skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A key skill in focusing on something is realizing when you have become distracted and bringing your attention back to the task at hand. The sooner you do this, the better. Usually we tend to get carried away by stimuli and become "lost" for long times at stretch. This not only eats up time, but also consumes mental energy that we could have otherwise used for productive work.

I have been successfully using meditation as a "model problem" to train my ability to become aware when I have become distracted and bring my attention back to the object of focus. A classic analogy of mindfulness meditation is that of an elephant (your mind) tied to a post (your breath or whatever is the object of your focus) through the rope of mindfulness. When the elephant strays, the rope pulls it back to the post.

While there seems to be some scientific evidence that meditation does indeed improve your ability to concentrate on any general task, my own conviction arises from seeing first hand the similarity between countering distracting stimuli during meditation and during general work.
This exemplifies a disturbing tactic of the left, demonizing anyone who holds differing political views, attempting to turn them into social pariahs, causing them whatever harm they're able to within the law.

I happen to think that Hillary Clinton is a criminal who belongs in federal prison. I think the only reason she's not being prosecuted is that the current administration is corrupt, and views laws as weapons to be used against political opponents rather than a set of rules to be applied equally to all citizens. I am of the opinion that her "foundation" that accepted "donations" from countries that had business before the US State Department while she was running, it, is basically a money-laundering operation for bribes. I believe the woman who accused her husband of viciously and violently raping her in a hotel room was telling the truth, and I think those Democrats who are throwing fits over Trump's crude statements and sketchy allegations of his impropriety are hypocrites, considering the way they defended Bill Clinton and elevated him to the status of Elder Party Statesman after he left office.

And yet I think people should be free to publicly support Hillary Clinton's bid for POTUS without having their livelihoods come under attack.
Why do you care about people talking about China? If China's reach is only China, if most folks don't use Chinese products, why do you even bother replying?
The whole discussion brings to mind George Orwell.

'Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.'

I believe US democracy is founded on similar notions, and underscores the necessity of this dialogue. Thank you HN for supporting this open forum.
Do both. Remote work is a thing and it's what my wife and I are currently doing. We have 9 acres and have many agricultural plans on the horizon.
> This is not about persecuting people who vote for Trump.

No, if you look at the arguments being made and the people making the arguments, it's clear that "this" in the larger sense is exactly about ostracising people who support Trump. Thiel himself is just the target of the moment.
There seems to be this progressive instinct to claim that it's not enough for people to believe the same things I do, or support the same people I do, but instead everyone must always denounce the people I do in the ways I dictate or be shamed and boycotted. This instinct is divisive and damaging, and drives away erstwhile allies.

Posts like Pao's and this one, which are intended to enforce a progressive orthodoxy through the application of massive negative pressure, are far less effective in winning over converts than its authors suppose. A lighter touch would be far more effective.
Who believes the Colombian government has ever had the upper hand in the FARC negotiations? For fuck's sake, they are having to negotiate with a terrorist organisation. It's obvious the gov is handcuffed.
The level of evidence for this claim is "I heard from someone that Clinton said it once, I won't tell you who that person is or provide any evidence I talked to them. But there is supporting evidence because she often jokes about drone striking troublesome adversaries."

It's not nothing, but it's pretty damn close.
This is the worst kind of argument anyone can read about this topic.

What you are conveniently and deliberately ignoring is that the offense is being taken not at Trump's policies, but at his actions and his bigoted views.

Back in the day, you would have been making the same argument about apartheid in South Africa: who are we to criticize them? They're a sovereign country, they have their own ways of doing things! Forcing them to accept equal rights and democracy is cultural imperialism!

Give me a fucking break. Trump is an asshole because of his actions and his lies. No one uses these terms to describe McCain, Romney, etc. Why? Because while they are Republicans, they are not assholes.

Trump calls hardworking Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "criminals". He calls for a religious test to enter the country, banning all Muslims. He kept questioning Obama's citizenship, not because he really doubted where Obama was born, but because he couldn't get himself to admit that a BLACK man had won the WHITE house; and by denying Obama's legitimacy, you can deny his victory. Finally, he quickly discarded this position for political expediency, it having served its purpose to get him atop the GOP ticket. And in the latest revelations, Trump crows about grabbing women's pussies and assaulting them. THIS IS WHAT IS OBJECTIONABLE about Trump, not his ideas (or lack thereof). He's a liar and a bigot.

So it IS fair to question anyone who puts such significant resources into getting Trump elected. It is one thing to vote for Trump; but quite another to spend millions on getting him into the dictator's seat he covets. Don't give me this "it's against democracy" bullshit.

Coming back to South Africa: if we had not put in place the sanctions and economic boycotts, the black would still be feeling the batons today.
Shame on Democrats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

Also:

> Altman’s framing of Thiel’s Trump support as a diversity issue isn’t just incorrect — it’s a harmful distortion that reveals a deep misunderstanding of the tech industry’s actual diversity issues. (I don’t and can’t fully understand our diversity problem, but I at least won’t pretend to.)

What on Earth does this even mean? There's something wrong, I can't have a different opinion, but you can't even understand or explain it? Give me a fucking break.
You know the wikileaks Twitter account is Assange, right? I'm going to wait for a reliable third party report on this one.
Help! I invented an algorithm and I don't know how it works
"Considering" someone for a position is a cost-free way to flatter them. Coincidentally, both are extremely wealthy and support Democratic candidates.
The federal agencies continually avoid the Federal Register by issuing 'guidance letters' and simply re-interpreting existing rules in very creative ways

Yes, Chikasu's broad-stroke laws can only work if they are part of a cultural shift away from seing micromanagement as the government's job.

The agencies are what they are from the mentality that everything in our society must be "run" perhaps by a "czar". People call this regulation, but in order to run things, the authorities need not laws and predictable rules, but arbitrary (if scope-limited) powers.
Prions, like viruses, reproduce when inside a host. Parasites, bacteria, fungi, viruses and prions are all types of pathogens.

Sterilization protocols need to be followed to ensure that one patients prions don't infect another surgery patient. It turns out that relatively recent concerns over transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, caused by prions, has required changes to the sterilization procedures used in hospitals.
Let's say arguendo that Donald Trump is an objectively harmful candidate to democratic society. Peter Thiel may have given far more money than what most people even possess, but it's categorically the same as those who are voters for Trump -- both parties are providing some very direct support for Trump, and Thiel is arguably one step more distal than the voter.

I think that at some point, you must stop punitive consequences from leaking out of a category of democratic behaviors, or else entire categories of democratic behavior may be discouraged. After all, ought not the voter also be punished in the same manner we wish upon Peter Thiel? Shouldn't that voter suffer business and personal consequence?

If a grandma appears before a massive audience because she has a compelling story to tell in support of Trump, and in doing so, she becomes coined as "Grandma Lee" and becomes a hot media narrative worth more than what Peter Thiel gave, should that grandma also be punished accordingly? Disconnected from business colleagues? Shamed by any institution she's party to?

There should be a deliberately designed limit to causal responsibility when one is legitimately participating in democracy. If "legitimate" behavior is still bad for democracy, then that's where society should target their efforts, rather than through the shadowy powers of cultural punishment.
do utilize their endowments

Not really, if they receive donations of X and take less than X out of their foundation every year they are not utilizing their endowment while complying with the law.

> At least some are currently operating at a deficit.

Good, if none of them every operate at a deficit they are not pulling enough money out. On average you should draw down an endowment so it's growth over 20 years is just below inflation letting new donations top it off.

PS: Your model of indefinite investment fails the societal instability test. There are no fortunes from even just 3,000 years ago because institutions are not stable. Further, people may not exist in even 100 years so investing for the ultra long term is a mistake.
> NAND flash is used, with 100,000 to 1,000,000 write cycles

Damn, where can you get that kind of flash chips with even 100k cycles endurance? I'd like to place a large order. 64 Gbit chip, please.

1000-3000 P/E cycles is typical endurance for MLC NAND flash, not 100-1000k. SLC chips would fare better, but larger ones are too expensive for typical applications.
You don't know how negotiations work do you?

Everyone comes to the table with points that would make the other side walk away, and everyone has their initial redlines.

These change during the negotiations, premature release of information backs one or both parties into a corner in which further negotiations are no longer possible.

This is the real world, not some fairy tale.
Lots of sweat and VOTERS VOTERS VOTERS
Top football team ditches tablets, goes back to paper
Ah, see, I don't view atheism as a community or as a political movement. It's just a personal believe (or lack thereof). And I don't see any evidence that this has declined.
This is exactly why as a former independent I am going with the Republicans this time around. Although I do tend to side with them on more issues, it's the way the Dems conduct themselves that has completely turned me off of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY
VmWare has niche features very important for some users: USB pass-through, and accelerated 3D graphics.

Servers usually need neither of them, though.
> Also lol @ how Bernie is his own category

And at the bottom of the list.
Assuming the paper shifted perfectly laterally, I assume you'd just be measuring the difference in the volume of half a sphere ten miles in radius, and a sphere ten miles and 2.5 meters in radius. I think you could use the ideal gas law at that point to figure out the energy.

I'm just guessing though.
Transitioning c2 Wiki to a different platform
I for one support Y Combinator's commitment to tolerance. Tolerance is sadly lacking in today's political discourse. Like many, I find Donald Trump distasteful, but to call for the removal of an investor for supporting a candidate one disagrees with is both intolerant and small minded. A pluralistic democracy depends on both tolerance and civility for its' very existence. It's more than a little ironic to me that people critical of Donald Trump for, essentially, being intolerant are now expressing that criticism in the form of intolerance by calling for the banishment of his supporters.
The problem is larger than secret laws. Once the culture of paying lip service to fundamental principles is set within government it becomes systemic as has already happened in the US government.

The danger then is a large number of individuals within government acquire a sense of self righteous purpose convinced of an existential threat that allows them to morally ride roughshod over the basic principles of the state, for instance to run surveillance systems.

For them citizens become ignoramuses who have to be kept in the dark, so there is no scope for debate. And who would not protest so much if only they knew all this is just to keep them 'safe'. Of course its not. A shift from accountability towards secrecy is always about the accumulation and abuse of power.

Unless they are prosecuted and held accountable in courts where their world view can be challenged in the open the culture will not change. It's important for citizens to nip this in the bud before its too late.
If Trump is your enemy, like he is mine, fight Trump. To fight and berate others for a twice-removed association is not just stupid, it's lazy, and a waste of your and everyone's time. I see 500+ comments here but no convincing anyone. Perhaps you feel impotent and that you can only shout platitudes onto deaf ears. Think harder, act smarter. Vote, and get those you can influence directly to vote. This thread right here, is not the way.
> Sam Altman and PG have both been very vocal in their denouncement of Trump, so keeping Thiel as a partner seems incongruous at best, and down right spineless at worst.

You may have to clarify this for me, because it sounds as if you believe people with different political ideals can never work together, even on something non-political.
I don't know if it's true for the Pixel phone as well, but the iPhone has been using flash storage that's more like an SSD than traditional flash since the iPhone 6S and the iPad Pro 9.7" - they even use a miniaturized MacBook NVMe controller - and it's a great deal faster than an SD card. Most 128GB consumer SSDs sit at the ~$90 price range, which makes the upgrade price make a little more sense.

Of course the speed boost vs. an SD card might not matter to you but that's another subject.
Elections for the Common Council of the City of London Corporation. So local only.

Votes are provided based on corporation size, so just setting up shell companies won't work.
Regarding Trump point #2, I don't think his foreign policy is quite what you think it is. At a rally I went to in Greenville, SC, he referred to "glassing" Iran, and during a nationally televised debate he had this to say: http://youtu.be/IdOceoZfHuw

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt: I don't think he's malicious and I don't think he's interventionist. I think he has given these issues no more than 5 minutes thought.
You reinforce my point. The blame for what goes on in Washington does not fall on the president! The older I get the more I think "commander in chief" is just a fancy title for "talking bobble head". We're not electing a leader. We're electing a media personality.
> Sam Altman cannot coherently believe this while supporting Peter Thiel, who is not just a Trump supporter, but an important part of the Trump campaign.

I've yet to see this claim substantiated. Why can't one coherently believe Trump is an existential threat to society while allowing one of his biggest supporters to give advice to startups? What on earth does one have to do with the other?

People keep talking about moral "incoherence" and "spinelessness," in response to which I have two concrete questions:

(1) How does it "support" Thiel to allow him to advise startups who are allowed to choose whether they want to work with him? How would it improve the situation to rob YC startups of his advice?

(2) Sam already wrote that he thinks Thiel is "completely wrong" in his support of Trump. What else must he do?

I can't wrap my head around the idea that it's evil to do business with someone committing an unrelated evil to the business being done. It'd be one thing if Thiel were using YC as a megaphone for his political efforts, but YC already said he wasn't.
>You may not believe Trump is a real thread to society. [...] Trump is an existential threat to our democracy.

If you don't have the rule of law, then you don't have a democracy. Of the two major party candidates, one is a hyperbolic, thin skinned twat who can't control his own mouth. The other is a venal, entitled, secretive, law-breaking, compulsively lying enabler of sexual predators, who will allow people to die, be raped, and have their lives destroyed, if doing her actual job and acting with honor would even possibly threaten her personal financial or political ambitions.

I'll take the twattish buffoon.
+1 for https://google.com/ncr is the first thing I do on any browser.

- Latest version of Google Images

- Better Google Search results

- etc. etc.
>I once, over ninety minutes and three credit department reps, convinced the organization to extend additional credit to a woman dying of terminal cancer, so that she'd be able to afford pain medication a while longer.

>In the case I describe, it cost me about $400

This sounds like an interesting incentive structure. Could you elaborate?
The Telegraph was a respected paper. Now it's just an upmarket version of the Daily Mail and less amusing.
On a hundred year bond, "adjusted for inflation" can already be a nasty surprise (5% inflation a year over a century gives you about a 2^7 multiplication factor, or two zeroes)
Google.com / No Country Redirect
This seems to be true, but I see it as a consequence of how many resources are being devoted to JavaScript by major corporations and legions of developers versus other programming languages. Does Google, MS, Facebook, Apple, etc. ad naseum have entire departments devoted to improving Python, C, Ruby, etc.? Not as far as I know. If there were as many resources being thrown at C as there is at JavaScript I'm sure the churn would be just as high.
It isn't just layer count. Look at the trace and space capabilities as well as smallest via hole size and annular ring size.
Saving Electronic Records from Rot and Decay
Email isn't assured to remain on trusted servers while in transit over the 'net.

Moreover, if you had a stack of printouts containing your customer's credit card information sitting on your counter while you left your front door wide open, and _that_ was stolen, I would consider that you had improperly cared for the private information of your customers.
This raises the interesting question of what is better. To pay $4 per year or to buy out the obligation for a higher amount. To buy out it would have to be an amount which compensates to make up for what would be lost in the future (how do you even calculate that). To pay in advance for X years creates a problem as well. Hard to forget to pay every year, harder to keep track of something that needs to be paid every 20 or even 100 years. Excess paperwork overhead.
The original service was called Farecast before Microsoft bought them. It used to be very good, but the prediction info gradually became marginalized. We may never know the truth, but it feels as if Microsoft caved to pressure from the airlines.
Sure, next time you go to buy a car or a house just show them your bank account balance/mortgage values
I'm just waiting for someone to make use of an obscure provision to settle a dispute through Trial by Combat.
With just two cameras, not only would you capture the other camera in view, but in those co-linear directions I don't believe it would be possible to get any depth information (or it would be all weird, like the same view, but magnified in one eye).
If I walk into a government building in my state, I will pick up a pamphlet which has notices in English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Arabic. I can walk down a street and hear each of those languages being spoken. Are you really going to tell me that the Vietnamese experience in the United States is basically the same as the English experience?

If so, please come visit on of the top 30 cities in the United States and spend a few days walking around different districts and interacting with different people. Don't believe what our exported media is telling you, we are far from a monoculture.
coincidentally, the NYT had a bit last Sunday which mentions Lee Atwater suggesting Trump for George H W B’s VP in ’88. Bush, to his credit, scoffed. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/opinion/nostalgia-for-the-...

Anyway: obviously this would have been better titled “John Podesta Considered…” or “Hillary’s Campaign Considered…”
Show HN: Easily organize team activities
It is totally fine to take action against a business; that the business is comprised of people who have no direct input into the actions of the entity and may face consequences of the actions against it should not be an important consideration of where you choose to spend your money.

A counterexample would be a situation where someone went and figured out that most of Nestle's employees were supporting Trump and then boycotted the business as a way to pressure those employees into altering their positions. That is much closer to being morally objectionable.

Outside of that, Altman _has_ criticized Thiel's views, directly. The disagreement seems to be about what to do afterwards. He is simply not willing to cut him off for this disagreement. If this way of thinking was a social norm, you would eliminate "anti-PC" griping which is important to a good chunk of Trump supporters, and you would likely see positive social change happen more rapidly (e.g. if this was the norm 50 years ago you might have seen more movement on gay marriage, etc. if people could pipe up without fear of being fired (or "boycotted")).
Such is the problem with the majority of programming blog posts.
"I can't close apps" is easy to understand. It's a good thing to have in case it misunderstood you command.
It might have been one way to sway some Trump supporters to her side.
Once you use a BGA with X balls in Y rows and Z columns with so and so pitch the minimum number of layers needed quickly goes way up.

If you use any kind of BGA you will want to start with 4 layers just for signal integrity.
This seems reasonable - becoming a key member of a political campaign means signing on for that sort of thing - but I'm struggling to reconcile it with the earlier statement. If making Trump supporters uncomfortable about entering a business arrangement is a good thing, surely that's about trying to put economic pressure on Trump supporters in general?

I'm not trying to be uncharitable here - I honestly don't follow. One possibility is that since YC founders often end up quite wealthy, you're talking about discouraging the next Thiel rather than discouraging business with Trump supporters in general?
I believe his functional importance is in keeping dead man switches from triggering, the site is his insurance policy. He also gives an interesting public face to the website, given he is permanently embroiled in scandal. Arguably Assange's keeping wikileaks in the public eye is more important than his technical or mechanical function
CTO of RhodeCode here.

If you use phases (draft/secret/public) correctly it's really close to being mutable. For example all our devs forks are having non-publishing repositories since it's a private non-shared space. By keeping all commits as draft it's easy to do a rebase and then push new changed commits.

While the main repo is publishing and once pushed commits are never mutable, also we keep a workflow that only dev forks can have multiple heads while production repo cant.

IMHO it's the nicer form of mutability