skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Why do you state that when the article linked clearly says:
> "The cause of the accident was not determined, although
> Buckminster Fuller reported that the accident was due to
> the actions of another vehicle that had been following the
> Dymaxion closely.".

For the obvious reason why 3 wheel vehicles have never become mainstream.... If you work with computers you should know about Single Point of Failure. If you are cruising on the highway and get a flat with 1 of your 4 tires it's no Big Deal. How do you think that would figure with only 3.

Or another example. Why so many wheels on an 18-wheeler. Wouldn't it be awesome if a truck could do a u-turn in it's own length? Those things blow out tires all the time. But it doesn't matter because they have 18. SPOF. 3 wheel vehicles will never catch on in the mainstream. They'll only ever be the equivalent of glorified motorcycles - the ultralights on the road.
Judging from the upvotes, I'd say it flew over everyone's heads ;)
This won't work in node. That's not a huge deal, but it's pretty simple to come up with a cleaner solution that works in all environments.
Right. Except the smallest synchronization error between the two flywheels becomes disaster.
formal education isn't for everyone. that said, what I look for when hiring people is their independent drive. What have they built on their own for fun. Also how they solve problems. These are things that show their true character and aren't really taught in school (basic processes and theories are, but not the creative spirit).

the whole argument about whether or not school is necessary is ridiculous. each case has its own variables. the zoho case he references, they setup their own academy to TRAIN their people to work the way they needed.
Actually, you mostly do need to beat the benchmark each year to be a long term success. Make 1% each year more than the benchmark for 10 years, and then lose 30% compared to the benchmark in one year, and you are a horrible failure. And that happens often.

And if you could name some of these "long term managers" it might actually be helpful for the discussion.

I don't know what your background is, but you come off this discussion as someone who knows how the world works, evidence be damned. I've been working in this field successfully for the last 8 years, and no one who _is_ successful (in the beating-the-benchmark sense) stays in index/mutual fund management -- they all go to "success fee" management (think private equity, hedge funds, etc).

If you're any good, why earn 1% of AUM per year, when you can earn 2% of AUM + 20% of profits?
For my major (Biomedical Engineering) we had an intro to engineering class that did a pretty good job of laying down some basics. It was taught using a chemical engineering book (which I won't actually recommend) and we spent the lectures learning how to do mass/momentum/heat/energy balances using Chem E block-flow diagrams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_flow_diagram).

Then there were the tests. How would you lift an elephant? How many liters of syrup are used in a Waffle House each day? Design a dishwasher. Explain why you think implanted blood glucose meters are difficult to design. All in an hour and with demands for equations, pictures, assumptions and models. These aren't just Fermi Questions.

You couldn't study for it. You were graded like a kindergartener for "points achieved" instead of percentage correct and yet you still somehow failed the tests all semester long.

But at some point during the semester you start to enumerate assumptions, apply math as a tool to create and communicate an engineering model of the world, and then make designs and conclusions with error bounds and a good understanding of your personal confidence in them. It was pure survival-motivated.

In short, the class did exactly as advertised and we took one step closer to thinking like engineers. I'm not sure that CS degrees cover something like that, but I'm curious to know if I'm wrong.

So try that kind of thing. You're already used to modeling (building) information processes. See how good you can get at building/modeling/analyzing physical processes. Not knowing things won't hold you back from learning the philosophy. It'll just make you less accurate.
I agree that a lot of this is her being unrealistic / overachieving / etc., but I think we're going to see a lot more of this to come.

More telling though is the fact that they framed it in education bubble terms, not as much recession terms, which perhaps shows the media's ethos to be friendly to the concept - at least the WSJ.
That said, 2 hours is a pretty extremeTM amount of time to meditate every day. Fifteen minutes, give or take, will still go a long way. (Fifteen minutes in the morning AND before bed is even better, though, and who doesn't spend half an hour a day just farting around?)
also not interested
I know about CVD and have read this article. The applications listed are mostly related to cutting bits and actual diamond. It says notably: "[some nice properties] would make it a nearly ideal non-stick coating for cookware if large substrate areas could be coated economically." If coating cookware with it is economically infeasible, I imagine coating a screen would be pretty expensive too.

Which is why I doubt the iPhone used this and would like to know where that info came from.
Children.
I hope if they must implement this that they turn it on its head.

The sale would take place in the state that the seller is located in, not the buyer. At the very least it would be less work. One state tax code to deal with instead of 50. The bonus is that most online retailers already have to collect tax for in state purchases.
They offer 'basic html' mode, which turns off the bells and whistles (and makes it load much faster). It plays much more nicely with vimperator that way.
Bad title.
From the Nu website: "Its syntax comes from Lisp, but Nu is semantically closer to Ruby than Lisp."
I like Mark Pinkerton's clip the best. Don't we all sometimes wish we had a decoy that made it look like we're busy :)
As a long time Vim user I can pretty much guarantee you didn't learn it in an hour. You may have learned enough to do the very basics but after nearly 10 years of using it I still don't know everything.
He didn't restrict himself intentionally. I don't think that was what the poster meant. Rather, the poster probably meant that Sridhar was forced into this restriction by not being very attractive to those in the top 20%:

"Our company in India always faced trouble recruiting, because most college graduates, particularly from well-known colleges, would prefer big-brand-name firms. Simply out of SHEER NECESSITY, we started to disregard the kind of college a person graduated from, and the grades they obtained."
Because of RateMyStudentRental, I'd love to see data that includes college student grade-point averages, retention/graduation rates, and quality of off-campus housing/landlord. My hunch is that the higher quality the housing, the better grades and higher retention/graduation rates the students have, but there is as of yet no dataset which includes the housing-quality metric.
Meditation isn't a cure, it's just a good way to actually hear the alarms that may have been going off for years - a diagnostic technique. You hear all of the (demons? background processes?) that you've gotten tuned out, and realize how much mental energy they drain. (Hold on - maybe I have email. And while I'm there - are people on HN voting me up? What was I saying?)

Since meditation is basically just sitting still, shutting up, and listening, anybody who wants to sell you an extreme ZenTM experience is suspect.

You. Just. Sit.

It's boring. So fucking boring. At least the paint is drying. You just have sore knees.

But it helps. While you were so worried about random crap, how many little joys did you tune out? Your morning coffee. Playing with your SO's hair. Pay attention!

And yeah, I'm just as wary as you of someone trying to sell me sitting and looking at myself in the mirror for hundreds (no, thousands) of dollars.

Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=612740
Has anyone tried to port Clojure to obj-c? They have one for .Net.
Really? They're completely unrelated products. I don't see any problem with the name.
I would disagree with the bit about Clojure being about
web-apps though; it's really good for data processing and
analysis, as well as enterprise apps (soon, I bet).
Web-apps are just another fun way to hack with it.

I'll concede that. What I meant is that, in general, Clojure is typically being used for things other than end-user GUI apps, i.e. server-side or data-related programming.
Go to a party. Listen to the laughter, that brittle-tongued voice that says fun on the surface and fear underneath. Feel the tension, feel the pressure. Nobody really relaxes. They are faking it. Go to a ball game. Watch the fan in the stand. Watch the irrational fit of anger.

I can understand and sympathize with those sentiments, but I don't feel or encounter them in my life. There are some who are faking enjoyment and their reasoning is complex, fascinating, and deserving of conversation instead of pigeonholing. Many (most) I know are not.

Either I live in some kind of spiritual wonderland, am wildly blind to my social surroundings, or this article is setting the world up in two-tone.

I don't think he's attacking. I think he's framing. The rule says simple as possible, but no simpler and I feel there are many who live enlightened-enough lives to find their own paths to meditation or what-have-you without proselytizing guidance.

I'll call it a personal Guideline Foul. "Anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." There are many, many things on meditation that would gratify my intellect and HN is swinging through them on it's slow topical trajectory. This one just didn't suit me, so I spoke up.

For a much more subtle, loving, and informative treatment of similar topics I suggest Consider the Lobster [pdf] (http://www.lobsterlib.com/feat/davidwallace/page/lobsterarti...).
until I can see what you're offering I can't answer that question.
What people don't tell you is that for every inspiring story about somebody rising above adversity to succeed there is another story that doesn't get told about somebody not becoming ultimately successful, every market process will have winners and losers. I definitely think you should seek help vis a vis your suicidal thoughts, up to and including reporting yourself to the police for suicide watch if you think that's necessary. Suicide is a permanent solution to a (usually) temporary problem. In regards to your comment about "running out of time to apply for college," don't you think that's a little silly, people of all ages return to college at various times during their life, you're never too old to get an education (unless you meant you are running out of time for the current semester, in that case just apply for next semester).
Rendering a ridiculously large Buddhabrot (Lisp source included)
All medicines with their posology, side effects, etc.

A giant pharmaceutical database.
I'd like complete pricing data for common purchases including both brick and mortar and online retailers. Eventually, I'd like a web site where I could enter my regular purchases (groceries + household goods) and it would tell me the cheapest way to acquire them (e.g. buy this list from the local supermarket, these items from walgreens, and order these 3 things from amazon). Obviously, the pricing data would need to be up to date esp. with regards to sales.
It's easy enough to not require the login wall for certain user agents (such as GoogleBot).

Granted, it would be easier and better to not have it the first place.
Wouldn't you have to get a signed waiver from everyone?

Also, sequencing still isn't actually cheap. The price is dropping quickly and its cost is reasonable for research, but it's not reasonable for "let's sequence everything" (yet)
Google trends issues hot media: GERMANS KLOSE DOOR ON DIEGO'S DREAM
While you're busy pretending to be sensitive some of us are willing to admit that youth and looks are important to us in a partner.

Also I note you disregarded the "great, funny, vibrant, intelligent" part.
I think any real effort aside from the .Net one is waiting on Clojure-in-clojure to move forward.
Yes, when I was involved with this... privacy was a major issue. But I think everyone was over thinking it. In this day and age when people twitter their turds, it seems like it would be less of an issue. The sequencing is cheap enough.
I agree in general.
But it seems you put a lot of weight on donation part.
Donating to charity is OK activity.
Gates Foundation is probably one of the best charities, but donating is not nearly as important in comparison with Buffet's contribution to the society while he was making his billions.
The billions Buffet made is a rough indicator of how much he contributed to the society. If he did not contribute -- he wouldn't make his fortune.
Buffet also shared his investing advise, which is extremely valuable.
So again, in comparison with what Buffet did already donations themselves do not look as amazing.
So.. What did the translations actually say?
Having read Carr's book, he also mentions the fact that so much of our social lives has found its way online, that people can feel disconnected if they're away from their Facebook, or Twitter stream, or IM, or on demand email.

You're point is valid, that it's up to each one of us to find the right balance. It just becomes harder when unplugging from the Net is the modern day equivalent of pulling a Thoreau.
This is kind of like the theory that we need to force American firms to be less efficient to solve unemployment.
So would be allowed on iOS given the 3.3.1 clause forbidding alternative languages?
> But is forcibly blocking this really the ultimate solution? /etc/hosts, Freedom, cubicles, log cabins, monasteries… Don't we just fight a symptom that we should tackle otherwise? There's probably some evolutionary reason why we're prone to this ("There, a sabretooth tiger!"), but only to a certain point. I think above that, you want to be distracted and thus easily give in to temptation.

Precisely what I was thinking reading this article. Despite being a relative early adopter of the ’Net due to my college exposure last millenium, I’ve never really lost my ability to read or focus on a task… if I’m willing to do it. I didn’t feel tempted to follow any of those links in the article, for example.

That said, with my recent bout of self-employment, I’ve found David Letterman’s pronouncement that the iPad is the “ultimate in procrastination technology” to be mostly true. However, everytime I let this happen, I conclude that it is a sign of my being afraid or reluctant to do something related to my current task. Once I solve that underlying problem, I get productive again.

I think the takeaway from the above is that in recent times, people only seem to be more easily distracted, because, IMHO, that people, for some reason or another, have become more likely to do work or take on tasks that deep down they really don’t want to do. It isn’t just the current recession, but something deep in our hireing practices or job opportunities that is letting humanity down…
fascinating study. Questions:
1. how can you drive the price down per corner? (make it affordable for large scale measurement).
2. don't most people already have a general idea of how noisy a place is when they visit?
3. will realtors pay for this data?
All book sales. Not just bestsellers, but any book. If possible over time as well to watch as things become popular. A window into what people are reading would be fascinating to me.
Well I found it interesting. One of the scary things about trying to do something great is the fear that you'll fail and everything will go to hell. So it's quite nice to read someone who's had a terrible year say that they got through it okay.

Also, describing it as "stupidity" seems a bit harsh. Everyone will make mistakes from time to time. I'd say Derek is a lot less stupid than the kind of person who didn't do anything and hence didn't have a company, savings or wife to lose.
Interesting! I don't want to make the same projection that mkn did, though I'm tempted. Just because a theory fits doesn't mean it's right.

As I recommended in another comment, I cannot recommend more highly the works and philosophy of David Foster Wallace. Read Consider the Lobster (and then everything else) and tell me what you think.

debt suggests in a further comment the angst of college frat parties, news coverage, and pop music. Maybe he's got a point in that the participants there are psychically ill and the essay is targeted properly, but I'm still seeing the mkn's Zarathustra reference.

At the beginning of my college career I hated (hated) fraternities. Today I have gone to many of their parties, ones I would have once described exactly as debt did, and found simple, string-free enjoyment in irresponsibility. The angst and fake smiles had their roots, too, but people's problems are not things that are to be simply overcome by meditative escapism. It's a much deeper transformation and should be sold as such, I think.
I'd like a full dump of all okcupid data, including how people rate me, when they rate me, their ratings, etc. I'd like to know how long they stay on my profile, how often they click to my profile, and what they're searching for.

I mean, really, I want to know what every person I meet of the opposite gender is thinking, but that dataset won't exist until I build more hardware.
Ok, this is me reporting back. Based on the few minutes I was willing to spend on this, and the data sources listed below, I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong about the word "consumer" being widely used where "citizen" should be. I looked at a few dozen usages of "consumer" and they were all appropriate, i.e. in sentences concerning some sort of economic consumption. I hardly saw any borderline cases, and even those were not misuses of the word so much as encroachments of the economic domain itself into areas it didn't use to dominate.

One can still argue about the status of the concept "consumer" in our society, but that becomes a much more subjective thing without tangible linguistic evidence to point to. I'd be interested if anyone has further ideas about how to test this.

Sources:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+consum...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+citize...

Search "consumer" and "citizen" on http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com.
Yes, but at the same time, it has also made it easier to (say) connect with other foodies in Grand Rapids, MI. Not everything is purely about snarking on clueless schmucks on the internets.

While there's clearly a point at which the internet is a self-sustaining asocial distraction, it doesn't have to be that way. It can be used for local discussions to great effect.

Of course, not everybody exposed to the internet uses it in a social manner. Perhaps it just amplifies existing inclinations?
Exactly. The closest thing to a mathematical definition of intelligence is probably Marcus Hutter's AIXI model (http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm). But it's not widely accepted and not practical to measure.
I think it depends on who you ask, since it's somewhat of a subjective, philosophical question. There are definitely sub-areas of AI working on rule-engine type stuff, especially if it gets more complex, e.g. various stuff derived from Datalog or Prolog.

On the contrary side, there are actually people who consider a lot of spam-filtering and other statistical-ML tools to be more applied statistics than AI, though most people probably have more mixed views on it. To some extent they're just straightforwardly applying algorithms to get outputs with known mathematical properties from inputs. Sort of the way a sort algorithm takes in data and always gives you an output with specific properties, statistical algorithms take in data and always give you an output with specific pre-determined properties, which just happen to be more complex ones. But they never modify their own processes, for example, or change goals, or realize that they're making the same mistake over and over, or decide that this algorithm is obsolete and needs to be improved--- that only happens when the intelligence in the loop (the human statistician) updates the algorithm.

On the other hand, both approaches (rules-ish or statistics-ish) often produce results that 50 years ago would definitely have been considered to "require intelligence".
> I'm not sure if it was due to my attention span or because it just wasn't that engaging.

…or outright sabotage by the writer. He challenges (more like, dares) the reader on a couple of occasions to remember something he wrote earlier in the article.
On a simplistic smart-phone, sure. But most beasts-of-burden nowadays have at least a few gigabytes of storage. That's not any smaller than a PC - few applications have that much data (aside from games), even in the medical field.

I may very well be inflating things, but the instant you mention "craft a query" you've lost 99% of people, minimum. They'll type "lupus", and give up if they don't find what they want. Or "Tom", and stop trying if they don't find Greg and Lupus as well. And then resort to finding the information through whatever roundabout means they last succeeded in.

Beware the average user's depth of knowledge of your system; many don't understand how to use tabbed browsing, and possibly more use Google to find the Facebook login page despite the login link appearing at all times when you're logged out. If you're trying to get as many people as possible, you've gotta plan for the bottom to be as functional as possible. And there are more at the bottom than at the top.
Thank you.

The funny thing is that in bits and pieces I had figured out most of the things you wrote, but I never connected them in this way. I also never had it in me to try them through, but now I am at least learning from my mistakes and we'll see how that turns out. I've realized that there aren't too many secrets to a beautiful life; it's just choosing the path that's too damn hard. Again and again until it becomes a habit. Start; Fail; Iterate.

You know what scares me the most?

That I might not be smart enough/hard-working enough to actually make it work.

You know what keeps me awake at night?

I actually know that in all probability I don't have a future. Unlike, almost all of my peers I really can't have a linear life, and that is shit scary.

Thanks once again.
For what it's worth, I've known a couple of people who have gone off and done the meditation course through Vipassana, and all have heartily recommended it.

Saying that, apparently the drop out rate of their course is something along the lines of 60-70%, most people do not have the discipline required to complete it.

I personally haven't done the course so I can't comment directly. I would say though, that meditation is beneficial, and I'm sure there are proper scientific studies that attest to the benefits.

Certainly the 'bio-feedback' movement is merely meditation techniques with some output you can discern, kind of like a server with monitoring.
I'm the OP, and I'm not really sure what the source of let-down is here.

Nu has closures, anonymous functions, supports currying etc. It uses the Cocoa classes and they claim it can even be compiled onto the iPhone.

So while the examples in git may be "imperative" I would guess its only because they are trying to show how to be interoperable with Cocoa objects which, not being functional, causes imperative constructs to creep back into your code. The same thing happens when you try to use existing Java objects in Clojure. This seems to be a limitation only of the examples and not of the language itself.