skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Saw this by chance on twitter:

http://twitter.com/BillGates/status/19764971764 "I’ve been spending time watching some of the courses on www.khanacademy.org – many of which are quite good. More coming on GatesNotes..."

For what it's worth, I think he is right. You can learn a tremendous amount by reading and watching talks on the Web.
Someone please downvote the post I'm responding to. The one above that is a troll as well, please don't feed him. It doesn't matter where Lisp is used, someone will always come out and say "...but it's only useful for a narrow domain no one cares about!"

http://www.franz.com/success/
http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html
http://www.digitool.com/customers.html
http://wiki.alu.org/Success%20Stories

And that's only Common Lisp
That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the info.
I don't need compile downtime with Clojure and couldn't find the option:

* Today: Should be coding right now, but I'm guilty of using a dynamic language and still stopping to read HN.

Then again maybe using a dynamic language earned me the break? So change that:

* Today: Earned a break to read HN by using Clojure.
They state the complaint was from a contractor. This line would suggest that he may have been giving business to them, possibly unfairly.
Thanks! Tell your friends! We're giving away fully-functional 60-day trial licenses and there are a growing number of interesting use cases for VM clone: http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/search/label/recipes
The iPhone uses two fingers which enables much more accurate/rapid scaling. The mouse is a compromise in comparison, hence the added inertia.
How about using electricity to make your muscles move without effort on your part? (Of course this won't do anything for your central nervous system or coordination.)
So the creators of TF and CS are geniuses, but not genius enough to create standalone games? I realize that creating a mod is easier than creating a game from scratch, but doesn't talent always out?
it is worth noting that pi also contains every possible convincing lie, along with photographic evidence.

(don't trust pi!)
I think the problem is they effectively change a problem from having 2 possibilities (either you get $X or you get 2 * $X) to a problem that has 3 possibilities: A/2 (1 possible amount in the other envelope), A (the amount in your envelope), and 2A (the other possible amount in the other envelope) by fixing A relative to the hypothetical amount you could have in your envelope.
If lack of US citizenship were the only problem, I have little doubt it would be given to him regardless of his wishes.
"People in the developing world suffer from injustices, but it's silly to argue that this is a hidden cost of Nuclear."

Right, just as Superfund cleanup and cancer treatment is free to the US taxpayer.

"If the reserves were in a developed country they would be mined as cheaply and more safely."

What prevents Areva from doing that in Niger?
The 'paradox' that is presented leads back to the right conclusion: there is no way to inform which envelope is better so just pick one at random.

These are non-causal random events, and the probability is always 50/50.

There is a twist to this problem, which is more interesting, where you open the first envelope, then decide whether or not to switch to the second envelope.

Believe it or not, there is a trick to beating 50% in this variant.

I'm too tired to try to fully explain it, but this conclusion comes from the fact that once you look at an envelope that presents information that can be used for deciding to switch. So it becomes a causal system that does not follow a random probability density function.

But think: if the envelope you opened had $7 million dollars in it, you probably wouldn't and shouldn't switch, and you'd probably be able to skew the odds in your favor on scenarios like this.
I guess the point is that it indirectly reflects the hypocrisy and highlights the lack of faith in the religious beliefs for those who profess them. In other words, the extreme expected outcome would be to either forgive, or to not forgive and let afterlife take care of delivering the just reward or punshment. Neither one of those choices should result in severe punishment for criminals just for the sake of revenge.

> Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best.

I do not actually believe that. I was arguing more as a logic exercize, to highlight the inherent inconsistency and hypocricy in how the judicial and legal system is setup vis-a-vis the prevalent religious beliefs in this country.
As a former employee, I would say, no, HP just lost it's Darth Vader. Here's hoping they can find someone that understands and respects employees and has some business acumen.
Ezra Zygmuntowicz Leaving EngineYard
Embracing failure is a good way to fail
HP garage
Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1475336

(run4yourlives see my comment there ;) )
How can this be better than playing with the ball with, say, your hands? your feet? Maybe I'm getting old
Yes. I should have said, people have figured out how to make good Autobahnen out of concrete.

The GDR also had streets paved with concrete---but they had tar in the gaps and sticking out of the gaps. You can imagine what a bumpy ride that was.
Make sure you don't neglect its contrary twin: Emperor's New Mind. (The entire dialectic between these two books is something straight out of G.E.B.)
Isn't the expected value of both envelopes, prior to picking either, 0.5 * X, where X is the sum of the envelopes' value?

So one way to argue this is a fallacious problem is that you can't take an unknown (the actual value of the envelope that you picked) and pretend it's a known. The value of the envelope you are holding, prior to opening it, is 0.5 * X. The value of the other envelope is also (0.5 * (.66 * X)) + (0.5 * (.33 * X)) == 0.5 * X.

This may be too ill-expressed -- but there's something wrong with treating the value of an unopened envelope as anything other than completely probabilistic.

Put differently, don't you have to say

0.5 chance I picked the bigger envelope (call that A). In which case, the other envelope is 1/2A. So if I switch, I lose 1/2A.

0.5 chance I picked the smaller envelope (A/2). So if I switch, I gain 1/2A.

Which means if I switch, half the time, I gain 1/2A and half the time I lose 1/2A, for an expected gain of 0 from switching.
Makes me tempted to try and write a "Structure and Interpretation of Neutron Transport"

Let me know if you do - I'd be interested in reviewing early drafts. I studied nuclear engineering in grad school, but enjoyed the computational aspects enough to leave the field and start a career in programming instead. I don't recall liking any of the textbooks.
No one I know in HP is going to miss Hurd. The company has been a miserable place to work since the Fiorina days. Of course that may be a temporary state of affairs, since Hurd has been working to turn HP into a brand name applied to low-end junk designed by contractors in China, and a corporate shell in the US to market it.
IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft
You're talking about Minitel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

It's still in use and generating revenues 28 years after introduction.
Ask HN: Misuse of corporate funds in a small business
HN, I have been a part of your community for a while now but I would rather not make it known who I am for this post. I am looking for some advice.

I started a corporation with a couple of friends, and we made some money here and there. Not much, however it is enough to keep us afloat and out of the red. In the mean time we are having fun learning the ins-and-outs of owning a business.

However, recently we noticed that one of the founding members/board directors/officers of the corporation has been spending corporate money on little things like vending machine purchases, and gas. When asked about it he mentioned he was accidentally using the wrong card, we (the other founders) thought it would stop and the monies would be repaid to the corporation. Not only did it not stop it continued for a whole other month, and the monies to repay to the corporation has not been deposited.

The thing is that each of us has an equal share in the corporation, and we each hold our officers positions I am not sure how to approach the situation and/or reprimand this individual and make sure the money gets returned since officially he is listed as having access to the corporate account. How would it work if we did decide that he was dead-weight and wanted him out (no investors involved, we each gave ourselves 20% of the shares in the corporation)? Would we have to buy him out? Technically this is embezzlement, could we as a corporation take him to court? If this happened in your corporation how would you handle it? What would be your next steps in resolving the situation amicably?

I understand that the first response is going to be "find a lawyer", however when I mentioned that we are just making enough to stay afloat I really do mean that. The amount that has been embezzled is no small amount compared to our income, and will hurt us and keep us from doing R&D work for products we would like to develop and release to the consumer market.
Funny, online maps work fine without inertia.
I think it was because of the transaction volume. Once you get past $3,000.00USD it looks like you automatically become a merchant with PayPal, even if you're not.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_fees-rate-abou...
I really really like it.

I also have scary thoughts thinking about how an innocent robotics company can end up like iRobot... not that that's such a bad thing of itself :) Roombas and military killing machines, woo.
From Great Designers Aiming for the Skies to the Fun School of MI
That's great. Now please set up an organisation, whether profit or non-profit that will examine the content of the most common degree courses that teach something where there is a "core" to the field regardless of prior qualifications and certify that knowledge.
However they did meet with Verizon behind "closed doors" to agree on a common definition of what "net neutrality" is. Yes, it is not as infamatory as "let's implement something together and screw everyone else".

> We remain committed to an open internet.

Of course they do. No company we'll say - "we want to control the internet and everyone's access to it". They'll say somethig like "we want to expand more options for consumers", "we are helping deliver better content", and of course "we want an open internet". They are the ones being accusses of working out a deal behind consumers' back so their PR department will say something nice to soften the blow.

The only way to figure it out is to wait and see what happens. You'll have to forgive me if I don't take Google's PR department's word for it.
Well this is true if you want to be a software developer. You can get very skilled and competent just learning online. For everything else I don't know... I sure would get a little uncomfortable if my surgeon told me he skipped college and learned everything from tutorials before he gave me my anesthesia.
I'm not sure you understand my criticism. I'm not arguing that they are doing something good or useful. But I'm not sure you can deduce that they're posting low-quality content because of the tactics they use to subvert other people's content.

I don't think the writer of the original story is a good source for judging the quality of content written from a conservative perspective, due to his/her existing views.

I would bet that most conservatives disagree with most of what is written in the two examples I gave, so I doubt that conservatism is an intellectual monolith. Within the conservative movement, there's plenty of lively debate; when a traditionalist Souther Agrarian can claim to share the same party as a hedonistic libertarian psychonaut, it's unlikely for there to be "1 answer."
This guy should move to Russia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/2470...
I agree with his points except for #9:

"When I see an entrepreneur in a suit, the first thing I think is "I wonder what else he is dressing up"."

It doesn't hurt to look professional in a business situation. The vast majority of the business world doesn't wear black turtlenecks and jeans and work in Silicon Valley.

For outsiders not in the computer industry there can be a huge difference seeing someone come and present in a suit or even a dress shirt and tie versus sneakers, jeans and t-shirt.
I agree with the title, but this seems short-sighted:

Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world

Lectures might be the optimal way of learning given the technology of the last millenium, but I don't think they'll survive even a century in this one. Computers are interactive interfaces, and "The Web" is an interactive medium. I have a feeling that whatever replaces lectures is going to take advantage of that.
Judge calls Craigslist lawsuit against S.C. attorney general premature
I hope that he's not gonna jinx it like few of his earlier predictions.
This is precisely the type of attitude I take issue with. One would think that cyclists would behave like the vulnerable vehicles they are, yet a 15 minute observation of the typical cyclist will no doubt show numerous traffic offences, inclusive of some that most motor vehicle operators would never think of committing. This is common knowledge to all who use the roads we are supposed to share.

I don't have any data to support or desupport this claim that a 'typical' cyclist will show 'numerous' traffic offenses in any given 15 minute observation. Anecdotally, today I saw a car stopped in a no-stop zone, a car pulling off a roundabout without indicating, cars pulling onto a pavement and two cyclists crossing at a crossing onto a cycle path and one cyclist pulling over to let cars past.

I take issue with this:

I think you actually encourage bad behaviour by removing or lessening liability for a class of road user dependent on their ease of injury. Road safety starts with personal responsibility

Because you are suggesting that cyclists don't care about being injured, but only whether it will cost them money or not, as if a broken leg and a week off work is fine as long as it's free.

understanding that you are doing an inherently dangerous thing with a fast moving vehicle that could result in your death and the death of others.

Road safety is about this - an understanding that you are involved in traffic and what you do matters. It's just that what motorists do matters more because it is amplified by their machinery.

A cyclist cuts up a car and they swerve to avoid it and hit another car. Any traffic going at a speed where a cyclist could cut them up is slow enough that the cars would crunch a bit. A car cuts up a cyclist and the cyclist swerves into something, and the cyclist gets hurt.

For the sake of their own safety, cyclists should be as careful as they can be. For the sake of avoiding causing accidents cyclists should be careful. But for the sake of protecting cyclists as a class of society, car drivers should be held to a higher standard. That doesn't say cyclists should be held to no standard, it says people whose actions are amplified should have to be more careful than people whose actions are not.
HN seems to be as much about discussion as it is about news. Otherwise, why have comments?

HN people might hear about it elsewhere, but this is probably where they would prefer to discuss it.
I have almost 900 GB's worth of movies on hand. I have watched every single movie I have stored on my file server.

I only bother to rip the movies I like... and re-watch them every so often. It is nice to have an on-demand library available.
If you founded the company with friends, then you should know this person pretty well and just be able to sit down and talk about it right?

It sounds like its not quite to the point where it needs to escalate to the steps you're talking about in terms of buying him out, and this could be solved with a quick 15-minute company meeting about use of the company card/funds. Maybe there's something deeper there like he's having financial trouble that needs to be addressed. Or maybe he's just really bad with money, in which case maybe you should suggest someone else hold onto the company card.

I think as a whole, our culture is too quick to jump to getting lawyers involved, when you should at least try giving just talking to him a second shot. Even if you get lawyers involved and take care of taking him out of the company cleanly from a legal point of view, it's definitely going to be a HUGE distraction and morale killer to have a founder leave.
Ha. I actually tick the 'while compiling' box today as I'm building an iPhone app. Usually it'd be PHP or perl.
I agree. But: Why do we need exactly identical behaviour? Wasn't HTML intended to leave lots of discretion for rendering decisions to the browser?
Content farm firm Demand Media files for IPO
It would be nice if there was more substance to the article. It would be fascinating to know the reasons Gates has formed this opinion - the specific trends he's seeing and some actionable road-map to make this happen.
Yeah - it's not really (0.5A + 2A)/2, it's (0.5A1 + 2A2)/2, where A1=2*X (as you have above) and A2=X.

Substituting, your expected value upon changing is 3X/2, which is, surprise surprise, the same as the expected value for the envelope you already have.
1x is fair as long as everyone knows what's going on and what is expected. Especially for later investments, when less risk might be expected. I don't know how common higher preferences are, but they often seem... more unsavory, shall we say.
GPS tracking of cars requires warrant, court decides
Social programs are not the same thing as social insurance. I am happy to live in a country where the amount of violence that seems to be normal in the US is still inconceivable.
I think the right price point is more like $10, but Andrew's doing an awesome job - and creating something that I can't find anywhere else on the web - so I can't begrudge him on what he thinks it's worth. Just saying that you could be getting $10 from me right now instead of $0. Have you considered a "pay what you want" model?
That blog post is wrong. If N is the difference between the values in the two envelopes, then the chance that you will guess a value in this range is N/∞ which is 0.
so what, just torrent it and sooner or later there will be private servers/maps/lan. blizzard is too greedy from the WOW gravy train.
Lower level employees get fired for sexual harassment. Same standards should also apply to CEOs.
Wow. That situation sounds pretty bad.
Well just in case you wanna cry into your beer over that font - you can get it here for old times sake.

http://www.aplusdev.org/Download/x11fonts.tar.gz
It's hard to measure their profitability, since normal accounting doesn't capture how they work. The money they pay for content should be considered an "investment," and expensed over the next few years, not all at once. An article they create today will probably still be getting visits in five years.

I would love to see their expected future traffic, and current cost, for the content division. What you might see then is that a piece of content costs $X, and earns $.75X... then $.75X next year, and the year after, and so on.
There are non-interactive digital media too such as podcasts... it seems like nearly every scholarly lecture I try to listen to, though, has the first 20-30 minutes taken up by (multiple!) fawning introductions or a reading of the class syllabus. I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it.
So it is fair if some people are born as slaves and some as masters? Or how is your statement to be interpreted? It could mean that somebody earning fuck you money is not fair, because then that person would not have to work to eat anymore.
Related: I know of a book that deals with history as mathematics. You may be interested in it.

"The Pleasure of Counting" by Tom W. Körner. See a review at http://plus.maths.org/content/pleasures-counting and another one here http://www.maa.org/reviews/counting.html

Quote from the second review:

>> Körner says, in his preface, that this book is "meant, first of all, for able school children of 14 and over and first-year undergraduates who are interested in mathematics and would like to learn something of what it looks like at a higher level." I don't know about English school children; there won't be many American 14-year-olds who will read this book. But that doesn't matter: for those who do read it (and I hope many potential math majors do read it), it offers a unique look at what mathematics, especially applied mathematics, is like.

>> Rather than attempt a book on "mathematics for poets", Körner explains that he decided to talk as if he were speaking to another mathematician. Almost all of his topics involve only elementary mathematics (though here and there an occasional remark or exercise goes quite a bit deeper than that), but the attitude is quite sophisticated. As he says in the preface, this means that most of the book's intended readers will find at least a few points where they are in over their heads. Körner urges them to skip over such parts or, even better, to find some professor willing to discuss them. Read this way, Körner's The Pleasures of Counting is really a pleasure, and may well attract many students to mathematics. It strikes me, in many ways, as the ideal book for independent reading or for a first-year seminar.
Letters from Hiroshima
Today is the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. For many years, mayors of Hiroshima have sent out letters of protest against nuclear weapons testing. Here are a few of them.
Yes, he is a friend, and yes we did sit down with him and talk to him. As mentioned in my post, after that it still went on for another month, and the monies still has not been returned.

If he was having money troubles I would have hoped he would talk to one of us however that has not been the case. It is very disconcerting to us that he has pretty much gone quiet, it has been hard to get ahold of him. I don't know, but it just feels like things have changed since we first started the corporation 2 years ago.
Apple Loved You Pro Users; Loves Your Money More, Now
Your last equation is tautological, since all it amounts to is "Google's revenue in a country comes from money invested in customer acquisition."
The tough part about being a first time entrepreneur is stock preferences and setting them up properly. You want to find a way that the future employees won't get screwed, but you also want to ensure that your company is an attractive investment opportunity for possible angels/vcs. From what I understand there's not really a good balance to keeping things equal unless one group gets shafted.

Does anyone have any examples of how to setup the stock situation to benefit both employees and investors?
Well this is true if you want to be a software developer.

Or a mathematician, director, physicist, screen writer, journalist, accountant, statistician, historian, designer, botanist, cook, mechanic, etc.

Now that I think of it, most professions already have online communities for discussion and group learning of skills which one self-motivated enough to study. What's most blatantly missing is the accreditation: it's not easy to cheat the accreditation system at a University (mostly because the experience of academic culture is what gives the accreditation validity), but it's a lot easier to "cheat" online.
Edit your iPhone video as fast you can shoot it with Video Edit