skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> but if there were a large, aging building in my area that the city wanted to relocate in order to build new businesses and services

But Tsukiji's not an "aging building"; it's a bustling, energetic neighborhood. It's the biggest fish market in the world. They sell any kind of fish or seafood you can think of, and those you can't dream of, also. Some of the best sushi restaurants in Japan are in the area (Sushi Dai, for one). It's a marvel of efficiency and economy - specialized transport carts with zero turning radii, etc.

I'd be sad if my city wanted to move one of its biggest markets, dealing with a food culture absolutely integral to my country's history, to a contaminated toxic site, because it wanted to create a temporary press site & traffic artery for a temporary sports event.

But of course, it's the other way around; giant events like the Olympics or the World Cup are political opportunities for megaprojects/infrastructure to be pushed through under the excuse of being a host city. Most probably, the Tokyo city government has been wanting to move the Tsukiji market for a while, and the Olympics is a great excuse under which to do so.
There is some discussion on why the Postgres team dislikes query hints here: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/OptimizerHintsDiscussion

But perhaps I also have some practical advice to try.

I had a similar issue: I have a few tables with sensor data, 300-500 million rows, indexed among other things by event type. Some counting queries kept defaulting to full table scans. It turned out that this was because of limited statistics on the distribution of counts by event type.

The default_statistics_target config parameter sets how many entries Postgres keeps in the histogram of possible values per column, the default is 100 I think. Because my event types were not evenly distributed, the less frequent ones were missing from the statistics histogram altogether, and somehow this resulted in bad query plans.

As a fix, I upped the default_statistics_target to 1000, and to set it to 5000 for the biggest tables. Then after a vacuum analyze, the query planner started making sensible choices.

Another thing to try is perhaps reducing the random_page_cost config parameter from it's default of 4.0. On SSDs, random page costs are much closer to 1 than they are 4 (compared to long sequential reads).
About that amazing Trump prediction: I have my doubts that Scott truly believed it himself. Quoting his thoughts, in 2011[1]:

> Most of those authors don't believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They're making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That's worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20110421130209/http://www.dilber...?
I wonder if the auto-halting behavior makes the problem worse, not better.

Psychologically, if you know the markets will close if they drop too fast, it might actually encourage traders try harder and rush faster to be the first one to sell off more stocks that day before time runs out.
A seasonal company calls me in to do customer support during their busy season when the mail has lost customers packages and they havent been delivered and everybody is crabby. In helping 1000+ customers on a live chat alone none have ever given me a negative review. (which I never let the company forget:) and a major reason they call me in.

One tip when dealing with a upset customer, they will often call in angry and instantly start on a tirade of why they are upset. If they do I instantly interrupt them and ask them for account information and assure them we will take care of any issue they have because we are here to help.

It does 2 things, you dont want them to rant and build up negative energy so you nip that in the bud and they dont have to relive negative feelings. The assurance that we will take care of them instantly sets tone that no matter what their problem will be solved so you take all the stress away from the start. Telling them you are there to help in a friendly tone makes it very hard for them to express anger since you dont get angry at those helping you.

Take away the anger and leave them with happy thoughts. Once the anger is gone the rest is easy.

Edit- Also when you interrupt and ask for account information it shows that before you even have to hear the problem you are already working to solve it in a fast and effective manner for them.
What I hate most are the ton of features which are supposed to be "discoverable." Or in other words, you have no idea they exist until someone else tells you about it (and how did they find out)?

For example, aside from the traditional way of adding a friend, you can point your camera, in Snapchat, at someone else's phone displaying the profile screen, and it will automatically add them as a friend. Only one other person I've met has known about it before I told them (and they're the ones that told me).

The UI also is just generally clumsy or buggy. Another example, just some of my gripes about the part of the app where you can text chat with people:

You get a push notification that "X is typing" whenever someone begins writing a message to you, even if they don't send a message. Every few days I get one of these notifications when a friend accidentally began typing to me instead of someone else.

They've replaced the "send" button on the keyboard with a button that livestreams your camera to that person. Quite a surprise the first time you're chatting and you're only in your underwear.

You have to hold one of your fingers on the screen the entire time you're video chatting. And you change between the front and back-facing camera based on where on the screen you are holding your finger.

I actually really like Snapchat, it's the only social network/app I use regularly, but damn does the app suck.
My point is, I don't believe they are offering the loan because the company is in financial trouble (due to the hold). I believe they are offering the loan because the company meets certain requirements in terms of transaction volume.

Companies can reach the required transaction volume without having holds on their account.
Ok I'm watching stories now and it's awesome. thanks justin
Show HN: Placemat, pretty nice placeholder images
I haven't figured out a good way to make the text clearer in the product images. They're 36in x 24in, so when I zoom out to take a screen shot, the text is all muddled.

It's assembly code from here: https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/?r=258#sv...

The posters start with the code from BURN_BABY_BURN--MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE.s
Lessons learned from a self-starter programmer
If this is an open source distributed system without a central business entity deriving revenue from the market what's the reason venture capital is funding the group making it? Just a vested interest in Bitcoin growth/adoption?
> which is why I'm so reluctant to do a startup, unless I think it's "the one."

IYO indeed. That you have found your way of doing things is wonderful and also incredibly lucky. That you consider opportunity cost a universally objective measure is complete fantasy though.

TL;DR: Always be highly skeptical of anyone claiming their way of life is the right way to live.
Weird stance. Startups are not really about money. They are about greater risk.

For a startup founder it is not unusual to spend a lot of time, and still make zero money. And it is also possible to spend only couple of years, and make so much money that you can leisurely work for couple of days a month, and go surfing for the rest of the month. And do that same thing for the rest of your life.

As an employee you will surely make some money always, and only spend certain amount of time. As a freelancer/contractor typically your risk is a bit greater (you might not get good gigs or something), but as a reward you can earn more money for less time.

So it is not about whether you value your time or money. It is about your risk appetite. It is not that uncommon to do this kind of "lifestyle business" thingie where the primary goal is freedom and time, not necessarily money.
Programmers do, because you are exposed to ambiguous, badly written specifications for features all the time.
I don't have Met-158 thank god I am not like that crazy killer family from the Netherlands.

I am hetero at SNP rs1800497.
What does the mod do? I can see severe sharpening and maybe a lut/grade over it?
Tsukiji is fascinating, but also a bit sad. After visiting there I am amazed that there are any fish left in the sea. The scale of the place is truly mind-boggling. I kept imagining a sign hanging over the door that said, "All hope abandon ye fish who enter here."

But the sushi in the nearby restaurants was the best I've ever had before or since.
1 datapoint: I was doing 15-20hr/wk consulting the past few years and making as much as my FT CTO/COO position now and the stress of constant sourcing definitely was stressful (but the extra hours and lifestyle of commandeering your schedule/location was a third dimension to optimize).
The flashcard feature caught me by surprise, and I loved it! I just started playing around with the in-page translations, went back to the site, and was very pleasantly surprised! Much better than any of the language learning browser extensions I've used before!
> this "explanation" is your fantasy.

My educated guess :)

Every meme starts from somewhere. For example, the vatnik meme did not appear fully formed from the vacuum like Venus from ocean foam; it was invented by a specific person, who was (according to interviews) influenced by Spongebob Squarepants - hence the shape.

I don't know who invented the Russia/Mordor theme, but I can try to guess where in the online cultural background that existed in 2013 that person could have found their inspiration.

> And IMHO it doesn't require explanation.

IMHO it does require explanation. Why Mordor and not Nilfgaard or Fire Nation? Why Sauron and not Voldemort or Tywin Lannister?
Is bricklaying a big industry? Watching all these new buildings going up around me, it doesn't seem like modern construction uses bricks. I mostly see it in nicer sidewalks, which a robot could do the bulk of.
> Snapchat is the opposite of living in the moment,

I used it only for a year or so, but my impression is/was that Snapchat is a way of trying to show other people how in-the-moment you are, even though you have to take the little bit of time away from that moment to broadcast it.
There's a poor risk/reward ratio there.

It takes way too long for the average startup to be successful, and the overwhelming majority of them aren't successful enough to provide the economic freedom you are referring to.

If you can love the chase of a startup, and love the thrill and long hours, great!

If you are doing it so you can have "more free time later" there are many many better strategies.
There's still a massive risk. What if you put three years of your life into a startup that becomes defunct after all that time?

Then you've lost three years of your life and have to go somewhere else.

Sure, you gain knowledge and experience through that time, but joining another company would still take time to work your way through the ranks there. In that three years, you would've had a great head-start on both professional experience and financial health.

Food for thought. Your statement just assumes the startup will do well and that's not a guarantee. There isn't a guarantee a company you work for will be around forever either, but the likelihood is far greater.
I put this together the other night. It's a placeholder service with a bunch of pretty nouns (people, places, things). Powered by imgix, with lots of photos from Unsplash.
> Individually you can put together a decent work flow with Linux programmes but it's slow

So... you're saying that there are substitutes, but that they aren't as fast, you don't want to use them and that (getting back to the discussion) you don't view the privacy concerns with commercial OSes as sufficient incentive.

If so, why not just say that and avoid all the pointless flamage.
That's a golden advice.

Digging into details, I wonder just how much benefit comes from not just telling them "we will take care of any issue you have", but from immediately asking for account details. Instead of sounding cliché, this sends an immediate signal that they're being helped right now. And when someone is actually helping, there's nothing beneficial in being angry at them.
> Chinese companies are the only ones that can serve Chinese customers

I don't agree with this; but Chinese companies are in a much better position to do so, and China is where the growth is.

> Clean energy in 20 years: in 20 years, most of the Chinese rich will have already left

A bit hyperbolic; but we already have a global economy. Foreign companies will continue to invest in China (both in companies and in their own projects) regardless of what the Chinese wealthy do. There are 1.2 billion people in China. Most don't brush their teeth. Think how much more toothpaste P&G could sell there if people became even moderately wealthy and more concerned about dental hygiene.

> large migration from rural to urban: there's no jobs waiting for these rural farmers.

As long as the Chinese government is willing to sponsor public works projects, there will always be jobs. And China is not unique in the transition from a manual labor to a knowledge labor economy: they're actually probably in a better position than most because they can benefit from explosive growth whenever they choose to. And don't forget that the Chinese population is aging rapidly: there will be more people exiting the workforce through retirement and death than new entrants into the workforce. Ensuring need and training match up is a problem, but I don't think any government has solved that one; so I wouldn't call it a huge impediment to their growth.
Using a Hosts File to Make the Internet Not Suck (as Much)
Good point, in wa state there were non-competes for sandwich shop makers. This is just to keep poor people from having economic opportunity. This is different than keep my recipes secret. This is you can't do minimally trained labor for someone else.
Interesting point. From that perspective, you could argue that giving a loan against the collateral is a way to account for some of the risk on Paypal's side while still giving us some funds.

Still, we've been with Stripe since then and have had no problems.
How did you find out?
Honestly it is a joke. It drives me nuts though to see how HN people don't get it that better rural broadband would mean they make more money.
It's assembly code from here: https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/?r=258#sv...

The posters start with the code from BURN_BABY_BURN--MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE.s

I concatenated a number of files together and removed new lines, and runs of certain characters (space, #, and * for example). I felt that runs of the same character distracted the eye too much to keep. Those NASA engineers liked to make huge blocks of # characters.
This is absolutely terrible advice. The OP could be making six figures at a real job, not "beans and rice" money at a position that will be taken from him as soon as the company is funded.
Nothing is wrong with being charitable. Some statements are just wrong, or there is no assumption of best intentions that can satisfy the claims being made.

What is wrong with not writing blatantly false statements or calling out wrong statements for being wrong (or, asking for a correction)?

There is a reason compilers cannot take arbitrary text and produce the program you are 'actually' thinking of.
What do you make of it?
Interesting times we live in. IPv4+ (better name) and Enhanced IP (possibly better protocol) both use IP options. I won't recap what IPv4+ does but here's a recap on the important bits of EnhancedIP. There is a proof of concept implementation available for Linux at www.enhancedip.org. You can download VMs to see how it works. Also, http://www.enhancedip.org/learnmore.html has a quick rundown with just enough detail to get the idea. EnhancedIP uses a 64-bit address that works as two IP addresses concatenated together. Enhanced IP requires NATs and end hosts to be upgraded but not core/edge routers. Enhanced IP is also backwards compatible with IPv4 as much as is possible. There is a draft RFC and a full paper available for Enhanced IP. Because the Internet wouldn't have to wait on a core router upgrade to get started, this might move along more quickly.
To address some of your points:

I think celeb culture's existence on Snapchat and other platforms doesn't have much to do with what I wrote about how Snapchat works.

You get feedback in the form of private snaps and messages, not public #s of comments and likes. So, it isn't a public competition. This is true for celebs and for myself and for every day users.

But it still feels nice to get positive feedback (like someone telling you offline "I like your snaps", or someone snapping you a response to your Story). Getting more friends on it increases private, positive feedback.
Faking the transmission is really a bizarre move, but actually having a multiple-gear transmission in an electric racecar is actually not a bad idea. Formula-E cars have 5-speed sequential transmissions in order to maximize torque [1], and this may be coming to electric road cars as well [2].

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/FormulaE/comments/2gbika/why_do_for...

[2]: http://www.motor1.com/news/48231/bosch-says-evs-will-soon-ge...
and can follow you for the rest of your life
Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all.

McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “schizophrenic” tendencies, you are immediately drawn out of the pack and put under the care and tutelage of master shamans. You are told: “You are special. Your abilities are very central to the health of our society. You will cure. You will prophesy. You will guide our society in its most fundamental decisions.”" [0]

[0]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/12470230/Eros-and-the-Eschaton-rou...

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_schizop...
Hey, Alex (cofounder) here.

You're totally right that people who have trouble managing money in general don't use these kind of apps. Before starting work on Penny, we asked a hundred or so people "how do you manage your money?" The prevailing answer was, "I don't." So when you give them the tools to do that, it really helps them understand their situation.

What we see as the real problem is comprehension and usability. Many people we talked to shy away from apps like Mint because they're complex and intimidating. From a more technical/analytical/affluent standpoint (where I come from), I don't have an issue using Mint and querying my own data, but it's important to remember that I'm different from most people. So, we think that giving people that awareness of their financial situation in a friendly, relatable, and understandable manner goes a long, long way.

Regarding continued use: everybody's finances are a representation of their life, and as life changes, your finances do too. So we think there's a lot Penny can do to help you on an ongoing basis, like tell you about how your new commute to your new work is affecting your gas spending and your savings rates; mention how Comcast just bumped your bill up by 10%; point out that your Starbucks spending has been trending up and might start being a significant money drain, etc. We might be wrong, but we think we and everybody else in this space have only scratched the surface of what insights can help people with their finances.
BetterTouchTool will switch from free to a “Pay what you want” model
There are two propositions here:

One, that some UFO sightings are due to the activities of extraterrestrial intelligences. This seems very unlikely at this point.

Second, that the Fermi Paradox exists at least partly due to aliens avoiding us specifically, what is commonly referred to as the "zoo hypothesis". As far as speculative explanations go, it's not an unreasonable contender. However, it is not among the most likely or the most simple hypotheses out there.

The zoo hypothesis pre-supposes the ready availability of FTL technology, which itself implies that such technology is even possible in general. It also hinges on a specific combination of psychological factors and random happenstance, namely the desire to isolate an entire star system (which is not a trivial feat), and the fact that they even discovered our existence in the first place (which is also quite the coincidence, even for a culture that can travel faster than the speed of light).

These reasons don't rule out the zoo hypothesis. However, if I were to bet on one scenario, it would be the practical consequences of the fact that expected distances between civilizations are enormous in both time and space, plus the weakly-shining light cone of our technologically advanced existence doesn't reach very far and isn't easy to detect - and those same factors would be preventing us from seeing an advanced civilization as well, even if they happened to be relatively close by.
Transparency of housing sales isn't what allowed people to see the contractions and it certainly didn't keep the problem from getting worse. Massive numbers of defaults were the indicator. What kept the problem from getting worse was the government taking partial ownership of the major banks/AIG, increasing the FDIC limit and TARP.
Windows 7 is the last version of Windows I'll run, Microsoft!

The moment Ballmer switched from "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!" to "Advertisers, Advertisers, Advertisers, Advertisers!", I knew it was time to start migrating myself to Linux and Mac.
That's exactly my situation. Oddly enough I love coding, but making it a part of my small business (totally analog product for a tiny niche market) would add a layer of complexity that I'd rather avoid.
I extensively used hosts files like this in the past, but they would inexplicably break certain sites, and it wasn't trivial to disable and then re-enable them.

While ad blockers don't offer as much protection, they're so much more usable that I can't switch back to a hosts file.
"But we WILL spy on everything you do to figure out if our untargeted advertisements are working, and to create detailed profiles which we could share with other companies who do send out ads..."
Create a ROS sensor plugin for Gazebo
We live an average 70-80 years on a lucky rocky, watery ball among bazillions gaseous, frozen or rocky balls into a dark void somewhat existing since a dozen billion years. Money is nothing vs living our time happily or peacefully at least.
Your comment really speaks to a larger problem that social media would appear to have created, that being a "need" for as you put it social validation. You hear stories about people becoming severely emotionally distressed because they only get a low number of "likes" an confront friends for not "liking" or commenting.

It just feels (to me at least), that this is a problem. Granted before what we consider to be the electronic age of social media, this kind of validation existed -- for example, getting a phone call from a friend would give one a similar level of validation - I have a friend! He/She likes me enough to call me!" - it wasn't something someone expected to happen every ten minutes and it wasn't something that required you to do anything.t

Now that we are all connected, we post, we expect validation that someone has read the nugget we posted. Yay! Friends!

I dunno, just strikes me as something to be leery of..
In what way are dogs smarter than (or equivalent to) babies?

What value is there in such a statement: This dog is at least as smart as this baby?

What does smart even mean?