millions of dollars and they push things worth perhaps a billion. Governments have been throwing billions, defence billions, at the technology for over a half-century.

The physics of ISP is well-understood and current engines are near what is physically possible, regardless of who/what builds the engines. 3d printing could certainly make engines more affordable and/or lighter, but it isn't going to allow an engine to be any more fuel efficient.

Anyone who builds an engine with significantly increased ISP using standard fuels (ie without going nuclear) will probably win a few nobel prizes. 3d printing is about improved manufacturing, not new physics.
I'm sure cable execs are kicking themselves for not implementing usage-based billing two decades ago. Nearly every other service is usage-based but no one complains, because they've always been usage-based.
Yes, that's what I was talking about. It does exist, in a much smaller form than in the 80s and 90s.
That's what the company Second Market does, and with recent changes in regulation, we'll see a lot more of these.
Nutanix Granted ‘Ratchet’ to VC Investors
Yes. Being in a queue means you have to constantly keep an ear out for being transferred to an actual human being. Which can be quite hard when the hold music is regularly interrupted with voice announcements. Yes I realise my call is important to you, but if you didn't tell me that every 10 seconds I could stop listening so hard and (maybe?) enjoy the music.

As an aside, their comparison of voluntary queuing with and without virtual queues is suspect as they seem to inform the customer about the length of the queue only when they also have the callback system. These are two separate things and should be measured separately.
21 Free Logo Designs for your next project
"Let's repeat that so there is no misunderstanding. APOLLO 11 LANDED ON THE MOON."

Exactly. And did it when computing power and knowledge was vastly less than it is today(not to mention that what SpaceX did was standing on the shoulders of giants or whatever that saying is...)
According to the article this money was more intended for the deployment of communication satellites.

$1B seems short for a mars colony anyway.
more completely, it's E^2 = (m c^2)^2 + (p c)^2 where m is the rest mass of the particle and p is the current momentum. It's a nice triangle relationship.

As for the interpretation thereof, you're going to need someone else.
The Key War on Terror Propaganda Tool: Only Western Victims Are Acknowledged
I think that Hilary may be known in the future as the one that lost presidency twice.

Pundits are greatly underestimating the anti establishment sentiments in the populace. And the Hilary supporters I know right now are smugger than crosfitting vegans. Hubris is the easiest path to a politician downfall and there is quite a lot of it in Hilary's warehouse.

Edit: I also don't think that Bill really wants her to be president. His legacy turns from - ruled during the best years of Pax Americana to the husband of the first woman president. I would not be surprised if he pulls his punches.
I don't agree that the SpaceX landing is better than Apollo 11. I don't measure something in "How available is the technology to me?". I measure in "How hard is that?". I'm not downplaying what SpaceX did to be controversial.

I'm just of the opinion that the challenges that NASA had to overcome 50 years ago to get to the moon involved alot more "unknown" information.

I think anyone who has wanted to do "something that's never been done before" can appreciate the trailblazers that had no other option than to make an educated guess because algorithms, processing power, failure modes did not exist.
Citigroup’s New Office Plan: No Offices
Apollo 11 was an event for all mankind, the realization of a dream. Cheap spaceflight is certainly a dream, but SpaceX isn't all mankind. It's a corporation. Even if one views Apollo as "owned" by a single country, SpaceX's achievements are owned by a single legal person, and in turn the shareholders. SpaceX has done something great, but is isn't like they are going to allow everyone else on the planet to start using their technology. This is a business.

Apollo and SpaceX, Apples and oranges.
Why the scare quotes around "extremely corrupt"? Do you really think otherwise? India is notorious for pervasive total corruption from top to bottom.

Facebook is not doing anything about electricity; I mention that statistic to demonstrate how modern infrastructure has failed to reach a huge portion of Indians. Facebook has come up with a business model that can reach people that don't have the ability to pay out of pocket for ANY connectivity. By making it profitable for telecoms to serve these people, Free Basics would encourage that infrastructure to expand to the one billion people it hasn't reached.
Other than what you've listed we use Google Hangouts.
The stats piece is close to nonsense as well, if you measure ASA from your phone system's call duration when you have a virtual queue you are lying to yourself at best.
Have you tried Sigal? http://sigal.saimon.org/en/latest/

I use Jekyll for static sites but for photo galleries Sigal is my go-to solution as it is fast and stable and works very well for generating a static photo gallery.

Nice work on the demo, too.
It might be a case of each generation thinking their achievements are somehow more noteworthy than those in years gone by. People have short memories. How much of what spaceX is doing actually builds on what was learned in the preceding decades at the cost of many lives and enormous sums of taxpayer money around the world.
Make no mistake about it this is all about saving money because office space in Manhattan is so expensive. Not that the other benefits mentioned don't count, I just think they aren't the primary motivator of this and it's easier to wrap it in some other gain that doesn't sound as if it's driven solely by profits.
Not only that, but Apollo 11 had 3 primates safely housed inside of it, and said primates managed to get out and go for a stroll on the moon. Then they hopped back in apollo 11, blasted on back to earth, and told everyone about it.
Your #1 is the same as mine. I don't know any of the others except for The Gift of the Magi, that's a good one also. I'm a huge fan of The Year Without A Santa Claus and this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbfgVEk-mxQ

I know that's not what you meant but I love, love, love it.
E = mc^2 is the energy contained within a particle of mass m, IF it is at rest (has zero velocity with respect to your frame). If it is moving, it's energy is given by E = ymc^2, where y (gamma) is 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2). This may sound like the particle has somehow "gained" or "lost" energy just by switching frames, but so has everything else. The differences in energy have been kept the same, which is all that really matters.

When deriving this formula for the energy it becomes clear that _any_ multiple of ymc^2 is conserved. We choose E = ymc^2 and not, say, E = 5ymc^2 because in the Newtonian limit (as speeds approach zero), the ymc^2 formula reduces to the well-known E = 1/2 mv^2, which is the kinetic energy of an object obtained from classical mechanics.

I'd really recommend reading a mathematical treatment of special relativity, because you'll be exactly clear on where this formula comes from.
Your saying I'm in the ivory tower? Bad politicians have already kept a billion Indians out of modernity. Maybe they should give Free Basics a chance before they shut it down to protect their own power, or some ivory tower view that no internet connection is better than a very limited connection that nonetheless connects you with people across the world.

If there's an alternative way to expand connectivity, then why doesn't it exist now, or why doesn't someone set it up in competition to Free Basics? No one will use Free Basics if they can get real internet at an affordable price.

And your characterization of "one station" is wholly inaccurate. Even if the service included only Facebook (which it doesn't, as anyone can apply to have their web service included in the system), that's millions of profiles and pages with differing opinions, competing products, etc.
In other news: why the iPhone is better than the invention of the transistor.
Live Streaming Paper Airplane
What do you mean by that? I have never known a compiler to include a custom garbage collector at all, much less to have such unusual allocation patterns that it would count as a difficult part of the job.
I got started working in an IT call center: I can guarantee you, it's nice for everyone!

First: we were ABSOLUTELY required to keep the calls flowing. Did not matter how many we got: if a call went above 5 minutes in queue...which did happen with our volume to tech ratio...we all were berated: I'd go as far as saying verbally abused at times (think: directors literally stomping their feet on the floor and screaming at you.)

Second: no one likes to wait on the phone. It's annoying. They want their problem fixed. If they have to wait on the phone they'll just be more angry by the time they speak to a tech.

Third: you're still handling the same number of calls, most likely. Sometimes even less! We'd have people call and abandon constantly, so that'd drive up our numbers and make us look really bad (they didn't want users abandoning.)
Somehow Flipboard surfaced it in relation to my various technical curiosities. Several years later it dawned upon me that this was not an aggregated feed but an actual individual source, and a totally trivial amount of delving led me to locate the actual origin. I registered and stayed.
I hadn't even considered a local meetup but I'll take a look; thanks!
Not sure what you are talking about. The SLS is in active development at the moment. An unmanned Orion capsule is planned to orbit the moon in November 2018, followed by manned missions 3 years after that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System