skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have trouble imagining a policy resembling basic income being politically feasible in the U.S. People who rely on the major entitlement programs already in place (medicare, medicaid, and social security) have very humble lifestyles, and despite this nearly all the political dialogue around these programs is reduction of benefits. A concept like basic income would require the government to collect more taxes on an order of magnitude greater than it already does; I really don't see that happening in our current political climate.
Is Tesla disrupting Detroit?
This really resonates with me.

My family was initially very low-middle income, and some poor business and personal decisions caused us to fall, for a time, into poverty -- even spending several months homeless and living out of a motel.

The area we eventually ended up in was very rural, fairly poor with quite a bit of rural poverty around -- my immediate neighbors didn't even have running water or an indoor bathroom.

Having spent my earlier years in a more urban environment, I found the local children hard to relate to, and the distances between me and kids I got along with well enough were vast enough that they may as well have not existed. My parents worked very long hours and as a result I spent huge amounts of time virtually alone.

Somewhere along the way I got into BBSs and the world opened up to me. My "life-raft" was a happenstance introduction to the demoscene and the discovery of other kids in my metro area who were interested in technology, art and global perspectives. It also happened to dovetail pretty nicely with my other school interests (music and art).

I saved money to buy my first soundcard and learned how to upgrade computers. The desire to be part of the demoscene caused me to dive deeply into keeping up-to-date computers in my house and I learned to cobble together pretty decent ones for the time with very little money.

This kind of intense hardware/software experience got me my first job and an entry into the IT world where I grew in skills and ideas, and eventually put myself through university up to an M.S. (the first in my family) with the help of some grants.

Because of those connections I met my wife and have held great and wonderful jobs since then and have had a chance to travel the world and see things 10 year old me, sitting at the desk looking at pictures in history textbooks in the rented motel room my family lived in, would have never imagined I'd ever see in my life.

It wasn't all smooth running, there were many struggles and many times I almost never made it. But one helpful hand, or a caring boss or teacher, helped me get through it. I never took the SATs for example, barely graduated high-school, was nearly bankrupt in the middle of college due to a medical emergency. I never want to repeat the stress and anger of that time again, but I know it wasn't all just me, I had plenty of help and that, combined with desire from my life-raft seemed to be what did it.
OP's point was that using the term "horrifically evil" is horrifically hyperbolic.

What do you mean by "tricking people" to hand over a treasure trove of data? Ignoring the many benefits that FB provides (reconnecting with old friends, easy group communication, meeting people, convenient logins for newer applications, discovering good content, etc....), what they are doing with advertising isn't "evil" in any sense.

Facebook is a /free/ service that delivers targeted ads. Would you rather ads be untargeted? Millions of people benefit from having advertisements displayed to them showing stuff that they actually want to buy. Also, millions of businesses benefit from being able to target niche markets due to FB's data collection.

People WANT to find products that are relevant to them, and so many businesses have become successful by being able to reach those customers through FB's platform.

Facebook doesn't actually sell the data to advertisers. They just allow customers to blindly target demographic groups through their platform. It doesn't violate people's privacy in the slightest.

Have they done some unethical psychological experiments? Yes. But come on, I wouldn't call that evil... especially when they do so much good. By that measure, any university that has been around for 50+ years must be evil too!

> are at the forefront of manipulative advertising (using fabricated social proof of friends, for example)

Source?
Then it's extremely obvious that it needs fixing, and your cursor is usually right there to make the change.

It is marginally more difficult than leaving in trailing commas, but way better than adding missing unaligned commas at EOL.
This is not true anymore.
In Windows it might be, but on Mac and Linux it's very straightforward.
Apply HN: SLOOP – Solving problems by reaching problems
Problem: Usually whenever there's a problem people would resort to social networks, Q&A websites or protestations. But there's mainly three problems with these substitutes such as the : (1) intended use, (2) reach and (3) audience.
1. Fundamentally, none of theses websites were designed to be used this way. Social networks connect people to each others and Q&A websites are meant for people who need specific answers to specific questions.
2. For a problem to be seen and discussed it needs to go viral. But what if it doesn't ?
3. What happens if you don’t know who to speak with ? Nothing.

Solution : A platform where people can discuss problems they have (or observe) and find solutions.

How would it work?
Mr A post a problem. Mr B propose a solution. If Mr A approves the solution provided by Mr B then the problem is considered solved. If not, an email will be sent to Mr A (along with anyone who has interacted with the post) listing handpicked products or services that may solve the problem.

Business model: - Ads(Global Discussions only)
- Sponsored Global Discussions(like Quora’s knowledge prizes).
- Partnerships(e.g: PH, Quora, Stripe..) the benefits of this lies in the quality of people it can attract and the help it can provide.
- Weekly newsletter:Startups, Apps developers, entrepreneurs will have to pay a fee to have their product listed.
- Every problem posted could be a potential business opportunity (à la netflix : http://bit.ly/1OAXFpt).

Competition: Reddit for the time being is a fearsome player but its approach in the discussion space will always leave room for other players. Facebook and Twitter: even though this is not what they were created for, they do have the resources to create similar solutions (like facebook did with Fundraiser).

Mockup: http://goo.gl/Lttmp9
IMHO, that's a very negative extrapolation from the article content. We absolutely should be talking about fixing that --just not necessarily in this particular article.
Koyannistocksi: A Modern Classic, Recreated with Stock Footage
That 70-story high rise apartment building being built across the street is certainly a harbinger of doom. Chicago has its problems, but it has one of the most vibrant downtown's in the country (and unlike NYC, Boston, DC, or SF, it's affordable to the middle class)
Unfortunately many teachers don't post notes, they expect you to transcribe what they're saying. So inevitably, no one is actually listening, students just wind up comparing and trading notes, trying to 'study' from there, and seeing where it lines up with the textbook.

I agree, the classes where I've learnt the most are the ones where notes are posted ahead of time, you can look over them, actually listen during class, and gain an understanding of the subject, not just memorize bits and pieces to then transcribe on the exam.
He still is but he lives in Spain now.
A Detroit newspaper calling Elon Musk the Henry Ford of our era? This article isn't going to go over very well with the majority of people here in Michigan but its nice to see the truth be told.
My wife refers to this problem as the Alan Shore Democrats (Alan Shore from Boston Legal TV Show). People who care about the plight of the working poor, but then you find out that they only do so to appease the poor so they don't rise up and revolt against the status quo.

It's the politics of fear. Democrats yell "Vote for me, I will keep those evil republicans from making abortion and being gay illegal." And the Republicans yell "Vote for me, I will keep those sodomites and baby killers in check." They paint the other side as evil, split the poor people in half, and stay in power. The truth is, they desperately need each other, because, if people stopped hating their neighbor for a second, and turned around, they might realize that they are being fucked by their elected officials on both sides.
Dude kind of missed the point that Bezos has clearly read a lot of Buffet's shareholder letters and is now taking on this good-natured, funny grandfather tone to soften public percpetion the hard economics that run his business - cost cutting, ruthless management, etc. that have recently come to light. Smart move, not subtle, but also not meant to be subtle.

Wouldn't be surprised if Bezos starts madly pitching for the USA and including pictures of him and his employees soon...on the other hand, nobody breaks down the business of insurance/multi-national conglomerate management as elegantly, wittily, and insightfully as Buffett so we have that to look forward to from Bezos.
I'm amazed how much stuff I've learned from school that I've totally forgotten. Now if I want to learn something I write a note and later put it into the flashcard system anki. Anything I don't take notes on I basically expect to forget within a few months if not sooner.
If you believe an education system is directly tied to the advancement of humankind, globalizing access to advanced subject matter from some of the world's top professors could actually alter the course of human history for better. If that's something you care about, then it's probably something supporting with money.

It removes a suffocating constraint on the structure of the education system: finding instructors X capable of teaching some advanced/esoteric subject to students Y, in a sufficiently small geographic space. Under this constraint, sometimes the only solution has been a dumbed-down, cookie-cutter curriculum. Once online learning has matured, this will no longer be the case.
Joseph Stalin and Martin Bormann come to mind.
Active Merchant – A Ruby library for dealing with credit cards
No argument here. As I said, I've taken or started to take a few courses that were so cursory (at least with respect to my level of existing knowledge) that they were largely a waste of time. I may not be prepared to spend 10+ hours a week over the course of 2+ months for very many classes--but if the whole class amounts to watching a webinar or reading a chapter in a book, it's probably not very valuable.
I didn't realize .su domains were still relevant. Also, very interesting content!
You are too kind! Will email you ASAP. :)
Yeah that would be a good idea.
Show HN: Render screenshots of urls on Linux using Xvfb, midori, ratpoison and IM
Yeah I've tried that too - but you're now spending half your time understanding, and half your time summarizing. The idea of summarizing as a method of learning is also pretty heavily pushed and does seem to work, but for my personally, understanding is more important than summarizing.

I split understanding and summarizing personally, because understanding is more about being able to replicate the methods used, while summarizing is about condensing the lesson into a key point that could aid understanding. I personally find that the summarizing technique does not aid understanding any more than simply following along with the logic and concentrating fully on why it's happening.

Obviously some people may require that extra summarized step to allow them to recall the lesson, but I've been able to do without it by concentrating on the flow and linking it to other knowledge that I've already internalized. That way you don't need those key points jotted down for later - you just need to reason about where you're trying to go and use the understanding to plot a course. Then look up the steps where you know you're unclear on the details in a textbook or web search.
The thing that strikes me about this is less to do with highway safety and more "how many assets can a company put in the hands of one human to guard?". It seems like it would be none too difficult for hijackers to box off the tail end vehicle and slow it to a halt giving them ample time to loot it before the driver even got a chance to stop the rest of the convoy. The looters could be gone without even needing to confront the driver.

Worrying.
Let's hope the universities don't shut down, then. That certainly wouldn't bode well for the surging homicide rate.
I pay for mine but not because I care about the certs. I have a better completion rate when I pay for the course (80% v 10%). I know it is purely a mental thing but it works for me and is worth the money I pay.
The main reasons for zoning are cultural. For some reason or another, US households and governments have a greater preference for income segregation (keeping apartments away from wealthy neighborhoods) and "quiet" residential areas.

The fears are/were that the natural beauty of certain types of development would be spoiled by low-income housing, factories, and commerce. Of course, as you say, it's very any I - market. People already tend to naturally cluster based on income, level of education, desire for public goods, etc, so it shouldn't be necessary to have such restrictions.

It inevitably comes down to money, too, where minimum lot size restrictions shut out potential tenants/owners who can afford the per square foot cost in low quantities but not a large property. These restrictions are supposed to ensure a high enough tax yield per dwelling, but it's in the name of beautification.

You could say it all goes back to the car. When it suddenly became much cheaper for low income people to move out of the city center and commute from traditionally rich suburban areas, the rich got scared. Some moved further away, but governments also used zoning laws to make sure to poor stayed in the city, where they belonged.
It always puzzles me to hear people say that they think the social safety net "pendulum" has been swinging too far in the direction of personal responsibility.

By any measure, social safety net spending is significantly higher than it has ever been. News comes out every day of some new government mandate like paid parental leave, paid personal days, etc.

The minimum wage is creeping higher every day.

Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare spending has never been higher.

We just passed a massive, expensive, entitlement known as Obamacare, which provides (or was supposed to) health insurance to everyone in America.

Obama, during his first term, passed a massive expansion of government-subsidized student loans.

We are in the process of a significant expansion of home loans for low income and people with dodgy credit.

Except for the very limited, bipartisan, welfare reform under President Clinton (which has since basically been reversed), I'm not aware of any shrinking of the welfare state that has happened in the last 20 years.
You don't need to do that, though.

There are only N choices per question, so when you get it wrong you just go back and pick another one. When you see that you got it wrong, you go back and pick another one. Eventually, you'll know the right answer.

You don't actually need to watch the videos to do this, and indeed, some students just go to the test and brute force their way through the test to get 100%.
While I'm not a fan of the GPL and its viral nature either either, the kind of trapping you're referring to is not at all the same thing.

If GCC was the only C compiler in the world, my Apache licensed (or hell, public domain) C project wouldn't really be "trapped" by GCC being GPL licensed, because that license allows me and my users unfettered access to GCC whenever we want, so there's no one who can't access compilation of my project, now or ever.
The main claim is that today's liberal establishment has no patience with the idea that everyone should share in society’s wealth.

Instead, what today's liberal establishment really pines for, the author writes, is a more perfect meritocracy.

Unfortunately, there is no solidarity in a perfect meritocracy, for the ideology of meritocracy negates any esteem society's winners might feel for poorly educated, low-achieving losers.

Rings True.
Why did I get the vibe I was reading pro-Buran propaganda in 2016?
Agreed, leading the article with that was irksome -- and rather surprising, since the rest of the article did decent job of expounding on the the policy nuances of Stephen Douglas. Too often, media characterization of politics is a blunt caricature, which paints people and the issues in an unfair and misleading light.

Reading the bit about the contested nominating convention was interesting, given that we might be headed into one this year. The contrast between now and then is stark -- the incredible gravity of the situation in 1860, whereas today's campaigns seem to draw more on personality than principle. I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate enough that we can afford to be a little embarrassed of our politics right now -- a vote one way or the other is not going to pose an existential threat to the country for the next four years.
The word "inevitable" always makes me uneasy. I think it usually embodies an actual observation, combined with a certain agenda and/or a lack of imagination. That technological progress is inevitable is one thing; that it benefits mostly a certain class of people is another.

On a more philosophical level, I am not at all certain that efficiency should be society's goal[1], but I think that at least for the foreseeable future, fighting such unquestioned axioms is an uphill battle...

[1]: It's fascinating how long it took in the early modern period to convince society that efficiency is a desirable goal at all; see Max Weber's classic 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Im curious about what exactly you do that can run all on Pi's plus any writeups you have on challenges and successes going all in. I often see people speculate about doing it but rarely actually do it.
What if you are the only child who is not mentally ill in a family where both parent have chronic illness that requires constant care and neither of them has siblings? I don't read a lot of success stories about people who spent much of their lives as caregivers.

What if you are in a part of the world (read much of the world) where the only paths to success require seriously unethical behavior?

The right partner makes a huge difference, but what if you only meet a suitable partner late in life or you end up sucked into their or their family's problems?

If you have good health, you do not live in fear of criminals and militias, if you and your partner love each other unambiguously and have the time to really support and enjoy each other, and because of all those things you are able to achieve some measure of financial security, then you have what a tiny minority of human beings get to enjoy as a fleeting mirage, and only a vanishingly small minority get to enjoy for a significant fraction of their lives.

Most human beings can only "make" a small part of their luck.
My take is if you post something with an obnoxious, click-baity title... then you pretty much need to take responsibility for the gut-level impressions, and general bad, lingering aftertaste that title invokes in people. In particular: you can expect them to read your 1,000-word post to the end, and and attempt to divine what your hidden intentions were in choosing that title.

And my other take is that not every article out there needs to be cross-posted; and putting a gratuitously offensive title at the top is a perfect way of indicating to people that you don't think really merits sharing. If someone is smart enough to tease out the performance nuances of an as insanely overcomplicated engineering contraption as Perl 6... then surely they're smart enough to think of a better article title.
For anyone interested I posted a review of the Data Science Specialization that I paid for and completed:

http://sookocheff.com/post/datascience/datasciencespecializa...
The original source code is unavailable. But the assembly code that actually implements the program is not, and there are a variety of techniques reversers use to lift assembly into higher-level representations --- not that you'd need to in this case.
This is incorrect because demand for land is inelastic, or at least mostly so. Yes you can choose to rent in areas that are lower-value/more affordable but in many cases that's less practical than it's worth. For the most part you have to pay the market rate for where you want or need to be located.

If we assume that all rents are at their market maximum (e.g. landlords are making minimal but still positive profit) then adding a tax to all will simply raise that equilibrium.
I suppose it wouldn't work for the VC-funded ventures like Coursera whose investors were presumably looking for big exits, but I've actually wondered if an organization like edX wouldn't have been better just having a "suggested donation" of the same magnitude as what a book costs--say $25 or so.

As soon as you have a formal price for a certificate, it shifts the conversation to how much personal value I'm getting from the certificate specifically as opposed to doing my small part to keep this sort of educational material available.
And where would you suggest backing up the UUID for that bool?

It only makes sense to back bools up this way if len(n) > backup key.

If you could backup 129 bools it would make sense because you'd only have to remember the key, 128 bit, to access the backup. If there are equal or less, just remember the bools directly.
That's probably the best thing I've ever read on Medium.
> Toad deleted tests until the CI server went green.

One of my undergrad volunteers is learning Python. I've had to teach him that just because the code runs, it doesn't mean that it is correct.

These are wonderfully painful to read.
Planning is an American tradition since before the Constitution. Territories West of Pennsylvania were organized by surveying, the "township" was a square plot of land of fixed size (6mi square). This is reflected also in the square shaped of counties in many Western states, the squares of Chicago's layout, and the presence of many streets called "base line"
There are so many different games across different states that you can't televise them all. You could at least televise the generation of a random seed, perhaps, but you'd still need faith in the individual RNGs.
Do you not have property tax where you live? I thought it was ubiquitous as it's the ultimate way the government prevents an individual from really owning land.
Well, fame is an indication for what the society value. How else would you measure it? Money? Respect? Something else? Which of these measures secretaries are good at?
It won't. http://stackoverflow.com/a/28457335/239657

(1) Last I checked, cloudflare's "Strict SSL" mode only accepts from the backend a cert for the custom domain you're trying to serve, not accepting the github.io cert. A pity they don't let me configure what cert(s) to accept from the backend...

(2) In addition, Github have indicated their current github.io SSL is not actually end-to-end secure — it's only secure from their CDN (Fastly) but their link to the CDN is unsecure. So there is absolutely zero you can do — Cloudflare or anything else — to make GH Pages end-to-end secure on custom domains.
Is OSS using crypto illegal under the “Compliance with Court Orders Act” draft?