skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A better comparison is the several hundred thousand for the not as good treatment, a liver transplant.

There's still lots of room for a policy discussion. Can we develop such cures and pay less for them?
I guess the moral issue is that we have medical insurance, we don't have wedding insurance and car purchase insurance. I guess you could argue that the author did have insurance and brought the price down to $6,000... after his liver was diseased.
>Who decides what is ultimately evil, spiteful, or cruel? The most powerful God? Isn't that just supernatural might-makes-right?

Basically, yes. In the Book of Job, God's justification for visiting such cruelty onto an admittedly righteous man who didn't deserve it (to win a bet with Satan, no less) was, in essence, "Because I'm God, and you're not." God doesn't have to play by human rules, humans have to play by God's rules.

In many old religions, divine beings had no problem killing any mortal they pleased - and the strongest gods tended to be the most petty and violent of the lot. They were manifestations of the wanton and arbitrary power of the natural world. The Old Testament God seems to be cast from the same mold - murder is a sin, but if He commands you to kill your firstborn, you'd better not hesitate.

It's not a satisfactory philosophical answer for modern times but it is an answer. The modern version of this seems to be "God works in mysterious ways," but it's a reformulation of the same argument - God is essentially alien, and not a moral being as humans understand morality.
They are fringe, yes. The lead-crime hypothesis may eventually come to be accepted, but it isn't currently, and outside of the laymen pushing it, it doesn't have much traction. It's not enough to note lead's toxicity and thus, bang, a massive sociological trend is explained.

Yes, lead might be a contributing factor in the Boomer crime wave - it might be proven, one day. But the laymen pushing the hypothesis start out with this is THE explanation! and then retreat to you can't PROVE it doesn't have an effect!. This is classic behavior by supporters of psuedo-science.
Isn't this just Lynx?
First of all, I believe that Kenton Varda is not the inventor of protobuffs, but rather a Google engineer who did a bunch of work on Protobuffs v2 (I believe on both of the v2 specs for protobuffs, because there are two different v2s). He is certainly quite knowledgeable, but not "the inventor".

Second, while he does characterize it as a "huge mistake" for encoding/decoding performance reasons, there are a few caveats that are obvious here.

1) Half of his remarks here explain why varints are inappropriate for CapnProto, a separate project of his, inspired by his experience with protobuffs. CP has different design goals than PB, and in that context varints are inappropriate. Fine.

2) His argument here against varints in protobuffs (as contrasted with in capnproto) is only that they cost CPU time (and thus latency). That's surely true, but it's not at all clear to me that he's right that this is, in general, the wrong performance tradeoff.

3) In general, if you want to represent a long-tailed distribution of numbers, some variable-length encoding has merits, because the alternative (that protobuffs promote, IIUC) are fixed-width ints, which means you waste a lot of space to accommodate your long tail, and even so you might not have allocated enough space for the largest integer you ever need to handle.
You should re-read the article.

>Last year, Gilead entered into an agreement with India that would allow Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic versions of Harvoni and Sovaldi and sell them in 101 developing countries at "a significantly reduced flat price."

>If you buy Hepcinat from India, Gilead still makes a profit as part of its licensing arrangement, but it doesn't make the unholy profits the U.S. government allows it to get away with.
Because then rich capital-holders could buy up all the computing power and take control of all the welfare money. Chinese millionaires would end up taking money from needy Americans.

Using this system, we ensure that no single capital-holder controls too much mining power over the currency. Every working man is judged on his merits, using a system that is hard for any one actor to parallelize or scale. So many many distinct actors work to secure the underlying currency, and it is safer against large banks or governments.
Thatsthejoke.jpg
FWIW, I spent my elementary school years in South Bend. Certainly, by comparison to the type of development I was taking aim at, typical in the Sun Belt, the older industrial cities of the Midwest are, on average, a lot more dense and livable.
I didn't mean to imply that being aware of conditions is sufficient for being in control of them. Obviously that would be wrong.

> Aggregate categories are invalid

In the search for a single factor, groups of factors seem like invalid entries.

Talking about the influence of chance on the outcome of a given set of circumstances in the universe, we're getting into free will / determinism here (and that's probably not going to be a terribly productive discussion) so I'll move on to your other point.

> I think it's harmful

I'll concede that in a vacuum you'd be right, but we're not in a vacuum. Making decisions based on factors you know about is different from consciously ignoring external factor outside your control or assuming that the factors you control are weighted more heavily. I think this conclusion of yours about my argument, though, is based on the "awareness" vs "control" confusion from above, so my overall conclusion is that we're on the same page.
Yea, no. That's not how science works, it's not a popularity contest. If you have both a reasonable method of action and can back it up with actual reasarch you become the default until actual evidence suggests otherwise.

Unless you mean that in the most narrow terms, as in literally just popularity.
Most of the criticism against drug companies is that while they invest x for R&D and actual manufacturing, they earn back at least 100*x in profits. I don't think there are many other industries that allow this to happen.

I'm not entirely familiar with what makes pharma patents that much different from software (you don't really have a monopoly even if you own a software patent), but that's basically what's happening.

Once a company gets a patent, free market rules no longer apply, and they are free to price their drugs as they want.
I guess you could reason they are safe to take regardless. If they are counterfeit, they would likely make them out of sugar or flour not harmful chemicals. It wouldn't be in the best interest of the counterfeiters to make pills that harm or kill the buyer.
So it's fair for a multi-billion dollar company to exploit the "global market" by farming work out to 3rd world countries...

But not for a customer who is literally dying to take advantage of that same "global market" to save himself?

Like everything else in the global economy, laws are only enforced to protect the strong against the weak, and yet we wonder how all the wealth is accumulating in the hands of the few.
If for some reason, a poor person needed to pirate software that they couldn't afford in order to save their life, that would be ethical too. But this isn't even comparable, this is more like buying the very same software from an overseas licensed vendor who sells it cheaper.
Dropbox cut a bunch of perks and told employees to save more
The video says that we don't know exactly how that happens, though, and various similar experiments give diverse results
When self-driving cars become commonplace, they're going to learn very quickly to alert the driver that they're approaching the destination... particularly in these spots.
Yes, for the affluent those are what you typically spend. You clearly have never been seriously ill with a chronic condition. I have to take a drug every six weeks (remicade) that costs $17,000 each time for the rest of my life. I'm 23. Let that sink in. This is the state of affairs in the US. It's horrid, I didn't ask for Crohn's disease, but I'm being punished for it.
Sorry, that's exactly how it works. You've pushing a claim. The claim needs proof. The burden is those pushing the claim, not the people pointing out that it isn't proven.
Before you do something drastic, I think the advice below to take some time to rest is a good one. Take your sick days or vacation days and take a full 10 working days off. What happens when you are not around to fight the fires? Are you working in an agency or for a single corp? Does the random reporting of strange bugs increase the budget or show in the costs? You may have better luck showing how much this is costing in terms of man hours rather because that is something managers/directors care about more than "tools, workflow, etc" Try to take it up to the top and show how being less fragmented benefits the company rather than yourself and you may find more people that will listen to your concerns.
You can also choose to not share dirty needles.
The best explanation I can come up with is that people assume the GPS has perfect information. Sure, you and I and anyone that's used a GPS off the beaten path knows that's not true, but that's a long way from "everyone". When you ask yourself, "who would do that?", the obvious answer is, "someone who was led to believe that a GPS unit is infallible."
Well, there's already wisp/sfri-110 for scheme, it appears the preprocessor should mostly work with clojure -- although one would probably want to port it over, or at least try to get it working on the jvm in order to have it "work where clojure works" (I have no idea how viable it would be to get it running with jython and something like kawa scheme out of the box):

http://www.draketo.de/english/wisp#text-table-of-contents

[ed: For Racket, see also:
https://github.com/takikawa/sweet-racket ]

[ed2: See also the "readable" package for Common Lisp and for Scheme: https://sourceforge.net/p/readable/wiki/Install-howto/ ]
Why would a judge throw out evidence of illicitly gained information? Doesn't that lead to exactly where we land here with this article?

Edit: thanks for the definitions, nonetheless!
It's not incompressible it's just that when you compress it, it will stay liquid and it's volume doesn't really decrease that much as the chart below shows.

http://engineering-references.sbainvent.com/thermodynamics/p...
"The compressibility of water reduces the sea level by about 40 m giving us 5% more land."

http://www.starfish.ch/reef/ocean.html
India can break patents on drugs it considers too expensive. The real danger is if this sort of thing makes drugs unprofitable pharma companies won't spend any money researching drugs to treat uncommon conditions, and the drug will never exist to start with.

We'll get endless varieties of new opioids, blood pressure pills, pecker perkers, and not much else.
The answer is we don't know!
Yes. To transition from liquid to gas the water must absorb heat. That heat must come from the air, cooling it.
Except where barbarism and "cruel and unusual" are synonymous of course...
"and the pharma company actually felt a significant drain in revenue, they may decide not to license the manufacture of these drugs in India at lower prices"

But thats the thing. There will be no drain in revenue as they make money in the US by selling for $84K while they make money from the sales in India as well due to licensing agreement (albeit a bit less revenue).

Overall, still a pretty good deal for these pharma companies if you ask me otherwise why would they even do such a deal with India ?
SRFI-110 says you can^1: "Sweet-expressions are general and homoiconic, and thus can be easily used with other constructs such as quasiquoting and macros. In short, if a capability can be accessed using s-expressions, then they can be accessed using sweet-expressions. Unlike Python, the notation is exactly the same in a REPL and a file, so people can switch between a REPL and files without issues. Fundamentally, sweet-expressions define a few additional abbreviations for s-expressions, in much the same way that 'x is an abbreviation for (quote x)."

http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-110/srfi-110.html#wisp

^1 [ed: well, not "just python syntax", but if you wanted that, you would be better off using python. But python-like syntax/skin is absolutely doable. ]
I bet a lot of people on HN would enjoy Ratner's Star. I'm a huge fan of his early novels: End Zone, Great Jones Street, Ratner's Star and Running Dog are my favorites. All of those novels are quick, amusing reads that unfolded in my mind for many years afterward.
Just to your last point, history ends for most of us when we expire. It is hard for me to see, possibly halfway through my life, when or how this course corrects, considering the current balance of money and power.
That's not the only way to get it bud.
Protein folding seems like the kind of problem that people were better at than computers 10 years ago, before deep learning
So this is obviously an attempt to let Emacs look like a software that is not mainly developed by a guy, which eats things from his foot.^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
"..not to license the manufacture of these drugs in India"

And then India can purchase/void their domestic patent, allowing generic brands to fill the market the original creator decided to abandon.
The problem here is that you're using Safari.
If I remember correctly, the appeals court did not rule that APIs are copyrighted, only that they might be copyrightable in some cases. Judge Alsup had ruled that they couldn't be copyrighted; that if you used the four-factor test, you would always always come to the "outside copyright protection" answer in all cases.
Well, my point was that if everyone decided to source it through India, they will no longer sell anything for $84k. Even if 10% of people did that, their profits will slip enough for them to notice and take action.
> "The most frequently reported adverse reactions were mostly mild to moderate in severity and were manageable without the need for modification of doses or discontinuation of therapy."

Having gone through two interferon treatments for HCV, one with the most current regimen of pegalated interferon and ribavirin, I can personally attest to this description being ridiculously inaccurate. The OP may exaggerate some, but the contrast with Harvoni is stark.

Headaches, flu-like symptoms, anemia, lethargy, and chemical depression, not to mention high stress on the liver you're ultimately trying to cure, are just some of the lovely side effects of interferon-based treatment, which could last up to 72 weeks. Many people dropped out, many weren't cured. Success rates depended on viral genotype; certainly for some people it was well below 50%. And don't forget the two forms of birth control, since ribavirin basically guarantees birth defects (as if you'd be in the mood).

Harvoni may be expensive, but it and the drugs related to it are unbelievably effective in doing something many thought impossible 10 years ago: curing HCV.

I cleared the virus on the clincal trials with no side effects. Unfortunately, it wasn't soon enough to spare me from a liver transplant. Hopefully the new drugs will reach enough people in time to let them avoid severe liver disease. There aren't enough donor livers to cure, and liver failure is a uniquely crappy way to die.
Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines (John McCarthy 1979)
must me nice in your bubble that $84,000 as a one time payment is reasonable. normal people can't get a loan for something like this, and obviously don't have cash stored away for something like this, and like the article mentioned, the op won't get covered by insurance even though he's done his part and paid insurance premiums. he clearly had no other options. glad you drive a $33k car. seems like the op doesn't.
I wouldn't bet my life on that. In fact, counterfeit drugs are estimated to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, in many cases directly, not because they don't provide the necessary treatment. See http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/17/health/living-well/falsified-m...

>Fakes contained chalk, talcum powder, road paint and occasionally dangerous heavy metals, instead of the expensive, hard-to-make medicine.
God doesn't require a creator because existence is intrinsic to him. At the burning bush, when Moses asked for God's name, he replied "I am that I am."

Also, I am not postulating a creator god; I am reporting on the God who has revealed himself. I didn't used to believe in God until I encountered him through various means. You could also encounter God if you seek him. "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Mt. 7:7-8) Now this is not an instant or casual thing. Seeking is a life-long and life-consuming thing. I've been at it (with an openness towards religious truth) for 37 years and I'm still discovering new stuff. Science is cool because it tells us about the universe that God created, but faith is better because by faith we come into contact with the author of the universe.
http://i.imgur.com/x12SjIU.png
If you want to use bitcoin in the real world then opsec skills become part of the equation whether you like it or not.
Considering that Americans consume 75% of the world's prescription drugs, and I think it safe to assume an equivalent amount of non-prescription drugs, I don't think any of this makes much difference. The US is a very strange and unique drug market.

Citation:
"5 percent of the United States is the world's population and consumes 75 percent of the the world's prescription drugs."

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/i...

(And by "Americans" I and the gov included all those people in the US market who are not "US citizens". Ie me.)
I know someone who took interferon for Hep C. It permanently damaged the nerves in his extremities to the point where he can barely walk and is in constant pain. It changed his personality, and not in a good way.
I'm a scientist (coincidentally, an empirical one) but I still don't believe that all truth can be discovered scientifically -- that is, through repeatable data collection and experimentation. You can't prove or disprove the existence of God by doing experiments.

Your worldview seems to be pretty close to Scientism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism), which I think some would consider a religion in itself.

Sure, the problem of evil is an objection to religion, but follow your premise to its logical conclusion and good/evil doesn't exist at all. There is really no reason to want the world to be a better place, preserve the planet, and so on. Is that really a world you want to live in?

> Religion is an artifact of one of the most ancient forms of control. Today, it is an institution used to espouse the morals of the elite.

Do you think so? At least in the United States, religion is generally seen as the domain of the less educated and impoverished, not the elite. Today, you and I are free to determine our own definitions of morality.

> There is no evidence that bad people will be punished when they die. There is no evidence that the good will be rewarded.

Sure there is evidence. It's just historical and relational. It's not something that can be tested through the scientific method.
The Monte Carlo algorithm is elegant, simple, powerful and useful for a large number of real world applications.
this style of evaluating people (what interesting things have you done) is quite problematic at that age, and forces students to do things for show from early one. I know there are a lot of people who do really exciting things even at a young age (e.g. Running a flight school or competing in the olympics), but if that becomes the sole way of grading/comparing students/getting scholarships, we create pressure to do impressive-sounding things, which leads to the weird US college application system (days filled with extracurriculars, taking classes early, the essay-writing industry, etc.). IMHO, it is much preferable if the 'front door' into elite schools and scholarships exists based on grades and the like( of course, there should be flexibility for admitting extraordinarily accomplished people -- there just shouldn't be any shame in getting in just by hard work/studying/general smarts, so you can be honest about your successes).
I have Cystic Fibrosis. Orkambi is the closest we've been to a cure (treating it at cellular level). Retail: $260,000 a year. However, I pay $15/month. (insurance + manufacturer subsidy). Many of my other medicines (which would cost another $100k+) are similar. I picked one of the better insurance packages (about $375/mo); I pay another $100-200 a month in copays to get $400k or more in medicine.

I'm also in the US. Why is my experience so much different than yours?

(edit: some punctuation)
Yes, the typical Chinese factory worker (who would not even be particularly poor by Chinese standards) is quite a bit poorer than the typical displaced American factory worker, so there should be a strong presumption against transferring wealth from the former to the latter.
It's not supposed to have one. Polymer is simply a shim and collection of WebComponents. Polymer isn't a fully-fledged application framework itself. You'd still use something like Flux, Redux or Cycle (with a router) on top of Polymer. Polymer is intended to be used essentially for views only - the same role React plays in the Redux + React stack.
Until the Supreme Court says it is everything in constitutional. Sadly the Supremes often avoid anything that would require actually saying this.
Well, that's the idea behind "parallel construction" -- a clean evidence chain is built up in parallel. That one isn't exactly inadmissible and there is no proof linking one chain to the other.

Furthermore, there are protective policies where public prosecutors are given the discretion to exclude evidence gained from "confidential" sources (eg: undercover cops) and that revealing such evidence to the public would negatively impact current/future investigations. Such evidence can be revealed privately to the necessary parties (eg: judges), but I'm not familiar with these procedures.
> while they invest x for R&D and actual manufacturing, they earn back at least 100*x in profits.

If that is true, VC's money will be flooding over pharmaceuticals instead of Silicon valley. This "100x" number probably fails to account for the vast number of failed trials that is all cost and no profit.
You might think that, but young post grads do a literature review not a survey. It might seem morbid, but science is often said to progress when the old guard dies off.

That's not to say it's going to win as the only explanation, just that it needs to be disproven not ignored.
Flexport is hiring software engineers to reinvent global trade
It's only like ten times more compressible than diamond, if I remember my schooling correctly.

In liquid water, mechanical engineers are usually free to assume incompressability. This makes solving the math a lot easier, though absolutely cannot be done for gases.
Yeah, but that's not going to happen. If a big pharm company doesn't provide India-priced versions of drugs, the Indian government just declares the patent invalid and lets generics produce it for free (yes, this happens).
Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Block Pirate Bay as “Phishing” Site
PMA is the best tech book I have ever read.
I really doubt any daily shopping can be done in 5 minutes. Most NYC grocery stores are very busy. Going to the store every day seems ridiculously inefficient, and corner stores rarely have everything, forcing multiple stops.
One of the big differences that I see is that mapcodes are more address-like and what3words are more hash-like—two similar mapcodes are nearby (and that's by design), but two similar what3words addresses may be on opposite sides of the planet (and that's also by design).
When they think we're all criminals, it's just a matter of degrees and justifications.