skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The "I'm not an American" question: Why does the IRS allow you to write off mortgage interest? That seems like a lot of tax lost for not much benefit to the government. Was it enacted to boost property ownership or something?
You say "grown" but D&D originally pretty much was a board game primarily. It was only with the later AD&D that things started getting further away from the classic dungeon laid out on a table using miniatures style play and more towards what most old school RPG players might think of when they hear the term "role playing game". And by "RPG" I'm referring in this case to the non-electronic versions played out of books, such as AD&D, any of the Palladium RPGs (Rifts was my favourite) or the original Champions for examples.
It's not just our trust that Google violated. Although legally their privacy policy has enough loopholes, it still says:

When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.

If we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy and/or in the specific service privacy notices, we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of personal information for those other purposes. We will not collect or use sensitive information for purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy and/or in the supplementary service privacy notices, unless we have obtained your prior consent.
That's quite the contortion. The computer models are not "ridiculously bad," and there is absolutely no credible evidence (that is to say, there's no evidence outside of the Daily Mail) to even suggest, much less prove, deliberate tampering of data. Moreover, that there is harm caused by the changes in our climate has also been very well established. I have little patience for continually rehashing the same unfounded assertions, so please be so kind as to show us the evidence of tampering. In other words, put up or shut up.
This is a well-written story, and one that has been experienced by many people I know, often with less happy ending.

Unfortunately, it is more of a general statement about the problems of the immigration system, rather than providing support for the Startup Visa proposal. The proposal, while a great idea in theory, is mostly useless in practice, since it requires $0.5 million in VC funding up-front - an investment that would be more typical for a company that is already about 1-2 years old.
What Are the Odds That a Given Cow Will Make It to the Super Bowl?
In this way, they are similar to C#'s expression trees, whereby lambdas passed as an argument where the parameter is of type Expression<T> receive an expression tree describing the lambda, rather than an actual callable object.
One section of the paper describes which algorithms the programers used. It appears that the solutions in scripting languages made heavy use of associative arrays, so the results might change if you swapped Tcl's hashing algorithm for Perl's.

The algorithms described don't seem very clever. I expect you could do much better by splitting the input number into digraphs or trigraphs, sorting those by frequency in the dictionary, and matching the rarest ones first.
Be that as it may - I cannot handle the forced laughter of these shows. I wouldn't even chuckle at the crap they are guffawing at.

Years ago my dad ruined sitcoms for me by suggesting that I make myself laugh whenever the crowd laughs. Try it - you'll realize how stupid the writing on these shows really is.
Agreed, the author isn't sexually mature. I think I was more sexually mature when I was 13 than the author appears to be.

Sex is a partnership. It's (generally) two people and (generally) one bed. If your sex life isn't to people participating, it isn't sex. The author sounds like she's a 'lays down and take it' kind of 'lover', which gives me the shudders.

Sex is a lot of things, but non-participating in it is IMHO akin to trying to be raped. It's nonsensical, and it IMHO sounds like non-consensual sex. I clearly don't comprehend it, but perhaps that's because when I wasn't even sexually developed I was aware of what sex was supposed to be.
Toshiba develops technology that could allow for.... This is not a product. Headline (yes I realize it is from the site) is misleading.
Everytime I see something about brainfuck I can't help but think someone really felt like procrastinating.
The plague of climate denialism on HN seems to be getting much worse as of late. Why does trash like this keep getting upvoted?
Don't worry, so does Chromium.
I was skeptical about his example of a compiler bug. Take the following similar example:

int bar(void) {
unsigned x = 1;
int y = -1;
return x > y;
}

Surprisingly, the result is always 0, at least on every version of gcc I've tried. How could this be? It turns out unsigned's are one area where the C standard really screwed up. When comparing a signed and an unsigned value, the compiler helpfully promotes the signed (-1) to unsigned.

I was surprised the given example with chars instead of ints didn't give the same result. Was it really a bug, or just ambiguity in the standard?
This almost makes me tempted to write a web app framework in Unlambda.

Almost.
Seriously? Did you even read TFA? The guy is saying that undergrad business majors are asinine. Probably true even at Stanford. What this has do with with a nameroll of 300 rich people you're paying $100k a year to rub shoulders with, I haven't a clue.
I wondered that too. My best guess is that range of signed/unsigned char both fit in signed ints, so there's no ambiguity in promoting them to ints.
Here is the most recent example of someone looking into the GISS data.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/11/giss-adjustments-in-au...

The models have obvious warming biased 'adjustments' built into them and there is no model, which when given the correct inputs at a point in time would successfully predict the climate for a following period of time. The 'Hockey Stick' graph, which eliminates the Midieval Warm period and the Little Ice Age is the most obvious sign of how bad the models are.
On $400 Hammers, $100 Bolts, and Cost-Plus Contracting
On Google Buzz
Brainfuck is the programming equivalent of BDSM. It's all about having fun in the most masochistic way possible. In this case, a little sadism is also involved. The author shares the source code, but not the comments.
I upvoted you because I think you made a great point—even though I don't completely agree. I feel that there is a point where speech, despite being allowed constitutionally, can be unacceptable. Not because it offends someone but because it is threatening, abusive, or demeaning. After all, verbally threatening someone is a crime (in most places) even though you're haven't actually harmed someone.
Maybe "unethical" is inaccurate, but I did mean to make a strong point. How about "annoying and unnecessary"? One reason why I enjoy HN is because, as you said, the intelligent and civil discussion. Despite it being sponsored by YC, I really appreciate the distinct lack of advertisements or blatant links to YC funded apps. It truly feels like an inclusive environment for all hackers, not just YC affiliated ones. Your comments are judged by their content, not (usually) by whether the author is part of the YC clique. Yes, I understand YC doesn't owe anyone anything, and if they wanted to, they have the right to turn HN into a billboard for YC companies. But that's not why I come here. That's why I think HN should nip these trends in the bud, so it stays as inclusive and impartial as possible.
The same story as every other one-off in the tax code: it was slipped in to placate an interest group who would monetarily benefit from the deduction, on the theory that the deduction rewards socially valuable behavior. (The official position of the American government for over a generation now has been that increasing home ownership is, ipso facto, socially desirable. It is a cornerstone of the "American Dream" -- our consensus idealized version of an idyllic middle class existence. )

Mortgage interest is a bit different than other one-off tax code hacks in that the group which benefits is much, much larger than typical. It is also essentially impossible to repeal, as the mortgage interest deduction essentially makes mortgages cheaper which makes property values higher, so repealing it would have the immediate consequence of making half the country poorer and also breaking their monthly budgets in an extraordinarily visible fashion.

A similar middle-class entitlement is the essentially limitless access to education loans. That also has some negative consequences (it underwrites the continual tuition inflation in higher education) and will also never be meaningfully reigned in.

[Edited to add: A common misconception, even among Americans, is that the IRS sets tax policy. The IRS does not set tax policy. Congress does, via legislation. The IRS just implements Congress' directives -- however vague, contradictory, and ill-advised they may be. My apologies if you already knew this and were just being imprecise in language.]
Although, like the article mentioned, there are plenty of words that we use without serious regard that are just as bad, we just have become numb to what they actually mean. For example:

moron - having a mental age between 8 and 12

dumb - slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; lacking the power of human speech;

idiot - a person of subnormal intelligence

imbecile - retardation more severe than a moron but not as severe as an idiot

maniac, lunatic - an insane person

We throw these words around (as a society) all the time without regard to their original intent. Is this simply a case of forgiving the past and trying not to repeat those mistakes going forward? Where do we draw the line with allowing words to be used outside of their initial purpose?
They're didn't really write a web app framework in brainfuck, they just plugged a PHP interpreter of brainfuck into a module for apache.

I mean, yeah, you can make web pages, but that hardly justifies the nomenclature "framework".
In this post I will teach you how to mine the rich treasure trove of personalization data sitting inside your visitor's browser history for deep personalization experiences.

There is no discussion of the privacy issues, which seems like a huge omission. I wouldn't use this on a website unless you like playing with fire.
It was just a matter of time before the CSS history trick was put to use. I can see the benefits, though I don't like the privacy implications.

History trick here (JS, no cookies, can poll user's web history):
http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-know-where-yo...
Ask HN: Climate Denialism on HN?
Recently, it's seemed that there's more and more climate change denialism related articles being submitted to HN. To me, this is horribly sad, as I have found that the intelligent commentary and debate on HN add a lot to my daily routine. What should concerned users such as myself do? I try to debate as I can and to present the evidence as it stands, but ultimately, this is a drain on my time. Any suggestions?
This article would have been a lot better with a bit of context at the beginning. I vaguely remember hearing something about the "$400 hammer" contract, but he speaks of "the bolt" and "the hammer" as if we're continuing a conversation. Otherwise, good article.
Boundaries are fun for hackers, too. It's a much more interesting achievement to get a thing to do something it was never intended to do (or perhaps even designed to prevent).
Ask HN: Is legal language copyrighted?
Long story short: I need legal language regarding submissions to a site I will soon have in beta-testing. I would like some legal language in place regarding indemnification, privacy and use of information; is there anything to stop me from grabbing said language from Digg or Reddit and adapting it for my own use? What are the dangers here, and do legal contracts fall under copyright laws in the U.S.?

I would love to find a trustworthy site with information on this question, and yes, I will be hiring a lawyer for this information, eventually.
Bill gates is not a fan of the iPad
SETI opens up its data to 'citizen scientists': Coders wanted
I just wanted to point out that neither dividends nor share price require taxable income. Corporations with zero taxable income can both pay dividends and have share price go up. In that case, the investor is only paying 15%, not 35% x 15%.
Yeah, but why not aim higher? Er, lower?

Besides, unlike brainfuck, Unlambda is actually a plausible language for writing nontrivial code--painful, but not inconceivable.
there's alot of places to outsource your iphone app development. Honestly, I would just get the app sourced, its alot cheaper.

After you get started, you can hire a programmer for <1% equity + salary. I'd be happy to send you to a few iphone developers.

-Chris
3D TV's need safety testing after 'binocular dysphoria' claims
1) I think the HN community has a natural skeptical streak - are we bordering on denialism or respect for the debate?

2) http://xkcd.com/386/
He mentions it (very) briefly with the Audi example. But yeah, this is a bit terrifying. I hadn't thought about this trick before now, and I don't see how you could easily turn it off...
Where To Find £100 P/H Part Time Jobs In The UK
Finding a part time job in the UK definitely isn’t as easy today as it has been in the past. A shrinking number of available jobs and a growing number of people unemployed are making it nearly impossible to get a worthwhile part time position for the average job seeker. I struggled with my job search for months before finally landing the perfect job,
It was not at all obvious that "create a public profile" was equivalent to "make public the people who I frequently email". Certainly it's much more complex than telling the difference between ReadWriteWeb and Facebook, in which case there was a great deal of sympathy for the clueless users.
[...] but without the distracting complexity of referential transparency?

How could referential transparency possibly be distracting or complex?
You may only get one chance for a good first impression of this project, but you can also get first impressions on other projects. Release early is all about finding if you are making something people want.

EX: I really want an improved version of PowerPoint that let's me embed editable graphs without crashing and it would be nice if the interface was cleaner. Now if I had a lot of money I might try and build a competing version of PowerPoint but what I really want is a feature, now what's the minimum product? How about a PowerPoint add on that cleans up whatever the bug(s) that causes the problem in the first place? Or a website that fixes broken PowerPoint files? Ok what's the minimum amount of work to to start to get money from this idea?
The Sweetest Hersheypark in Pennsylvania
I find it more funny that pretty much every post complaining about this over the weekend repeated the same thing over and over again. Which essentially boiled down to what Google should do to solve the problem.
I was with you until the boo-hoo white men are so oppressed bit at the end. Exactly the opposite analysis of the first part, which is to say going beyond the soundbite and into the larger context.
Pligg was pretty easy to pick up; however, I've been using wordpress for a year (which is how I got my feet wet with some development items). Feel free to ping me with any questions!

Make sure you don't use their control panel editor to edit the header file; with multiple themes I've experienced situations where components get messed up.
My Bummy Valentine
Thank you for citing your claims. Now I am not familiar with the particulars of the alleged manipulations by GISS in Australia, but I would note a few things. One, the analysis in your citation was missing any sort of error analysis, and so it is impossible to formulate a statistical hypothesis test of the claimed manipulations. Being a personal blog, I wouldn't expect more, but without that sort of detailed statistical analysis, the claims have very little weight to them. Second, climate change is not my area of scientific expertise, and so if there are errors in his analysis, I am not likely to notice them; thus, I refer you to a group of people who have expertise in this area: http://www.realclimate.org/. Third, even if the alleged claims are true, they are far from showing a systemic error in all climate data. Our understanding of climate change is far broader than GISS's efforts, even though they are important in that understanding. In any field of study, there will be errors and failures of the review process, and so to conclude anything about the validity of climate data as a whole would require some sort of evidence that the alleged manipulations are occurring on a large scale and across organizations. This has not been provided, and thus your earlier assertions are still not backed up by evidence.

On the issues of the the Hockey Stick, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, there is decidedly more to say that has been said by people much smarter than I. In particular, the scientists at realclimate.org have prepared excellent resources for those interested in learning more about these topics. For instance, with respect to the MWP, their guide available at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/mediev... cites studies which show that the MWP is at least partially an effect of strong regional variations in temperature. Moreover, the same guide cites a review that provides evidence that the MWP is not an anomalous warming period. They have a similar guide for understanding the LIA available at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/little....

Finally, I would refer you to http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-... for more on the Hockey Stick, since you haven't provided me with any specifics on your claims that it has been manipulated to hide the MWP and LIA. In lieu of more specific claims, I think that the best I can do is to refer you to that comprehensive guide.
Easy File Renamer
Does what it says. Very fast and easy to use file renamer. Good if you need to rename files like MP3 or photos.
That's a cool feature, though the UI is such that I would have never guessed that if you never told me. Using visual hierarchies would solve this design problem.
IANAL. Having said that, there are a few avenues for appeal. For instance, if the defendant's lawyer was provably incompetent or did not disclose a conflict of interest against his client. Or if the prosecution withheld evidence that would have prevented the defendant from taking the plea.

In most jurisdictions, the defendant could also opt for a bench trial, which would have just the judge and no jury.
Yea. I've taken a big break. I actually created that over the weekend a while back. I'll be kicking it into gear soon and getting it prepped for release
This is a silly back and forth until you can point at the "something" she got from b-school aside from pathway and pedigree. Again, that's what's being discussed. It's certainly possible that the degree got her the job, yet her own natural intelligence, undergrad experience, or professional experience led to her success. And /not/ the b-school curriculum.
In exactly the same way that lazy evaluation makes program flow easy to follow.

Or perhaps in the same way that the internet makes sarcasm easily recognized, I suppose...
I thought I would chime in, since I think my experience is slightly unique.

I enrolled in undergrad at Boston University as a Computer Systems and Physics major. After two horrible years of all-nighters and poor grades, I came to the realization that I didn't even like the jobs I would be lined up for (this was shortly after the dot com bubble burst) or the people I was going to be working with.

So I left the major and completed my degree from tiny Ithaca College as an Integrated Marketing Communications major.

Now, after a few years in the professional world as an ad exec, I'm pursuing my MBA from Boston College.

So coming from a mix engineer/marketing background, I can say that business school as a whole plays it far too safe. They dumb down the math requirements, and they don't push the "soft skills" enough either. Our "soft skills" class was treated pretty universally as a joke, and yet I didn't leave my corporate finance class feeling any more knowledgeable in that area either.

After a recent trip to Palo Alto, I have been dreaming about the opportunities that would be in front of me if I had pursued my MBA at Stanford, instead of taking the easy way out to Boston College. But in reality, I find the true value in b-school to be from your fellow classmates, network of alumni, and time you spend actually thinking about business.

Let me elaborate a little on that last point. This is the first time in my (short) career I've been able to read articles, discuss them with professors, and spend time critiquing existing business models. While this time spent won't show up on any transcripts, I think it will be invaluable to my future prospects.

I'll cut this comment short - but I encourage all to evaluate both the student body and the network of alumni before choosing a b-school. These are easily the two strongest aspects of the education you will take away afterwards.

all the best,
jeff vincent
That has got to be one of the most apropos links to xkcd I've ever seen. That said, if it were most any other forum, I wouldn't care so much, but I have found that HN is in general a quite intelligent community, and I hate to see that threatened by people so callously exploiting the natural skeptical streak you allude to. For instance, citing the Daily Mail is not actually respecting the debate, but going clear into denialist territory. I would be happy to see a real and substantive discussion of the faults of the IPCC, etc., but all I see is "AGW is wrong and the result of a conspiracy."
What's for steak today?
Little open source Sinatra app I wrote. Check http://github.com/juliocesar/whatsforsteaktoday/
They can only pay dividends out of money they've raised or money they've earned. If it's the former case, they're just shuffling money from all investors to equity investors, and giving the government a 15% cut (so investors lose). In the latter case, the general taxable-income argument applies.
Yes, and I think Google was too cavalier in how they flagged that up -- the current revisions are much better.

But nonetheless, it doesn't mean they forced people's data public, and it doesn't mean the NYT should have reported that as fact, as Winer demands. It's more nuanced than that, and only hit-seeking shouty tech blogs are saying otherwise. It'd be a disservice to their readers and the truth for the NYT to take their piece to the same histronic level as this link.