skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have a big soft spot for HB. I saw this bundle and immediately thought of two people I know who are very likely to want it, so I sent them an email and attached one of the books from my bundle according to what I thought they'd like best.

I told them the publisher was reputable and if they had $15 to drop on the whole thing, as I had, then they should go for it--but if they just didn't have the money, I offered to send them anything else they wanted from my own download provided they tell anyone else they thought might be interested about the deal.

This straight-up doesn't hurt anyone. If my friends don't have the cash anyway, there's no opportunity cost--but now they know about Humble Bundle and they're probably going to tell other people because it's such a good deal. (And they get at least one new book.) A common and effective marketing tactic is to put the product (or a sample) in people's hands and then ask if they want to buy it, and everyone likes freebies.

I think being DRM-free helps to spread the word more than it hurts, and it also acts as a giant "We're Not Evil" flag. I'd hazard that No Starch does this kind of thing more in order to increase its brand awareness (and its affiliation with good-karma organizations like HB) than it does to actually make money.

I found out about the deal from No Starch's web site, because I have a print copy of Clojure for the Brave and True and had gone looking for the associated files. I'd barely heard of the publisher before, but now I respect them almost as much as O'Reilly. CftBaT is actually available free in HTML form, by the way, and earned itself a big link on my blog.

Basically, this kind of thing is actually really common when you think about it! It kind of reminds me of open source, but without the ability to modify. Then again, you can always write your own book.

Anyway, if someone goes looking for something for free by questionable means and they can't find a pirated version of it, how often do you think they actually go out and buy it instead? I would say almost never, unless whatever it is is in high demand or well known--that tends to not be the case among Humble Bundle items, which are from indie developers and publishers.
So, after hearing about how "fragmentation will kill Android!" for... oh... ever since the first Android release, how's that prediction working out? Seems like fragmentation isn't actually as scary of a problem as it's made out to be. Perhaps we really could just trust developers--who have had to deal with this scary "fragmentation" for years on desktop and web--to test applications and design around it.
Interesting. Thanks for the link.
Addressing the implication of breeding for money, I actually prefer the solutions explored in Larry Nivin's main fictional universe.

Importantly, in that universe, different regions of human colonization had different limits for births; including un-affiliated areas (space between planets) having unregulated birthrates.

For the context of Earth/Terra:

I forget if it was one or two children, but for sure, for two parents 'the first child is free'. Let's simplify that and say that for each contributing parent (to society) the first child is free.

After that additional children slots can either be obtained through exponentially larger tax payments, performing a significant contribution to society (E.G. Nobel Prize winners might be granted unlimited reproduction rights), or winning a lottery.

Obviously in the case of massive global war, famine, or disease (age death waves included), additional children might be built in to the quota to keep the population at desired levels.
The 2K football games were superior at the time. Then they dropped their price significantly ($20 for 2k5 after 2k4 was a success) and EA decided they couldn't compete. So that deal was signed so that they wouldn't have to. And thus I stopped buying NFL games.

Interesting that ESPN doesn't seem to mention this in the article considering their name and properties were used for the 2K games.
Self-hosting a blog with Ghost and Docker
Target=”_blank” – the most underestimated vulnerability ever
I bet you could find other words than "Nazis" for which this is also true...
Life Lessons from a Lifestyle Business: Interview with founder of Metafilter
Yeah but it's accelerating at such a rate that it's important to look at the endgame which IMO is no labour market.

I agree that even before we reach that level the issue is thre and so it will serve as a help for those who are "left behind".
Instagram Business Profiles to feature ‘Contact’ buttons, directions and more
I observe people doing this all the time. Especially people who are less technical than you or I.

Convenience trumps accuracy and people want a list of offers they perceive to be competitive, not a list of search results. Millions of people look on Amazon first, or Cheapoair, or Hotels.com, the list goes on.
The older I get, the more stories I hear involving friends or relatives subjected to poor medical care or advice. The case that leaves me shaking my head involves a friend who had a surgical sponge left inside his leg during a procedure which almost led to his death some months later.

When it comes to errors resulting from misdiagonses: An experienced doc/med school professor once told me that they are unable to diagnose 10% of cases that come to his hospital (i.e., don’t know the cause of the ailment/symptoms).
Applied Materials presented a roadmap on how we might get to 3 nm using disappointingly conventional semiconductor processing techniques[0]. In short, you make the transistors tall and thin.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130810001315/http://www.semico...
I know. I have no doubt the British have a sensible system that treats human beings with dignity. I was speaking about US hypothetically.

I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would receive the BI on their behalf.

I've always felt basic income would greatly simplify many funding / administrative questions. Perhaps my view is too simplistic.
> Sure but is there really a big difference between these sentences:

Yes.
The Untold Story of Bill Clinton’s Other Crime Bill
That's under the "Long Term" section of our product roadmap.
That's what Edward Bernays did, after discovering the galvanizing effect of war on the human spirit. Except he strove to recreate that same effect in peacetime by turning active citizens into passive consumers who fight each other for superiority from the products they buy, instead of conquering lands.
> run the process in reverse

Does the fact that CO2 makes up a very small portion of the atmosphere make this hard?
Silicon Valley tech firm must pay Filipinos $160K in back wages
Yeah, I've never liked tests like that; they're insulting to intelligent people. It's like having a driving test at the DMV where they ask you to list all the steps in driving to a store nearby, and then they fail you because you missed a bunch of steps such as "open the car door", "close the car door", "put feet on pedals", "check adjustment of rearview mirrors", etc. It reminds me of an old 80's Twilight Zone episode where some teenagers find a leprechaun and one wishes that his parents would do whatever he wanted, and then his parents can't do the simplest things because he has to tell them every single little step to take, such as having to take the frozen pizza out of the box before putting it in the oven.

If your test requires the test-taker to show every minute, trivial step, then your test is a failure.
>edit: and about "open source" contributions; ethnic minorities and women are far more likely to have worked in large corporations rather than in open source or startups, because those companies are held to a higher standard in their behavior towards minorities than the kind of self-assembling social clubs that this article (and site) are focused on.

Open source software is probably the single most meritocratic resume-building opportunity I've ever seen in any industry.

If you don't like the fact that many minorities and women, far from being denied this opportunity, are simply declining to take advantage of it (as most developers do, by the way), then to paraphrase Richard Feynman, perhaps you should go find another universe where the conditions are more appealing to your sensibilities.

Or to put it another way, if you think that a submission on github containing a great new feature and some long overdue bugfixes for an open source project would get rejected because the submitter was black, then the part of your mind that desperately needs certain groups of people to be Irreparably Downtrodden is causing you to lose a great deal of your grip on reality.
UBI seems like a good idea but it is important to recognize that the problem it seeks to solve has a cultural component too. Some people will use free money to build enriching lives. Others will fall into various addictions because they haven't found meaning. I'd like to see a UBI conversation that discusses is this point because it is significant and the history of welfare shows that it is real.
Did you think the person posting didn't see this text? He is commenting directly on this choice.
> What is the risk when a large percentage of the middle class and others are all in low fee index funds?

One risk is that index funds aren't really unmanaged, they are managed by people who set and apply rules as to what is included in the index. The greater proportion of total investment that is passively (i.e., without deep research into the practices behind the index) invested in such funds (and, particularly, the proportion that is passively invested in any one such fund), the greater the risk of the rules and practices of setting the index being manipulated.
The distinction between passive and active management is kind of a misnomer anyway, right?

There's no reason an "active" manager can't just select x00 companies by some criteria, publish that list and then just invest in that basket with modest adjustments?

At this point, the primary advantage that "passive" management has is extraordinary marketing, mainly through the selection of S&P 500 components.
>then they can follow along those delivering the care.

I don't doubt your intent is good, and I like to promote literacy in care as well, but I really really think the notion that supervising one's own care is a good idea is completely out to lunch. The pain, discomfort, emotional trauma, precarity -- these very real things tend to put even the best manager off one's game.
I can't really see widespread use of flywheels. They are good for high power, low total amount of energy situations, namely frequency regulation.

Bearings and motors/generators are very well understood, unlike lithium ion batteries, so I don't see them getting much cheaper as a flywheel industry expands.

Currently, the most expensive lithium ion battery is cheaper than the cheapest flywheel:

https://www.lazard.com/media/2391/lazards-levelized-cost-of-...
I think it's a bit naive if you think that Web Developers are cleanly split into Frontend and Backend. Most of the developers I know, like myself, are Fullstack. According to the Stack Overflow developer survey[1] there's more Fullstack developers than any other kind of developer.

It just bothers me that the implication I got from your article was: "This is why mobile is tougher than Web." You might think: "Alright but web doesn't deal with some stuff mobile does, like offline data sync", but web does deal with stuff that mobile doesn't have to consider, like making sure your application is secure from XSS attacks, making sure all your backend endpoints prevent Overposting attacks, and other security considerations.

And if you are freelance, usually web also has to handle devops. Although sometimes the client does have their own setup.

Web also deals with considerations you don't in Mobile in general. Web is also very prone to failure if you don't plan carefully.

On the other hand the part that mentions that you should break your development into tasks is absolutely spot on. When I take a job I plan how I'm going to do the entire application in my head, writing it down in the process, then and only should do I give an estimate. It might be the single most important practice in my job as a consultant.

[1]: http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016
Still one of the most efficient energy storage systems is to pump water up a hill. There are losses in evaporation and conversion but these losses are low when compared to batteries. A system where we used solar power to pump sea water up into a man made reservoir would be very interesting.
Obesity could be contagious like superbug C. diff
If they already have the apps installed they're "converted" customer who don't really need advertising anymore. But how to get them know the app and install it in the first place? Ads impression is a common way beside recommendation from friends.

Additionally, most advertising are about pushing people to buy product like snacks, beer or cloths. I doubt many people really install a Zara or Gap app or put the website in their bookmark.
Not sure what you mean by "cost reduction curve". Can you expand?
Right; I'd guess that at least half of the 'nazi' mentions are actually lame puns.
I would guess that there's a serious adverse selection problem in personal disability insurance.
I'm not sure that's true. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook now, and Facebook has a presence in Brazil alright.
"Q: Google’s ads on its search engine are legit.
We mostly agree. The search engine is an amazing asset for the company. The CPC on google.com has risen year after year"

So... isn't that like most of Google's profits? Seeing as how they're both publisher and ad network they get 100% of the advertisers spend.

Does losing a fraction of a significant minority of even revenue warrant calling GOOG at $250? Ridiculous.
Most People Overlook These 7 Things About Being Successful
I wrote a website to stream google streetview for a given route. I then wrote a client to connect it to the ant+ device(cadence, power meter, speed sensors) on my indoor trainer to allow me to ride the route -

http://www.routeviewer.com/

Unfortunately the refresh rates on streetview were too low, as its not designed for this.

Should have built trainerroad
is it Line? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nmssoftwar...
The bigger problem with embargoes are the cloudflares of the world, who use it as a marketing angle (as per the post). I think embargoes don't work, won't work, even if well intentioned. Just get the details out, let people take the steps they need/want in the immediate term, and incentivize the parties involved to fix sooner rather than a usual tardy later.
Reproducibility is important, but not to check that what a scientist says about their own work is accurate. To verify the accuracy of what a scientist says about their own work you merely have to read their work.

That said, however, I am actually saying that it's unlikely that a scientist would misrepresent their own published findings. Perhaps it may occur - but if that happened then the government of the day could discipline the scientist who misrepresented their work. They would have to prove it.

What I find more naive is that a media relations person, employed by the government to portray them in the best light, would not misrepresent the work of the scientist.

Who would you want the reporter to speak to: the person employed to protect the reputation of the government of the day, or the scientist who did the actual work?
I thought this was a fantastic article. I've been intrigued for awhile by the interplay between automata, mechanical looms and early computational devices that she writes about here. Great example of how seemingly trivial or toy-like inventions can end up having unforeseen consequences. It's also interesting to think about how the history of magic and the history of technology have been entangled (by the latter I don't mean actual magic of course, but the drive to create objects or phenomena that appear magical).

"Of course, it’s an anachronism to call sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pinned cylinders “programming” devices. To be sure, there is a continuous line of development from these pinned cylinders to the punch cards used in nineteenth-century automatic looms (which automated the weaving of patterned fabrics), to the punch cards used in early computers, to a silicon chip. The designers of the automatic loom used automata and automatic musical instruments as their model; then Charles Babbage — the English mathematician who designed the first mechanical computers during the 1830s, the Analytical and Difference Engines — in turn used the automatic loom as his model. Indeed, one might consider a pinned cylinder to be a sequence of pins and spaces, just as a punch card is a sequence of holes and spaces, or zeroes and ones."
This was how it was the first time I visited reddit, they have since changed the default sub-reddits to much less NSFW stuff.
How close did Tesla come to selling to Google?
My guess is they're just hedging their bets with regard to wording. Presumably, there will be some crimes that entail losing your basic income, and it's probably up in the air whether the basic income will apply in whole or in part to children.

So "eligible citizens" in this case probably means "almost everybody, minus a few exceptions the legislature will certainly come up with".
90% of Python in 90 Minutes (2013)
A big problem with wind energy in Germany is a very vocal minority of old people who think that wind park visually destructs nature and it looks horrible.

Personally I think wind parks look awesome but there is a lot of opposition.
You're lucky, seriously. Imagine you've used the debugger - you'd had to work with such persons/company.
Sounds a lot like the underappreciated and only lightly documented OSX "hypervisor.framework"

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Driver...
At my university it was a 3rd or 4th year course (depending on how quickly you were able to knock out the prereqs), and I think that was a great approach. At that point you've used programming languages enough that creating your own interpreter is a fascinating experience.
"Imagine if the founders of Solar City also thought like this guy. Suffice to say they probably wouldn't be owning one of the largest US solar companies in the US right now."

Solar City did think like that guy. Solar City is heavily dependent on subsidies and the ability to sell power to utilities at retail, not wholesale, rates. Solar City pulled out of Nevada when Nevada took away some of those benefits.[1] Their business model requires subsidies.

The big utility-scale plants are now profitable at wholesale rates. Even in Nevada.[2] That's what matters.

[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2016/01/sol...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Mountain_Solar_Facility
Building something genuinely new, like caching electricity, is fraught with technical risks, financial risks, and regulatory hurdles. It's the kind of thing that can put a billion-dollar enterprise out of business. So expect a decade or more of research, small-scale experiments, political negotiation, and more, to bring storage online at any sort of scale. It's really, really hard, and really risky.

Nuclear plants, as you probably know, are almost pure base load solutions. They can't just be scaled up or slowed down arbitrarily. A volatile, arbitrage-based market efficiency would be pretty hard on the existing nuclear base, and could render a lot of plants unprofitable.

Meanwhile, the gas-fired peak load plants are tremendously expensive, because they have so much downtime and are inefficient. One or two decades ago, competing against them with storage was economically impractical. Now, it's becoming feasible. Especially once we start building gigawatts of sitting capacity anyway, in the shape of EV cars.
Yep, lately more and more, I think the root problem is that actually creating high-quality software is so expensive that few can afford to do it, but they need software anyway.

I think it's actually a big societal problem, not just a contractor-client-relations problem. Our lives are full of crappy software, and the economy probably literally could not bear the cost to fill them with high quality software instead. Software cost savings are a lie formed out of crappy software.
different article, same topic a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11553740
The Virtual Reality Future: Bigger Pipes, More Data Centers
I do wish Intel would make a high TDP i7 with improved single thread performance. I would even be OK with a water cooler.

The lack of progress on thread perf is a huge problem.
My point was that maybe their test wasn't what it appears to be. The bug could have been anything - the test may have been to see if applicants are comfortable using a debugger.
Summary:

-----

BiTMICRO Networks Inc. (of Fremont, California) paid some workers as little as $1.66 per hour after importing them from the Philippines on H1-B visas.

"We continue to see a pattern of U.S. companies misusing foreign worker visas by bringing them from overseas and paying them in pesos or rupees" said the director of the Wage and Hour Division office in San Francisco.

-----
"Simply stating something does not make it a fact."

Indeed.
Show HN: My First Ebook :) - How to Build a Reading Habit
You seem to be dismissing the phenomenon of needless c-sections, but it is real. At the birth of my 2nd child the OB started complaining that the birth wasn't "making progress" even though it was only in the 5th hour and a simple analysis of the interval between contractions showed an obvious trend. The OB just wanted to go do something else.

Naturally, I asked him to leave, and the birth was attended by some quite reasonable nurses. The only way to survive American health "care" is to know your facts and advocate for your own interests. The average physician in this country is mostly interested in billing you and moving on.
It's solved by the OP of every programming thread using Rust of course!
Reading this made me so so sad, I do agree with the reasoning.

I learned to program on a course that follows SICP, I spent all my college years learning how to program from first principles, building all the pieces from scratch. Building compilers, soft threads implementations, graph parsing algorithms... and I was happy with that way of programming!

Today I'm an iOS developer, I spend most of my day 'poking' at the Cocoa Touch framework whose source I can't even read because it's closed source. The startup I work for moves so fast that I'm forced to use other peoples open source projects without even having the time to read the source.
I feel miserable doing the kind of programming I do nowadays! I wish I could go back to simpler times, where I actually had to reason about algorithms, data structures, hardware, etc...
"clarity officers". Seriously?
MIT grad here: Nope. I've never had a workday that didn't involve reading through the docs or source of a library I didn't write. I am genuinely grateful to have taken 6.01, the course that replaced 6.001.

I am also grateful to have taken the condensed version of 6.001. You do need the ability to understand those abstractions in order to be an informed shopper though.
Rethinking the High School Transcript: An Exercise in Data Visualization