skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's interesting though that the power of the states has dropped to such a low level that we rely on the federal government to implement the larger changes.

Many states have been taken over by handcuffs of strict tax limitations (which is why california is screwed, and my own colorado is screwed to a lesser degree).

Really, the Massachusetts method of state-by-state decisions, then coalesced into national policy when it's been proven and has wide support is a good method to go with. But states can't do that now.

I'd say that the super-limited federal government only worked when states had a counterbalancing ability to get things done. I'm not sure why states power has fallen to so low a level (popularly elected senate, ability for citizens to push through restrictive state constitution amendments, massing of federal money that forces policy decisions [like highways & drinking age].... etc).
> what are we debating here? Clearly, large companies will demand NDAs, and clearly they are unlikely to back down for a 5 person web shop.

We're not debating anything.

I'm trying to find out how the presence of in-house counsel and/or a couple of hundred employees is relevant to a legal obligation. Yes, legal obligations come from contracts and laws and company size leads to inflexible behavior, but that wasn't the original statement. I've quoted it below.

"Practically no company with in-house counsel --- that is, no company with more than a couple hundred employees --- will show any flexibility on this; they're often legally obligated to have you sign one."
I'm not sure why people say that. It seems obvious. What optional '()' needs to achieve is:

def a
42
end

a => 42
a() => 42

So the grammar could use something like:

call = expression '(' ... ')'
call_or_variable = expression

it cannot be reversed really, because then it would match `call_or_variable` '(' ')' - which would make `a()` fail to run, because 42 is not callable (or you'd have to use backtracking and guessing... evil).

It cannot be the case of "no way of knowing", because at parsing time in dynamic language you don't know what the result of a function is - you only look at grammar. So in the simplest possible way, if the '()' is optional, then... I'm not sure how to call it, but let's say - '()' binds stronger than 'possible application':

foo => call foo
foo() => call foo
foo()() => call proc
I think this provides the best way to move forward in the way we address healthcare: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020425140457434...

It starts by addressing systemic issues:

1. Remove tax advantages from corporate plans

2. Allow people to see what their treatments cost -- pay for results instead of doctor anguish (the current way medicare works -- a truly horrible system).

3. Allow people to buy insurance from anywhere in the country.

4. Change the expectations of health insurance -- it covers disastrous problems. For everyday maintenance it's up to you, and you better make sure you do it because your catastrophic health insurance will raise your rates significantly if you don't take care of yourself.

5. If you have something happen that would be considered "a preexisting condition" for other providers your provider sets up a fund for you that covers that. For instance if you have cancer -- the health insurance you have at the time of diagnosis will cover the costs.

None of these need government mandates, they just need the government to get out of the way.

If you look at Lasik eye surgery costs the technology has gotten better and the price has declined -- that's what happens when people shop around, which is the majority of all healthcare dollars.
A price of £630 seems worth mentioning to me.
I've played around with making a strategy game in Java/Scala. It was surprisingly easy to work with. I didn't take it too far but performance was adequate (for a 2D, turned based game).

Anyone with experience making a "real" game in Java. I know http://www.freecol.org/ is built in Java.

Just wonder why it's not more popular for indie/casual games. Does performance degrade that much?

I'm do mostly C# but I wanted to try the JVM for cross platform deployment.
True, the slides themselves have no more content than what you listed, but the comments are worth reading.
> ... custom software is more than 90% of all software out there.

I've read this in several variations for years. But I've never seen a reference.

Is this just a myth or can anyone point to real research which provides evidence for the claim?
Really, the Massachusetts method of state-by-state decisions, then coalesced into national policy when it's been proven and has wide support is a good method to go with. But states can't do that now.

I agree with your idea that experimentation at the state level before attempting something federally would be far superior.

But I disagree that States can't do so now. Certainly where I live now (New Jersey) there's nothing limiting local experimentation into healthcare (certainly not a strict tax limitation!!).

Frankly, I think the problem is that those proposing such measures can't stand to see anyone try a different approach (or none at all). In their righteousness, they convince themselves that their idea is the only correct one, and thus everyone must be forced to "benefit" from it.

I wish I knew what happened to the philosophy of letting each person live the kind of life they want, without having to be subject to the values of someone else.
The AMA has actually reduced the number of medical schools in order to control the doctor supply. The AMA is a cartel and nothing more. Lots of people want to go to medical school, but are unable to.
I can't release MIT licensed code that links against a GPL'd library. That's a pretty huge incompatibility if you ask me.

Of course you can. The belief that the GPL is "viral" or can somehow infect unrelated software is spread by groups opposed to widespread creation of GPL'd software.

The GPL is a copyright license. It applies only to cases covered under copyright, eg, distribution of the original and derived works. This means you can release code under any license that links to GPL'd code. If you create a derived work (eg, compiled binary) from both original works, you'd need to abide by the terms of both licenses.

For example, say you have an application under the MIT license, and you'd like to support a GPL'd library. The resulting license tree would look like this:

MIT (app code) GPL (library code)
| |
-------------------
|
GPL (app binary)
Were they lawbreakers if there was no trial? I'd say that you're innocent unless proven guilty.
Nice collection of amazing articles, thanks for sharing this.
Work – Life Balance and Yoga
Healthcare insurance rates have been going up 15% a year for a decade. As in, they've almost tripled in the last decade. That's a staggering amount of money and I personally have only the faintest understanding of where it's going.

I'd that pretty much dictates that "reform" of some kind is necessary. Whether you disagree with a given set of reforms or not is another discussion of course.
I do the exact same things. Quicksilver/terminal on the macbook, Gnome Do/terminal on the desktop. If I'm working in the Windows VM, I use Launchy.
The first bottleneck on the MySQL set-up is the reading, not the writing. Even with the indices stored entirely in RAM (as the author pointed out in his blog post), the MySQL box can't keep up. (Consider the workflow of a software system that needs to parse hundreds of thousands of feeds on a continual basis. Each feed you download will have dozens of entries, and most of the time you'll have already processed the entry, so it can be ignored -- but the only way to know is to do a look-up.)

Regardless, A 68GB EC2 instance costs ~$1700/month. Four 2GB slices on Slicehost are priced at $520/month, with the cheaper set-up performing significantly better.
Why is this a link to a fork rather than the original?
You started off so strong. You really did. Next time avoid the "hurf durf, people are so dumb" line at the end.

I made a very similar point on another comment in this thread, that basically the states should be making the majority of the laws, but they've let themselves get tied up with very restrictive rules (at least in the few states I'm familiar with).

As far as truly unconstitutional laws, I don't think they happen nearly as much as you think they do.
I think he misses the point, a lot; and that this is rather unnecessary to begin with, at least in the USA.

First question to ask in the USA is:

"Why are there quotas on medical doctor training?"

If you create scarcity, what do you expect will happen?

ISTR back in the 1990s the Clinton administration crowing about how they were helping NY State reduce the number of medical school admittances.
The GOP wouldn't have come on board for anything.

A few weeks ago the GOP filibustered the routine raising of the debt cap that has to be passed every so often while the gov't's running a deficit. Ok, fine, they didn't have a problem with deficits for the last 8 years but whatever.

The next vote? PAYGO rules. The GOP filibustered THAT too. Wtf? And a week later they filibustered the appointment of a deficit reduction commission, which had been originally proposed by republicans.

The current state of congress is that the GOP will try to filibuster every single thing that's proposed by a democrat, even if they agree with it.
Op Amps For Everyone
It may be the future of healthcare in a lot of the world, but not in the U.S.. Our health care interests are too entrenched. This would be too disruptive.

Probably this is already illegal in the U.S., or cost prohibitive if you tried to staff the phones with workers who would be legal. I wonder if one could legally hack the system by using a call center located outside the U.S. . . .

Of course, the public could be turned against something like that pretty easily. Just publicize the hell out of the first person who dies due to a mistake that came from the call center. Congress would pass a law the next week.

Another commenter suggested that our medical system needs a "reboot". Oh my yes. But I don't see how we're going to get one.
I'm liking the syntax but I don't think it has all the goodies that ActiveRecord offers. Though all this SQL stuff doesn't really matter because the future of web-apps are all going to be driven by non-relational databases such as MongoDB. I really do like the Sequel effort,the code is clean.
This is undoubtedly because filibustering isn't what it used to be. Once, you had to actually hold the floor of the senate to filibuster. It was difficult and disruptive and not something many were willing or able to pull off. Now one side or the other just declares their intent to filibuster and we act like it's the same thing.
I don't understand the legalities in question here, but can JP Morgan really change the terms of a loan after the loan has been made?
I'm writing a Java-based game ( plug: http://www.metalbeetle.com/spaceexploration/ ). Performance can be very tricky if you want a good screen resolution, and there's lots of gotchas, like having to make sure that you force your sprites into the right colour space for your screen.

On the plus side you get a reasonably fast, garbage-collected language to write your game in.
Io presents an interesting alternative. There are only Blocks (functions with assignable scope). Blocks have an activatable slot. If you set it to true, the block is activated when an object receives a message that looks up the slot with the block. If false, it returns the block.

sayHello := block(“hello” println)
sayHello //returns the block
sayHello setIsActivatable(true)
sayHello //prints “hello”
getSlot(“sayHello”) //returns the block

http://www.iolanguage.com/scm/git/checkout/Io/docs/IoGuide.h...
A lot of accolades in this thread. As for me and the rest of the silent majority, we poor ambitious upstarts will find a new home. I might consider it if I knew my contribution would lead to significantly greater production value, like airplane tickets for in-person interviews or investigative reporting.

Eulogy: Andrew was flirting with becoming a figure in start-up world... something which can't be bought. Managed to sell it.
I still don't believe you.

Ah, sorry, the "more elementary particles than the entire planet" claim wasn't made by me. My first comment was too vague, here is another try:

Yes, it sounds like a very strange claim, since isn't biological material made from elementary particles, and clearly you could fit someone who speaks Chinese into the room. Obviously that assumes that people are made of elementary particles, but if someone is going to argue that, I'm going to need a better definition of elementary particles to make any progress.
yeah that fork is way behind with the original, follow this baby.

http://github.com/jeremyevans/sequel
We have a similar collection of tests used by one of the societies I was involved with in college, at http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/help/exams/
That's time-shifting for personal use... Pretty sure that's legal.
before you start the project create a couple of items mentioning tests that would test that the project is done. Then when you want to leave/mark project as completed while its not, run these tests (manual) if you dont pass the tests you didn't complete, complete it!
This is one of the best articles I've read for a while. Really interesting insights into the writers thought process while coding.
I like how he said that when the code didn't suck he would release the source, so really we'll never get that code. Wish he'd put it on a git so others could just commit to it.
Unlink Your Feeds
DreamPie: The Python shell you've always dreamed about
The kind of laws I'm referring to are like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Bill_of_Rights

Basically, it limits the ability to tax, so a new program (say, single payer health care for the state), that would require a tax, requires massive public approval. Which stops progress as much as the federal government gridlock.

Your last line betrays some of your political leanings. In my view there are two major competing ideals of government. There's your "live & let live" ideal, and there's the "we're in this together" ideal. Neither is wrong, and both have a pretty strong argument behind them. But it leads to totally different policy decisions that are at odds. So yeah, that's what happened to it, there's a competing ideal.
I was going to comment on that line, too.

However! This kind of coinage dates quickly. In 2000-2001, people started using "Nasdaqed" as a verb for "dropped precipitously." (http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002/msg00256....). It died after a while, even though the Nasdaq is still below where it was when people started using the term.
(1926)
Did you read the article? If they were innocent, how did the alcohol with the poison get inside them?
That's the difference between the legal concept and the regular one. You're a lawbreaker when you break the law; you're guilty when a court procedure agrees.
I like the $1 per video idea. It sounds like an absolute steal. Another possible experiment is to have a monthly subscription fee for companies to have their name/logo show up on the pages of relevant videos. The minimum fee could be $5/month for companies (so barrier to entry is low), but precedence would be given to companies paying the most for particular pages.
Original title is more informative and less sensational: The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.
> I'm hard pressed to name a single business in which consumers have been well served by call centers.

Most of the time that I get on the phone to a big corporation I end up talking to someone in a call center.

There are certainly exceptions (phone company!), but I usually get adequate service. It's fairly common to get very agreeable, friendly, competent service.

We had a dial-a-nurse line in a town I used to live in. We used it several times, it was a very nice resource, and when we moved I missed having it. (That was about 10 years ago--I believe it is shut down now, FWIW.)
CPU Benchmarks
"As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City..."

Is there anything Chuck Norris _can't_ do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_syndrome ?
source is wikipedia.

yes, that is what I'm saying. I don't view a religious civil war between hindus and muslims over pakistani independence to be violence with a purpose. I see all violence as purposeless. the product of ignorance that could have been avoided. I say this not as a high minded ideal, but as simple rational appraisal. violent action is rarely economical unless the aggressors are able to externalize the costs of their aggression onto some other group. support for war is often drummed up through appeals to ignorance on the part of the populace supporting the aggressors.
This is pretty terrible journalism. It discusses deaths from people drinking denatured alcohol when it was first introduced in 1920s prohibition USA, but doesn't provide any context.

Denatured alcohol is still widely sold today, without any controvresy. It has poisonous additives, but is cheaper because it's not taxed.

There's a genuine public health issue here, which the article also ignores. Drinking is a massive problem in some parts of the world where alcohol is poorly controlled. Half of all premature deaths of working age Russian men are due to alcohol consumption. And while many of those come from drinking poisonous alcohols, the majority are from plain old vodka.
To extend on what you said. I think the price points are wrong. I'm not sure the interviews are strong enough to justify at minimum a $25/month recurring subscription. I would potentially pay a few dollars (prob not though). If nothing else I would rather pay as I go ($1 a video or something) as opposed to the subscription. What it comes down to is that a lot of these people are being interviewed elsewhere that can be consumed for free. Without offering something different I'm not sur ehte price point is justified...
So you're saying that I can license my code under anything as long as I still follow the rules of the GPL...

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibrary...

Does mention "or compatible license".

And I'm really confused about dynamic languages that aren't explicitly compiled before distribution.
Additives are still added to make alcohol poisonous and unpalatable, in addition in many countries a coloring is added. Traditionally, the main additive is 10% methanol, giving rise to the term methylated spirit. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

The article was sensational in 1926 and probably still is.
Why does the type matter? Ruby apps extensively use duck typing, they only care that #call is implemented irregardless of the actual type. Even blasdel is duck typing by implementing __call__ in his own classes.

> In most situations if you saw 4 classes in the system doing virtually the same thing, but you need to use a specific one depending on context

You don't need to use a specific one. You never directly instantiate a Method/Proc/etc. Instead of you just focus on the goal you want to achieve (e.g. passing an object's method, or maybe some kind of callable object that you received via an argument) and then Ruby gives you an object of some type that works.

> You just expect to call .get_address(), but suddenly find out that one of them handles only .get_customer_address().

This does not apply to Ruby. Method and Proc (actually I think there are only Method and Proc, not 4 classes as the grandparent suggested) both respond to #call. They are not two distinct types that behave completely different, they behave the same from the point of view of the caller and just have different names. Given a function that expects a Method or a Proc, you can pass either a Method or a Proc and it always works.
I like this essay and it has some similar points just like PG's stuff essay.
Hm, on second thought, I guess it probably is, except maybe if his TOS explicitly disallows it. It's basically the same as DVRing something. Still seems wrong.
Essentially, the author (who is Indian) says that to break the ceiling for Indians, those Indians who made it against the odds formed a network to help other Indians coming in behind them. This allowed them to stake their claim in the valley.

He's saying that would be a workable model for other minorities and women also.

I guess the fix, then, is to discriminate back, in the opposite direction.
Over a year ago they were experimenting with this, and still no results? Not very encouraging. Has anyone since seen any evidence of further developments in this area? I've never noticed these features when receiving signed mail.

I had always hoped that gmail would popularize PGP signatures, if not integrate outright encryption (PGP has been implemented in JavaScript plenty of times -- right up Chrome's alley).

I'm sure there are all kinds of legal implications for Google to consider (disabling features for users in countries where crypto is illegal/more strongly regulated, places it would be illegal to "export" to, etc), not to mention the fact that encrypted mail would preclude targeted advertising, but email and crypto go together like PB&J. HTTPS enabled by default was a step in the right direction (and it certainly took them long enough), but signature support seems terribly overdue, to me.
Speedup 12 machine learning algorithms with mapreduce on multicore machines
Free Code? Free Art?
Personal computer and cellphone spending has probably increased by a larger amount than that, though I'm not sure where to find exact statistics.

If spending on computers and cellphones has increased by 15%/year, does that also necessitate PC/Cellphone reform? If not, why not?
$25/month is not a big deal. Andrew works his butt off setting up these interviews, researching the interviewees and their companies, and then talking to these folks for 60 minutes each time (not to mention paying for transcription services, hosting fees, etc.)

The sense of entitlement here is appalling.
Because as everyone knows, real diversity consists of having enough people with the right skin color.
There's a difference between things that are generally harmless in their prescribed doses--water, aspirin, homeopathy BS--and the example given in the article, where the patient took the pills as specified and soon lost her kidneys, got cancer, and had a heart attack.

If the Wu practitioners are giving out lethal doses of their medicine, they should be crushed by the FDA.
Entertainment isn't an economic benefit?
I've used sequel and activerecord extensively--most recently at http://vodpod.com, which has, er, non-trivial database requirements.

Hands down, Sequel is the superior library. Arbitrary many-through-many-through-many-... relationships, totally customizable callbacks for association building/caching, trivially easy master/slave and multi-master sharding, infinitely chainable and extensible subsets, powerful grouping and joining support... the list goes on and on. Plus it's bloody fast. let's put it this way: it is almost never necessary to drop to raw SQL with Sequel. The only cases in which I've done so have been implemented as Sequel features or plugins within three months. In ActiveRecord, we have to drop to SQL all the time.

Plus, the code is clean. Extremely modular, readily extensible; anyone who's poked around in the AR source can tell you what a nightmare it is to figure out what's going on.

Also, Jeremy Evans (the author), and the rest of the community around it, are awesome--check out #sequel on Freenode sometime.
Python++
MongoDB, sure.
Turbogears?
Expensive placebos work better than cheap ones, and pretending to do acupuncture creates more placebo effect than giving people sugar pills:

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20
It doesn't matter, they've already made the judgement that the schools property is more important than the privacy of children, because they were students.

They shouldn't have activated them once let alone 42 times.