skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Late last year in response to IMO misleading charts showing a clear correlation between "gun deaths" vs gun freedoms, I charted murder vs gun rights from a city and state perspective, which illustrate some of the points made in the article. Helpful to visualize, e.g. the point made about Louisiana as an outlier:

https://hackpad.com/Gun-Rights-Statistics-UBI1bkaNgG6#:h=No-...

Raw data and interactive charts here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N5JsB-_kTxFSW-14f7Bv...
This looks really interesting. Just wondering, in your FAQ you have:

Q: Where is Magic+ available?

Anywhere you need it. Magic+ is there to make your every desire and need happen, wherever you are.

# Does this mean that we can actually use it in other countries like the UK? Do we need to use an area code?
As noted, they likely had nothing to do with it... but I take all of Iyer's writing about Japan with a grain of salt, because despite those 28 years, he can't read a word of Japanese and is apparently proud of it.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/pico-iyer-the-art-of-stillnes...
"The trouble with fool-proof methods is, you're still a fool."
> Chemicals can't even help me, how would ThinkSuite?

That doesn't follow. Drugs aren't automatically better or more effective than non-drug therapies.
You may not have noticed it, but a quite popular movie was recently shot on film. (The Force Awakens)
Kodachrome was slide film. Very few labs would process it, though the colors were bright and some people really liked it.
E6 was the process that most slide film used (even some of kodaks).

Slide film was always a challenge to expose just right, its dynamic range is pretty narrow compared to negative film. Its what you needed to use for movies though.

I can't see this new revival being more than a niche market. Sending film away and waiting a week might not cut it in todays market when phones shoot hd and can edit.

There are a bunch of these. The "imposible project" [1] bringing back polariod film being another. Polariod though has the advantage of being instant.

[1]https://www.the-impossible-project.com/
/dev/random and /dev/urandom are the same CSPRNG construction; /dev/random just provides some extra (almost always counterproductive) checks on the rate at which it's rekeyed.

It is not the case that using /dev/random somehow gets you an information-theoretic security level that /dev/urandom doesn't.
But it's not just about nostalgia. There's the fact that there is more human work and thought involved with doing something by hand. It is a social signal with some of the objectively "worse" ways that will stick around for awhile.
I would like to applaud the even-handedness of this article and its coverage of a sensitive subject. At no point during reading it did I feel like it was trying to push a particular narrative, unfairly blame a group, target elite schools, use buzzwords or associate itself with any of the typical "outrage culture" messages that usually come along with the media's coverage of rape. At the same time it manages to draw attention to what is likely a very real and underreported problem.
Anything above median for your city is excess, anything under it is deficient. The question is at which point the excess should be taken, and the deficient subsidized. I'd roughly say 30% on either side of median.

However, not all that long ago, for ~40 years, the U.S. had a top tax bracket above 70%, for about a decade it was 94%. It was not such an exact system where to draw the line. But a line was drawn, and it was not 94% of all of your income, it was only the portion of your income that was above the previous bracket limit. It's not like you make $1 more and suddenly all your other income got hit with this much higher tax. So the fuck all for these hoarders. Start a new business, expand the current one, and you get a tax deduction. If you hoard, fuck you, we have ideas and ways to spend that money, we're taking it. Don't like it? Give up your citizenship. Go pay 70% in some other western civilized country. Or run for office and have your ideas dissected by the American public. Just quit your fucking bitching, whiners.

And meritocracy alone doesn't work. A lot of effective people are assholes who would let the world around the average person burn to the ground before they'd lift a finger. And even that would be delegated.
Creativity Is Not an Accident
I think what the GP is asking is this: If Jeff Dean walks through your door tomorrow, are you going to try to make him jump through hoops? Obviously he's a better hacker than statistically ~everyone you've ever met, so it might be silly to not hire him immediately. Plus, it takes some chutzpah to intentionally waste 3 hours of his time.
If it were possible to distinguish it reliably, we'd get rich (and the bubbles wouldn't happen in the first place).
Behind Stark Political Divisions, a More Complex Map of Sunnis and Shiites
A problem is, what does it mean to "own the same tools"?

If I develop my own tools, which no one else has, and I never distribute them, then it's the trivial edge case that everyone who owns those tools (me!) can replicate the results.

If I sell the tools under a BSD license for $1,000,000 then it might still be trivial for those who pay me that sum to reproduce the results. But those who argue for source code access usually want the source code available for $0 or a pittance compared to the development costs.

You agree that it should not be "prohibitively high". How do we turn that into something actionable? If $1M is too high, then what about $100K?

Does the requirement extend to providing documentation? Even if such documentation doesn't already exist? For one job, I fixed a few bugs in software that was commented in Russian, and I speak no Russian. Is this too high of a barrier to entry? And if so, should all code be commented in English?
> One possibility would be through AI...

Excuse me if this is a bit naive, but I've always had the impression the whole point of Magic is to build the AI side. Maybe not communicating back to the user... perhaps that part's always done by a human, but a human with machine-aided decision making. I would love to see the internal interface that Magic's personal assistants are using today.

Doing every task by hand with people probably doesn't scale. Maybe for $100/hr it does, but that could just be their way of targeting tasks for executives because they have a higher percentage of profit. I expect they're using the data from requests today as training to recognize narrow patterns to be automated tomorrow.

Edit: I found this in their FAQ.

> Q: Do you use AI to fulfill my requests?

> Magic+ is fulfilled through a combination of top-tier executive assistants and concierges, paired with intelligent software. Our unique combination of humans and software is what enables us to consistently deliver an unparalleled level of service.
In a situation like that, you have a space of models M and a space of populations P. The state space is M x P, and the model M generates the population P (probabilistically). In Pearson's crab example, there are some models where an individual crab can come from one or more gaussians.

The generative model (first choose gaussian, then draw from it) is the specific model. As you gather a sufficiently large sample from the population P, eventually you'll converge to a delta-function on the space of M.

So in Pearson's crab example, given enough data, you'll eventually either converge to the single model of 2 gaussian crab species, or you'll converge to a 3 gaussian crab species model, or you'll converge to a weibull single species model (assuming you put all 3 of those models into your prior).
Usually when I delete a strongly downvoted comment it's because I realize that I've failed completely at expressing myself. People are getting a harsh message where I intended to say something valuable.

It's not that I need validation, I use social networks to help me understand how to negotiate difficult topics. If I re-read a downvoted post and I think I did a good job of expressing an idea people just don't like, I'll leave it up.
A lot of the time ddos also depends on number of locations, because typically only one customer is attacked, and typically that one customer is only in a few location.

Also, I'm not sure I buy the argument Amazon has small unused capacity in absolute value, relative maybe. They could also have 5% across 23 locations so if your application is distributed it can have even better resiliency.
I have no idea what sort of food you're ordering from across the continent or what sort of business its coming from, but unless its "generic slop/carton-packed stir fry", I would know anything I pack into an overnight express delivery thing is going to arrive the next day looking like generic slop/carton-packed stir fry regardless of whatever it originally was.

Hell, we were asked to take some pastries from our city roughly 700 kms home for family on Christmas, and although we carefully packed them, stored them with freezer-blocks in an insulated container, and carried them completely supervised on our lap in an aircraft cabin the entire way, they arrived worse for wear...but still kinda presentable and edible.

If I hired this out to an overnight courier for $100, + $100 for magic, + $100 for food, i wouldn't be half surprised to find it had been forcefully jammed into my letter box or met with handling/turbulence during transportation...
It's been like that for a long time. They shut down a ton of factories for a month to have clear skies for the olympics in 2008. It's been getting worse, but I don't know that it's all that much worse.
Out of curiosity, what could go wrong by attempting to stamp out economic inequality. The argument that the top job creators and innovators would leave because they don't have massive income incentives is an extreme in case that is an example.
That's a good thing? It's exactly how we ended up with leaded gasoline.
Agreed - especially having read this earlier (not being able to fix it at the time), still not getting the email (like 6 hours have gone by) and I'm resetting because I should and still no communication from Linode.

Concerning since I had to reset my password and regen my 2fa using only my old password...
Most entertainers have an appearance fee. You could pretty much meet up with anyone you wanted if you were willing to pay the price.
David, is that you?

Anyway, here's some arguments: https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2u8k66/why_is_debito...

He's also amped up the bile level considerably after his (very bitter) divorce and leaving the country -- at last check he was in Hawaii.
Social awareness? I'd be interested if you elaborate, what makes them more "socially aware" than any other culture?

What do you think about the alleged xenophobia?

Personally I'd love to visit Japan sometime.
Nevertheless, I don't think gun laws work unless you also confiscate and ban every single gun in the country at the same time, otherwise you'll end up with the law-abiding people having no guns, and the non-law-abiding people with all the guns, and that will increase violent crime, rather than decrease it. And since confiscating every gun is not a practical solution, the practical solution should be to enable the freedom for every woman, man and child to carry a gun at all times.
Show HN: Extract HTML into React components as separate modules
Mattermark Daily – Tuesday, January 5th, 2016
No problem. Congrats on the launch and all the best!
I agree that the hobbyist electronics market isn't large enough to support physical stores, and that major suppliers and existing supply chains are sufficient to not necessitate local retail stores.

I don't care if Radio Shack is down the street; Adafruit and Digikey can overnight me whatever I need.
Despite the politically-charged nature of the central topic, in a way this fits better into the HN gestalt's continued fascination with the inability to replicate science than the specific topic.
The major benefit to me would be being able to look up from my coding to see, say, a beautiful professionally captured sunset over Half Dome instead of glancing over at a horrible painting someone bought from Bed Bath & Beyond.
Yes, you can use the service from other countries. Magic+ is actually really convenient when you're traveling. We have phone numbers that work internationally.
Well, actually Korea deserves most of the credit, that's where Japan got eg. tea, pottery, Buddhism and, most likely, its Imperial family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan%E2%80%93Korea...
I'd be curious to see a similar study that looks at carbon-based energy production and the corresponding fallout (pardon the pun).
For what it's worth, I've used the service twice and it worked out great. People tend to complain more than praise (there must be some psychological concept to explain this...), so that's my two cents.
Sure, but can't this reasonably be handled with a $100 or even $150 option? I've never dumped a grand into trying out a 'crazy internet thing.' i.e. uber or airbnb.

Since it is $1000, it is hard to not see this as anything but something for the very wealthy. Which may be fine, but the info page doesn't make it sound like it is for that sort of folk.
> "Finish my dissertation. Thanks."

There are lots of academic ghostwriting services. While not ethical, I assume they are totally legal. It would be relatively easy to hire one of them.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/11/ed-dante/the-shadow-scho...
Oh look. The people beholden to the people the author is ragging on dismiss the article without engaging the points by and large.
Ya that is definitely the idea. The question is is that idea correct. It seems almost certain to be the case that sometimes it's correct and sometimes it's not, but i'm not aware of any research into which cases are which, and I think that is a huge problem.
Comcast: "The issue being raised is technology used by all home security systems that use wireless connectivity for door, window and other sensors to communicate.”

Um, unless your sensors are home-run hardwired, like mine... and like how quality alarm installers have been doing for years.
I'm a fairly highly-paid web dev and I don't have a curated personal website. Shocking, I know. I'd just rather spend time on other things, like paying work
Persia: The Court at Twilight
In that article PG basically points out that income inequality has two reasons 1. wealth shifting 2. wealth creation (as in "out of thin air"). So not a semantic debate.

> He completely ignores the fact that startup funding and elite credentials are extremely limited pies.

Well these pies are private. Its up to them who do they give it to. I dont think they claim to distrubute it "fairly" unlike promises made by many democratic political parties which get naive people all hoped-up and, worse, entitled.
Before we rolled out Magic+ today, we did quite a number of split tests regarding prices and messaging. We also have had a private beta of Magic+ going for some time. Venturebeat as well as a few others seem to have screenshotted our website when it was in various stages of being split-tested.
> Q: How much does it cost?

> It’s $100/hr to use Magic+. You only get charged for the minutes you use it for. If your request takes 12 minutes, you’ll only be charged for 12 minutes.

This could be affordable in small does depending how much time a human is allocated to do the task. I wonder if it's possible to know the estimate before you commit to buying.
Distribution Rules Content
Is your sales deal desk software the right solution?
I have always contacted support by opening a ticket in the Manager. The main website is also down. Is there an out-of-band way to reach them?
Very cool, thanks for sharing.

I think it is interesting that, with the exception of Hawaii, all of the lowest murder-rate states are northern, mostly rural, and overwhelmingly white. I don't know what conclusions to draw from that, aside from the general trend that these aren't states where there is a lot of ethnic gang violence.
Magic+ isn't going to be able to satisfy all of the copycat requests to meet Tina Fey and Amy Poehler...
This was what I had in my head 10 hrs ago.
I grew up in upstate NY and visited Kodak's campus in Rochester in their heyday. It was impressive as hell to a ten year-old. I'm sure the idea that the massive works and the business they represented could almost completely evaporate never occurred to the people working there. It's a little melancholy in some ways. I wish I could see this as more than a desperate attempt to rekindle that dead business, but I can't. How much do the benefits of using analog processes to capture the light really matter when the vast majority of people will access the content downstream through digital delivery platforms? Somewhere along the line the information is going to get sampled and aliased. Tarantino getting all nostalgic for analog content that will be shown to viewers via $100,000 digital projectors is one thing, but most photographs are viewed on phones, and in web browsers.
Incorrect, there is actually some well-established mathematics dealing with divergent series as summing to finite values via analytic continuation. These results have to be treated with care, because they are inconsistent under certain algebraic manipulations, but the techniques are "real" enough that their results are used in particle physics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(physics)
Australian here, we had a mass shooting in Australia some years ago. As a result of this Assault rifles were banned (Edit: without a demonstrable need), licenses were required for rifles and hand guns. Any guns could be traded in to the govt for money in the cut over period. We haven't had a mass shooting since as far as I can recall. The occasional knifing or someone with a hand gun argument occurs still. Guns are a lot harder to come by here, so if you're a loony who wants to kill everyone for looking at you funny then you're out of luck.
But in Spanish, information about the subject is left in the sentence. "Lo leí" cannot have any subject but me, and "caminaba por la calle" could only be me, him, or her. In Japanese, the information about the subject is substantially more indirect. For example, in "昨日サボったわよ" the subject could be almost anyone, but the speaker is a woman and she is probably talking to a friend or family member.

You're on track with the "gramatically empty placeholder". We have expletive pronouns, like "it" in "it is raining", which one could consider to only serve grammatical purpose—it is only in the sentence precisely because the sentence must have a grammatical subject, not because the sentence has a subject in any semantic sense. There is some disagreement about this, however.
Proving her point nicely here I see.
Open World RPG “like” Star Wars Game
What does it take to make film? The camera can't be that difficult. All those Nikon and Canon lenses for small sensors would be ideal.
I created this small utility tool for myself, because it's extremely boring to translate HTML markup into React components. A good fit to use it when you starting a project with some designs. It will save you a couple of hours.
Few examples I've observed on my 3 month visit there that I haven't seen anywhere else:

1. You can walk in the crowd at the shibuya crossing with your wallet sticking out of your back pocket filled with cash and not worry about getting pick pocketed.
2. Everyone carries around a portable ash tray with them when they smoke and never throw cigarette butts on the ground.
3. No one throws any trash on the ground. Garbage cans are hard to find too and everyone just carries their trash with them.
Nice comment. Really engaging the points made in the essay.
In which a bunch of men can't deal with a woman dissing their style.
I'll have my magic+ fungineer send one over. barf.
I support strict gun control, however I feel it's wrong for the politicians to be meddling in gun control how they are. The US constitution is fairly clear (I accept people will always argue specific) that citizens to have access to firearms.

From this I find it dangerous that any politician would seek to override or 'reinterpret' the constitution without the peoples mandate to do so. This seems ot be happening at an increasingly accelerated rate e.g. government eavesdropping and civil forfeiture.

Firearm ownership should be taken to the vote. If the nations decides to leave firearm availability as a citizen right that's democracy and the inevitable shooting are the price. Potentially more dangerous is a government that feels they can bend a nations constitution away from its spirit to their personal agenda.
After unfollowing 90% of the people, I had a different problem. Facebook kept filling my news feed with "X liked this" or "X commented on this" from the remaining 10%. It seems that one of the goals of the news feed algorithm is to make sure that you are always seeing new content. This became really annoying really fast. So I ended up unfollowing 100% of my friends, than created a group containing the ones that I really cared about. Now my news feed is practically empty. It takes me one extra click/touch to get to the new "feed". The benefit of doing this is that in the group feed there are no "X liked this" items, only posts by my friends or posts in which they were tagged. Of course, at any time FB can decide to change the group feeds to make them similar to the news feed, but for now this setup kind of works for me.
The liberal response to right-wing militias; an abolitionist’s perspective
I've always been surprised that there aren't widely-used tools (I think they do exist but just aren't very popular) that monitor logs and analyze them for irregularities. Have it learn what messages are 'normal' and only send up an alarm when something statistically significant crops up. It doesn't even have to be heavy machine-learning, just some basic statistical analysis would probably help a great deal. Add in correlating multiple logs with one another (increasingly an issue when you've got dozens of servers actually running your application, any of which could be raising important messages while all of them clutter the log with usually-unimportant messages). Taking a firehose of data and breaking it down into what needs attention is something software should be much better at than human beings.
Description of crystal sync here: http://www.tobincinemasystems.com/index_files/Page269.htm

"a camera's running speed is locked to the digitally divided oscillations of a quartz crystal, with an accuracy of a few parts per million. The function of the pilot cable was to feed a representation of the camera's speed to the recorder. Since with crystal control that speed is precisely known, the cable can be replaced by a similarly accurate crystal generator mounted in the audio recorder. This eliminates any connection between camera and recorder, but permits them to stay in sync with each other. A pilot signal is recorded as above, but it comes from the built-in crystal instead of the camera. The resulting tape is resolved to mag film just the same as a pilot tape. You still need a clapper board for a start mark."

So, it doesn't actually record the sound, but it is capable of being sync'd to the recording of the sound.