skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> There are phenomena we call "mass", and hence phenomena we call forces, there is notion of distance, succession, rate of change, but there is no phenomena of time apart from some physical process observable by a mind. The famous clocks being accelerated is mere a mental construct.

Well, you list "rate of change" among your phenomena, but deny time as part of the phenomena. But how can rate of change be a "real" phenomena without time also being "real" in the same sense? "Rate of change" is really "rate of change with respect to time", after all.
I see your point. What I wrote originally was misunderstood by one of the repliers, so I edited to clarify, and commented on his reply that I was doing it.

> that the goal was to make all income from US companies taxed as US income. COMPLETELY different.

I'll explain more detail so my goal is better-understood. My goal is to have Apple, the U.S., and Ireland come to an agreement about the the U.S. Senate report "Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code (Apple Inc.)". Here is a specific paragraph that introduces one of the important issues.

"In addition, the hearing will examine how Apple Inc. transferred the economic rights to its intellectual property through a cost sharing agreement with its own offshore affiliates, and was thereby able to shift tens of billions of dollars offshore to a low tax jurisdiction and avoid
U.S. tax. Apple Inc. then utilized U.S. tax loopholes, including the so-called “check-the-box” rules, to avoid U.S. taxes on $44 billion in taxable offshore income over the past four years, or about $10 billion in tax avoidance per year. The hearing will also examine some of the
weaknesses and loopholes in certain U.S. tax code provisions, including transfer pricing, Subpart
F, and related regulations, that enable multinational corporations to avoid U.S. taxes.
I’m only defending my statement that the double Irish arrangement doesn’t work for US sales, and that Apple (US) continues to pay corporate income taxes on the goods they sell to US customers.

That Apple uses various tax arrangements to wipe out profits from its international sales is not in question. However, these are sales made by Apple’s foreign subsidiaries to foreign customers. They weren’t moved offshore, they were offshore to begin with.
I did that on purpose. Options in company A are completely different than options in company B, and assuming that more is better is just silly. 3000 out of 100000 is 3%; 5000 out of 500000 is 1%. But you can't just compare percentages either, because a percentage of a more valuable company is worth more than a percentage of a less valuable company.

As an employee, you just don't know. So value them at zero. Or, if you want to be fancy, epsilon. And take the cash.
The aforementioned GNU Guix and the similar Nix project are exactly that: Cross-platform (mostly, at least Nix requires a unixy layer on Windows) language-independent package managers.

One could argue that they aren't "successful" (in that they don't have all the packages you might want), but they are still quite new and are pretty different from traditional package managers. I believe that Nix/Guix are the future, but a future that will take some time to become widespread.
Stuff is probably among the most impactful and it's especially relevant around the holidays.

http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
"Personal responsibility" is not a founding American principle. There's no Federalist Paper dedicated to "personal responsibility." Indeed, "independence" and "personal responsibility" along with "individualism" were retconned into American history during the settlement of the West.

Moreover, "limited government" in the context of American founding principles refers to the allocation of responsibilities between states and the federal government, not the overall scope of government.

There is, in fact, a principled originalist argument for universal healthcare. First, it has always been assumed that the states have the power to provide for the welfare of their citizens, as well as to police their behavior and morals. The states are, in that regard, decidedly not "limited governments" of "enumerated powers." State-level universal healthcare is contrary to no founding principle.

Second, the Commerce Clause was incorporated into the Constitution to allow the federal government to solve what we today would recognize as economic collective action or free-rider problems. At the time it was aimed to address the collective action problem of free trade. It's good for the United States as a whole, but individual states have a short-term incentive to erect trade barriers. The purpose of the Commerce Clause was to allow the federal government to counter-act those short term incentives. Precisely the same problem exists with state-level universal healthcare. Even if most people in a state want it, they can't enact it because it's too easy for people from neighboring states to free-ride on those services. The Commerce Clause is thus properly invoked for resolving that problem at the federal level.
Apple faces lawsuit over iOS 9 on iPhone 4S performance
I believe that the first lasers were explicitly based on quantum theory, not on observed macroscopic behavior. There wasn't an experiment that showed something lasing, and then trying to figure out how it worked. Instead, there was "Hey, quantum theory says this might happen - let's try it."
I believe the title is actually "Rationality: From Ai to Zombies", unless you're referring to something else.
What I don't get: why does the private sector have to be involved in insurance?

In my opinion, as the right to health care is a basic human right, the state should be responsible for providing its citizens with health care - and as all citizens are equal, so should the health care be.

Unfortunately, Germany isn't perfect either - privately insured patients get faster access to specialized MDs, they enjoy better quality of service (esp. dentals and glasses/eyewear) and the basic insurance (Gesetzliche Krankenkasse) is in fact a staggering number of distinct insurances, each of course carrying its own administrative bloat and its own deals with pharma companies. This may result in a doctor giving two identical receipts for medication - and because the two patients are insured at different companies, they get different generics with all the problems this causes (e.g. different colors of the pills, leading to lower stick-through rate because patients mistrust changes, or different composition leading to different absorption rate even though the medical compound is identical).

There's a shitload of money wasted in healthcare, not only in the US, and the poorest people (as always) have to suffer.
Data Visualization of WWII Fatalities
Ahh, these are "mental models". Charlie Munger gave a great speech on the advantages of thinking using mental models and how going through them in a checklist fashion makes into some powerful thinking. Speech here: https://old.ycombinator.com/munger.html

Also, here's an ebook outling more mental models in case anyone's interested: http://www.thinkmentalmodels.com/
>It makes it look like you're gaining something from it.

I object to the implicit assumption that "gaining" from sharing valuable content (corrected for conflicts of interests) is immoral or bad.

I would venture forth and suggest that community of developers should strive to increase financial and other "gains" of independent developers to counter centralization of megacorporates.
Wow! This is a massive book! Here's my New Year's Resolution staring me in the face.
> Did you get the system in that configuration, or did you purchase it and put Linux on it?

I tried to get it with Ubuntu preinstalled, but neither Lenovo's website nor their phone support could configure it that way. After about 20 minutes on the phone, I managed to get the exact hardware configuration shown on Ubuntu's certification page: AMD A4-5000, Broadcom BCM43142, etc. In hindsight, I doubt Lenovo ever sold an X140e with Ubuntu preinstalled.

> Regardless. Why didn't you return it and get something that worked? Curiosity? Cussedness?

When I first turned it on, I noticed the X140e had several annoying LEDs. Both "ThinkPad" logos had glowing red dots in their i's. There was also a large green LED near the camera. It glowed whenever wifi was powered-up (pretty much all the time). I found these annoying, so I painted them over. Oops. Next time I'll use nail polish, which can be removed with acetone.

> I find it reasonable to spend between a couple of days to a week researching the suitability of something that I'll use throughout the day, every single day for next three-to-ten years.

Our thoughts on this matter are quite similar. On average, I spend almost 10 hours a day using my primary development machine. I upgrade every 1-2 years, which works out to 5,400 hours of use. That's a lot of time interacting with one piece of hardware. I definitely want to make sure I get the best tool for the job. That 5,400 hours has another implication: Amortized over the life of the machine, even a $3,000 laptop will only cost ≈50 cents per hour. That makes me extremely insensitive to price. I simply want whatever works best.[1]

As peatfreak said, research won't guarantee satisfaction. The only way to really know if a piece of hardware will work for you is to actually use it. That's one huge advantage of Apple (and now Microsoft) products: I can walk into a store and test the hardware/software combo. In just a few minutes, I can tell if the it lacks the annoyances in my list[2]. These details are extremely hard to verify without actually using the machine.

I would be much more open to getting a Linux laptop if I could try it out before buying. Unfortunately, I don't think the market is big enough to make brick-and-mortar stores feasible.

1. I've written about this in more detail at http://geoff.greer.fm/2010/10/30/expensive-computers-are-wor...

2. http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/07/25/laptop-annoyances-or-why-i-...
I've always been confused by this game. How do players know when to strike the ball when they can't see their paddle on the screen?
Teach Yourself Logic 2016: A Study Guide [pdf]
un·der·stand·ing (ŭn′dər-stăn′dĭng)
n.
1. a) The ability by which one understands;
intelligence: concepts that are beyond the understanding of a child.
...
2. Individual or specified judgment or outlook;
opinion: In my understanding, this is a good plan.
...

'Understanding' is correct in this instance, unless you wish to be extremely pedantic.
> England continued to export food out of Ireland and maintained an official policy of not intervening in the "free market" of Irish exports

I know that state economics were coming out of their mercantilist phase; did the English state export food from Ireland, or did English agricultural companies export the food they produced? Those are two very different things.
This piece makes a general statement and focuses on one company. Another Silicon Valley Company, Zonare Medical Systems, has moved ultrasound forward so that it can be used for more diagnostic tests more accurately. They are also quite stable and have not seen wild variation in their valuation. Perhaps that is why they are not interesting to the press? Only calls of condemnation and crisis actually drive clicks?
Windows 10 – Smash Your Face
> Blockstream Liquid makes them a middleman

He asked about Bitcoin transaction middlemanship, not alternative ledger consensus systems. It should not be surprising that alternative ledgers exist that provide some features that Bitcoin doesn't.

> They also work on the lightning network, which creates middlemen.

LN transactions are just zero-conf Bitcoin transactions with some extra opcodes and defined behavior around the semantics of when certain transactions can be verified. see http://lightning.network/

> In general, all Blockstream's products are solutions to the problems of (1) bitcoin being hard to change/fork, and (2) the block size being small. Blockstream's products are thus more relevant and useful if bitcoin is difficult to improve, and has limited capacity.

Bitcoin is more useful if it's difficult to be "improved", period. Auto-update mechanisms take away voluntary participation and this is too dangerous for a financial system that is attempting to be decentralized (who's gonna "authorize" the updates, eh?). So yes maybe Blockstream has an incentive to assist with maintaining the current Bitcoin decentralization mechanisms... so what?

> Blockstream employees unanimously oppose every proposed hard fork to bitcoin.

jtimon? sipa? dude you know these people, wtf.

> He needs people to have a good reason to switch to a Sidechain. If Bitcoin keeps improving, there will be no good reason.

No, he doesn't need a good reason for people to switch. He needs a reason for people to use sidechains, thankfully he and everyone has many. This isn't about switching -_-.

> If Bitcoin keeps improving, there will be no good reason.

That's like saying "if positive changes are made to bitcoin.git, there's no reason to use sidechains"... That's not a reasonable argument.

> Blockstream employees unanimously oppose every proposed hard fork to bitcoin. They are making it hard to improve bitcoin.

They are opposed to hard-forks for many reasons, but perhaps most important here is because they aren't in control of Bitcoin network hard-forks. And they are unwilling to campaign to add those particular hard-forks into Bitcoin Core. It's wrong to claim that Blockstream is making it hard to improve Bitcoin when it's naturally hard to do so by design in the first place.
This is really cool. Can anyone recommend any particularly good/cogent Simple Caveman explanations of how Bayesoan theory/Monte Carlo simulation work?
Yes, npm is very problematic/buggy on Windows. I wasted many hours because of https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/9696 (meaning any build on visual studio online breaks ~50% of the time simply running 'npm install').

Microsoft should finally fix the MAX_PATH issue in Windows, but npm should just fix their software: it's too important to be that buggy.
CloudFlare now has over 70% market share
I'm more curious to read it than to use it, though.
Happy New Year HNers
When I was a professor I tried an experiment a few times of offering extra classes during the lunch break. These covered interesting and important areas that we just didn't have time to get to in class. The topics covered weren't on the final exam and were totally voluntary. Out of a class of 100 I would get around 10 or so students come to these classes which were more tutorial than lecture. It was great experience teaching students just interested in learning.

The most interesting aspect of the exercise was the students were drawn pretty evenly from across the performance spectrum. There were students who got A's in everything, but there were also a number who we're just scraping through the degree. I was quite surprised at which students came.
Exactly. They'll have a less secure experience, but that what they choose. You and your iPhone 7S can have a super secure one.
I wouldn't count ordinary participation in markets as lever pulling manipulation. And my point wasn't that the fed isn't useful in practice, but rather that its presence is a sign of broken fundamentals.
I think "Algernon's law" and the "Efficient Market Hypothesis" are suspect because they amount to "Just So Stories"[1] about the vastly complicated topics of neurobiology and investing. Limiting the field of inquiry of researchers and specialists in these topic by proclaiming these broad general laws, and thus ignoring possibly useful new technology, theory, or experimental evidence is not rational.

1. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ad_hoc
> Medics checked him out each time, and cleared him. Are you suggesting Medics aren't to be trusted now too?

Who said the medics cleared him? They may have cleared him to go home, but that does not imply he didn't have a concussion, for example.

I do not know if the medics in the US have a different policy, in the UK you can be sent home as long as you have someone to look after you, check you're ok, and make sure you don't fall asleep before 24 (or 48) hours have passed.
And here i thought they going to fix that town that is cut in half where people had to move their front door to be in the "right" country again....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau
Primarily election integrity and voter privacy. As an activist, lobbyist, and candidate. I've dabbled in public financing. And I contribute to causes I support.

I've been working on legislation information systems, as best able, to help future persons like myself be more effective. (Tools I wish we had when I got started.)

Thanks for asking. From your profile's links, it looks like we'd be allies.
Possibly relevant - but in any event, interesting throughout - is Sophie Wilson's Computer History Museum interview: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102746190
Details on the methodology are available here: http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/new_surveys_on_web_hosting_and...
How do we reconcile "Algernon’s Law" with the Flynn effect?
Moving. We did it today. It's been a week. I'm tired of getting texts that my servers are down when there is nothing I can do about it.
Vermont looked into single-payer insurance within the state borders, but AFAIK they abandoned the idea after seeing the estimated price tag. I think it would be great if some state tried implementing this, some state tried implementing a Singapore-style free-market solution, etc., and we got to see what worked.
Agree there is no much information on page, but the app is pretty self explicit. We'll add more information soon.

I suggest using our app because we are adding custom blocks for specific countries and websites, soon we'll add more info about the process on the site.
That just creates a situation where you depend on an insane number of dependencies and your npm install takes 10 minutes.
Meet Knightscope's crime fighting robots
The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act according to the wishes of those with the biggest checkbook except for a few limited cases...and even when the populace can defeat that, often the checkbook eventually wins. See CISA as the most recent example.
Biggest cargo ship to ever grace S.F. Bay is here
Agreed, I was only responding to the comment about Silicon Valley (which has received a lot of news coverage outside this article)
MIT, UChicago, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, WashU, Middlebury, Berkeley, etc.

Students who are primarily interested in prestige have better options. What's left at schools like these are the masochists who actually want to be challenged academically and surrounded by peers at or above their intellectual level.

I'd say Chicago is the paradigm case, but I'm biased :). One of its best features is an extraordinarily large and rigorous general ed requirement ("the Core") which means even a computer science student gets a substantial liberal arts education. There are paths through the Core with a higher tolerance for bullshit, but they're frowned upon. I took the more philosophy-leaning sequences and loved them. Lots of emphasis on close reading, lucid discussion, critical analysis, and clear argumentative writing. It has also been my experience that students merely looking to check the "college" box with minimal effort are not mainstream and don't tend to succeed.
"The analogy only works if you consider energy production to be itself a problem."

Welcome to environmentalism.
It's quite interesting that a lack of resources ("given the small size of the design team at Acorn, a simple RISC chip was a practical choice") forced them to focus on simplicity. That simplicity then helped the chip use less power, which later left them well-positioned to capture a large share of a nascent battery-powered market.
Definitely. I haven't yet had a request to do a double triangular distribution, that looks really interesting.

It will be a bit of a challenge to make it intuitive, but I'm sure I'll figure out something.

Just so you know, right now there is a second distribution, uniform. You can access it by clicking the 'normal' icon in a normal distribution, where a short list is shown below.
We should not be covering any wilderness (even a relatively barren wilderness like the Sahara) with solar panels until every inch of roof in the developed world is covered in solar panels. There's a ridiculous amount of flat open surface that is just wasted space right now, and not only is the space going to waste but the energy consumers exist right underneath that wasted roof space.
Ownership of articles is exactly what †hey was complaining about though. And content forks are a logistical nightmare; how do you track, diff, and merge all those different changes when needed? You'd think with stuff like git it's already a solved problem choosing what to show and how to present it brings in its own issues like biased judges, forks for different points of views, everyone editing their preferred version, etc. It completely circumvents the point of collaborative editing and discussion on one version of an article. There's no such thing as one source of truth, but I'd rather have something close to that than many sources.
Found the article to be a good summary of a lot of concepts I had encountered on their own, but hadn't seen together in list form before. If you enjoyed this, you might find Daniel Dennett's "Intuition Pumps and Tools for Thinking" interesting [1]. I would highly recommend "The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts Methods" by Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl as well [2].

- [1] Link to Talk at Google By Dennett: https://youtu.be/4Q_mY54hjM0

- [2] Link to pdf: http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_10474.pdf
On that basis you'd also have to exclude coverage for injuries from almost any sport or exercise activities done "by choice"
The author spends several thousand words discussing the psychology of fairy tales, and never once mentions Tolkien's magisterial essay on the topic? Her own points are interesting, I think, but without a discussion of Tolkien's thoughts regarding Eucatastrophe or Recovery, her essay is bound to be incomplete at best. Indeed, it's a pretty good example of why Tolkien's notion of "Escape" is so badly needed.
Do you really think it's more expensive, in terms of energy to transport electrons over a wire than liquids over the surface of the earth? I find that hard to believe. Mind you, I haven't done the math.
Truth is exactly what we are essentially searching for here.

Some people have good reason not to trust police reports, as abuse of authority is rife within many districts in the US and UK.

This does not mean that we would disagree with what an official independent report would state because "It has to be a conspiracy", or any other garbage reason -- it just means that we disagree that the outcome of the official police report is necessarily correct, because of the bias police reports can hold.
+1 for more distribution shapes, specifically power law, combinations of power and normal (Which you might want to consider for your soft-attack-long-tail variables over triangular, if the edge between triangles causes you artifacts), and distributions based on empirical collections.
For instance, do you refer to a particular group of uninhabited islands as "Senkaku Islands, Japan", "Diaoyu Islands, People's Republic of China", or "Diaoyutai Islands, Republic of China"? Some people are very passionate about the answer.

Is the political entity on Formosa "Taiwan", "Taiwan Province, Republic of China", "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China", or "Taiwan, Province of China"?
Understanding Clojure's Persistent Vectors, Pt. 1