skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's a double edge sword.

Yes, Walmart helped to lower costs for the poor, but they also drove a lot of small businesses under and have fought hard to suppress wages and benefits. Overall, I'm not sure it is a net win.
The problem with any discussion about inequality is that it ends up discussing the rich rather than wealth. This turns the discussion into a moral one which destroy any possibility of discussing this rationally.

First. It often creates two groups. The 1% and the rest and then go on to discuss trickle down effect. While it's in fact true that trickle down proportionally does not work with the 1% it does work with a lot of other people who create wealth and invest them into other things which then in return creates jobs much more proportional to their wealth (but still of course not in any 1 to 1 relationship)

Second. A lot of time discussions about the rich ends up being about their moral compass and their intentions to avoid paying taxes rather than about how they became rich and then look for any weakness in the system which allow for extreme richness (if any)

Third. In any discussion about how to tax the uber rich, tax avoidance and lobbying often ends up being the focal point. What I would like to suggest is instead we look at extreme wealth as a function primarily fueled by technology and globalization and then further down the list politics, network etc.

I.e. many of the people who are extremely rich today are so because they benefitted from technology and globalization happening at the right time for them not because they somehow worked the system fraudently to become rich (some of course did use it more than others but often also end up being rich much shorter time)

Extreme wealth is a function of the system not just the choice and skills of individuals. Someone will become the richest and their richness will be highly influenced by the system they operate in. Since this system is primarily technological and technology moves faster than legislation the job isn't to figure what rules to implement/remove/adjust but rather how to do it fast enough and still without killing the ability for growth.

But this wont happen until the economist who advice governments acknowledging technology as part of the equation instead of treating it as an externality as they do now.

And so why I have nothing against people getting rich (heck I hope to be so one day myself) trying to defend it like PG does here strikes me as extremely limited in how to understand the issues with inequality.
I can second the opinion on Magnesium. Though, instead of magnesium L threonate, I used Magnesium malate. I have tried citrate and orotate forms and while they were both good, compared to malate the effect was mild. The malate form of magnesium had a better calming effect on the mind and muscles.
Will try L threonate next time and see how it works.

https://examine.com/supplements/magnesium/
Ruby Library for Optimization with the Cross Entropy Method
Any US politician who votes to reinstitute the draft will automatically activate a huge portion of the young people who normally don't vote as well as the soccer moms (as you pointed out). Those millions of new voters will be be single issue voters and will automatically vote against the politicans who voted for the draft - which the politicians know, and which their opponents knows and will use.

The congressional voting turnout was 41.9% in 2014 (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-122...), which means that even if the politician who proposes this is polling at 100%, they could still be beaten.

As a European, who have the remains of a nazi bunker not half a mile from my apartment, I am extraordinarily happy that we can't unite a huge portion of a country to go die anymore.

Also even the military doesn't support a draft.
What are the performance goals for Red? Which language will it have similar performance to? Python, Java, or C?
Refragmentation is the result of the fungibility of money. When we wanted to make things (stuff people could use to make war or make a better life) money was spent to make those things. Like the water cycle, money would be transformed from one phase into another so that work could be accomplished that directly impacted humanity. But we have short circuited that cycle. Now money is being used directly to make more money through financial instruments. People and the stuff that people want are excluded from this new cycle. (Most people anyway) Money goes directly from its production right back into wagers on the production of more money. For example, the currency markets dwarf the actual gdp of the planet.

To restore balance to the ecology of our civilization, we need to make money a tool for humans. By requiring the use of money only for investment in real stuff, we will deflate the artificial valuations that dwarf the real value of human labor. We will necessarily find ways to restore value to human endeavors and new ways to measure the value of human efforts. More people will thus have value to our civilization on this planet. Otherwise, the refragmentation will continue until it reaches its logical conclusion - a scary picture for humanity.
I think the case for their motivation being affected makes sense in a physical-goods economy. If a woodworker sells $500M of chairs, sure, there's suddenly much less motivation to spend the same amount of parts and labor on the next chair for 1% of the profit.

But for other kinds of revenue that makes less sense. The 5 millionth copy of Windows does as much good for that particular customer as every previous one, at essentially zero marginal cost. Does knowing that, in advance, discourage you from making Windows as good as it is?

Anyway, my point was that this is something we can have a reasoned discussion about, without either side needing to poison the well by making analogies to immorality. You can have a perfectly moral society that's either biased or not biased against the hyper-rich. If you believe one of these is wrong as policy, that's fine. If you believe the hyper-rich don't matter to the fairness of a society, that's a perfectly reasonable argument. But if you believe one of these is so wrong as to be equivalent to racism, it seems very difficult to justify that claim, and if you can't, it seems highly counterproductive to discourse.
The chart you presented doesn't show the value created, just the value captured by a given segment. Wouldn't that be an important consideration? It's estimated that innovators, the group that Dr Graham is talking about, only capture around 2% of the value they create, with the rest going to society [1]. That's the whole point of the essay, that maybe reducing the 'absurd' levels of wealth will also lead to reduction in the levels of value creation that society currently benefits from.

[1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w10433
I found the two previous YC startups I worked for in Who's Hiring threads, so they've been a great resource for me. Usually you'll get in touch with an engineer/manager quickly and often you'll learn of available positions that may not be listed publicly. User manlio has some great suggestions for contacting the companies (personalize, but keep it short).
> economic inequality is really about poverty (...) startups aren't the problem (...) The problem is not economic inequality...

Really, no. The problem is really economic inequality.

Poverty is a problem; a different problem, that has always existed and that is (slowly) improving.

Economic inequality is a new problem (or, the recent incarnation of an old problem) and it's undesirable in and of itself.

Also, poverty is a symptom that the system isn't working. It's always been assumed that "a rising tide lifts all boats"; but after the emergence of the super-rich and their continued prosperity, the facts that not only the poor are still poor, but the middle class sees its income stagnate, absolutely disproves this assumption.

A rising tide lifts yachts; but for those living in a hut on the shore, a rising tide destroys their home and has a good chance of drowning them.
Given that they said "But I can't give up my hobby" (zoning out to TV instead means giving up that hobby) and the fact that the solution they found largely solves the problem without the use of meds, why would they bother giving it a try?
Yeah, better to use assembly and spend a week to implement trivial features :)
This is complete insanity to me. It's like having to accept 2+2=5! The lawyer deposing him has greater patience than I would ever possess.
I agree it's useful to have an example program or two on the homepage, but to be honest the Red/Rebol syntax may appear a little quirky at first glance, though it's straightforward to use after completing a quick tutorial.

If you're still interested in seeing some samples, there are a couple on the Red Wikipedia page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language)
"Startups either go Facebook or go bust"
For me, this reflects the problem with the current Startup mentality.
Agghhhh ok I should have said "what we read here in the UK about the rest of Europe".

Best of luck to all in this situation.
> I don't think C++ supports variable length arrays?

VLAs are not part of the standard but GCC supports them. Clang however does not, at least not without a compiler flag I think.
At what time do you take the magnesium?
'Startup' has come to mean too many different conflicting things.

You're describing what I would call a "VC backed startup", where you'll either get big or wither away.

The other end of the spectrum (for people here) would be something like a Bootstrapped Technical Startup. Where you're trying to build a cashflow positive business leveraging technology in some way.
>I believe that Ethiopia was the only other place we could adopt from due to our age/income/etc.

Can you clarify? Are there different age/income standards to adopt children from different countries?
Scientists develop new cancer-killing compound from salad plant
I think this can't be underscored enough. We've got some close family friends who have been through several adoptions ranging from infants to early teenagers, and its been a range of experiences from wonderful to gut-wrenching. Different environments for the same child can have wildly different outcomes based on their ability to attach, formative experiences, etc.

That said, all of this is also true for biological parents. I think parenthood is a rollercoaster no matter what path you take to becoming one.
> I find OOP technically unsound. It attempts to decompose the world in terms of interfaces that vary on a single type. To deal with the real problems you need multi sorted algebras - families of interfaces that span multiple types.

Can someone explain what this means?
And then they show how the type can now be inferred with "auto":

auto start = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
I knew a fellow who used to do some trade with the Soviet Union back in the day, and he made the opposite point: In the US, your government is democratic but at work it's a totalitarian hierarchy. In the USSR, the government was totalitarian, but at work everyone got to vote on major issues. (This would have been in post-Khrushchev times.)
Where did you get that? As far as I've read, most studies find very poor or no correlations at all between IQ and wealth. And that's striking, given what you'd expect from a metric that measures IQ, isn't it?

In fact, those same studies often identify other factors. Interestingly, your parent's class is a hugely important indicator. Sociologists call this phenomenon social reproduction, and it essentially goes against the ideals of the 'american dream', where one can get ahead through hard work. In reality, socioeconomic mobility is quite poor, particularly in the US, which would explain metrics like IQ not being one of the foremost factors in determining wealth.

I would agree with you (not on the basis of data but merely by assumption) that IQ today in a mainly services economy is more important than 100 years ago in a mainly manual labor economy.
It's hard to find anything by McLuhan that isn't a great quote!

I vaguely remember some interview where he expressed a bit of dismay at being received as a wild and out there psychedelic preacher when he was really doing his best to express the trajectory of media and the world as he saw it.

Of course he must have delighted in the way he used language so prophetically and aphoristically, and he did make huge claims every other sentence. He seemed to talk like that naturally; if you listen to live interviews, he's the same way.

Tons of fact recall like Chomsky, spectacular persona like Zizek, and futuristic like Kurzweil—it's weird he isn't more popular here. Maybe it's because if you like him people think you're a hippie.
I don't like extremes, both in protecting the employers or the employees.

It is not only ok but also fundamental, for me, to have the right to fire someone for low output or for bad behaviors (Except if it is right after a illness, a childbirth, put here any major stressful event in the life of someone) and it is also ok to give a period (in my state is now 6/12 months depending on the position) in which you can hire someone and evaluate him, deciding then to fire him if he is no good enough for you.

But to have a "fire at will" policy lasting forever? No way.
Flexible working can make you ill because you stay stressed all the time
The point in question is that it is debatable that a startup like Uber, or Airbnb create absolute wealth: that if airbnb is worth 1billion dollars, they created 1 billion in value, because they also damanged other industries.

Facebook can be super successful, but more people use it at work that they used to, is there a negative value effect of its services in society? Are cabbies poorer because of Uber?

A huge part of startup growth is effectively eating other industries, something always ommited in the argument "we create value, we are just making the pie bigger". Business are supposed to devour each other, its just a bad image to give.
I guess you totally missed the comment "//here's the verbose version" as well as the entire context for that code snippet?
There's no real reason/mechanism for the exclusions to have made anything work better. Compared to the US being the Arsenal of Democracy, the economic effect of liberalization was very small, ignoring long-term government debt.

The New Left in the 1960s mostly just failed outright. Any change then was due to judicial or executive action.
The main problem I imagine is as the platform/codebase matures, there may be compatibility issues as the compiler changes, as the underlying hardware changes, etc. This is something that is well hidden by a language like Python. I remember having to support a cross-database and cross-platform C/C++ server back in the day, and the maintenance was a nightmare. Having the luxury of virtualizing your hardware makes this step a lot easier, that's for sure.
This was actually a big problem at Costco, which allowed turns on electronics after any amount of time. People would buy a TV and use it for a year or two and exchange it for a bigger, better one. Their old policy even allowed 6 months on computers, which, as you can imagine, plenty of people took advantage of.

They cracked down a few years back but are still very generous.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17350641/#.VogfljYhKW0
I find it's good to re-read Rerum Novarum[1] (1891) and Centesimus Annus[2] (1991), now and again:

[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documen...

[2] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/doc...
SandKit: toolset to assist with the investigation of Sandbox technologies
> According to the paper the wheels are unpowered so wouldn't there only be the rolling friction of the wheel's bearings between the car and the wall? It'd be some but very little.

You're right. I've assumed that it drives horizontally along the wall. As it climbs up the wall, you're absolutely right - the thrust has to overcome the weight AND provide at least a bit of a normal force to keep it pressed to the wall.

Given that the video clearly shows it driving up the wall, this particular vehicle must indeed be able to develop enough thrust to overcome its own weight.
> Why should wealthier children, who simply got lucky and won the "ovarian lottery," have more and better opportunities than poorer children

Better genes and epigenetic effects would seem to be a valid and natural reason to me. Let's not exaggerate the opportunities though: average lifespan isn't much higher and a life in luxury isn't devoid of problems. It may be weakening and dangerous if exaggerated. We're doing well at fixing extreme effects of poverty (like eliminating hunger), let's not attempt to fix the wrong things (i.e. richness).
Here's the specific part in question:

" People did start their own businesses of course, but educated people rarely did, because in those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call a startup: a business that starts small and grows big. That was much harder to do in the mid 20th century. Starting one's own business meant starting a business that would start small and stay small."
With an AHI[1] of [148, 150] across two tests, I'm quite sure my brain is... shall we say.. "uniquely connected".

// I just spent the last few days in the ICU due to the heart problems that come from lack of O2. Not fun. Seriously, get your sleep.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apnea%E2%80%93hypopnea_index
How to be a moderately successful person
Its good to keep functions from becoming huge.

But when the article says that a function with 10 lines of code is too long and needs to be split up into a bunch of 3 line functions, that is a very extreme viewpoint. It's okay to flat-out reject such a viewpoint. It's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Let's say I tell you that you need to cap your car's speed at 15mph to save gas. Don't go around telling people that "well, if you control your driving you can save gas, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater". Just tell people I'm being dumb and to ignore me.

If the only thing true about a statement is such an extreme generalization that the generalization bears little resemblance to the original statement, just go ahead and reject the statement.

(Note: It's okay to agree with the article's view, that functions should be extremely short. This is only advice for disagreeing. I'm sorry for making my analogy intentionally ridiculous.)
Show HN: Top npm users by download counts
I never heard the theory that they broke up because of the tax rates. Thought it had something to do with Yoko :-)

Tax avoidance is a significant issue that will require some international coordination - but I do think it is a solvable problem.

See for example the Facebook co-founder who had to pay an exit tax to move his assets offshore.
std::array exists. But it isnt variable length. We might get a dynarray in the next standard. I saw a standards committee panel talk where someone asked about it. Ville Voutilainen promised to write standards proposal. I dont miss it much. Usually std::array does what I want.
"Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich""

Yes they are.

Don't you remember all the articles about Zuckerberg's charity, and how it is bad that rich people have so much control over society, and that the solution shouldn't be charity, it should be to prevent people from becoming so rich in the first place?

That shit was all over the place.
I don't know about steel, but Rother's Toyota Kata makes this case for cars. There's one graph in particular that shows carmaker productivity per worker over several decades.

Toyota, working in a Japan decimated by war, definitely came from behind when competing with Detroit's big 3. Toyota starts lower than the other 3, and all of them improve gradually together. But at some point US carmakers plateau. Toyota just keeps on climbing for decades more as the big 3 stagnate.

Eventually, US automakers try to copy the Toyota approach, and Toyota works hard to teach them. But they never quite get it, because US automakers basically miss the point, copying visible behaviors rather than the deeper structures that really make the difference.

Those curious but not wanting to read a whole book should start with the This American Life episode NUMMI:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/N...

It tells the story of a joint Toyota-GM plant in California. Basically Toyota takes one of GM's worst plants and makes it one of the best. But GM is never able to adopt the differences, or even to really understand them. The worker-level stories are particularly powerful.
As a European, I doubt that unless you are thinking balkan scale wars on the edges of Europe in countries that are not normally considered Europe as the term in commonly used or possibly Turkey actually get of its ass and do something about ISIS.

It is true that there are a lot of rivalries, but nobody wants another world war. We are all fat, rich (relatively compared to 1939) and entertained, but more importantly there would be nothing to win and a lot to lose. The same goes for civil war - Scotland isn't going to war, nor is Catalonia. Northern Ireland is more peaceful than it has been in decades and no country is seriously oppressing any other country.

Even Putin isn't stupid enough to go into a NATO country, at least not the way he did in Ukraine.
> He is defending what he is doing and what Y-combinator has been doing. One of the most important roles of a leader is to create vision -- build a story that explains and interprets reality based on it.

Defending against a strawman isn't really defending against anything but rather perpetuating the delusion that the strawman is real.

It isn't helpful or productive.
> So when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters. But the thing that strikes me most about the conversations I overhear is how confused they are. They don't even seem clear whether they want to kill me or not.

Straw man aside, I continue to be deeply concerned about individuals who spend their time believing they are being hunted, literally or figuratively, to the end that they or some aspect of them is to be "killed". This is the kind of paranoid rhetoric that you can often find emanating, frequently unchallenged, from people who are often people of means, with some degree of privilege.

It's a significant concern, I believe, because the claimant, despite being a privileged and often powerful person, is admitting they have formulated their outlook based on a feeling they are a victim, or soon will be.

The reality is that their station in life means they are able to protect themselves from nearly all meaningful victimization. But either they do not understand this fact, or they are deliberately ignoring it. Either way, the positions they formulate based on this fear of nearly impossible victimization are often extremely flawed.

You can turn on a news station covering presidential politics if you'd like to see a consistent example of this being demonstrated.

I'd urge PG to be a little more self-aware, and I'm disappointed at the list of editors and helpers he credits who are unable to help question him into a more thoroughly developed narrative.
My question was regarding whether its the norm that C++ programmers use the heap when stack would have sufficed. Parent seemed to be hinting that they do.

And, yeah its disappointing C99 arrays did not make it to C++, one can use alloca to live a little dangerously, better to wrap it so that it allocates on the heap only if more than a certain size has been asked for. Too bad there is no portable way to find out how much stack space does the current process still have. There should have been a system call for that.
Whenever he says "polynomial", he actually means "exponential", right? Economic growth over the last couple of centuries looks pretty exponential, at least.