skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
For disease transmission it's less important how much people connect inside small groups but how much those groups connect to other groups. The issue is when someone get's infected with something vary quickly the whole group becomes infected.
FWIW, compared to similar seminars I thought the price of Tufte's was very reasonable - IIRC, shy of $400, and includes $160 worth of books. I also thought the class was quite good, BTW.
Anyone else experience the IE8 bug (or know of a documented case and solution for it) mentioned in the article?
Don Knuth's original objective for TeX was to allow anyone to create typeset documents. Currently, very few mainsteam typeset documents are created by TeX.

If Knuth paid more attention to the non-algorithmic side of software design - for example, accepting usability issues as bugs as those of us outside academia do - he may have been much more successful at achieving his aim.

So perhaps Jobs had something to teach Knuth.

Edit: I know you love Knuth, I do too. Downvoting anything that suggests he falls short in any way won't make his or your life better.
Are there any other incubators in Vancouver, ideally associated fairly directly with real (i.e. Silicon Valley, or at least Seattle) VCs?

If someone wanted to do just the minimum legal/financial/admin overhead for startups (say, $500/mo tops), and either provide them with YC-levels of funding, or provide housing/office space for 4mo ($1-3k/mo/person, tops), it seems like a win. Investing $20k in each company for 5-15 companies would be a good investment in dealflow for a Vancouver or global focused VC.

I think a Canadian funding entity investing directly could get around the crazy reporting requirements.

Even if you were only 20% as good as YC, open immigration laws of Canada, and the Vancouver environment would probably be enough.

Alternatively, a Vancouver franchise of Seedcamp or Founder Institute.
I think bootstrap time is an important comparison since it gives a hard boundary on how fast the framework can operate. If even running a "hello" app is too slow, then the whole framework becomes useless, no matter how much you streamline and cache your application.
"over half a billion dollars of PEPFAR money a year, in part to promote abstinence, monogamy and condom use"

I am a bit surprised to hear that Americans pay other countries to promote abstinence and monogamy.

Also, men in power everywhere have lots of sex, it is natures way. I don't think the president single-handedly infected the nation with HIV. Not that I have any sympathies for him, just saying.

I always felt it was hypocritical to demand a pure christian marriage life from presidents.
The Great Firewall: China's Web Users Battle Censorship
The author, Robin Hanson, has done some really great work in prediction markets. One of his papers directly led to the founding of Inkling Markets (YC06).

I sort of get the feeling that this article was indirectly referring to his involvement in the very creative, but highly politicized "Policy Analysis Market" which was a DARPA sponsored prediction market that might have included trading on topics such "a missile attack by North Korea" or "the overthrow of the king of Jordan."

Given how that went down, this article makes much more sense.

Details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market
How to Study History Term Paper Topics
Students must explore the events that made history, while they write their academic assignments on history term paper topics. Therefore, they should try to find the causes and effects relationship behind their chosen historical topic.
exploiting trends is the second type.

unfortunately none of Jim Clark's billion dollar companies are around today no matter how historically important they were.
IPhone developers: Locked into Apple's walled garden
JQuery.Syntax plugin for WordPress - Client-side syntax highlighting
"abstinence and fidelity rather than condom use"

Isn't that basically the same as "no sex outside marriage"?
I always disliked this kind of thinking. Let me begin by saying I'm agnostic so I'm not actually church-biased.

The roman catholic church has rules and nobody is forced to follow those rules. If some people like to think they are roman catholics then they should follow those rules which include not having sex unless you are procreating.

Now you can say the church should evolve, become modern, and while that would be fair, it's also fair for the church to stand by their ideals.

You can insist and say they have a fair share of responsability for those who follow them which should make them evolve faster but people need to start thinking for themselves and think about what's more important: being roman catholic or using a condom?

I'd say there's only one way you comply to both: if you're married to someone HIV positive and want to procreate. If that's the case, you might want to think about your child which might carry HIV too.

edit:
At the end of my post I said "your child which will probably carry HIV" but apparently it's not a high probability as pointed by sounddust so I changed it to "might carry". Thanks, sounddust!
Lose weight? Maybe someday, after I finish my book and fall in love..
It was wiped as I was almost finished entering my data. It was restored back to the point where I was about halfway done. I did try in multiple browsers before it was restored.
Java zero-day flaw under active attack
Learn mandarin:

On average:
This goal takes 345 years to complete

Ouch.
While not surprising, I still find it interesting the number of generic, immeasurable, and fantastical goals at the top of the list like "be happy", "stop procrastinating", "fall in love", etc etc.

Perhaps they're the most frequent because it's much more difficult to measure them and thus harder to fully achieve, or perhaps it's telling the same inherent set of goals that's instilled in us as we grow, or maybe it explains the feelings of a large percentage of people.

Any way you look at, data like this aggregated across a population is always interesting. I love the trend of startups publishing things like this now.
Do we need MBAs? A 5 Part In Depth Series
Clojure meets the European industry
That's a great point. There's a good income to be made by developing tools for developers, just not the type of stellar growth that gets you mentioned on TV (unless you switch from developing for developers to developing for everyone, like Bill Gates and Paul Allen)
The Catholic church condemns all birth control, including for married couples, if I understand correctly. This is why they hold some guilt. I don't see any problem with backing abstinence as the proper form for premarital birth control, denying it in all situations mean those who fail to maintain abstinence won't feel social pressure to use birth control, and, guessing, there will be a lower likelihood of easy access birth control.

Church argument: Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods. http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp

I don't follow the church's argument, but crimes against humanity? That's just silly. So why are yall down-voting him?
This seems like an interesting project, however I can't find extra info on the Berkely site or elsewhere. Do you know if the development is going to be done out in the open?
On the other hand, you offer an open-source version (which is great by the way), so it's not really a huge deal if the free version isn't that great.
Regarding a) I would say brand recognition sure helps.

Regarding b) I'm not so sure. "Genius" might start to recommend it, but I would like to see how fast it will become a "staff pick".
Probably an iPad order.
As a side note, do you think academia or startups are leading the charge in revolutionary technologies? As a post-grad, my point of view was firmly skewed towards academia, but the pace of iterative technological improvements by startups makes it seem as if in the short term, startups are driving new technologies more than academic research.
Heathrow radar
World hottest news: Death at a Funeral
Thanks for this. For anyone else who didn't know it existed, the languages currently supported (for syntax highlighting and autoindenting) are PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, XML, Lua, SparQL and plain text. Ruby seems to be high on their todo list.
That's an interesting point of view: Should people be encouraged to choose between religion or reason, or should we encourage religion to adapt? I don't think the answer is clear; I'd guess that the most effective approach is a case-by-case basis (true, the Roman Catholic church is unlikely to bend anytime soon, but perhaps other religions are more willing to adapt). Others have the right to criticize religion just as much as they have the right to their beliefs, so I think that the focus should be on effectiveness rather than "rights" (which I think are well-preserved in both cases).

One thing I want to point out: mother-to-infant transmission of HIV is around 2-8% with proper preventative treatment and 15-30% without, so I disagree that the child will "probably" carry HIV, although it is certainly a risk.
Yep - it's lunch now. HN is related to my work anyway. I hope it's related to yours. :^)
Automatically mount Amazon EC2 EBS devices (via udev)
@Anywhere lacks a 'retweet' button
Have you noticed that it would be natural to include a 'retweet this' button into the @Anywhere? Does Twitter not want to upset the dev community even deeper at this point and just is waiting for a better moment?
Hotel reservations in orlando
Fast, secure and easy to use hotel bookings online service. ... This is preventing you from searching or booking a hotel
Thanks for the nice comment! You are right, but this is not because of marketing grounds, this is because I would personally never use a software as as a service for my code/projects where I cannot move out of it without losing my data and workflow.

This is another subject, but for a critical part of my business, I want to always have full control over my data and workflow. By allowing people even with the free account to have their own domain and a full backup compatible with the open source (GPL) version, my customers can migrate out without even having their users noticing the change. This is my idea of freedom for SaaS.
"successful innovators" lol.
I have this idea that it takes more than one person to be successful. I think you rarely find the guy with the revolutionary idea and the guy that is the determine hard worker to be the same person.
The ideas person is normally a dreamer and likes to change ideas quickly while the determine hard worker is diligent and hates change.

According to Meredith Belbin - "NOBODY'S PERFECT - BUT A TEAM CAN BE"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Belbin

Although on the surface one person gets all the glory, it takes alot of persons to be successful.
That list is hilarious, and not just because of the title. The world that is made up of 100,000 people? Really?
This article reeks eerily of keep you mouth shut and do what we tell you or you will get black listed in the VC industry. Those are the kind of subtle tactics that could bring regulation to what some regulators already would like to consider a financial industry.
Incidentally, Zuckerberg wasn't scratching his own itch; he took the idea of some other students who's site he was supposedly was helping them to build, and ran with/stole/took 'inspiration from' (depending on your point of view) the idea himself.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-in...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/judge-ends-facebook...

It's quite a Microsoft-esque tatic I think, i.e. of questionable morals, but potentially a great business move.
I do really like Boris' little legal threats

I'm sure you're misinterpreting what Boris wrote. I read that line as saying that their instinctive response is to engage in a dialogue with their critics (even if IMHO their initial response was very poor) rather than running to a lawyer who would almost certainly advise them to say nothing.
Not quite. It doesn't matter, though.

Please focus on the first part: "condoms exacerbated the problem of HIV/AIDS".

The statement is wildly untrue, and makes the Church guilty of STD's spread.
'frequent prostitutes' != 'strict monogamy'
Summary: If you can't make something people want, because you don't know what that is, make something you want.
Also, it conveniently avoids spoilers.
It's a too complicated topic and that's why I stayed out of it. I try to believe reason is above everything else and when showed I'm wrong I just update my views on it.

I'm not sure what should the church do but I know I'm fascinated by those who follow those rules. I'm not talking about those who follow it blindly but of those who really believe it.

I edited the original post to reflect the right probability of a child carrying HIV from their parents, thanks!
Most popular languages to learn on the list:
#1 Spanish
#2 Japanese
#3 Sign language
Ogg and the multimedia container format struggle
Are there any other incubators in Vancouver, ideally associated fairly directly with real (i.e. Silicon Valley, or at least Seattle) VCs?

Sadly no. If YC or TechStars set up in Vancouver I'd apply immediately; but Bootup Labs is the only show in town.
The Apollo Syndrome
I've not read this yet, but I searched for the word "software" and didn't find it so I'll point out that Free and Open Source Software is also a "Public Good" in economics terms. Any piratable software probably counts too for the same reasons outlined for content.
> no region crack for the DVD drive so it's permanently stuck on region 1

Can't it be changed 5 times ? I seem to remember seeing that when I first popped a DVD into the MacBook, and was asked to set region.

A DVD which, incidentally, I was going to use RipIt on (http://thelittleappfactory.com/ripit/ - I'm pleased with it, might work for you). Keeping up with the silly tricks to annoy honest buyers seems to require buying commercial apps. Fine, I'll just buy one less DVD to pay for the app ...

(P.S. Another "smart" idea is small-kid's games that cost 10 bucks, in copy-protected-play-in-drive-CDs, to fend off those well known penniless pirates and thieves, the parents-of-small-kids. The first I bought was the last - I wanted to use the ISO in an old laptop with a bad drive ...)
The Social Web Influences Content
The argument of the article is that when the head of the government acts blatantly irresponsible and appears to be proud of it, it's no small wonder responsible behavior is rare.

Gays spearheaded the campaign for safe sex because they were highly exposed to the risk (anal sex has a much higher risk of transmitting HIV). If leaders in the gay community, well aware of the risk, went around boasting of having unprotected sex, their advice would be laughed at, and yes, it'd be fair to say they'd earned it. But they don't - gay leaders are exceedingly responsible in this area. As opposed (apparently) to the leaders of South Africa and Swaziland.

Screw "the general direction" and "uncomfortably". HIV is really, actually, for real dangerous. When you act irresponsibly, against better knowledge, as a leader, yes, you deserved it when your people suffers.
I did it all and can tell you from my experience most of them are not worth it.

I think it's actually a sad list, lot of things people think will make them happy, but instead of just trying them out the fill lists with goals.
It's actually like a really long business plan ... after reading 20 pages you just start thinking "just do it!".
Jason Rohrer has done some interesting things. He is the author of MUTE. A p2p network with a high level of anonymity. Also he lives a very spartan life, entirely off donations from the users of his software (at least he used to).
I think his point is that most language designers seem concerned about abstruse things and seem less concerned about his everyday problems. Someone's got to be concerned about his everyday problems to do the best possible job of designing a language to make his life easier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_%28statistics%29

100k people is quite a large sample. Conclusions about the world have been made from much smaller samples.
As I understand it, they had no money in part because you didn't keep your side of the agreement.
> Die Hard 2 tried to do this with an airport, but it was a much less interesting locale

Im not sure it is less interesting; I think mostly they used it poorly. Airports are a fascinating place and at times (i.e. when he used the storm drains to get out to the runway) I think there were examples of "Nakatomi Space".

The main problem was that an Airport is a very large and very open space - they didn't use that well.
I've seen the IDEA plugin (Comm Edition 9, macbook pro, 4G RAM) slow to a crawl with a pretty large lift repo until heap was increased to 1G.
The cost of github is so small that it's not really a factor.
The main problem with Linux: ignorant users
Do "turtles all the way down" collapse into a black hole?
FaaS: Fraud as a Service
Speaking as a former psych major, I don't think there's any real psychology behind his writing, aside from the basic concept of a sociopath. His writing is closer to philosophy or pop psychology, and there is nothing clinical or formal about it...

> And, aren't psychologists the ultimate sociopaths, distorting the metaphysics or their surroundings?

No. Writing a paper about SQL injection attacks is much different than using a SQL injection attack to grab credit card numbers.
> I don't see any problem with backing abstinence as the proper form for premarital birth control, denying it in all situations mean those who fail to maintain abstinence won't feel social pressure to use birth control, and, guessing, there will be a lower likelihood of easy access birth control.

I'm not a catholic, but you have to try to see it from their perspective. What kind of moral leader are you, if you say "don't sin, but if you're going to sin anyway, here's the best way to do it"?

To draw a parallel: Suicide is very very wrong. But doing it wrong will put you in a lot of pain and might handicap you - so we should make small pamphlets for teenagers saying "don't kill yourself - but here are some tips if you're going to anyway".

For someone who's not opposed to premarital sex or contraception, it's an unreasonably far stretch to compare - but I'm not at all sure that's not pretty much how they feel about it.
So people are ignoring the Church on abstinence, but obeying it on contraception?

Doesn't really seem plausible, does it?
The flip side is the consumer side: This isn't good for the consumer. I simply have no desire to add apps now, knowing that Apple can remove them at any time. Especially now with all the changes, it's obvious that even a 'legal' app might be removed. Or updates won't be approved. There are just so many problems.

I realize that the average consumer won't see this, but it's a problem. You could argue that it benefits the consumer, because better apps will get through. With more restrictions, less apps will be sent in, freeing up more manpower to approve legit apps quicker. This might happen.

Still, I try to avoid buying software that I can't install at any time, and I avoid buying into harsh DRM. I don't always succeed, but I don't want to rely on a single vendor who has proven their willingness to eliminate popular content, stall important updates, and drastically change rules whenever they please.
I've done professional translations, and in that environment, you only translate from the "other" language to your native language, unless you are well and truly bilingual, as in born, raised and educated in both languages.
Library of Congress acquires entire twitter archive
The worst I can say about Jamie was that possibly he was a little naive, and should have ensured there was a binding contract in place before he moved. However given the visibility of Bootup I doubt them reneging on the deal even crossed his mind.

He has every right to feel the way he does, and in fact I thought was very measured/mature in his article.
I can't even fathom having "watch grey's anatomy" as a goal. I don't even...
Chrooting Apache2 With mod_chroot On Debian Lenny
What web analytics should actually be
That article was written simply to be link-bait. She is simply saying the opposite of everyone else to get people to look. Ignore it.
Hmm. I have a feeling that any sysadmin out there would disagree that spam is dead.
Granted we only get one side of the story in these type post, but it does sound like you have an issue with the CEO. I urge you to truly self-reflect and see if there where some issues on your part (tell yourself the truth). If the story is still exactly how you wrote it here, then the CEO is inadequate and it is time to approach the board and offer them you head or his.
Crunch Time for IRS Data Centers
>Instead, the innovations that matter most are the millions of small changes we constantly make to our billions of daily procedures and arrangements.

This is true, but it's important to understand that whole categories of employment actually discourage and even forbid employees from adapting their own workflows to be more productive. Instead their workflows are imposed, often haphazardly or arbitrarily, from above - and often from people who have never actually performed the work they're managing. Workers who are denied any ownership of their own work are all but guaranteed to be cynical and unproductive.
Not a great article but he's right. We need another good input device. Ideally, Bluetooth enable and will work with future phones too.
yes, and none of them cares about things like "secure clean drinking water" or "cure [disease ravaging some people/area]" or "be able to [vote, leave the house alone]"
>I think you rarely find the guy with the revolutionary idea and the guy that is the determine hard worker to be the same person.

I disagree. The only way to arrive at a workable revolutionary idea is to iterate aggressively until you hit on a model that works.
Probably b/c people think it would be cool and then decide it's not and never do it.
Talk about too simplistic.
The problem is the Catholic church is in a position of social respect and authority, and it spreads disinformation like:

Pope Benedict said on the eve of his trip that he wanted to wrap his arms around the entire continent, with "its painful wounds, its enormous potential and hopes".

HIV/Aids was, he argued, "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem". [1]

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk. [2]

The church can invent whatever rules it likes and people can chose to follow them or not, but spreading lies about condoms is not acceptable.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7947460.stm

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids
Although I am sure some bright people here on HN are already working on one or more of the above, these seem pretty saturated already. Maybe the best startups are the ones that solve things for people that they don't even know is a goal yet.
1. This is nothing but a rumour, this instance seemingly made up out of thin air by that website.

2. There is no evidence whatsoever that VP8 even exists, let alone performs anywhere close to H.264.

3. Even if it does exist, and even if it is opened, there is no reason to believe the usual suspects do not hold patents covering at least parts of it.
Seems to be missing the jokes that the author wrote were included in the Powerpoint notes below the slides.