skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Read the above post carefully:

"Life simply evolved without fixed boundaries to its layers of abstraction."

Biological life absolutely does have many layers of abstraction. Many of layers of abstraction can appear to be fairly reliable for most people. This indeed is necessary for life to function. The problem is that there alway a chance of a given boundary not respected for some people and some processes. We have a brain and we have an immune system. They intersect in a number of broad ways - they're both information processing systems. Skin, organs and fascia are distinct to an extent but there's odd intersections. Some animals can generate vitamin D internally. Human beings must generate from sunlight on their skin for whatever quirky reason of evolution. Some people actually have their Thyroid gland on the bottom of their tongue but for most people it's at the base of the neck.

Similarly genetic coding is definitely not random coding. It's very tight, highly optimized coding but coding that doesn't necessarily have reliable boundaries and abstractions. Functions? Objects? Variables? Why should those exist in these circumstances.

I'm not saying it's total chaos. Indeed, A biological system can seem simple enough. The problem is these system are just chaotic enough on enough distinct logical level that engineering principles break down as they are applied to create complex systems for diagnosing and curing people. Suppose you have ten generalizations. Each is true for 90% of the population. Suppose you have a system that depends on all of the generalization being true. The system work for only about 30% of the population. The problem is raising reliability past 90% on any one generalization becomes very hard because you outliers on every single system. Suppose in a different population, some of the generalization are true 80% of the time rather than the 90% of your original population - your system becomes less reliable without it being terribly obvious why. Biology involves more paradoxical statistical effects than anywhere else - that's only the part why you can reliable statistics.

Once you look this stuff, you can go from thinking you'll get a complete handle on a given process to realizing it can only be partly dealt with by ordinary engineering - it certainly can be partly dealt with. Adding ten more assumptions to our original system would make it completely unreliable. Given that each step is uncertain and failure is costly, there's an incentive to make each step manual. The amount of human done, manual labor in health and biology makes every step from research to implementation literally a thousand times more costly than something like chip design. Of course progress is being made but its within the context of these paradoxical effect. I suspect that synthetic life, nanotechnology and better AI will be needed before things get better.

There's video on synthetic life that discusses the genetic-code-as-assembly-language stuff.
POF is entirely financed by banner ads from paid dating sites.
In your browser settings there should be an option for "Mobile view" - uncheck this option and it will display the normal version of all websites.
epic sms (small world syndrome) if this was his teacher
Obligatory Sagan quote: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Yes, it is the case here that a bayesian approach can lead to a previous empirical formula falling out. What I was saying as well is that this regularization + test set approach is also valid (and sometimes slightly more or less general than the bayesian approach, since, for example, SVMs fall naturally out of thinking about regularization but they have no analogue in bayesian classifiers).

It also goes the other way, and some formulas are first proposed in a more bayesian-ish context and then extended to some simpler-looking empirical formulas (for example, the jumps from hidden Markov models to max-ent Markov models to conditional random fields to max-margin Markov networks to structured SVMs).

There are more approaches to machine learning, and in John Langford's blog there is a nice table showing the merits and flaws of many of them: http://hunch.net/?p=224 . But you must keep in mind that you can find many equivalencies between these approaches (boosting for example can be seen as a loss minimization with regularization, and max-ent can be seen as a special case of a bayesian model, etc).
While I sympathize with you in general, I believe you've erred here on two accounts:

1) The author here is being lighthearted; your comment implies instead that he's being a demagogue.

2) This sort of pattern is far more common in "public" discussions such as public policy than in science, so I think you are directing your ire incorrectly.
My favorite quote: if I stopped being a software engineering manager, my voice would quickly become an echo of how things used to be rather than how they are.

I find that the "software engineering manager" can be substituted for a number of other fields.
White House gets behind wireless broadband, wants 500MHz of spectrum reallocated
I no longer work with them, so I can only surmise. I never saw anyone using a tool like this, but it's a big company with many offices, and individual groups may well have bought their own local tools that weren't provided at the enterprise level. Would they buy a desktop version? If employees found it useful, I don't see why not.

They almost certainly would not use the web version, unless they could run it 100% internally on their intranet.
From the FAQ: "I’m having fun with this, and the tone is occasionally lighthearted"

The claim that pi is wrong is a claim about pi's inconsistency and inefficiency as a matter of mathematical language design. These guys aren't dumb enough to confuse this as a claim about formal correctness. Instead, they're playfully co-opting the rhetoric of formal correctness.
It seems like you are acting like a jerk. You're a startup,why act like a big company with these kind of silly rules? It doesn't matter when he comes to work as long as he works the hours and is being productive.

With this attitude, my prediction is that your startup is likely to fail. I just can't imagine any good developers can stand a co-founder who has such kind of bad attitudes and false beliefs about how things should work.
Yes. 90m2 is huge considering actual needs of two people. Half that is still comfortable. A third is livable.

It may be a big shift down from what someone had before, and may even seem normal-sized by current standards but that is only because of disproportionate expectations. It can only be seen as true "downsizing" when your scale is way too big to begin with. Consider how the Mini is a "small" car - while being about twice the size of the original mini.

Mind, it is still a good move.
It happens that there was a particularly fine HN thread on this a week ago, which a lot of non-weekenders might have missed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447438
Another point is that the Market application is Google proprietary - when you grab the AOSP source, you don't get the Google apps (Maps, Market, etc.)

Android is open source and manufacturers can use it without the consent of Google, but to include the goodies above they have to go through a vetting process (not saying that's a bad thing).

A completely open source implementation / replacement of the Google apps would be very useful.
Pi is defined as C/D, the only way to prove it wrong would be to show that C/D isn't a constant in euclidean geometry, which you can't. What they show examples of is that using pi is ill advised.
I was lucky enough to see a draft version of the novel at the CUTEC event last month and it's fantastic. It has a stellar team behind it too.
The success of PayPal itself is pretty phenomenal when you consider what they were going up against in the traditional credit card industry.
Don't judge him on how professional he is.

Do judge him on how the product's coming.
Not to mention he posted under different names but the same skype id:

http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/7003

http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/6958
Part of me is saying yes, part of me is saying no. Let me elaborate:

It makes all sense that tau should be the number used INSTEAD of pi: It simplifies things even more. (I hope I'm not the only one tired of writing 2*pi in papers.)

But that doesn't make pi WRONG: It's defined by C/D, and the formulas make perfectly sense, even though you have to multiply by 2. Besides, it would mean a total rewrite of a lot of papers, including a lot of mathematical books.
Welcome to startupland. You're fucked if you think you're going to find a good engineer that wants to work 9-5. "Compensate this tardiness" == LOL. Half the point of a startup is avoiding that lifestyle. At any startup I've worked that went anywhere, the engineers all worked noon - midnight. Good luck.
The Best iOS4 Feature No One Has Talked About...
I am curious, are you being sarcastic? You just asked me why I would get upset when someone "deigns" (dict: to behave as if one is descending from a superior position or rank) to "correct" me (dict: to rebuke or punish in order to improve).

Your choice of words aside, I care about this forum, and I don't want it to become the usual deal where people assert their ego at the expense of actual discussion. My intent was not confrontation, it was cooperation.

Edit: Never mind. I see from your "ha ha ha" post below that you are trolling. I guess that answers my question.
It's a Lot Like Dating
Ask HN: Accepted new job, when should I inform my current employer?
I have accepted an offer, but due to relocation and other current issues, I can only start work about 3 months later. I plan to stay on my current job until then. My current employment is at-will.<p>Question is what is the typical advance notice I should give my current employer?
u still own the data :)
You did have parents to fall back on, which is huge. Sure, you worked hard, but you did have a family safety net.
Can we fix Gamma(x) to be x! while we're at it?
It's not satire, but you're right that using the phrase "A modest proposal" was confusing. I've changed it for clarity.
JScript and DOM changes in IE9 preview 3
Agreed, mainly because it's already used so widely in so many very standardized ways (including many constants).

In particular, note that it's used for torque. The formula for torque from force and radius involves a cross-product, so you're very likely to need both the constant conversion factor for radians/cycle and the variable for torque.
I should have anticipated this confusion, which resulted from my infelicitous use of the phrase "A modest proposal". The Tau Manifesto is meant to be fun, but it's definitely not a parody. For clarity, I've changed the name of the section in question.
I don't mean to offend, but kindergarden teachers are rarely cognitive neuroscientists. The whole idea of having no idea, of having nothing and no ego is to get you out of your own way. People get caught up on the words, concepts, and ideas of things, which are not actually the things they point to. There is no spoon because a spoon is only an idea, a socially acceptable approximation in a particular context, while what you hold to eat is unspeakable.
So... what is Tonido again ?
when a fire consumes your personal cloud...

when a flood drowns out your personal cloud...

when a thief takes your personal cloud...

it's all a trade-off i suppose.
Pro advice to the author, I was thinking along these same lines (communication, not scheduling is the problem).

Keep focused less on what hour in the morning your cofounder shows up, and more on deadlines that you're working to. Most importantly as the business guy focus on how the shifting market perceives each of your product/feature releases.
Before I clicked through I thought this article was about how banks charge a fee for every electronic debit card transaction that they process. Then I realized most banks in Canada charge $0.50 at a time.
I largely agree with the author and I don't buy into the idea that online reading is destroying our attention span, rewiring our neurons or will kill the long form. What's changed is the ability of poor writers to fill the channel. We now have more of a challenge to sift through the junk but good writers and good editors will always be in demand and will find a way to be read.

We need to put a stop to the drivel about the death of this or that form of culture or art - if it can't rise through the spam it doesn't deserve to survive.
This. When I went there it looked like a search engine.

Embedding search for sites? Google does that. Using Bing's advertising platform? Who uses Bing? Twitter / Facebook results? People are already using tools for this. Search Portals? Yahoo, iGoogle, Bing... etc.

You seem convinced you have a great idea for a product but you were unable to convince me. In fact, I'm still not sure what it does or how today's tools don't do what you're trying to do already. It may have been because you are doing this part time, you were beat to the punch.

You need to make people badly want something you are selling. I can't want something if I don't know what it does. And since your product is related to search and trends, you have a very very very steep uphill battle ahead of you.

The main issue is your marketing. I noticed on your blog that you said, "Really, if I need to spend a lot of time writing about what the product is for people to understand it, then I’ve failed."

This is so far from the truth. I know the technology is great. I know its interesting, but that's the how. Most, no -- all consumers don't give a damn about how, they care about what. Ask any marketing person worth their salt and they will tell you it takes 9 to 18 months for a story to catch on and echo within a community/industry. Unless you go viral, it will take longer in the search sector.

The how becomes interesting if your primary market is technical. But even then you are throwing away non-technical leads that could make the same decision.

My overall impression is that you've been cave-coding for too long without iterative feedback from other professionals, market analysts, or consultants. There may be situational factors that explain all of this but from a "give me money" perspective no one will care.

From a pivot perspective, it seems like integrating this functionality into a platform or library for other hackers to use and integrate into their own platforms could be a possible avenue. You've used and created some cool technology - repackage it and evangelize your approach. Even if it doesn't make any money, it can help garner a reputation that may help you move out onto other opportunities that pay more.
Sure, Wordpress can be configured to do anything using plugins etc. but why you would choose that route when there are much more friendly, sensible and more secure platforms out there I don't know.
> It seems like over the past few years we've definitively decided on B.C.E. and C.E. instead.

I don't think that is the case. Amongst recently published works of history that I have read (1st ed. books), from some very reputable publishers (Cambridge, Oxford, UC, etc), I have only seen BC/AD in use.
I still don't understand why MS didn't build a full IE6 rendering engine into IE8 that could be turned on site-by-site. Maybe too hard with all the ActiveX dependencies?
oh, fantastic! Thank you very much. This is perfect!
What a waste of brain cycles
Meh! The everyone runs their own personal server model is flawed. It imposes responsibility on the user. I'm fairly technically adept and I don't want to have to track yet another service on my computer. Nor is it really compatible with any form of mobile computing. The cloud is here to stay. Now we just need to figure out how to keep a leash on it.
Though it shares some elements of propagandistic tone, the Tau Manifesto is unlike Swift's proposal in the most important sense, in that it's perfectly serious. Using the phrase "a modest proposal" in this context was a dubious choice (to say the least). I've changed the section name for clarity.
Thanks! Will definitely go through these.
Supreme Court rules that all Americans have fundamental right to bear arms
Yes, there is lots of land available. The problem (I think) the OP was referring to is that most areas have building codes that regulate what kind of structure you can build.

Go far enough outside the cities and there are still many places in the US that don't have building codes, though. So you can go and build your very own neon green & pink hobbit hole with a tree for a doorway and no one can say anything :-)
I think the sort of poverty I sense around big company development is of the same sort. Employees are often beset by clueless management, crushing bureaucratic paperwork, WTF bad code, useless demoralized coworkers, &c...

This results in people saying stuff like, "If you find yourself in a warm tub of shit, just have the good sense to stay there where it's warm and no one's likely to attack you." Yes, I actually had a coworker say that to me once.

The attitudess of such workers are very much like the attitudes of those in poverty as described by the article.
It fails miserably on my chalkboard photo test (it doesn't claim to support chalkboard, but it seems like it should - it probably doesn't take much to determine the background is all dark and run the appropriate scripts)

Your 4 step instructions have doodle@, but the actual mailto: is for wb@. It's a minor thing, but you should be consistent.

Cool idea. I think you could run pretty far with a posterous style lazy signup and more options (like the dropbox idea, some storage, etc.) Maybe support group emails, so dev@ when sent from my email address returns a response to a certain 5 people.
what is the reason for negative vote?
Buy and read "A Random Walk Down Wall Street"

-- MV
Thanks wooster. You are the only person who actually answered my question. I guess this forum has a chance :)

I wonder if with the "graying" of baby boomers, the statistic is going to shoot up. I wouldn't be surprised if by 2020 the numbers would double, along with the projected retirement numbers. Of course, that would mean that the cluster areas would see rates close to 1 in 4 older adults, which would be truly scary!
Only there is no year zero, by (that) definition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(year)
McCarthy's original could give you macros, although they would be extremely cumbersome. I've been wanting to implement some sort of macro system in my minimal Lisp impl. http://github.com/fogus/lithp
I'm reminded every time I hear about QM being "weird", of Eliezer Yudkowsky's Quantum Physics sequence.

"I am not going to tell you that quantum mechanics is weird, bizarre, confusing, or alien. QM is counterintuitive, but that is a problem with your intuitions, not a problem with quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics has been around for billions of years before the Sun coalesced from interstellar hydrogen. Quantum mechanics was here before you were, and if you have a problem with that, you are the one who needs to change. QM sure won't. There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model."

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/
So what is the solution then? Here is a sketch: the trouble is there are so many interlinked problems it is not even clear where to start. It is utterly chaotic. To overcome it, first create a very small "Zone of Order" (one room, one household, one neighborhood, one small company, one city ... whatever) where you establish clear, orderly systems. China called this the "Special Economic Zone" which they modeled by taking advice from Hong Kong and Taiwan businessmen.

The demoralization of poverty is very similar to the malaise of personal disorganization and clutter. The solution is also very similar! I think this can also apply to the rehabilitation of a badly maintained code base!
It's from Best Buy, here's the link: http://bbyidx.com/
It's like reverse Chrome Frame!

I like it.
I would love to build a yurt at the foot of the hill I live on. I've been thinking that since my kid wants a tree house and the location I want is near some downed trees, we can "compromise" and he can help me build a house out of trees :-)
Amazingly good advice from the parent.

Remember, this is someone you are intending to go a long way with.

Either find a way to work easily and smoothly with him now or get out now. Things will get harder and more tense before they get easier.
Any communication between employees must be archived and stored in some super-special repository. Any tool that doesn't store its data in said super-special repository is a crime to use.

I'm surprised we don't have to record our in-person chats with a wearable video camera.
Is he not getting his share of the work done? That should be the measure of laziness--lack of performance--not at what hour he sits down at his desk.

I'm not aware of any studies showing that programming performance peaks between the hours of 9-5. What's the reason why you want to set this schedule for him?
I like some of the concepts behind Tonido, but ultimately it remains just another closed platform. As an open protocol, specification or platform, it could enable some interesting distributed applications.

It's been awhile since I've looked at Tonido, but this seemed to be the case last I checked.
The poor of today also have the house and the car. They also have air conditioning, a washer dryer, a microwave, cable TV and other such things. No one had that in the 1960's. In fact, a big chunk of the 1960's poor didn't even have a flush toilet.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/01/understandi...

I got curious why you mentioned that your grandparents had the coffee maker. It's because they were actually pricey in the 60's: $29.95 or $215 in 2009 dollars! A coffee maker was actually pricier than a wii.

http://www.dadsvintageads.com/viewitem.php/dadsvintageads/pd...
Regarding software patents, they did say they were following their own precedents of Benson, Flook and Diehr, and not endorsing State Street. Benson and Flook are precedent for invalidating just about every software patent out there. Diehr clarifies that having software as an element of a claim does not automatically make that claim nonstatutory.

If people paid attention to what those precedents actually said, then this opinion would be a slapdown of software patents. But since people obviously don't, it isn't.

It would be interesting if a lawyer would weigh in and say whether there's some legal principle restricting the scope of what can be said in this kind of opinion, or whether the Court is just being a bunch of wusses.
Assuming your co-founder is a capable techy, there is no reason why you find issue with when he works.

I work in a tech startup with 8 people and me being 1/3 of the tech team.

I come in to work at 7AM sometime, because I can't wait to see some ideas in code. Most days, I walk in at 9, when the regular
check-in time here is 8:00. But, I also make sure that I put in my 8 hours on average IN THE office, so that I do not
give an impression of being slack to my non-techy co-workers.

I also do couple of hours of work after going home, depending on the intensity of work and my own inclination to tinker with
alternate ideas and technologies.

My boss knows this and appreciates this fully.

Just like you expect your co-founder to earn YOUR trust, you should also earn HIS trust by understanding what truly motivates him.

Unless you are doing some mundane corporate job, where everything is already predetermined before it lands in email box, having the flexibility
to work whenever you want is a necessity.

This is typical Indian behaviour. Expecting "employees" to turn up on time. Let go of it.
You are not running a manufacturing company.
I sense deeper communication and trust issues here. If you are the "business" guy, $deity help you both.