skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is where Asimov got it wrong... It's easier to build robots into the things they automate than to build general-purpose 'human like' robots that can operate things the way humans do.

We'll have to disagree on this.

I think robots will become pervasive almost "overnight" once we can build them generic enough to replace, for example, those guys in the sweatshops. Or the burger flippers in the backroom at McD.

A sweatshop worker can quickly learn to sew a new kind of design, even if that involves using different or new tools. Purpose built sewing machines are probably only flexible within very tight constraints.

A McD worker can quickly learn to cook a new meal or operate the new oven. A fully automatic kitchen would likely need a serious overhaul (in all locations where it was deployed) when the food designers come up with something new.

When you have a "mechanic intern" tho, who works almost as well as a really dense low-wage guy, can also learn new things, but costs only half in maintenance, and never sleeps... What's not to like?

I believe the turning point here, though, will be when wealth is equalized a bit more, meaning workers in india demand a little more money rather than when robots get cheaper.

Now we're back at where we started, but that's okay and perhaps a nice way to let go of this thread. :-)

As said, I believe the indian sweatshops won't even be competitive against generic bots at their current rates. Much less when they demand more.. (Oh, did I mention that robots never go on strike? ;-) )
"Login to buy brushes." Clever. I wonder how well this is going to work.
A friend of mine suffers from MS about 20 years and currently is in the later stages of the disease. She heard about this last year, she was indeed diagnosed with a venous insufficiency, and actually had the "liberation procedure" done by dr. Zamboni himself. She hasn't seen a single improvement since the operation (5 months ago).
Buy Research Paper and Get an A Score
When students are assigned to write term papers on topics that are unfamiliar, they cannot write a good term paper to satisfy the teachers and to get the passing grades. When faced a situation like this, many students decide to buy term papers.
Agreed - "economic rationality" is an extremely narrow concept. As an example, it's "rational" to buy yourself a car or an ice cream cone, because you get utility or enjoyment out of it. It's "irrational" to give money to others, because... you don't get enjoyment out of it? Wait, what if you do? A giant problem with the definition, methinks.
It is a crop of a board containing a wire that extends beyond the area shown. It is not an error, although indicating (somehow - people's intuitions vary) that it's a crop would help.
I wasn't aware of this project! I may indeed switch from GReader to Newsblur, since it seems to be more in line with my habits.

I guess Newsblur and the subject of this topic solve different problems.
Exactly. We are in fact running 10 mongrels.
Time Required to Start a Business [infographic]
It should be a small image centered on the bottom of the page that says "[Y] Hacker News Fan"
I think this comment by Aaron Sterling is important:

"I’d like to respond to the tone of a couple anonymous comments.

It is almost irrelevant to me whether the proof, as currently written, is correct. (I expect there to be flaws, perhaps unfixable ones.) What excites me — and, I think, a lot of other people — is the attempt to join together descriptive complexity with statistical physics. The bridge between finite, discrete complexity, and hardness in the continuous world “has to exist,” and the “evidence” for this can be found in everything from the distribution of the primes to the computer simulation of chemical reactions. Despite this, over the last few years, I’ve gotten the impression that researchers in logic and physics tend to be put off by — even scared by — the notations and dialogues of each other. So when someone from “outside” says he’s found a way to connect the two areas, it’s intriguing.

I’ve certainly gained insight into areas I had no clue about whatsoever, until just a couple days ago. It seems to me this whole situation is only partly about trying to understand a proof. Perhaps the more important part is us trying to understand one another."

http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/update-on-deolalika...
I don't think of that as "several", I think of that as "a few." Two months would most likely be acceptable to a prospective employer. Four months less so.
Seinfeld was also a work of fiction, you know. There's a huge difference between staged entertainment - of which this "hoax" is a clear example - and actual manipulative deception.

Why is "Jen" quitting her job in an amusing and entertaining way any more insidious than Kramer turning his dresser into a capsule hotel for visiting Japanese businessmen?

Tools to prevent the kind of libel that damaged Amazon's reputation would be very beneficial, but let's not get carried away applying them indiscriminately to every meme in every context.
The TC article doesn't mention the In-App Purchase features you offer. It sounds like you offer free-for-the-user updates to applications as well as providing infrastructure for traditional in-app purchases managed through Apple's billing. I'm curious about how you bill for these features if you don't mind taking a moment to explain.
The pill equally effective in obese, thin women (Reuters)
My background is in SAS and SPSS, but my new job required me to learn R. If you require an absolute beginners guide for R, this book might not be for you. It assumes you have a background in programming and basic statistics.

I am about halfway done the book, and found the chapters on graphics and lattices to be very helpful.

The one thing that is lacking, at least so far, is a section on formatting output. Most data is shown in raw tables, but for my job I need to feed these into excel.

My R toolbox has this book and the built-in R help system. So far, those two things are all I have needed two write my scripts.
Testing it out :)
Practical Tips on Hiring “Crazy Geeks” for Your Startup
Nope. Be really, really careful. This is one of the top game-over problems that happens to smart dev teams.
Google is telling the FCC how they might want to do things precisely because they're just one random company that couldn't possibly influence anything?

Also, they know who you are, Mr. ergo98.
3 months is nothing - many places have a 3 month notice period so your start date would be that far out anyway.
What definitely does not work is drawing cyclist lanes onto the road. In Germany at least I think for a while it was believed that cycling lanes should be drawn on the roads rather than on the sideway.

The result is that the cycling lanes become very dangerous, because car use them for short term parking all the time (it is not unusual to have a parking car every 100 meters). That would mean cycling around the car and hitting the normal road. I think it is safer to just stay on the road all the time, rather than cycle in and out.

The parking on the cycling lane is actually illegal, but people don't care. Sometimes I consider just calling the police for every car that parks there, but I suspect they wouldn't really bother.
Why waste all that paper/electronic bits? Just enact a large tax increase...it's the same thing. Oh, but then the American sheeples will notice.
This only makes sense if you place a high value on mobility.

Many people value putting down roots and committing to a city or neighborhood. This often comes from having many tangled connections to other people.

My life isn't just about me anymore. It's about my wife, kids, and our extended family. If we were to move around a lot, each move would require the whole family to change their lifestyles, as opposed to just one person.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nomadic families, but they are more rare than nomadic individuals because of the increased complexity.

For those of us who aren't as passionate about the nomadic lifestyle, settling down makes sense. And, if you're going to settle down, ownership is the way to go, especially of your house.

A great neighborhood is worth a lot of money. Good neighbors, good schools, good transit to work, and so on. If you're renting a house which provides those things, the idea that a landlord can take it all away isn't pleasant.
The Zen of Ruby
Hi,

I have written a Ruby gem named 'this'. Get it here http://rubygems.org/gems/this. Purpose of 'this' is to show quotes of 'The Zen of Ruby' whenever you "require 'this'". As I could not find any equivalent zen quotes for Ruby, currently I am using 'The Zen of Python' (PEP 20). Extremely sorry for using it :)

Can you guys suggest me good quotes that Ruby 'Zen' should have. I would update 'this' gem to have new quotes.

Thanks.
Not sure I'd want to introduce a plugin dep to get rid of 7 lines of code (you don't need the "include"), but, OK.
From a comment on the article.

"You can't absorb all those people from Microsoft and not get infected by the same mindset. ".

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this initiative were being driven by an "acquired" (set of) VP s. DoubleClick maybe? Sounds right up their alley.
I disagree on 3. You should always start with your own proposal. Set the point from the discussion starts.

This is especially important for negotiations that are more complex than a real number.

To quote Paul D. Windsor, Esq., Laywer and Diplomacy Player (http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F1997R/Windsor/lawdip.html):

1. Always Start With Your Own Proposal

In my profession, this is known as "controlling the document." It is often true that he who controls the document controls the deal. Psychologically, if the negotiation begins with with your proposals, it's likely to proceed from your perspective and not the other guy's. The end result is much more likely to be in your favor under such circumstances. Most people in the real world are too lazy to draft their own contracts and, if they do, often do a poor job. Always be the first to present the contract. By doing so, you are taking the initiative in setting the terms of the deal for the remainder of the negotiations.

In the few [play by email] games [of Diplomacy] I've played so far, the majority of players I've negotiated with have tended to open negotiations after every turn something like this: "Hey, that last turn went well/OK/bad for our alliance. Where do you want to go from here?" I believe most players who do this think they are trying to force the other player to "show his hand," but I don't see what that accomplishes. In my view, opening a negotiation in this fashion is a huge mistake. It concedes all of the negotiation momentum to the other party and gives him a chance to write the draft contract which will form the basis for the remainder of the negotiaion. It seems a lot of leverage to give up in order to go on a fishing expedition for information that is not likely to be terribly useful.

You don't have to take my word for it. Read the [end of game comments] in Dan Shoam's games which are published regularly in this 'Zine. Notice how Dan tends to dominate the diplomatic front in his games almost by sheer volume alone. It is not that he merely sends lots of press. He also makes all of the proposals. The other players in his games invariably play by responding to his ideas, rather than generating plans of their own. Dan seizes the negotiating momentum early and never lets go. His is the best application of lawer-like Diplomacy that I've seen. Anyone who tries to cleverly get Dan to "show his hand" is just more grist for his mill.

Here's another way to think of it. Winning an individual military battle is a matter of getting there fastest with the mostest. Winning the negotiation battle often occurs the same way. If you are the first to put a treaty proposal or battle plan on the table, you are the odds-on favorite to get that plan accepted by your negotiating counterpart.
Get a commercial video for $5
A commercial is stil a great marketing tool - video even on your website as people are lazy.
1) Register with www.Fiverr.com
2) Select a video commercial gig.
3) Pay $5 in advance using Paypal
4) Get this after 2 days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVxmLpXo-5s
5) Approve
A video commercial at a low cost.
(To be honest - we ordered several and this was the best)
"The decision to buy government debt, using proceeds from Fed investments in mortgage bonds..."

If the money is coming from mortgage investments, I don't believe this action is actually increasing the money supply. Knowing the complexities of the Fed, though, I could certainly be wrong.
People who deliberately take photos for public display often use tripods and good lighting, irrespective of whether the story told by their photographs is real or fictional.
The biggest thing that helped my career and confidence was participating in open source projects. I was a terrible coder at the time, but I learned a great deal and it gave potential employers an additional degree of confidence.

Given your unique experience, you could probably find niche pilot tools that could use help. Check out freshmeat.net and other sites to find projects that are both interesting to you and could benefit from additional input.
I don't know how much research they've done in NYC, but anything not welded into the main-frame will be stolen. You can't leave a bike locked up unattended for any significant duration of time and expect your bike to be intact when you get back. It's just a matter of fact here.
Thanks! Don't be too harsh because we built this in less than a week, its still pretty simple and we have a plenty of cool things coming.
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/geteval or on Tumblr - http://geteval.tumblr.com, so you can get news on time! :)
I think that is a lot better. Maybe it is just me, but I find it confusing when people say create content when they are really just talking about creating another interface to display the same content. I see this a lot from non-developers and was surprised to see it here.
Tagging! If only! That's one of the features I've long wanted, a one-to-many relationship between feeds and categories, as opposed to the inverse we get with folders. What if I want to categorize something as "must read" in addition to "technology"? What you describe here is a useful trick, but it means I'm stuck labeling my feeds in a manner directly related to my need to be able to mark-as-read.
Probably, yes. It would need to be fully browser-based though. I wouldn't be okay with shipping all of my viewing history to you for it to work.

It would be most useful if it could integrate with my Instapaper workflow. If I visit a page and then hit "read later", that shouldn't be marked read in Google Reader until I've archived or deleted it in Instapaper. Similarly, it would be great if marking something read in Google Reader would archive any matching items in my Instapaper account (this might be way beyond the scope of what you're talking about though).

I would be okay with sharing my Instapaper username/password to make that integration work.
I'd like to say thank you, stretchwithme, for all of us who saved enough to buy a house, responsibly, in what just happened to be the middle of last decade and now have cause to sell (moving jobs because the economy stinks). We so deserve to seriously be screwed over because of our timing. Thank you US government. Thank you stretchwithme, your sentiments help the situation tremendously.

Surprisingly, there were actually many people who bought a house in 2003-2005 because they had a down payment at that time and they had jobs and they bought what they could afford.
Here's my advice: Go build something!

It doesn't particularly matter as long as its appropriate for your skill level (but still challenging)

Example: After taking my second ever programming course I decided I wanted to make an iPhone app. So I picked up two books, made a storyboard, a paper prototype, and then went for it. It was a cookie cutter "inspirational quotes" app but I learned a lot and I was proud of it!
I thought "Sort by Magic" was simply a means of floating posts from low-volume blogs to the top, so they don't get lost under a sea of Gawker.
I would like to have a job ready for when I come back.

Don't do it. I mean, sure, it sounds great -- allow yourself to unwind knowing that you don't need to worry about whether you'll be able to find work when you get back, right? But it doesn't work.

After a month of clearing your head, you'll probably realize that the jobs you thought were interesting earlier really aren't right for you. And then you'll spend the rest of your time worrying about the job you're headed back to.

Take your time off now. Apply for jobs when you get back. You're well-educated and (given your presence here) probably very smart, too. You won't have trouble finding work. But you need to be in a mental state where you're ready to jump in and start working before you'll be able to find the right job.
Why would Google want to put the United States at such a disadvatage?
> Frankly, I have yet to find a Java library I'd actually want to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law says "90% of everything is crap".

On the JVM that number might be a bit higher, but there are some excellent gems in there too. Lucene comes to mind especially; there's nothing like it on any other platform.
Also, programming is likely to be around in a few hundred years. Programming is AI-hard. Few other lines of work are.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the Google-Verizon Legislative Framework
Almost anything on your website (watch video, pricing, ...) requires registering.
Maybe we could use your services but how should we know if we need to register. Please note: 80% of those who register will use a fake email address.
i am sorry we are not as perfect as Apple. yet.
Setsuna's law : "As an online discussion about Google/Apple grows longer, the probability of a comment comparing Microsoft to evil approaches 1."
Ahh, I forgot that tagging is item by item, but feeds are folder by folder only. My apologies. I'll go make a feature request for it. It seems odd that they wouldn't already have this.
This looks awesome—like an ad hoc form of the state-sponsored Cycle Hire recently introduced here in London.

I just wonder how long it will be until NY legislators attempt to outlaw unregulated short-term cycle hire :)
Why would companies like Wal-Mart build an entire business around despoiling American companies and shipping billions of dollars to America's only serious economic and military threat?

Capitalism is the theory that the worst people, acting from their worst motives, will somehow produce the most good. --Blum
Immersed In Too Much Information, We Can Sometimes Miss The Big Picture
"The book's title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters."

I took 5 years--I took a year off to work and replenish my bank account. No dollars accrued to the school by the delay. Other people switch majors and so take more than four.
The maths is pretty simple - most of the new stuff is making the editing of the resulting model easier.
My father, stepfather and uncle were all motorcyclists and they all told me that long time motorcyclists, almost without exception, are eventually in some kind of serious accident.

My stepfather (rode for 50 yrs) drove off a cliff and landed in a tree. My uncle was hit by a cyclist going through a red light and broke many bones in his hand (the cyclist's arm was severed!) My mother, a scooter driver, got her front tire trapped in streetcar tracks in the middle of traffic.
I don't think "easy" is the word that describes doing this, but it certainly can be done. I work full time and do my startup on the site. I work from home once or twice a week also and that definitely saves on commuting time, and I go see my kid once a week for swim class/lunch (in addition to after work, of course). Sure, it takes a zillion times longer to do your startup this way, but then again, it helps you focus on what's really important (both in life, and in your startup)
Concurrency, Real and Imagined, in MRI; Threads
Google 'sold out the net neutrality hippies' in 2008
Uh... -because- he's going to burning man? No seriously, so long as he's not asking for a handout, who are you to judge where he spends his money?
It wasn't me, but hey - the System lets people do it, so it must be okay to do it.
One could, but I think part of being a good app developer is understanding how people use the platform. Just like Boeing needs pilots, Ford needs drivers, etc.

Imagine trying to develop a web application if you only used a browser on your own development and production website (ie: that you otherwise "left it on your desk")
Deflation also pushes people with large home mortgages closer to the brink, as their debt increases in value, and their banks feel pressure to lower their risk exposure by refusing to refinance or renew loans and pushing loan holders to pay down their debts. It has the potential of making the housing crisis much worse for everyone. That's not even getting into what it would do to the commercial real estate market, which is currently in a tailspin.
At a guess, use three identical cameras and trigger them simultaneously, then use almost any image package to create a animated GIF that displays in a loop.
Google's always done what's in its best interest - it's not like they were some pure entity that was contaminated by evil talent they acquired from somewhere else.
What I think is missing from articles like this are clear suggestions on how else to compromise with telcos and the FCC. The latter party has already had significant trouble in their attempts to enforce neutrality, and telcos have fought it vigorously.

It seems clear that some sort of compromise was worth inspecting. Whether or not you agree with the Verizon/Google deal, it is worth criticizing it realistically (I thought the EFF's response is the best so far), rather than using charged language like "A paper trail of betrayal".
From a comment there:

It seems like everyone forgot the meaning of words like "negotiation", "compromise" and "unbinding-agreement", other tech companies weren't fighting with Google for net neutrality, in fact they left them to handle the teleco fury on their own, and now that they have got some sort of agreement on the subject people are ignoring the good bits and feel that Google owes them something, which is ridiculous.
I don't know. Let's try it.

I'll mock up something with the minimal amount of controls that still accomplishes a useful task, say reading HN, and post it. Shouldn't be too difficult to do.
I always have my cell on either silent or vibrate mode. This frees me from unwanted distractions. But there is one slight problem to this whole "free your time" deal: your friends might get annoyed at the delayed response.

But I think they've gotten used to my behavior. Maybe.
I hate my husband's workaholic tendencies and I agree and disagree to this post. On the one hand, no it never does go away even if it pays off. On the other hand, that's not necessarily a sign that you shouldn't be with her. There may be other reasons, but wouldn't you rather be with someone who wants to spend more time with you rather than less? I've seen relationships like the latter and they were no spring picnic either.
Because corporations are legally obligated to operate in their shareholders best interest. Not to be Captain America.
Should we feel sorry for you because you don't have the patience to wait? Because you weren't smart enough to realize that maybe housing prices doubling in 1-2 years don't equate? Did someone make you buy a house at gunpoint?