skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Are we getting smarter?
Nothing exotic: NVIDIA 970 graphics card, Gigabyte motherboard with Intel NIC, Haswell CPU, Samsung SSD and a couple HDDs.
Increase everyone's rent, reduce everyone's job security, increase everyone's working hours, reduce everyone's access to cheap healthcare and generally let the Trump's of the world run things and you get an underclass of very unhappy people to whom heroin seems like a pretty good idea (at the time).
Agreed. If by 'squirrel' the author means a business where fundamentals matter, he's trying to re-coin an existing term, RABBIT

Real

Actual

Business

Building

Interesting

Tech
S4: Distributed stream computing platform from Apache
The article is mostly talking about people who are wrongly prescribed opioid meds for long term pain.

They don't start taking those meds because it's cool. They start taking those meds because they don't have access to pain clinics; they don't understand that exercise is effective for many forms of pain (especially musculo-skeletal); that opioids should not be used for long term pain, etc. The meds become less effective if they're used for a long time, so people increase their dose. They become addicted to the meds, and need higher doses. A couple of things happen here.

1) Doctors restrict the meds. People then either buy illicit meds, which are stronger than they're expecting; or they buy heroin because it's easy enough to get.

2) People die from liver damage caused by the paracetamol that these pain meds are often mixed with. Partly we used to think that combining paracetamol and opioids meant we could use less of each (but that turns out to be untrue), and partly some people thought that mixing a poisonous substance in with the opioid would reduce abuse. (It sort of does, by killing the user.)
French brain-dead drugs trial man dies
Hehe, no need to be sorry. It's one of the best answers, actually: it means that there aren't any fires, it's just about playing the long game and letting time pass. I prefer that. :)
Studies have also shown inter-group empathy gaps. Or, basically, white people don't believe black people's pain [to the same extent], similarly with men and women.

That's probably also a factor.
Although opioids should not be used for most types of chronic pain.
I hope by tracking you mean tying it back to who initiated the misleading article. Not just who wrote it but who paid for it and to what gain. Then once a year publish a chart showing the top ten sources ,and their most published topics/titles of misleading articles, from source to publication.
U.K. here, but im allergic to NSAIDS (as are many asthmatics) so they're immediately off the table for me. It severely limits your options when you're in pain.
For a few years, Microsoft seemed to have really cleaned up their act and showed promise to become an ethical OS vendor that you could trust. The loss of that Microsoft is the tragedy here, the loss of the last commercial mainstream computing platform that didn't want to do everything it possibly can to snitch, spy, analyze, advertize or gamify the living hell out of its... "customers."
Thomas Piketty’s “Capital”, summarised in four paragraphs
While I agree, it's not too early to start talking about it - if only because we've already had social media for over 10 years, and the blog does refer how Obama used this for the first time starting ~8 years ago.
His views only seem radical because of the way he presents them. Easily his biggest mistake is naming his movement Free Software instead of something like Software Liberties or Software Rights, and then refusing to change the name at any point after the realization of this error. Then he says things like, "They're trying to put a cloud inside your head." Which is just laughable. Most of the time he's speaking very generally without citing specific facts to back up his arguments (In the video he mentions that software is malicious, why not mention one of them so everyone knows what he means by that). Which causes anyone who doesn't know what he's talking about to write him off, and the people who do know what he's talking about don't need to hear what he has to say.

In a real debate about these topics, people usually hide behind capitalist ideals to explain the immoral use of software. As opposed to trying to argue that immoral use doesn't exist, or isn't prevelent.
Aw man, I was really excited to read an article on squirrels.
Yes. I used the GDELT data set in a Geo-intelligence hackathon and it's very powerful, just have in mind that if you use Google BigQuery (actually the easiest way to use the data set) it will cost you money.
My understanding of PCP is that it tends to make pain easier to ignore. I am neither an expert on nor a user of PCP; this is just what I've heard. If you've got a reliable source, I'd love to see it.
Just for the record, I do agree, but I don't think all companies realise this (enough).
I expect it's due to your upbringing rather than genetics. You'd enjoy drugs as much as anyone else does. They're additive for a reason: they're really quite amazingly fun.
I stopped using Linux in the early-mid 2000s, when applying a security patch to sendmail required (at least then) that I learn its arcane compiler/build process. Burned at least a half day with no success. That was the last straw in a series of straws.

I was trying to build a business and was losing too much time. Went back to Windows, installed a free version of mailenable via point and click, then configured it through an intuitive GUI within minutes.

I'm sure I lost some tech cred on that transaction and it offended my sensibilities around MS at the time. But, man it just worked and that was priority one. I was already the CEO, developer, and customer support rep. There was just no value in adding Linux SA to the list.

Have never regretted it nor looked back.

EDIT: Interestingly, downvotes don't make any of my experience less true.
I've come to the sad conclusion that ODing on heroin is a rite of passage with that drug and simply...you either survive it or you don't.

I was fortunate enough to survive 4 hospital-trip-inducing ODs in my life.

I know it may sound flippant or glib or obvious, but when you start down that path its always "oh, that will never happen to me" or "i'm too smart to make that mistake"

Sad truth is...it pretty much happens to everyone.
I'm not sure if heroin ever left Santa Cruz after the 90s. It took a concerted effort to get a trail into part of a local park that had been dubbed "heroin highway". There was anyone from guys in suits and BMWs to homeless getting their fix in the area.

The trail helped mitigate issues for the park quite a bit, but the heroin problem is still huge. In Santa Cruz, I think a lot of it stems from decades of tolerance and looking the other way.

Now when people are fed up,a lack of treatment options, ease with which those living on the street can get a meal and access to cheap drugs, as well as a judiciary that is at best revolving door perpetuates the problem.
Uprooting simply bc I got the sarcasm, and think people are a bit too sensitive.
> Now put a pizza or chocolate in front of me and I have an impossible time stopping but that won't kill me of course.

Obesity kills.
According to the CDC 40% of Medicaid patients prescribed an opiate are misusing or abusing the drug.

Almost half of prescription drug overdoses are by those on Medicaid.

Medicaid patients with an opiate drug prescription had about six prescriptions on average in 2010.

Compared to people with private insurance options, Medicaid patients were much more likely to be prescribed stronger painkillers and have more prescriptions.

https://www.thefix.com/content/study-shows-40-medicaid-patie...
Thank you for that lovely contribution.
1. New processors will only work with Windows 10.

2. Linux is not Windows 10.

3. Therefore, new processors will not work with Linux. QED.

Except that is incorrect.

(Besides the fact that the processors with work with 7/8 too.)
The Man Who Studies the Spread of Ignorance
Writing it in Java or whatever other language doesn't help. All programming languages can be obfuscated as fuck if you want it. Java and other OO languages actually encourage the trend to wrap everything in dozens wrappers, singletons, factories and other stuff, where malicious code can be spread over.
The only time I ever see two people standing still on a single escalator stair is parents with children or romantic partners - people who are comfortable sharing physical space with one another. Strangers don't share an escalator stair.

So if you let people stand on the right and walk on the left, you're getting higher density and throughput, since you now have one person standing per stair PLUS people walking on the left. It's like turning a 1-lane into a 2-lane street.
> Music needs people like Schoenberg, just as software needs people like RMS. The progress of culture depends on the grand pronouncements of obsessive lunatics.

Maybe culture also needs people like Roger Scruton, for the same kind of reason.
Punk Mathematics (2010)
Instead of hurting you by helping you.
Parsing 10TB of Metadata, 26M Domain Names and 1.4M SSL Certs for $10 on AWS
Travis CI and Modern C++
The Joys and Challenges of Hiring Developer Bootcamp Grads
Not just that, its premise is wrong. "Wasteful" and "pointless" don't have any objective definition in the context of moral value, so what seems wasteful and pointless to one person could in fact be fulfilling and meaningful to someone else.
and the page says campaign created April 11, 2014. Maybe he repurposed a campaign he previously started to get a bike or something.
You have a fair point on emotions coming before goals.

However, your definition of sadness seems to hinge on sadness in a void. You assume that the only thing that can act on that sadness is the person who is sad; and you assume that the only reaction to sadness is inaction.

I have said it before, but let me be clear: Sadness is a social emotion. It drives you to do things that signal to others that something is wrong--crying, for instance. Assuming you've spent any time around a decent human being, you'll notice that sadness is met with efforts to create comfort, to fix the problem. This leads to a better existence for everyone involved, which is probably why we value the idea of helping each other so much.
That's true for air heat pumps, but many people (myself included) have ground water heat pump systems; either open- or closed-loop.

My unit is fairly old (mid 1980 Tetco) and provide all of our heating and cooling. It uses the most electricity in January/February for heating and July/August for cooling, but my total electric bill is usually never more than $200/mo and that included all of the home's "normal" electricity use.
Point taken. I sort of considered Skylake as new, but I misspoke.

Have any Skylake systems not on Microsofts' approved list been sold with Windows 7 preinstalled? If yes, I'd consider that a problem, but not otherwise.

I don't think it's their responsibility to support new devices that (according to this post) require significant restructuring of the OS to support.
why not have stairs between the escalators with arrows painted on them indicating up/down if not two sets clearly divided by the escalators themselves?

One thing to take into mind, you have to set your rules based on the lowest common denominator or the most disruptive. When people don't have any expectation of being punished for not respecting others or the rules they are in the most disruptive category. Hence they will stand on the left regardless and as such you need to adjust for it. Face it, there are just too many rude or don't care people in this world from a generation or two of being told its not your fault or others will adjust to you.
C or C++ for my game engine?
For 50% of the population? I call shenanigans.
A Neural Response to “Trigger” Stimuli in PTSD?
Ask HN: Is there an Apple news app but for software engineers?
E.g. you can subscribe to a site or a topic. Like subscribe to Nodejs weekly or React.js, or JavaScript in general?
I have to point out that we didn't legalize drugs, merely decriminalized their consumption. Just this week there have been multiple busts, ones for growing cannabis and others for selling amphetamines and hashish.
It's times like this I wonder what makes it to the top of HackerNews, in this case an article over a year old with nothing new.
Well I'm sure that's not helping, but you know, if they just offered more money I bet that would help, too.
Why You Love That Ikea Table, Even If It's Crooked (2013)
Classic left wing tolerance.
He picked objects in the British Museum.

Wars have their own museum in London - the Imperial War Museum - and the computer revolution is somewhat represented in the Science Museum.
Well there is a lot of research showing that opioids aren't effective when used longterm. But the caveats are that most chronic pain isn't continuous, it's intermittent, so maybe only a couple days per month. And also there are ways to reset your opiate receptors to undo the damage from opiate use, which this research doesn't take into account.

For most people weed is probably a better choice for chronic pain, but I also think opioids have a more negative reputation than is deserved.
> Honestly, desktop Linux is the most expensive OS out there if you count the value of your time

I had the opposite experience. I do tech support for my extended family and I grew tired of cleaning up viruses and chasing up drivers from questionable sites.

3 years ago, I started pushing everyone to Linux (Mint). I must say, I have saved myself a lot of time (yes, I do value my time)
I wonder what would be the % of cases of chronic pain that would be solved with weight management and moderate exercise.
> if we had a world where everyone had a truly equal opportunity, in the sense of having similar (or at least adequate) childhood nutrition, intellectual stimulation, education, etc., there would still be variations in productivity between individuals that would result in different economic outcomes.

That argument is still missing the point. Variations you will always have, but no guarantee that the same people would come out on top, unless you believe that the hardest workers happen to mostly come from well-financed backgrounds and caucasian gene pools. There are many people who work hard all their life and never make it out of the slums. Working hard is not a differentiator, it's what gets you a seat at the table. On the way up everyone works hard. Slackers don't even compete. The difference between those who make it to the top and those who don't is mostly not effort, it is opportunity, and good instincts to leverage that opportunity. In a truly fair world the people who came out on top would be an almost completely different set of people than those who are at the top today.

I feel like the criticism of the essay was not because of its content but its theme. It felt like a defense of the current system, whether taken narrowly as SV or broadly as global capitalism. This struck a nerve because most people in their gut know that the current system is fundamentally unfair and needs to be replaced by something better. It cannot be a good system that made it so that the set of people who own as much wealth as the poorest 3 billion all fit on a yacht, and not even a very big one. People got angry because they thought he was defending the way things are, even if his actual position was more nuanced.
A somewhat poorly structured piece; just reading the first and last paragraphs of each section shows a more train of thought article than a strict call to reason.

That being said however there is one important take away from this article for employees (or prospective employees, or sometimes even pre series A investors) because of stock restrictions and the nasty valuation overhang; a big valuation can possibly mean a big correction which can wipe out large chunks (if not all) of your stock options or grants. A double whammy if you've already paid tax on it (countries other than the US can vary significantly on this point).
That could actually be the issue.

Try turning off OpenGL:

You can do this by going to to Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ View.

P.S. I'm biased about LibreOffice as I have commit access and I'm working on the code at the moment. I do acknowledge its frustrating when things don't work, and I don't want to deny there are issues preventing you from adopting.

If it's not too much bother, can you file a bug?

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi
Why not? If I suppress the notification, you won't see it. You will then click "Log in" and I'll redirect you to your 2FA screen. I think it's ineffective at what it's trying to do.
Yet these social networks are still corporate entities. It's only a matter of time until powerful groups learn how to bend and twist them to suit their goals, if they haven't already.
Doubtful, but this generates controversy, which in turn exposes members of the tech community to the brand.
Wonderful.
I can definitely relate to being more afraid of being an incompetent old man than actually dying.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsensical. 'Poor' people, on the whole, work less, and have a better standard of living now than for most of recorded history.

It's much more likely that over-prescription of oxycontin is the root cause of any increase in heroin use.
I would like to know more about the ruling that killed off the high payout machines. Japan seems to actively discourage unproductive or antisocial activities. They want to maximize their workforce. However, there always seems to be a portion of the populace that wants to opt out of classic work. I wonder what the impacts to an overall society is when everyone is forced into the workforce.
You are correct about jail time.

On a different note, nobody bailed out the dot coms.
According to the 80/20 Rule, the top 1% should have over 50% of the wealth
The 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) is found to be applicable almost everywhere. So why shouldn't it be applicable to income?

top 20% have 80% of wealth
top 20% of that 20% (4%) have 64% of wealth
top 20% of that 4% (.8%) have 51% of wealth

This is inline with what we see in the real world:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/14/richest-1percent-half-global-wealth-credit-suisse-report
If the cost of home ownership has a major decline by blocking foreign investment, then you would actually be able to buy a home for cheaper than renting, which is normal for markets without so much demand. The exorbitant housing prices have just locked out normal people from ever building some sort of equity.
I was young once, and very afraid of dying.

As I've gotten older, and by no means do I consider myself old, I'm growing more content that I will die. My children are growing. Watching them age and mature, and tackle new things brings me the most joy in the world.

It is right that my life will end. It is right that the old must clear the way for the young and the new. It is the way of things.

The probability of my death is 1. Fighting it is useless -- living what I have is not.

Best of luck. I hope you come to terms with it in whatever way makes sense for you.
> Honestly, desktop Linux is the most expensive OS out there if you count the value of your time.

Can't agree with this more. All the "control" and "freedom" you have over PC fades quickly in the shadow of man hours needed to make things work on linux.
Thanks for the great slides.

Some questions:

I'm a bit confused trying to understand "error function" vs "loss function" (going from Linear regression to perceptron). Coming from a numerical background:

- Is the term 'error function' used as a special function (like sin, cosine, etc) or is it a generalized term ?

- If it's a special function (the one that looks like MSE [2]), then it's confusing because 'error function' as a fixed/special function is erf [1] also known as Gauss error function (and looks completely different).

- Are we using the term 'loss function' as a generalized term? whose special case is 'error function'? e.g., in linear regression loss function is 'error function' (MSE like function) but in perceptron, loss function is max(0, -xy)?

- Using final output of perceptron for error function makes it a "hard problem" agreed. But what about using just the function from linear regression (the MSE-like one) instead of a using a brand new function max(0, -xy). (It's not very intuitive to reason what's so special about max(0, -xy)).

- Also wondering why do we not use RMSE instead of MSE in linear regression. (But it might have a known explanation in statistics texts, so somewhat off-topic).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_function

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_squared_error
All the YCombinator companies are going to deflate.

AirBnB - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10913151

Stripe - http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/17/paypals-braintree-is-now-l.... Braintree was bought only 2 years ago for $800 million. 6x less than Stripe's valuation.

Dropbox - http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-.... They are bragging about the number of users, but I bet many of these 'users' are fake accounts made to get free space from referrals and never used again. Plus, there is so much direct and indirect competition. Their privacy policy is also very bad.

Zenefits - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/snapchat-isnt-the-only-startup...
Thanks for the post :)
Creative blocks (2012)
A case of unintended consequences, though, in this case, good.

In other situations, confirmed by many studies, racism in emergency rooms (and hospitals in general) have been very bad for blacks.
>The reason people/investors are moving to startups, as I see it, is that other assets are riskier than we thought

Quite the opposite as I would see it. There has been very few places to get a return on capital other than in equities. These crazy valuations are a product of that. When the market sentiment transitions from return on capital to return of capital in 2016 (as it's looking to be getting there), then we'll see these valuations drop.

>The difference is that oil doesn't enjoy the same upside of startups

But they will share a similar downside. Oil is the canary in the coalmine, and downward pressure on its price has broad impact.
The reason they call it error function in perceptron learning is that it relates to how the perceptron is taught a correction for an error. Loss functions are more general and usually the word people use when they're talking about optimization problem.s
If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
That's good. I think it's important to support open source rather than a closed source service with lock-in.
Here they say that the judicial system of Iran is based on sharia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_system_of_Iran . So it doesn't quite matter if you get flogged or stoned because of Shia or Sunni interpretation of Sharia.
Show HN: Pick: a Python library to create interactive selection list in terminal
did you get notified by SpaceX or Livestream? because I signed up for spacex email, but I never get any updates
Lazy Security
Thats an easy tweak (global replace the forbidden characters after hash) on the hash generator and for the max length I normally just copy paste the required length.
Ok, but that is a matter of availability of implementations, not a language feature.
On a side note, I recently discovered https://scans.io/ where you can find pretty much all of the data that I collected as well. Might be interesting.
Do you have an agenda or you just can't think on your own?

By your own description you should up your game a little before writing off some argument as "laughable".
Great ideal but the evidence hardly merits the conclusions. Ultimately, the same power is co-opting the technical mechanisms that are claimed to be democratizing.

One sign that we are at least on the way is that we wouldn't be declaring victory because candidates can raise billions from the masses. We would instead be celebrating that it doesn't take bilions to run.

As long as it does, then the "elite" will always have the advantage.