skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is an example of the perfect being an enemy of good. This won't solve all problems, but for a large section of people, it will eliminate the needless guesswork.

It has already been implemented in some European countries.
There's legal restrictions on other forms of competing for jobs, which creates a vacuum that higher education fills.

Consider IQ. It's very relevant for job performance, particularly entry-level. Companies will generally get sued if they try to directly measure and test IQ of job applicants.

On the other hand, companies are generally allowed to look at which university you went to. Those universities make admissions decisions, in part, by looking at your SAT score. That SAT score is highly correlated with general intelligence.

So, as a hiring manager, you have a choice between, say, a Stanford graduate and someone who went to an average state school. You can guess the relative IQ of the applicants, and should have a preference over them.

The funny thing is that this hiring preference is completely independent of anything that Stanford does, outside of its admissions department. It could literally do nothing but put the kind of people who get accepted into Stanford into a room together, and you'd still want to preferentially hire them.
No security is ever perfect, but that doesn't mean we should stop implementing all imperfect security measures.
Many devs could get a faster computer, too. I'm considering getting a Surface Book.
Inherent unfairness? I'd love to see that argument laid out. The US has an extremely progressive tax code.

The top 1% receives 19% of all income and pays 49% of all income taxes. The top 10% pays 82% of all income taxes. What exactly do you plan to do, to make it more fair?

Most other developed countries have dramatically higher income taxes on their middle classes and have less progressive income tax distribution in terms of who pays. Which is why the US has roughly 50% higher median household disposable income than what Sweden, Britain, or Germany do: it's thanks to much lower taxes on the middle class (in those countries it's used for eg healthcare; in the US, people have a choice as to what they do with that disposable income).

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/03/joint-tax-co...
Journalist sentenced to 24 months in prison after hacking-related conviction
> If you're trying to keep under a baggage weight limit,
> saving 225g can make a big difference

I can't imagine the difference in weight will affect anyone. It'll be hand luggage or literally in your pocket. I've never had my hand luggage weighed.

£270 (£330 for the 3G model) for something which is essentially the same as a £110 device (it's laughable that anyone would pick up a Paperwhite and complain that it's too thick and/or heavy). Now that's a niche market.

I don't think this will sell very many, but I suspect its real purpose is to get people to consider buying a Voyage instead of a Paperwhite as they'll believe they're getting more of the cosmetic thrills of the Oasis without the stupid cost.
Not biased towards books at all. Any kind of resource would be fine.
You say that as if government action against Standard Oil was some noble act. Standard Oil helped facilitate great improvements to the average Americans standard of living.
I always thought Popper's LSD was considered his best book to read on this. I haven't read it yet, but it's been on my To-Read list for a while.

Popper's view essentially boils down to: "Science can't prove anything, theories can only be corroborated." So we just have a list of theories, where some are firmer than others, correct?

My complaint with Popper is that true knowledge is impossible with this set of axioms. One can't know anything with certainty--and yet everyone actually lives as if they can know something.

I find people that subscribe to Popper's (and Hume and Russell before him) to be hypocrites as they interact with the natural world. Operating with a set of theories that could never be 100% certain, yet acting as if they were.

How sure are you that you're correct and I'm wrong? 40% or 60%?
So, if you're left handed it's upside down by default?
The performance problems on a clean Atom install are incredibly vexing. Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is built on similar foundations and has great performance, so I don't think Atom's performance problems are fundamental.
> The way student loans were before income-based repayment, we'd have expected college cost to rise until it meets the lifetime expected benefit of college discounted to the present.

Given zero competition, maybe. With multiple schools all competing to be the ones to take your money, and also competing to get the most lucrative future alumni, you have a complex market where there exists downward price pressure. In the end, given two relatively equivalent schools the cheaper school will have a better pick of students.
You'd probably have to scale to hundreds or thousands of pis to achieve the performance you could see from a single $100-200 GPU.
This is racism iff in fact blacks in Chicago don't disproportionally commit the type of crimes/infractions that they are arrested for.
There's also the ethical problem of life and death choices that will have to programmed in advance.

When an accident is inevitable, software will decide if prived or public property should be prioritized, which action is more likely to to protect driver/passenger A in detriment of driver/passenger B, etc.

Most people wouldn't blame the outcome of a split second decision made in heat of the moment but would take issue when the action is deliberate.

Interesting times we live in
Simplify? The only ones working to simplify the inane and uncompetitive U.S. tax code, which largely hurts working families and enables the politically well connected, are those rare and few politicians working toward complete structural overhaul.
Awkward? You can press or swipe. Does it make a difference if you're touching the bezel instead of the screen?
I think that's because 23 And Me's tests actually did what they said they did. The problem with 23 And Me was that all about the reporting of the results, not that the results were fundamentally flawed. The FDA's problem with 23 And Me was that they were coming very close to, and perhaps were, crossing the line into giving medical advice. It's legitimately very hard to interpret the results of say a BRCA1[0] test, and so doing at home isn't recommended.

In the case of Theranos, there are high school biology labs that are run safer and better.

[0] http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetic...
> > It makes it easier to file online for free

> That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

You're absolutely right.

However, this is being touted as tax [code] reform... which it's definitely not.

Your tax preparation expenses are already tax deductible, so making it "cheaper" doesn't really help anyone.

We need a simpler and more fair tax code - but we're not getting any of that with this bill.

This is a distraction, and good PR for someone potentially poised for a VP ticket...
> or use TurboTax free edition.

Who do you think is subsidizing the free edition?

It's time to kill third party tax products.
That's Intuit again, lobbying to keep the US from developing a system like this. There are countries in Europe that already do it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/the-10-s...
Accessing Hard-To-Reach Data Using Connotate’s Automated Web Data Extraction
> The default, free, option is going to win against a paid product.

In some cases, free federal filing already exists!

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for...
Depends. You design and operate for a certain "shit happens" probability and price.

That's why I brought up airliners. You can't set low reliability goals and just say "shit happens". You would have less buyers, and it's not even legal anymore. So the bullet was bit and more reliable aircraft were developed. In the software world we're more like nineteen twenties still. That changed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_599

Let me phrase it in a perhaps less confrontational way. I see that there could be some business value in more reliable cloud platforms.
There might be some business value with more nines in the availability percent, that is, less downtime per year. Or maybe just less global outages, even if that means more cases where some of a certain customers' containers or vm:s or what you have might be unavailable some of the time. That can be handled by running multiple units in the same cloud and with other techniques.

But at the moment, since there seem to be single points of failure (or policies that are single points of failure, like to update everything at once), if you, as a customer, would like to have more safety, you would have to run services in two different providers' cloud platforms. That could get slightly more complicated - and expensive as well. I guess some parts of these technologies are quite new so someone will come up with easy and good solutions.
Amazon ran a promotion on the DX at one point for $250, when I got mine. I'm glad I did.
I'd love to find some of those too, but brief searching didn't yield anything.

In general though, it seems some of the most popular itemized deductions are:

1.) Deduct state income tax
2.) Mortgage interest
3.) Child-oriented tax credits

Most deductions seem to favor homeowners and families.
Disappointing. I can see some very small demographics being interested in this, but I don't see the average consumer benefiting purchasing it.
Composable Helpers and Route Actions: Two Ember Add-Ons You Should Know
> The IRS does not know what you donated to charity, properties you own which get credits for, educational tax credits etc.

But it could if provided with the data.
Yep, you can do this via the webpack alias config object. I personally have "root" pointing to the root directory of my app that is called app. :)
Design doesn't deserve a seat at the table (2014)
This is Facebook's open-source 360-degree video camera
That doesn't explain why the screen is 6 inches. The bezel on kindles (Paperwhites and below) are quite large and you could imagine a same sized device having a larger screen quite easily.
I'm not sama, but I did attend YC a few years ago so I will try to chime in a bit here based on my experiences.

First, you are right - every YC partner has very limited time, and if you expect to get a lot of it for anything and everything you will be disappointed. YC wouldn't scale that way, and it would be a waste of the partners' time.

That said, if you ever NEED a partners time, they will bend over backwards to make it happen, regardless of whether you just sold for $1b, were personal friends with them, or whatever else.
The question is not whether the end goal is good, or whether their intentions are in the right place, it's whether it's the best use of government resources to focus on this vs other things. Could they be spending their limited time/resources on more valuable things?

This would be an expensive endeavour for the government to develop. They aren't great at building usable software or web services as the health insurance site demonstrated. I'd rather they invested time doing what their good at, which is managing policy. Investing time in this instead of simplifying the existing policy is of questionable economic cost.

Private industry is more than capable of building software to make filing taxes easier. But there are limitations on their ability to do so if the tax code is so complex.

Additionally, simpler software is cheaper than one managing endlessly complex requirements.

That's win-win as far as I'm concerned.
This is exactly what this is all about.

There is no need for two entities to do the exact same work in parallel.
The only things I saw of substance in the article were a few anecdotes alleging the police are targeting innocent "people of color" which may be true but needs some hard data to back up. Then the article brought up some actual statistics pointing out how blacks are more often involved in police confrontations of various types which is presumably true but this does not even begin to prove any racist intent. Are blacks committing more crimes? The justice department seems to believe so.

It appears the article was juxtaposing the former with the latter as a way to imply that the latter is some kind of proof of the former but it isn't. Not even close. The thing is, just because something effects a racial group in a disparate way doesn't mean it is motivated by racist intent. There was a study in New Jersey that illustrates this quite well. People were up in arms because blacks were 25 percent or so more likely to be pulled over for speeding. The study found that blacks make up 25 percent more of people who speed. Disparate impact? Yes. Racist? Obviously not.

Now it would be extremely naive to pretend racism is a solved problem but to just throw our hands up and say it's "systemic" is a cop-out. How do you fight that. It's a vague notion. Show us some data of how blacks are actually being victimized and then lets do something. Otherwise maybe check the presumptions.
My apologies then. Looks like I was the one jumping to conclusions and being insulting to top it off.
This is only accurate for those earning W2 income only. Anyone who contracts at all or has any investment income cannot use EZ or Free.
Intel's documentation says that long-term reliability of the hardware isn't assured in this configuration, so yes, it's broken.
Safari suggests gay porn when searching for 'sleep over'
I would like to see us go back to a variation on the apportionment among the states.

The variation I would envision would be an apportionment among congressional districts. This would allow tiny states like RI to still contribute, but maybe not on the same level as larger states as CA.

Then under this, it would be up to each individual state to decide how it is going to collect taxes for each of these districts.

Then repeal the 16th amendment and replace it with a new apportionment amendment.

We would still be stuck with the current state tax code for each of the respective states that we have now, but we would get rid of the massive Federal tax code.
Java Comparable interface video tutorial with funny animations
do you have a comparison for the number of miles between human errors?
The issue in instances like this is that there are options (your list ends with "or whatever". that's terrible in this situation). You don't want options when you don't have the cognitive capacity to make a decision.

Otherwise things will happen like described up-thread: standing in the kitchen, looking at the cupboard, but not able to decide whether to pick the left or the right coffee mug.

"Get a burger and fries" is about as unambiguous as possible without knowing the context. Sure "go to the artisan organic salad bar across the street and get their salad of the day menu" is the preferable option, but that requires contextual awareness, and less specific tasks are a problem in such situations.

It's a case of "don't make me think" to get a bunch of processes started (in this case: energy intake and getting back the sensation of hunger), not an optimized diet plan.
Earlier discussion on HN, prior to sentencing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10351966
I was just reading the text. Looks like it is limited to just the simple cases (no deductions) where there isn't a lot to figure out already to begin with.

Why not just automatically file unless the tax payer elects to file something different?

They already have all the wage data submitted to them from employers.
Surely you mean "17 species of Bovidae we fucked, You'll never guess what happened next".
I'm not the guy you were originally asking, but I've had issues with page turns on my Voyager. I think it's a pagination ordering issue - if I've been reading on my phone, and then open my Kindle and sync to the location in the book where I left off at on my phone, the first manual page turn I make sometimes fails to match up perfectly.

As a for instance, if "the quick brown fox" is the last words on my current page, and I turn to the next page, I'd expect the first words to be "jumps over the lazy dog" but in this instance "jumps over the lazy dog" is typically somewhere mid page.

I've also had issues, again when syncing my position from a different device, where the location totally bugs out if I try to swipe back to the previous page. This happens infrequently, so I'm uncertain if there's any logic at play, but the location is often way off of where it should be when aiming for the previous page.
Why Are America’s Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?
> Uber isn't a taxi company

That's funny. You must work for Uber PR.

> and wheelchair access is a very small percentage of customers.

Well in that case, fuck 'em. And fuck the ADA too.
So the ducking head tell is supposed to be an Easter egg? Doesn't really fit the definition in my mind. Or am I misunderstanding?

Hard to believe nobody noticed this in the last ~30 years.
Skylake's Linux power management is dreadful you shouldn't buy until it's fixed

Why is this phrased as being an issue with Skylake, rather than an issue with Linux? That is, why not "Linux's power management on Skylake is dreadful and you shouldn't install it until it's fixed?"

Also, as someone who is running a custom compiled Linux 4.4 on Skylake, what's the best way to check what idle state is being used? Idle stats with 'powertop' shows the majority of idle time being spent in C8-SKL. Is this the same as the PC8 he's talking about?
This is the trick. You have your own LLC and writeoff everything as business expense. My dad is a contract construction worker, and writes off his vehicles, his gas, his phone, his tools, and all manner of insurance costs for work as business expenses and pays a really low effective tax rate as well.
It's still an annoying process. As someone who didn't itemize but had some weird tax situations (PhD student) it was always a pain.

Also even if you have a drop dead simple tax situation, it's still navigating and filling out a form that reads like the worst spaghetti code. "Go to line 31 on form XYZ". Even if it cost people 30 minutes, that's still less than just writing a check and putting it in the envelope.
Fluidised bed technology: Generating options for tomorrow
Have you ever filled out a 1040EZ? Its easy as pie. Seriously.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf

Its literally one page. The 2nd page is for the simplified instructions (full instructions / documentation is a lot more complicated... but if you qualify for the 1040EZ its a very very simple form)

If the IRS could put the 1040EZ online on a free website, that'd be great. I think I can support this Senate bill that is more or less suggesting that.

Unfortunately, I now own stocks, bonds, and am claiming deductions on mortgages and church contributions. So... I no longer qualify for the 1040EZ and have to use the more complicated form. But I bet a lot of normal people will benefit from the 1040EZ Form.
It seems like Theranos was a scheme to trick investors. It feels like the emperor has no clothes, but it was one of those ideas where "they are successful because they are successful" without anyone looking behind the curtain.

Maybe it's that legitimate medical tests take long enough that you could get a lot of sales and investment off of early trials and social proof.

I don't know anything about it to say that it really was a Bernie Madoff type situation, but it has a bizareness to it that feels similar.
Google's report from December 2015: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/...

Over 424,000 miles driven:

272 times the car had a 'system failure' and immediately returned control to the driver with only a couple seconds of warning. (Approx. every 1,558 miles.) A car mid-traffic spontaneously dropping control of the vehicle would likely create a large number of accidents.

13 car accidents prevented via human intervention (Approx. every 32,615 miles), 10 of which would've been the self-driving car's at-fault (Approx. every 42,400 miles). These virtual accidents were tested with the telemetry recorded during the incident, and it was determined had the human test driver not intervened, an accident would've occurred.

Total of these events is 285, which is approximately every 1,487 miles driven.

For useful comparison, a rough human average (when you add a large margin to account for unreported accidents) is somewhere around one accident every 150,000 miles driven. (Insurance companies see them every 250,000 miles approximately, I believe.)
> Down-voting is not for disagreeing.

Says you. The site's guidelines/FAQ don't give any instruction on their use, and the founder of the site has stated on multiple occasions that he agrees with downvoting to disagree (example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

(Maybe your way is better, but persuade the mods of that and get the guidelines changed, don't just tell people your way is the way they should be doing it anyway.)
Sounds like my Swedish taxes. All I have to do, if I agree with the information already on there, is sign it (electronically, of course.)
If by generally speaking you mean micro-organisms, then sure. I cannot think of any animals (mammals, fish, etc) that do not eat living organisms.
The issue of proof is very different from the issue of learning. I thought it was the latter being discussed.
> As it stands, college for most of my friends was a 4 year social safari

And that's what costs money, insofar as it raises people's social class and gives them connections. Learning is a trivial cost in comparison, and can be ignored in the calculation; it's something you effectively get "for free" with the price of admission to the social-class-higher-than-yours practicum that is university.

Note that community colleges, which have just as much "learning" but no potential for class-raising, don't have spiralling costs. Community college costs what learning costs.
So 2/3 of people would benefit from this system? And the 1/3 who do benefit from itemizing would just hire someone or use TurboTax like they do now?
I disapprove of investor's commenting on such cases. Sam has a conflict of interest in this case, and was not even present for the events in question.
Fathered by the Mailman? It’s Mostly an Urban Legend
Input Needed
Hello everyone! I have recently been developing a website that dedicates itself exclusively to the discovery and conversation of little-known music. Currently, it consists of a voting forum and social media links, but is looking towards expansion in the future. I would greatly appreciate any input you have on what you think should be added, changed, or integrated in any way. We want to make this as unique as possible, so all ideas are appreciated as we branch out beyond the current model. Feel free to submit some songs as well! Many thanks!

http://www.ankrd.com
The author argues that because clients may blindly accept SSL certificates for an IRC server, that certificates are pointless.

One possible fix is, have the IRC client refuse to connect to a server if the certificate is invalid.
While it's not solve the problem close to your heart, preventing monopolies and encouraging open access and competition is undoubtly good thing.
Part of the reason the tax code is so complex is the goal of a progressive tax system where wealthier people pay a higher share of their income. A flat tax, while simpler, is regressive- everyone pays the same percentage. Couple a flat tax with an unconditional lump sum grant, however, and you get both progressivity and simplicity.
I haven't. My point is, the IRS should be able to tax on as much tax preparation software as they want, without for-profit companies preventing them from doing so.

Intuit is simply rent-seeking, plain and simple.

> Unfortunately, I now own stocks, bonds, and am claiming deductions on mortgages and church contributions.

There is _no reason_ the IRS couldn't handle this data as well.