skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There's a wide spectrum between GP's "doing the least I can get away with" and your "slaving for the man".

This week I have to be on holiday, so I'll be working on a project I love and "learning new stuff", for nobody else's benefit or entertainment other than my own.
I don't advocate ubi, lvt is enough. That's why ubi is under consideration and lvt gets nothing. Lvt kicks rentiers square in the nuts. Pow.
Free PacktPub Book: R for Data Science
"I find it at odds that a nation that has such ardour and pride for their servicemen and servicewomen would basically condone human rights abuse by and unto those same personnel ?!"

So, you're new to jingoistic nationalism is what you're telling me.

Cool, welcome to the 19th century. You have about 200 years of history to catch up on! I'm guessing you've just learned about Napoleon's army based on your opinion, so hoy-boy do you have a wide variety of nationalist nations and their armies to study!
> simply include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs.

You mean like when I spent 30 minutes figuring out that text area in chrome is counting new line as 1 letter and firefox is counting it as two ?
Except for Mozilla's policy of trying to making Firefox race Chrome to be the best browser for the lowest common denominator. You can't even edit your addons in Firefox anymore. They have to be signed by Mozilla.

> And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous.

And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about. Firefore/Chrome/etc are all about protecting tech ignorants from themselves rather than allowing adept users to do what they want.
Hi! I'm one of the developers of Object Spreadsheets and will do my best to answer the substantive questions in this thread. Thanks to richardboegli for notifying us.
Interesting - quite likely any anlien civilization would not send living creatures to explore space. It's more efficient to send von Neumann probes that can "create factories which will reproduce copies (of) themselves by the thousands", as argued here: http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of-extraterrestri...
why not something like this: Every domain sold would be for the same price (10 per year or whatever), no secondary markets or private deals.
I'm tempted to speculate in this direction, too, although we don't really know anything yet. If he's connected with any investor group, portfolio company, etc. that might be looking at doing something with Twitter, it's easier if he drops out of lots of random conversations now, rather than having to engage or ignore any further stuff that's pointed his way.
I'd speculate that it's the point at which the insurance and futures markets allow for buyers that are unprepared or unable to prepare for actually receiving a shipment.

This leads to a market in which speculation is allowed, instead of biding on the actual outcome of supply/demand interacting.
This makes a lot of sense but with superbug bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, wouldn't phage be a solution?

It looks as though we're not even considering them, while people are of MRSA etc...
Isn't the finance industry in conflict between supporting stable growth of 'real' economy by providing capital vs. their ability to gain during volotile times. Or can someone enlighten me why they are so oblivious to asset bubbles, with no effort to restrain borrowing in a particular bubbly asset, unless volatility is seen as no issue - or even an opportunity.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for a cannonical reference on Modern C++14?

I have experience with C++ but its the old kind with raw pointers.

My usual starting point is Herb Sutter's books, with Bjarne's bible handy when I need it. I'm not sure where to start with modern C++.
Maybe I'm jaded or missing something obvious, but the point that seems bonkers to me is the part where the loan originator offloads 100% of the risk in the loans they originated. That seems like a very clear principle / agent problem where the originator no longer bears any risk for loan failure, only failure to sell the loan. That creates incentives for increasingly complicated/opaque packaging of loans that fail to sell - CDOs.
Yes, I was trying to explain some theory to my sister and she had it in her head that "black notes" on the piano - or anything we call a sharp or flat - were "minor". It took a lot of explaining to get her to realize that a single note on it's own is in no particular key and no particular mode (scale).
Those same people probably prefer to drive a Lamborghini, too, but so what? A Honda is a fine car for normal folks. And Omaha is a fine city.
Add this to the fact that Edge is still the only browser on Windows that's suitable for use on a device with a touchscreen, and it's downright insulting.

I have Chrome on my Surface. I choose to use Edge instead because Chrome is unusable without my Type Cover plugged in, and I'm not doing that while laying on the couch.

Hey Google, want me to use Chrome on my Surface? Then give me the Android version of Chrome running in a container. Phone UI, please.
rather than just that sentence, here's a tldr; for the problem the article describes.

There is a difference between a loan taken to build a fishing boat and a loan to buy an existing apartment building.

A fishing boat loan is paid off by producing real objects with real value (food) some of which wealth repays the loan.

The apartment building loan is paid of by raising rents and, rather than producing anything of value, actually takes wealth out of a productive part of the economy (consumer's pockets).

By considering both kinds of loans the same we have made a financial mess of things.
Right -- the distinction is that the LVT taxes only the land.

The argument for not taxing the improvements is basically that the value of the land is created collectively, while the value of the improvements is arguably created by the property owner. One could argue that this isn't entirely true, and perhaps there's a case to be made for taxing the improvements at a lower but nonzero rate; but then you have to go to the trouble of assessing the value of the improvements. Assessing the value of just the land is easier.

Another point is that by taxing only (or mostly) the land, you encourage denser construction as soon as the demand supports it. Tearing down a three-bedroom house, or a few adjacent ones, to build an apartment complex, is more financially attractive if the total tax bill doesn't change.
> Theoretically, if the code also for some reason needed to contain the original byte-value of the address at that offset

The NES and Game Boy devices usually needed this. Without it, bank-switching would result in one code changing several actual ROM bytes, when you only wanted to change one. The SNES almost never used bank switching so it wasn't necessary there.

Still, it's not a one-way hash function here. If you were sufficiently bored, it would be very easy to deduce the encoding for at least the :value portion of the codes, just by comparing the codes in the book. I actually did something similar as a kid. If a phrase (as in a sentence of text) were illegal, using rot13 on it wouldn't make it legal. And Nintendo were chomping at the bit to ban/outlaw/block Game Genie devices (Nintendo has a sad history of being fiercely litigious against everyone), so I'm certain they would have gone for this had they thought they stood a chance at winning.

That would be one hell of a jury trial, though. "They clearly reproduced the number 5, which was in our original game! It's obviously an illegal reproduction of our copyrighted game code!"
You know, this time, I'll bite.

Because it's a democracy and because I say so. That's all the reason I need in a democracy to push my idea out there, because I want it, I want a world with less disparity in how resources are distributed.

Not, mind you, because I think I'd come out on top, or in my case, even ahead (I wouldn't, under any redistributive scheme) but because there's millions of my fellow citizens who I think would come out a lot better in a less disparate world.

It seems like something's wrong in the world when people can work full-time jobs and need food stamps and rent support. That's all the reason I need to push for reduced inequality.

It seems like something's wrong in a world where billionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than their secretaries. That too is all the reason I need to push for reduced inequality.

At the end of the day, I'm not looking for natural laws that delineate winners and losers, I'm just looking at human-made systems that generate enough food for us all to be morbidly obese, and distribute it so poorly that a measurable proportion of my nation's children go hungry. I'm looking at that stuff and saying nope, gonna use my vote to make something else happen.

That's all, because it's a democracy and because I say so.
Is that the 'real test'? I think this is an example where the use of the term 'free speech' confuses the discussion.

Free speech can mean 'limited interference by government' (i.e. U.S. First Amendment rationale) and then there is another meaning, 'hands-off editorial policy'.

The two things are related but are not at all the same and I often see the rationale for one being applied to the other. In this case you are suggesting that a non-governmental actor should have a hands-off editorial policy with regard to 'reprehensible content'. To me this is an attempt to apply a 1st Amendment rationale to a private actor, and it doesn't make sense.

I have no problem at all with private entities crafting their own editorial/business policies such that they don't facilitate or participate in enabling 'reprehensible' content/activities. Down thread someone asked if 'openly racist white supremacist content' would be hosted. I hope not and I would not think less of a hosting company that refused to host that content.

It is a mistake to insist that private entities must engage in the same hands-off behavior regarding content and free-speech that we rightly expect of the government.
Die out or be reduced? If we're talking about being reduced, I'd say 20 years from now the industry will be 50% of its current levels for paid human personal trainers. I'd predict the turning point will be about 3 years after VR becomes mass market. There's still going to remain a market for the human touch, as you say, so die out doesn't seem appropriate.

Also, I should clarify, I do want a world where people help each other people get fitter. What I can see happening isn't a world where we're any less social than we already are, but rather I can see a world where paid social interaction is reduced. In other words, if personal training is a vocation, something that people take pleasure from regardless of the money, it'll exist just as strongly as before. Once you take money out of the equation you can see that our human-focused society can continue to thrive, plus money is not going to matter as much when we can meet our needs without needing to earn it.
Zoning often prevents it. Only recently did Mountain View approve housing north of 101.
Why do you say that it's not easy to contribute to Chromium? Also the "last truly open-source" browser is hyperbolic given that Chromium is both open-source and is also developed in the open[1][2][3]. If anything over the past few years it has become more open-source as many components have been upstreamed (e.g. pdfium, android/ios stuff, etc.)

[1] Chromium bug tracker: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list
[2] Chromium code reviews:
https://codereview.chromium.org/
[3] Chromium development mailing lists:
https://www.chromium.org/developers/technical-discussion-gro...
There is no doubt in my mind that the EU negotiated this in secret because they knew that society would be opposed. They likely would have tried to ratify this treaty afterwards in a stealthy way by suppressing media coverage or "encouraging" media give it a positive spin.

But I cannot prove this, that's why I'm also listing a few reasons for secret negotiations that could be acceptable for those who are inclined to give the EU the benefit of the doubt.
That question already has an answer here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/326095/please-unpin-...

(Actually many answers. But no resolution.)
I agree with your claim, but I don't think it is a good idea to claim that Chromium is not "truly open-source" because (you claim) it is hard to contribute. This may cause more confusion about what "open source" really means. In fact, it's perfectly OK for open-source software to refuse outside contributions altogether! (Aka the "cathedral" model, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar#....)

In other words, open-source software maintainers are under no obligation to accept outside contributions. The only freedom you are guaranteed in this respect is the freedom to start a fork.
I don't disagree. If you've been owning in SF for the last 20 years, you're good. But how many people in SF arrived in the last 5-10 years?
That's an easy question with an obvious practical answer:

Include finance activities that are not out of line with comparables. Comparables: You know. Like the G7. Who do things like we do. Except sometimes they get it done for less. There is no reason to come up with a pure or dogmatic answer. Just a practical one.

Or do you think all medicine/pharma creates value, too? All prisons? All cops? All the military spending?

Some of all that is just self-injury. And you don't have to have a moralizing answer. All you need to know is that other nations get better results with less spending in those areas to know we are pissing that money away, not creating wealth, not improving quality of life.

And when I say disingenuous, I mean don't play stupid. You know very well what financializtion is.
True in part. My nation's army (Australia) has a history that goes back to those times, and still has traditions and culture carried forward from that era.

But while we do hold our service personnel in high esteem and treat them with respect, we also hold them accountable and try very hard to stamp out incidences of human rights abuse, gender inequality, bullying etc. within our defence force.

We tend not to let patriotic fervour limit that accountability.
I started soldering one of these one night (ordered enough parts for 9 of them) and realized that these things are really, REALLY tiny. Even with a magnifying glass, it's hard to even tell where the pins are, but I got about half of it soldered.. looking forward to the other half. :)

Huge thank you to Conor for building this whole thing and open sourcing it and even providing links to pre-fab PCB's. Incredible work. Also the PCB's look really cool.

I think I'll buy a few to go along with the one I just made.. :)
But plenty of people lost their homes and any equity they had in it. Bailing out a bank doesn't help them much.
If it helps you deliver value faster afterwards then it's a win.

Alice starts cutting down a tree with a dull saw, Bob takes the time to sharpen the saw before he starts cutting. It's not sensible to criticize Bob on the basis that his sharpening time is time not spent delivering value.
Yup. Twitter carries the implicit threat of "satisfy me or I'll make a public stink". It's the closest we non-journos can do to putting a mic in their face and demanding answers on camera.
The only way to make it not-free in a way that isn't censorship is to make it equally not-free for all information. Otherwise it's a content-based restriction, i.e. censorship.

> Historically, free speech has meant that you can say whatever you want without fear of violence.

That is untrue. For example, the government can't tax Democratic magazines and not Republican magazines (or vice versa).
The same principle explains why many rust belt cities have vast areas of abandoned tracts. It's not that they actually lost people. Regionally speaking, most of them didn't. But sprawl created new homes while not adding new families to live in the old ones. The math in both cases is pretty straightforward.
Looks good. Consider applying a conformal coating at the end. It will provide a lot of protection from general handling and riding around on a keychain, and preserve the 'raw PCB' look.

Something like:
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/conformal-coatings/acryl...
If you have experience with C++ already then go with "Effective Modern C++" by Scott Meyers.
I was expecting a discussion of the limits of statistical inference, but instead read a hand-wavy bit that only briefly mentioned a priori knowledge and without using that term.
Cases like those of Manning or Snowden present an perplexing conundrum for governments. If you do evil, scummy stuff and want to keep it hushed up, you need to make an example of leakers, no matter how well meaning they may be, in order to discourage further leaks. However, by abusing what the public sees as whistle-blowers, you lend credence to their accusations (You wouldn't bother to punish them if they were just making this stuff up, would you?).

It's a catch-22. If you don't punish the leakers, you'll look bad when more whistle-blowers reveal more of the evil stuff you've been up to. If you do punish the leakers, you confirm your guilt. The only way out seems to be to not do evil, scummy stuff in the first place!

In a few hundred years Western civilization has gone from enjoying bear-bating and cat-burning as popular forms of entertainment to being shocked when somebody is strapped to a board with a wet cloth over their face. This is a fundamentally good thing. The public's steadily decreasing appetite for cruelty and violence is what has made things such as Gandhi's use of passive resistance possible. Had Gandhi been born a century or two earlier, things would have gone much more poorly for him!

The notion that the world is a cruel, evil place and that states must, at times, act without moral compunction is a popular one. However, this notion is out of step with the reality that the human race is gradually becoming less tolerant of brutality and that secrets are becoming increasingly hard to keep secret. It is not naive idealism to expect our governments to hold themselves to a higher level of conduct. What few gains the U.S. may have realized from NSA's surveillance program pale in comparison to the loss of confidence U.S. citizens have in their own government and the increased distrust of U.S. institutions and even private companies worldwide.

The U.S. government needs to become more open and more idealistic in order to regain the social license it has lost. The Stasi approach to enforcing citizen loyalty is less viable today than ever.
Web engineers are waiting for stuff to compile these days? I thought things were supposed to be moving forward, not backward.
I second this opinion.

I think Chrome has a lot of interesting parts from a technological perspective. However, I think Firefox as an organization has done more for JavaScript and that community as far as fostering an open environment than any other browser maker. So providing a good browser plus fostering and growing the development community are both great things.

Another advantage is that it is not tied to some large conglomerate that is now engaged in questionable practices. That you need to rip entire parts of the code base out in this manner. This sort of thing has never been a concern with Firefox.

In general I think people ought to look at Google much more skeptically than they used to and all of the technologies that they push for. They all in some way push their agenda forward.
The author seems to say that the no free lunch theorem (NFL) indicates that creating a "Universal Learner" (or artificial general intelligence) is an impossible task.

I disagree based on the following:

1. I think NFL's definition of a universal learner is broader than the definition used by the average AGI researcher.

In practice, we are interested algorithms producing behavior at near-human levels of intelligence, not absolutely universal learning algorithms.

2. NFL does not seem to directly address the overall effectiveness of applying a combination of algorithms based on real-world experience to everyday problems.
It seems strange to make a distinction between organic and created by organic. At an advanced enough stage, couldn't any AI look organic to us?

My take...

1) Over the span of our development, our technology development would look like uncomprehensable magic to someone 1000 years ago. Our ancestors from 100,000 years ago would find us uncomprehensible. Galactic time horizons are billions of years. The odds of our finding life who could comprehend us (and us them) is miniscule.

2) It's hard to fathom the listening not being automated, and using AI. There's just too much space to listen to.
"Web Extension API" is exactly the issue at stake here. Chrome develops a new API for extensions. Everyone jumps on it. Firefox abandons it's powerful (although insecure) extension API, and re-writes it to follow Chrome's. There's a lot of marketing-speak around the reasons FF did that, but it really boils down to: Chrome is winning in the extension ecosystem, let's make them all compatible with FF too. At the loss of the entire existing extension catalog.
If you're willing to spend a little bit, contract someone to build a site that offers the service and looks good, but only actually allows people to sign up for the future service or something along those lines. If you get people who are willing to sign up, then perhaps you could persuade someone to invest in the business and finish building the actual service via contract with someone else's money? At that point you could maybe leverage some sort of sale/investment where you end up being very hands off? Even if you were going to build it yourself, just making the site to confirm interest would probably be a good move. Reading "The Lean Startup" with a coworker right now. It advocates a lot for experimental validation before investing any engineering effort.
I remember reading here in Pittsburgh that the new street lights could be addressed individually or as groups and have their white points adjusted. I've never seen this in action and I haven't researched it further. But if they could be adjusted to be less blue, we'd still benefit from the energy savings.
Sorry :(
You should still definitely read it! It's an excellent story.
Right after last week's South park made quitting Twitter a plot point. Interesting.
Have you ever tried contributing to Firefox from outside Mozilla Corp? My experience was not positive.
I think the stance on duplicates needs to be relaxed, with some filters/tools to help prevent higher rep users from seeing them during normal use.

For example, don't show high rep users questions from low rep ones. Let other low rep users answer the question independently. It encourages participation.

Let the site link duplicates together, but in a symbiotic way (even show highly voted answers from other questions as an aside.. Especially showing this on the old questions).

Votes (or even higher weighting on recent votes) on the question can let the community choose which "duplicate" is best, and this can change over time.
I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative.

Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.
Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
That's exactly what I'm thinking of. And actually, that's where I meant to leave this comment. I must have had both open in two tabs for copy/pasting the URL and picked the wrong one.

Much less consequential tab-tastrophe than the time I dropped a table in production because I thought I was in my Dev tab. Backups saved my job that day. And I never kept two SQL servers up at once after that day. :-D
> it is not very hard to get it "re-opened".

I'd be interested to see some statistics. I strongly suspect that when most newbies are told to fuck off that they do, in fact, fuck off.