skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Portugal decriminalised personal possession of drugs 15 years ago, which has given us some useful evidence. HIV infection rates and drug-related deaths have reduced significantly, and the prison population has reduced by over 50%. The proportion of people who have ever used drugs has increased slightly, but there has been a reduction in the number of regular drug users.

We don't really know what would happen in a laissez-faire system, but we can be fairly confident that a medicalised approach would have substantial positive effects.

https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
Official WordPress Plugin Directory No Longer Accepting Frameworks
Folks are experimenting with models like this around Kickstarter, Patreon, Serial Box, etc.

The jury's still out on how successful it will be, for what kinds of projects, but I think it's clear that the world in which $15 retail packages are the only form factor prose fiction is ever sold in is basically gone, and that's probably for the better.

My favorite early example of this was Shadow Unit (http://shadowunit.org/), an entirely donation-supported serial.
I remember some years back an interview (maybe Bill Gates?) mentioning that software have a long way to go compared to other technologies.
E.g. If you turn on the oven and it doesn't work it's baffling, while for any program to just fail is expected.

Great to see we are fixing the gap by going in the opposite direction :)
I just looked at the IoTivity website, but it looks awfully "enterprise-y"/"design-by-committee". Are you involved with it and can report otherwise? Any "real-world" examples?
> When a physical object that has to be manufactured and shipped costs more than a text file, I feel ripped off

But this is highly irrational.

If the physical book is a better deal for you, then go for it. If the eBook deal is better, then go for that. If you still decided that the eBook deal is better than I can't fathom how it can be a 'rip off' because another deal that you turned down is cheaper. What effort went into making the product is entirely irrelevant. All that matters is the price and value to you.
I've always thought that, in the US, that States could provide a perfect market testing platform for various social ideas.

You don't want abortion? Make Kansas, say, a no abortion state.

Legalized drugs? Head your head to Colorado.

Socialism? Sure New Hampshire is almost there already anyway.

Well, you get the point. It's been proven that actual markets almost always work as well if not better than diktat, so these "experiments" could be monitored and all the rest.

I mean, why not give something totally new a try?

What we have now is killing people and ruining their lives as I personally live through its failings everyday.
I guess this means contravariance, which commonly comes from having a method that accepts an argument of the same type. Consider Comparable in Java. Maybe you want to say Animal implements Comparable<Animal>. But that would mean that any Animal is comparable to any other Animal - the compiler would let you compare a Cat to a Dog. Whereas really what you want to do is reuse the implementation of Animal, but Cats are only comparable to other Cats, and Dogs are only comparable to other Dogs - so Cat and Dog should inherit from Animal, but their types won't actually be subtypes of Animal. (There's no way to express this constraint in Java).
Kids fun workout
New 'Introduction to IPv6' Online Tutorial Now Available
I am studying Elixir/Phoenix, and I am paralleling this with LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang), a lisp front end to the Erlang compiler, created by Robert Virding, co-creator of Erlang. It seems like Elixir has the lion's share of popularity for the foreseeable future, but there are some differences to the approaches taken between the two besides syntax, and I am not choosing for work, since I do not make my living coding. See this response by Robert on being able to change the meaning of the Elixir constructs, but not actually add new functions, operators, etc... as can be done with a lisp, and therefore LFE [1].
I am also excited about how Pony for concurrency and messaging may address similar solutions[2].

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lisp-flavoured-erlang/ensAkzcEDQQ
[2] http://www.ponylang.org/
We came to Discord from Hipchat... mainly because I'm championing it. The killer feature to me are the voice channels when you're dealing with remote staff. They nailed this.

However, for a company, there are a lot of missing features, so definitely take some time to evaluate it first to make sure it's a fit. For example searching chat history (something we miss a great deal, but can live without). Also, the permissions are horrendously complicated and the fact that you can't remove or lock down the "public" room is super annoying.

That being said, we're still using it and pretty happy. It probably doesn't measure up too well against Slack if you don't value the group voice channels.

Just saw the threaded discussions feature for Zulip from a thread in here. Wow, that would be killer.
How should the bank handle that. Sounds like one needs to send a crypto signed ACK before the bank enable access with the reauth code. Good companies at least send an ack email after the fact.

Not much seems to have been done about verifying the receiving end of communications - when I call a company on the phone there's no default protocol to confirm their credentials (like per user passwords for the business).
Smarter, better and faster advertising?
You might be right, but we are pretty certain that we pay at least 20% more than the larger companies around here. Nobody has requested a salary that we have said no to. The feedback we have been given is that we do pay better, but that it feels safer for them at a larger place or that they have found something more interesting.

I understand that the domain (finance) we are in isn't the most attracting for some people, but we try to pitch the exiting parts like scalability and machine learning.
One of the biggest problems with drugs is the addictiveness. You seem to have no problem with addictions, so let me inform you. It fucking sucks. Your entirely of being is focused on getting to that next respite of peace that only some substance seems to be able to provide. Goals? Fuck em. Job? Who cares. Commit crimes for cash? Absolutely.

The problem with hardcore drug use is that it literally strips you of your decision making capabilities. Many people describe it as a secondary being within their body, for damn good reason.

The only reason I ended up 'normal' and not an addict is that I had the support system in place to deal with the underlying issues that caused my reckless behaviour, before they led somewhere I had no coming back from.

My addiction started with Adderall, prescribed by a doctor.
> why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves

Also: theatre.

Much like a lot of airport/airline security measures are theatre to reassure the common people that something is being done, the war on drugs continues because people who don't know any better (or don't believe the ineffectiveness argument) will feel less safe if it officially stops or even steps down a notch. This situation perpetuates itself, and any escalation doesn't get reversed, and feeds into the politics point others have already mentioned because people feeling less safe are less likely to vote for you next time.
The operator of Pinboard says that companies should treat personal data like radioactive waste. You should not keep it around, or keep as little as is required/possible, and keep it secure and away from everything else.

It's a great way to think of it.,
Tech trends that will drive the next wave of mobile innovation in the enterprise
Skyscanner | London, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Budapest, Sofia | ONSITE, VISA | full-time

We're one of the biggest travel metasearch enginees in the world by traffic... and we want to x10 that :)

Hiring distributed systems engineers, full stack engineers and iOS & Android engieners. We are hiring to all our European offices - London and Barcelona being the 2 newest ones, with the most fresh buzz right now.

Specifically we're looking for people interested in working on large scale personalization challenges: how do we turn data we have of 50M monthly users' search habits into new products, or adopt our web site and apps to "just work" for any type of person. For example a busy traveller with less price sensitivity will want to see a different set of default results then a backpacker who is looking for the cheapest flights hitting multiple cities.

We've recently opened a Barcelona and London office - I'm one of the first engineers in London, and there is incredible energy across the company. We are set out to be the #1 flight search engine in the world: from the UK through US, all the way to Asia.

We're one of the very few unicorn companies HQ'd in Europe who are profitable - and have been so for the past 7 years. Recently we've had the director of Amazon S3, Bryan Dove join us as our VP engineering - in London you would be working closely with him (as I already am).

You can apply at http://www.skyscanner.net/jobs/ - or ping me at gergely (dot) orosz (at) skyscanner.net for a referral.

On a personal note I love the company's culture of "ask for forgiveness, not permission". Engineers make a LOT of decisions, so your ideas make it into production quite easily. This would be typical for a startup... but for companies this size it was a breath of fresh air to me. Any questions you might have, please email me and I'll be happy to answer.
If you went on holiday the cat would more likely starve than roast. Australian and many other cats also regularly endure high heat - 32 degrees C plus. The author really should have left that out or thought it through a little more, detracts from the argument
Data storage as a service is getting really interesting. For storing data that needs a structured schema this is great. Although, I have to admit, it'd take a lot to drag me away from Firebase and its event based API (eg pushing updates to a connected user over a socket when things change).
not sure if they changed course, but slack has been talking about becoming the hub for all business comms and files and eating into ms office/google apps
Go for Sensu, you wont look back and it has terapeutic powers, when it comes to monitoring ;)
I really find it absurd that stating facts is downvoted here on HN because it doesn't fit the hivemind. Singapore and Indonesia execute drug offenders and despite what I am told should happen in this thread, there is very little crime despite their crazier "War on Drugs". When compared to a country like Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have far lower crime and drug use.
Why America abandoned nuclear power, and what we can learn from South Korea
Yes. My understanding of "working well below market" is that it by definition means there are much better-paying jobs available to them, no?
Or a bathroom that can be cleaned with a pressure hose rather than scrubbed by hand every couple of weeks, yet still look attractive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11139703

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11196130
Keeping Up with the Trends: Apple News Format for Publishers
Well put. I was even surprised that most US homes don't have an electric kettle for boiling water but put a 'dumb' kettle on a stove!
Personally speaking (although I'm hardly one of the "younger drug users" you refer to), I would continue to consume more or less the same quantity of drugs that I do now. I would possibly increase my intake very slightly, but not significantly. The significant differences would be that I would probably pay less, I would be consuming safer, regulated substances, and I wouldn't constantly be in fear of being sent to prison for a personal lifestyle choice.

Unless the penalties drastically increase, or I am convinced that what I am doing is morally wrong, I shall probably continue to take my drug of choice for the foreseeable future.

From what I've heard, the marijuana that grows in the wild tends to be of a far lower quality than that which is cultivated.
חדרים לפי שעה – Discreetroom
Maybe not an MBA per se, but some business training is useful. I keep on seeing the simplest mistakes in startups, especially around invoicing (which is most visible to me in terms of business stuff). Invoices that don't have the name of the company or the product on them. Invoices that are dynamically generated when you view past history (= very susceptible to bugs). Invoices you can't really print a hardcopy of. Invoices without tax components. Invoices with totals in weird positions; without dates; without payment guides; with dates, but without invoice numbers.

When it comes to business, invoices are one of the easiest things to get right, and yet so many fail. Makes you wonder about their business nous on other topics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country

In the Netherlands, where marijuana is effectively legal†, the percentage of the population aged 15-64 which has used the drug at least once in the past year was 5.4 (2005). In the US the data was from 2009 (pre-legalization in Oregon and Colorado), and was 13.7%

Anecdata: I've lived in both places, weed just isn't as cool in NL as it is in the US.

† Use of marijuana in NL is totally decriminalized and it is easily purchasable by anyone over 18.
Because one day they will exceed humans. When that happens they will very likely destroy us. They wouldn't have any reason to keep us around.
I feel like after the recent shuttering of other (D)BaaS services, I can't even consider another such service unless it's open source. One the flip side - what was that database that apple bought then closed sourced without warning?
You might be interested in this Japenese bookshop - it was on HN a while ago. The proprietor only stocks one title at a time and treats the shop more like an exhibition.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/23/japanese-booksh...
We have a channel for our team to BS around in and one for more serious discussion which inevitably trends towards BS. Someone has to be an adult and tell people to quit it eventually. It's a problem with our team but not slack.
You could insist that addicts use the government-provided drugs in a clinic. Don't just hand it to them.
Augment, the top augmented reality app on Android&iOS, announced new fundraising
I'm in the middle of the application process for an MBA, and have thought about this before (cost and time investment).

An MBA is not a magical piece of paper that will guarantee success. However, it will definitely give you the resources and the network to change your trajectory. You still have to work really hard at it.

At any of the top schools, there's more competition among the students for recruiting (for many coveted industries: e.g. IB, PE, Consulting, Tech etc) because that's where everyone wants to go.

If you're pursuing something non-traditional then you might want to rethink the need to go to one of the top schools

You're not guaranteed a position just by going to the school and there is definitely a bias towards a lot of bigger companies recruiting at only the Top 10-15 schools unless you can really network your way to the top.

The MBA is just another data point people use to qualify your candidacy. It's all about risk management and just like there is a bias towards a Harvard/Stanford/MIT grad or Google/FB engineers (this is what a lot of startups list on their site) the MBA is an indicator.

Outside of the brand, I still do think you learn a lot in the class setting (working with diverse teams who come from different backgrounds and the ability to work on projects and consult in industries you've never worked in is a great learning experience)
>the only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore

I'm sure they also hang people for chewing gum in Singapore, or whip them or whatever, doesn't mean that we should imitate them.

Who wants to live in a society where people are treated like that?
If the WIFI goes down on the nest you just go poke the heatlink and it starts the heating. Then sort your WIFI out.
There's nothing about React that makes it worse for screen readers.
Firefly Learning | Developers | London UK | ONSITE

Imagine you could save every teacher in a school one hour a week. Instead of an hour of drudgery, they could be preparing their lessons, teaching or actually having a life outside the classroom. At Firefly, you can help do exactly that.

Firefly is a learning platform used by hundreds of schools worldwide to create, share and learn. We combine easy content creation with deep school integration to make a useful tool for class work, homework, and coursework. We’re self funded and doubling yearly. As an established company serving many customers and integrating with a variety of other services, we’re continually learning how apply best practices to existing code, whilst still deploying new features and bug fixes for teachers and students every two weeks. We're currently focusing on getting better at separating of concerns and building up an automated testing suite. We’re also improving the speed and reliability of our infrastructure, and trying new technologies to keep current (e.g. Swift and React).

We looking for four main strengths in you:

◦ skill: your colleagues would say you get things done to a high standard. You know about and apply appropriate best practices in your work. You are at home with improving and extending existing code as well as new development.

◦ desire to learn: despite (or perhaps because of) you being good at what you do, you want to get better. You seek out best practices, new ideas, honest feedback, and unknown areas of code, in order to know more and work better.

◦ understanding: our product team is great but not infallible. You’ll be happy to challenge and clarify product decisions with our users’ best interests at heart. Everyone at Firefly shares responsibility for the product making sense and being of high quality.

◦ clear communication: We have a lightweight process, so most days, other than a morning standup meeting to share what’s going on and what’s planned, you’ll be responsible for your time. This also means that, when there are issues, you need to inform the right people, explain what’s going wrong, and help get things resolved and moving forward again.

Speaking of process, we’re pretty small-a agile and are happy to try things out to see what helps.

In terms of experience, we need you to be comfortable with iOS or a web platform. Our server-side code is written in C# and our web front end has some Javascript, so you’ll need to know these or be able to pick them up. We work as generalists, so experience of any of the following would be a positive: React, iOS, shell scripting, infrastructure automation, building API integrations, and databases (particularly SQL Server).

We offer competitive salaries dependent on experience, a generous bonus scheme, flexible training budget, brown bag talks and Kaizen weeks for self-improvement and experimentation. So, if you’ve got an interest in education and a desire to learn your craft alongside others making the same journey, we want to hear from you. Drop me an e-mail (robin at fireflylearning.com) or apply on our website – http://fireflylearning.com/join-our-team/jobs/developer
IOS 9.3.4b also has automatic temp control built in. I was sideloading f.lux -- but this works just as well.
To be honest, most US homes don't really need one. We're not a tea country and most boiling of water is done in a pot to cook with. It's changing, and I personally love the things (Alton Brown suggests cooking hard boiled eggs in them), but my parents don't even own a kettle I think...
But Japan and Hong Kong and many others still have far lower drug use and crime rates despite their very tough laws on drug use, when compared to Portugal.
It's been tried a few times in reality with Heroin and seems to work ok. Sometimes they make the addicts use it in front to the counsellor to ensure they are not taking it to sell on.

http://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-for-prescription-hero...
We were taught both sides of the story in our "drug diversion impact on public health" classes. Decriminalisation opens opportunities up to reduce harm to the public through reduced drug-related crimes, safer injecting (of the hard stuff) and less blood-borne viruses spreading. Australia has its own version of decriminalization known as the "harm minimisation policy". While all drug-related activities are illegal there, the judicial and healthcare systems are not so black and white about enforcing the laws.

Nonetheless, the other hand always wants its share. In the case of Australia, harm minimisation has reduced drug-related crimes, but the prevalence of drug use in the general population continues to rise, especially with regard to pills and amphetamines. Blood borne viruses are also on the rise, despite the ubiquity of safe injecting rooms in every major city and availability of "sharps kits" in every retail pharmacy.

Interestingly, the conservative party temporarily swayed from this stance and implemented a "tough on drugs" policy for part of the 90s[1]. It was dubbed to the wider public as a "harm prevention" measure i.e. protecting those yet to experiment with drugs and the wider community that didn't use illicit drugs regularly. There was a significant reduction in every measure: drug use, drug crime and spread of blood-borne viruses. This policy did not cut safe injecting and drug use services, but increased police activity and ephemeral "say no to drugs" cut-through education programs. The policy was reversed in the early 2000s.

[1] https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
Returns to Skills Around the World: Evidence from PIAAC [pdf]
"No Wi-Fi, no heating" -- this makes no sense to me. I had a Nest and when the wireless network went away, it did the sensible thing and maintained its current schedule. The only thing it lost was remote control/monitoring and the ability to talk to Nest Protects.

This is not to say that Nest doesn't have problems, but there's no way I'd have allowed it in my home if an Internet outage meant freezing my family.
>really destructive ones, like Alcohol and Nicotine

Alcohol is inherently harmful, but nicotine itself is a relatively safe drug; The harms associated with nicotine are overwhelmingly caused by the delivery mechanism of smoking.

We have alternative delivery mechanisms for nicotine that are drastically safer than tobacco smoking. E-cigarettes are most prominent, with around 95% lower harm than smoking[1], but snus is also a relatively low-harm product[2].

This principle is very important to the broader drug debate. We must be careful to separate the innate harms caused by a drug and harms that can be managed through good harm reduction policy.

[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le...
[2]http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/12/4/349.long
The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1
Where I come from the word "monkey" is used to describe an incompetent or fool. I doubt anyone would see a racist connotation here, but it has been used in that context too.

I don't know what MailChimp is but I'm already not taking a company with that name seriously! And definitely not having that name visible to my own clients or customers.
>The production costs are, again, not significantly lower in ebook than print. //

But the prices have been / are often higher.

I see that good ebooks have some extra typesetting and such, but that should be largely automated with the production of print ready copy.

How can they not save on paper, presses, covers, delivery, distribution?

Yes editing, proofing, marketing, cover design, etc., still costs.

Devices don't seem that discounted that there should be an extra load per book to post for them.

Do you have a source for eBook production costs, would be interested to look at financials vs. traditional publishing.