skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You only have to look at Real Madrid to see what happens when you think only of attacking. The thought process of their president Florentino Perez (who makes new signing decisions, not the manager) must look like this:

1. Get a €300million loan from a bank.

2. Go out and buy as many attacking, 'flair-players' as possible. (Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema).

3. Sell lots and lots of Real Madrid shirts.

Notice that winning trophies does not enter the equation. Indeed, Real Madrid got dumped out of the Champions League by a fairly ordinary Lyon side.
Alex.Proj. #23: Sarin?  You Thought I Said Sarin?
Under the bonnet of BBC iPlayer v3
And not to forget that today's referee errors are tomorrow's legends. I mean, people are still agonizing about the "Wembley Goal", a referee error that made England win a world cup game against Germany (in 1966). So in the long run, the law of large numbers does still apply...
That's a cop-out. Saying "they would have won anyway" doesn't help the fact that both England and Mexico got ripped off completely, and it was completely preventable.
No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)
There's truth in what you say but on your $5k offer, does this friend have a job? If not ok, but if so you're asking him to quit his job for a sum that wouldn't even get him through a year. I wouldn't take it either, $5k is nothing.
Visual XOR against random data using the supplied "information pixels" instead of actual pixels (2x2 pixel groups). Cryptography at its most simple and most effective, with a visual twist.

Makes me want to fiddle, and make something which lets you hide information in the interference between 3 such images... one message for each pair, and one for all three stacked.
F5 Week in Review June 21st – 25th, 2010
I wonder: What's a minimal language in this vein with lisp-style macros?
Narrow Ruling In Bilski; Business Method & Software Patents Survive
this looks suspiciously similar to my analysis of programing languages class
Likewise. Please write it!
ahoyhere covers my point.

In the modern world, medicine, refrigeration, education, electricity and so on are all essential, but they do not contribute to prehistoric poverty.

If you don't need shoes, you can't say poverty is not having shoes.

(On the other hand, perhaps you could convince me. Are we in poverty now? After all, we lack universal cancer cures, Dyson spheres, and sexiness epidemics.)
My comment was meant for the literal meaning for "Bee sting". What if I replace "bee sting" with a "cut finger". You will say whether it is one finger off from your body or 10 fingers off... it hurts the same!!!... so no need to pay attention.

In theory your/author's logic sounds good... but practically it does not make sense. I would still say that the analogy of car dents OR no of dishes in the sink is a better way to present it. Its a little impractical to count "physical/bodily" pains in numbers.
Economics is a bit like theology. You read it to get exposed to the ideas, learn about other people's beliefs, and be amazed by the beautifully argued but experimentally unsupported theories. I liked Eric Beinhocker, Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics.
You just sold your 2 biggest websites, bringing in the most cash. What now? Seems like it can only go downhill from here.
Every time (moderate hyperbole) one of my pizza drivers (I did that for 7 years) would deliver a pizza to either a trailer park or a ghetto... there'd be a 52" plasma sitting in the living room.

And then they'd apologize for being too poor to tip.
But intelligent people are not used to failing.

Adding the word 'intelligent' to the title makes me want to read the article more and apply it to myself. Without that word, I would be thinking "yeah, I know all this, that's why OTHER people fail"; but with it it's much more applicable to me.
From saying "very few" to requiring "high mobility" seems like a change of goal posts.
If your customers are sticking with IE5.5 and IE6 they won’t upgrade to IE9 regardless of XP compatibility or not. Require Chrome Frame or a different XP-compatible modern browser as part of your system requirements and that should sort the majority of your clients.
Do you have any thoughts on a future revenue model? Maybe build out some kind of add-on "pro" features?
The only changes that should be made are in relation to video technology.

FIFA should experiment with every refereeing decision possible being able to be analysed/scrutinized/affirmed by a Television Match Official (similar to rugby) and then scale back as necessary.

FIFA don't have the wisdom or foresight to do this, sadly. It's badly needed to stamp out cheating, diving, off-the-ball fouls not spotted by the ref, Thierry Henry handball-type incidents, incorrect disallowed goal incidents etc.

EDIT: They (FIFA) did try to increase the likelihood of goals being scored in this World Cup and the last World Cup also, by messing with the ball design, making it's flight path unpredictable and therefore more difficult for keepers to save a shot at goal.
I'm now waiting for the HN grok of the Groklaw discussion of the Supreme Court opinion :P /me goes back to reading.
Gave up my non-programming job and did programming jobs for clients. Was there for the clients all the time, answer emails within 15 minutes, tell them how best to make their software. I could have done this before I lived with my parents, but just didn't care enough, I guess.

Going back to school is something I did LATER, and frankly, it did not have as big an effect as just working hard for others.
Ask HN: The future of usability
I'm facing a unique career decision and would like some input from fellow HNers.

I currently work in state government. I'm working on a project involving deploying SharePoint across the state as the intranet solution, but also have the opportunity to join a fledgling usability team that will be built into an enterprise-level group.

I haven't had much experience working with a usability team, so I would like to know: What is your view of the usability profession? Is this a profession on the rise? Is a usability team an asset that is worthwhile and helpful, or would I be better off sticking with the SharePoint stuff?

Thanks for any insights you can share.
He had no job, was working part-time at some place that barely paid $400 a month. His wife pays for most of his expenses.
The main reason imho is that they don't understand people, they think everyone is as smart as they are, and this results in trying to create a perfect product which is impossible, and hence, they lose motivation to complete it.

What smart people need to realize is that the rest of the people are not that smart. Proof? They buy virtual goods.

Never assume people will not use your product, this is too big of an assumption. Let them decide because they don't think like you.
Doing programming for clients, not working at a company.
(in the FAQ)

[Q:] It does funny stuff to my other pictures (not drawings).
[A:] Yes, yes it does. :)

This could open the door to worlds of fun with people who try to push the boundaries... like... I dunno, send back a picture of a garden gnome in a bikini if there's no solid background.
Your friend probably doesn't want to be $5000 in debt to the kind of guy who whips out $5000 at lunch. You most probably already make him feel pretty crappy about himself as it is.
"Go to work each day willing to be fired" was a great line. I've noticed that many really successful engineers seem to have that attitude where putting out a quality product is their primary focus, where others may tend to be more worried about consensus and goodwill.
I'm doing an exercise where I go through each of these and attempt to discover whether I have this flaw.

Of course, I'm probably susceptible to the ego / dunning-kruger effect, where I will think I'm less prone to certain flaws than I really am. I'm looking for ways to mitigate this effect. Any ideas?

My first attempt is to try to name someone I respect who has this flaw. The idea is the sucker theory, from poker -- if you can't see the sucker at the table, it's you. If I can't find someone with a particular flaw, I may have that flaw.
The browser technology scene is a bewildering menagerie of spiders, monkeys, squirrels, fish, and mythical birds, so a little confusion is understandable.
> it doesn't sound like much of a waste to me.

Maybe not in an economic sense, but many people consider it frustrating to spend hours and hours on something that wouldn't need to be done if just someone else would act.
Why? From a UI perspective I find it more natural to use "cursor: pointer" on anything that is clickable.
The prices vendors quote are also, in a sense, pulled out of thin air. There is some floor to the price based on cost to produce and minimum acceptable margin, and volume also plays a role. But, there are many other factors that are subjective. For example, perhaps the part manufacturer is looking to get its first part into Apple, so they knock some more off the price.

While only Apply knows how much an Apple-proprietary processor costs, it is possible to estimate a cost for it based on process technology, die size, pin count, package, etc.
These apps were not pre-bundled with my blackberry.. Bing didn't even exist.. Blackberry users just woke up one morning and apps were added.
That is a goal, what kind of things would you look for? What would be worth paying for? Corp/multi user accounts?

Thanks for checking it out!
Why turn off a safety feature? if you're not-technical enough to install a malicious app that slipped into the market, this mechanism is practically made for you.
I've wondered if it would be beneficial to apply some control systems theory to financial systems. But I'm not convinced that it would be applicable since control systems are designed for systems that follow the laws of physics. Financial systems include emotional responses and irrationality, how would control systems cope with that?

P.S. I find it interesting that the majority of Chinese presidents from 1993 to 2010 have an engineering background.
First thoughts on Bilski by Mozilla lawyer Luis Villa
I don't think such an approach can work with Clojure since the concepts that you bring from other OO languages do not really apply. I originally tried learning on my own by just using the documentation that is there and what I already know. That did not work. I needed something like Programming Clojure to go over all of the basics because Clojure basics and C# basics are different. Without understanding the Clojure basics you cannot do much. Granted someone with more of a background in Lisp or other languages could get started quicker and jump right in.
Karelis doesn't understand econ, but criticizes it because econ disagrees with his thought experiments and political leanings.

Sounds like a model economist to me - because of his political leanings, he doesn't like what the oversimplified toy models of the more mainstream theories tell him, so he invents another toy model with different oversimplifications, and claims that it's more fundamental. Surprise, surprise, it happens to reinforce his pre-existing beliefs!

Isn't this the way the game is always played in the soft sciences, where we can't actually figure anything out for reals?
Considering the recent success of the iPad and iPhone 4, that might not happen at all or be in the far future. On the other hand, the iPhone market might be more saturated for the kind of applications you want to make. Still, once you got the idea, the graphics and the general structure, porting apps either way isn't that hard, even if you have to rewrite the code, so investing in a used Mac Mini + iPod Touch might be worth it in the end.
Was this spam? My whole point is that Sharepoint is not a great intranet and collaboration product. It's unnecessarily tied to Microsoft Office products (and it's that way by design), has simply appalling content management (why would I want to buy a second product from a second vendor to make what I bought bearable to use?). The point was that the Sharepoint intranet had half the functionality for twice the budget and twice the maintenance cost of the originally designed Plone-based solution.
Vladimir Vysotsky, Song about a friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN0YzyUEhbo

Original version, without subtitles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2xO_FWR1z8

Lyrics at http://bit.ly/cxpOJd
Of course, that could be, but what I am offering him is money I don't need, FOR OUR FRIENDSHIP. I know that the money is likely to be lost, and I have already taken that into consideration. I want him to also TRY, also make that step and stop complaining.

If I really wanted something, and someone offered me the opportunity to do it, yes, it may fail and I may lose that friendship, but if that stops me, it means I don't believe in myself enough! It may fail, but it may also succeed! Yes, failure in this case may also mean losing a friend, so the stakes are a little bit higher, but as a friend, he knows that I know he is likely to lose the money. So even if he fails, I will just smile and be happy that at least he tried.

But it's the same trap, you see? He does not want to do it, because he is afraid of failing, and losing money and the friendship. So he can say no, and give that as his excuse, but is that any different from any other excuse?

In this case, I could posit that the risk is even less because I am there to help him, if the money is gone he will not be in debt, he will just be back to where he started.

And you know what? Sooner or later, friends who don't stay at the same socio-economic level drift apart. Yes, there are exceptions, but in most cases people have friends in the same economic class. So people try to bring their friends up, like I try to do, and the friends who don't even want to try, will sooner or later lose that friendship that they don't want to risk.
World Cup versus the Internet
I am a massive Google fan. But I know a number of people who are not and prefer not to "trust" them with data.

Most have android phones because they feel similarly about Apple. This would horrify them.

Admittedly that's an overreaction. But I can't help feeling that a persistent connection with little option/choice is not the sort of thing a free platform should have.
$25k/year is pretty close to the poverty line. What exactly do you call "middle-class lifestyle"?
Thereby putting Visio out of business, except as a reader. Definitely a win! Also, Microsoft would probably pay big-$$$ just to bury something like that (possibly putting it into use later in a web app).
I don't believe I've ever had fun buying PC software, but that platform went somewhere. What is your reason for believing the smartphone market is different?
no, I implying that if there were owners with a much more direct interest in the future well being of what they own than some distant short-term oriented politician, had set the rules instead of the government, they would have done a BETTER job of regulating what was going.

The government regulates tightly after a disaster and less tightly as memories fade and lobbyists start manipulating them. Politicians will never be as consistently interested in the wellbeing of the gulf or anything else as those with a more direct interest. Which is why the government agree to a ridiculous limit of $75 million on total liability for drilling, something an owner never would have done.

Its the same story over and over, in industry after industry. Government ignores the risks, disaster strikes, they overreact. And then gradually over time the lobbyists erode every restriction, good or bad.
Yeah I'm planning on going through the stats stuff on there, failed a stats class last year because I didn't really give it attention so want to make sure I pass it easy this time round.
Read Bukowski. He has nailed it:
http://allisonlanda.blogspot.com/2009/02/bukowski-shoelace.h...
It would probably be a better solution to change your habits... I used to be a bit of a hoarder, then I set myself a rule: "If I haven't used something in 6 months, it needs to be thrown out or given away."

My apartment is pretty minimalist now...
One problem with this approach is that the first time you access the internet using your browser there is a huge lag as the host file is read and cached. Also, you have to increase the default cache size for the host file or Windows has to constantly reread the cache file (causing web page load delays) because its too big to fit in the memory reserved for the cache.
Also, if you don't like the browsing experience in the Market application, there are alternatives for that too. Like AppBrain, which lets you browse for things online, organize what you find into lists, and queue applications for install on the phone.
Thank you. My takeaway -- as a help for others in similar situations or if I ever fall into this situation -- is to live below my means (TV is a luxury) and to work harder to pay off those things that are outside normal cost of living. These are good lessons, and it sounds like it was pure determination wrought from shame that motivated you... that the key is to get motivated in the first place to achieve the goal of leaving poverty.

What about sleep? Health? You seemed to pull yourself out, but what was the cost to your body and mental state? How long did it take?
Why? The US involvement in WWI led to the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles, if the US held back it's been argued that England and France would have sued for peace earlier and the harshness of the treaty wouldn't have been there and then one of the prime causes of WW2 would not have existed.

The Us involvement in WW2 is due to escapades in China and the Philippines - the reason Japan attacked the US.
Grails Domain Reuse Best Practices
We have multiple Grails projects going on concurrently and many of them are using a subset of common domain classes.

Does anyone have experience with best practices in this area?

What is the best way to share the domain code among multiple projects without writing duplicate code?

Thanks for the help.
Startup Hypothesis Testing and Premature Execution
IPhone sales pass 1.7 million in just 3 days
It seems like you're using a fairly mutable definition of "poverty" that you can push around to suit your needs. Now people have to move from the lowest quintile to the middle quintile to meet your definition of "escaping poverty"?

I also find it interesting that almost 50% of households in the lowest quintile own their own homes. And the 2nd and 3rd quintiles have nearly 60% and 70% home ownership rates, respectively. Now, I'm not arguing that owning your home means you're not poor, but I think characterizing the 1st or 2nd quintile as "abject poverty" is a bit of a stretch. Here's an interesting paper on what poverty in America actually looks like:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/08/How-Poor-Ar...

Source for quintile data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...
Without complicating the service at all, I would love to see Dropbox integration. We use Dropbox for all of our shared files and being able to go from: Whiteboard->Email to Service->Dropbox immediately would be amazing.
Why Paul Spinrad is petitioning the SEC for a $100 Crowdfunding exemption
if just someone else would act

Which someone would that be? Microsoft or the Corporate IT folks reluctant to upgrade* ?

* Due to some internal app that only works on IE6.
No, that is true. Canada is comparable in almost every way to the USA, and yet social mobility is much higher in Canada. And it is higher still in the Scandinavian countries.

It's tempting to attribute this to social programs like medicare (which explains Canada and Norway), but England has a similarly lower rate of social mobility, despite being very comparable to Canada.

This is just my speculation, but social class systems may also be a factor. The English class system is legendary, but Americans may not appreciate how stratified their society really is.

http://books.google.com/books?id=qnPOqwsR5UsC&pg=PA239#v...

http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility...

(For what it's worth, I just happened to have these references because I was arguing on Reddit with an anarchist who asserted there was no social mobility under capitalism. There is, but not as much as there can be, especially in the USA.)
Sure thing. There are many members on OKCupid who are "just there to take the quizzes." Something about the way the site is set up just makes you want to fill your profile with sarcasm and snark - both of which you'll see a lot of in OKCupid profiles. I'm drawing a parallel between sarcasm and snark and emotionally unavailability because lack of sincerity doesn't seem to me to be a healthy trait of someone you're just getting to know.

I'm just speaking from experience on this last observation. It would be interesting to scientifically break it down: how much sarcasm and "angled" emo-esque profile photos you see in OKCupid vs. Match.com.

Additionally, OKCupid is a free site. In my experience, people who pay for their online dating are more serious about actually going on dates.
There was no cost to my body as I used the opportunity to exercise a lot as a way of distraction, but socially and mentally, the experience was pretty tough. That shit changed me - if you look at my photos from before and from now, my face is different. Before I looked relaxed and kind of nice-guyish, now I look kind of harder and more evil, if I may put it that way.

I really felt as if I was put through some kind of wringer, and came out tougher, but I also lost part of my humanity. I'm just not as nice a person anymore, less patient, more angry, not as easy-going, not quite as pleasant to be around.

So yes, that shit was not free. I paid for it, I got what I wanted in the end, but I know I'm definitely not the same person as before.
Simply put, if anyone has managed to do it, you aren't likely to hear about it. That said, I know of two:

First was a math prof that would play the markets every couple years when he needed a little extra cash.

Second was someone who had isolated patterns of market intervention and figured out how to profit from them. But that's more like insider trading than beating the market algorithmically.
Again, how is this relevant in the context of the claim that there is almost no economic mobility in the US?

This is sort of like claiming that we have hardly any people in the US because China and India have so many more. We still have hundreds of millions.
I may be misunderstanding something, but isn't Chess exactly the opposite of what we're talking about? Take two players, one ranked extremely well, and one a little below him. Chances are, the higher ranked player will beat the lower ranked player almost every time.

That's exactly the opposite of what I think makes soccer so appealing: almost no one can predict which team will take a World Cup, and every World Cup has its own team which does far better than predicted. This rarely happens in Chess.
Yes, but the formulation I showed you is equivalent to a bayesian prior. For example, if you want to learn a weight vector w that gives high likelihood to the data and has a gaussian prior with 0 mean and Cidentity covariance, the MAP answer is "minimize -log(likelihood) + C||w||", where ||w|| is the square norm of w. Equivalently, if the prior is a laplacian you just change the norm from the l2 to the l1 norm.

Being bayesian gives you an extra capability that is model averaging, and this does usually improve the behavior at a high computational cost.

I really like bayesian models, and right now I'm experimenting with one that should do unsupervised sentiment analysis without a priori knowledge of word polarity or things like that (yes, I'm a phd student in machine learning).
Starting a business isn't a cure for a horrible boss and a small salary. Most businesses fail, and in the meanwhile you suddenly have N horrible bosses, N being your number of customers.