skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I disagree that girls don't want to understand how things work. Many do, and some get technical degrees and technical careers. In general, however, based on my own experience girls tend to be more interested in strengthening and building personal relationships, discussing and understanding feelings, and taking care of others. Personally, these things don't come naturally to me so it's something of a breath of fresh air to be around women who are like this; I think it's one of the reasons I was so drawn to my wife.

Like most things, you can't paint with too broad a stroke or else you miss the details and the exceptions, as the grandfather of my comment did.
If you like this line of reasoning, Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" [1] is a great academic approach to the same epistemological questions, applied to the academic community, and with some very bold conclusions about knowledge as a whole.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Rev...
Try asking for a cash discount when buying things. A lot of establishments will do this, just to avoid the credit card fees.
The danger is that it could backfire... ever read the fairy tale of the child who cried wolf?
British Newspaper Daily Mail Plants Job Advert In Robots.txt File
Changing the rate of mind decay
This is pretty important - if you're not paying for everything with a rewards card, you're subsidizing those of us who do.
Rate My App: Heroku Management App for iPhone and iPad
That is not true at all. Different cards offer different rates to different people. Shop around. This bill just forced the companies to move their revenue from hidden charges to the interest rate.

That is very different from the government forcing every card to charge every person the same rate.
What country is she from?
For the most part, the most expensive part of travel is the fare. It ends up being cheaper to start in one country, travel through the others, using cars, trains, or low-cost airlines, and then finish up going home.

And usually when you do these things you've broken free of all your commitments; sold the house, finished the lease, sold the car, etc. This leaves you with more money available down route.

Doing 2 trips a year still costs plenty. You're still paying for your house even if you aren't in it as well as paying for wherever you are. You're still paying for that car to sit in park, your still paying for cable, mobile phones, electricity, etc.

When I traveled I firesaled everything that wasn't going with me, sold the car, sublet the apartment, and cancelled my phone. I stayed with my parents 1 week and worked right up until the day I left. No more bills meant I had more disposable income.

And even when things are at their worst, everything still manages to work out.
How to search for back doors from terminated IT staff
You should make the demo group visible without needing to register first.

Or supply a demo email address.
I thought of Common People whilst reading that blog entry too, specifically the "everybody hates a tourist..." verse
Merchants pay higher fees on rewards cards.
Vinyl Banners and Stickers Can Be Used For Many Reasons
Indeed there are a wide range of uses and purposes of vinyl sticker and banners. That is why company offers cheap printing solutions to its valued customers worldwide.
Cue creationists jumping on this to challenge evolution (by challenging carbon dating) in 4...3..2..
At first glance this looks like a great bridge between engineering and marketing/ops/biz-dev: I can pull all these stats pretty easily from the console, but would much prefer if I weren't part of the process.
The "writing down instructions" approach is very effective for complex tasks that you are unable to script and don't want to invest the time to learn properly (such as, for example, every task on a computer for a certain class of user).

I use this approach all the time for bureaucratic "machines". It's so much more efficient than trying to actually figure out how the bureaucracy works.
Thanks, I liked this article:

http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2010/08/16/why-goal-based-li...
The honest suffer when everyone lies, true.

That can be fixed by raising the cost of lying, rather than accepting it as the norm with consequences.

Humans have a tool for this, it's called reputation.

The more we accept, say, that all politicians are liars, the more both the honest and the listener suffer.

We should be outraged when someone has been shown to lie. It should be a resigning matter.
Silly article when CC co's last year raised the majority of card holders rates to 29.99% unless they chose to "cancel" that card, locking in the previous rate. Much of the hikes were done even to those with no "cause." Meaning, a missed / late payment, recent foreclosure, etc.

I also called and asked my CC companies why they were continuing to raise my rates..late payment that year = rate hike of 10%.
I think it goes along with having a mostly technical / programmer audience. It reminds me of a saying (not sure origin):

"When crossing a one-way street, a normal person looks one way. A good programmer will look both ways. A good tester also looks up."
"Free exchange" is their economics "blog". The actual paper they link to is a bit more specific:

> We study the effect of market structure on a personal computer manufacturer’s decision to
adopt new technology. This industry is unusual because there exist two horizontally
segmented retail markets with different degrees of competition: the IBM-compatible (or
PC) platform and the Apple platform. We first document that, relative to Apple, producers
of PCs typically have more frequent technology adoption, shorter product cycles, and
steeper price declines over the product cycle. We then develop a parsimonious vintage-
capital model that matches the prices and sales of PC and Apple products. The model
predicts that competition is the key driver of the rate at which technology is adopted.
To someone in Tanzania or Laos do you think they know what that subtle difference is? Face it, you get lumped in with Americans because the overall culture is similar.
I imagine that Google is making money from Google Book Search. Why should scholars fix their mistake for free?

And if instead you were thinking of having Google paying the scholars for that, then could not a random intern at Google do it just as well?
Obligatory warning: Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points. Bear that in mind when considering arguments she makes.
Been there, done that. The Institute for Creation Research started the RATE project in 1997. http://www.icr.org/rate/
At least a few years ago this was against their contract with the CC companies (which isn't to say people won't do it under the table, they'll just be quiet about it).
But doesn't language isolation have a significant impact on culture?

It would be more apt to compare the Toronto-Montgomery difference to the difference between Toronto and Glasgow or Toronto and Canberra.
Gulf Oil Spill: Relief Wells Still Not Finished, BP Stalling
It's not even HP innovating, it's Intel, who supplies for both parties.
I've had Prey installed for some time (though I've never needed to use it).

http://preyproject.com/

It doesn't do the biometrics stuff, but then neither does Google.
Don't buy things you can not afford.

So if you don't have $200k on hand, you shouldn't buy a house?

(or is the rule "don't buy things Apreche doesn't approve of you buying"?)
You make a good point, but I don't think it's completely correct.

I think what you're missing is that the period of the loan from the CC is also open-ended. With a conventional loan, the lender knows that he'll be repaid (i.e., risk goes to 0) at the end of the term (30 year mortgage, 5 years for a car, etc.).

With the CC, the borrower may be holding those funds pretty much forever. This means that the lender is assuming more risk: first, that at some point way down the road the borrower will default; and second, that changes in the cost of capital make the CC "loan" unprofitable. This latter risk is much more acute today, precisely because interest rates are so low. If the CC rate is calculated to be profitable based on (e.g.) today's prime rate, then there's every possibility that 10 years down the road it's going to be a lousy deal for the CC company.

So as I said (but not for precisely my original reasons) you're putting more risk on the CC company. And the CC company has to recoup the costs of that risk somehow.
I loved this: "What we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."

(The proposal is that neutrinos emitted from the sun are responsible for small changes in radioactive decay rates.)
American Express Blue Cash card is the best deal around IMO. No fees, and cash back for purchases. Each year I get a check from American Express for about $1 - 2k which is our cash rebate.
The headline has been changed since I posted. It said the jam was in Tibet when it clearly is not.

It's a shame there's no way to notice ninja edits on HN (like the "*" on Reddit) that put later responses out of context.
Other than that being plain old chemistry, the numbers don't line up. 500 times thinner than a hair is 100+ nanometers, not 1 nanometer.
Do favor abolishing the Library of Congress? It isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Neither is the FAA, NSA, Department of the Air Force, etc.
I think that in making an ad hominem argument like that, you ought to at least provide documentation rather than just sling accusations.

In my experience, her reasoning has been sound and I'm not aware of a high degree of factual errors in her writings.

If you're right, please help us understand. Otherwise you sound like a partisan yourself.
Hey, how long does it take to get unsubscribed from viewpointr? And why do I have to fricking EMAIL someone to get removed?
Fischbach's page, with citations of (but not links to) the original research:

http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/ephraim.shtml

A preprint:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283

Why do publications refuse to post links to (or at least citations of) the original scientific articles? I mean, these links are the result of five minutes of googling; which means the reporter communicated with the authors themselves but didn't bother to ask for a hyperlink or an emailed citation.

The mind boggles.
Of course even though you pay nothing for your card and get a cash rebate you also receive a service from your credit card company in the form of hassle free returns and dispute resolution. This is, IMO, worth the nominal carry over effect that it might have on retail prices.
^^^ Free startup idea
Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points

Do you have any citations for / examples of this? I ask because she's a) pretty scrupulous IME and b) is very good about making "mea cuplas" when she's not.
> the checkbox mentality of marketing computers was in its heyday when Computer Shopper was 1500 pages every month

That's not true ... I see lots of people still thinking about the best configuration for them, asking friends, searching on google, doing comparisons.

Companies like HP / Dell are still using checkboxes because it is a marketing strategy that still works for more than 90% of consumers.

And BTW ... Apple does not emphasize on experience, but rather on fashion.

> I like that I have unix, and a apt-like package manager

Yeah, that's pretty cool, but MacPorts is a far cry from being apt-like.
GithubFinder - The Missing Github Repository Browser
Hah! The only way I can ever do anything is as a way of not doing something else: http://quandyfactory.com/blog/1/
It's a real tragedy when TJs discontinues one of your favorite items. Still mourning the loss of those flat New Zealand buiscuits filled with apricots and raisins. Also the pomegranate syrup is gone...
I wasn't the intent at all. That's just my experience with a lot of women.

Surely there are a lot of women that are mathematically and technically capable, but how many there are? Very few. Yes, I too had a girlfriend with a PhD in biology, so she was more than capable. But how many women in general are like that? My direct observation is not that many. I'm not saying that women are less capable than men, only that usually they are different and don't care. Personal experience. I just lived in two european countries and this is what I still see. Maybe in the US it's different.

What I was saying is that usually women are more emotional than logical. Do you have a girlfriend who is technically capable too? Wonderful! But do not expect them all to be like that.

EDIT: I'm sorry if I sounded sexist, because I really am not. I really love women and I thing they deserve a bigger place in society, sometimes bigger than men. But let's be realistic, we all know that there are very few women in our field and if we meet girls outside of our environment we drastically lower the chance of meeting a technically capable one.
And here's a paper claiming evidence against:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/files/EarthSun.pdf

(Another 30 seconds of googling.)
Boston creates innovation district lacks high-speed web access
Target used to have an incredibly generous return policy as well, no receipt was no problem, and they'd take back things like dead plants that had no chance of being resold. Store credit is a helluva drug at stores with a wide array of goods.
> Evolution isn't purposeless. Sure, it is a random process but it has a purpose. And that's of survival of the organism (or if you like Dawkins, genes that encode the organism).

Is survival a "purpose" or is it just the consequence that is selected for? (Survival isn't a property like length or color.)
Administrative Bloat: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education.
I read it as that this guy disagrees that it's happening. But taking the path of "never say never" he agrees that it might happen far in the future. But there is no sign that it's happening. Not even any sign that it might happen. No progress in 50 years. Zero. That was his point.
Sure, but it appears this is new evidence to support those claims? Or is this an old discovery that just 'went mainstream'?
Love those moments, when I learn that I used a term without knowing sh*t about the original meaning. I will for sure change my use of it.

[x] learned something new today
Putting the “Invent” In Inventory
Teaser site for Samsung's Android tablet launches. It's real
As mentioned in the article, Amazon already sells more Kindle books than they do hardcover books so I fail to see why they would need to cherry pick. And no need to wait 2-5 years, the future is here.

But Amazon has talked about how they got to that number and won't provide many specifics about Kindle sales in general. In addition, if Amazon is selling an equal number of books, then hardcover sales can still generate more revenue, which is what Stross points out: "they'll definitively overtake hardcover sales by volume, if not by revenue".
It's a farce to say you can't afford it. I backpacked through India for two months and spent a total of $1,534.00 (excluding airfare to and from the country). I was well fed, sheltered, and had a blast. Many occidental countries and developed countries in general, can be pricey if you resort to convenience.

What's really funny, is, a hippie german couple I befriended in India came to travel through the US a year later; they stopped in my city and we spent some time together reminiscing. They told me they were spending less money in the US then they had in India, primarily because they adhered to little or no convenience and used what free resources are actually taken for granted here that aren't available in a developing or crowded country. Water was a big one, they said they got all of their drinking water from bathroom sinks instead of purchasing it (which you have to do in India because of sanitary issues, or you purify it).

The trick with going on a backpacking trip is to leave your job and pick up some under-the-table jobs in the countries you are staying in (if you run out of money and have no recourse, or want to stay longer than you saved for). This is the point many cultured US citizens are trying to make about our fellow "home-locked" brethren: the excuses made are vapid - you either want to go or you don't. There is, obviously, nothing wrong if you're a person that doesn't want to travel; but if you do, all it takes is some clever thinking and embracement of the dynamism of life (you will find a job when you get back, it might even be better than the one you're leaving).
Where the Startups Are, By Zip Code
Yes, but to catch up to whom? Your neighbor with the bigger house and fancier car? People who play games of catch-up are never winners. This is exactly the kind of fear I think is _un_reasonable, and that holds us back from doing things like this, things we often claim we want to do but excuse as being "out of reach."

I think the truth is that taking just one year off (if it's within one's immediate means) will not set you back in the 30+ years you have left to you. One can save up with a trip in mind, quit their job, travel and return, and the world will still have turned, and for the most part, one can pick up where they left off. Maybe you'll be a rung or two down on the corporate ladder, but a resourceful and willing person (like those on these boards) will always make it happen for themselves.

As for social safety nets, I'm a born and raised American who works for himself and is uninsured (self-employed with pre-existing conditions). That hasn't stopped me from travel. If medical tragedy were to strike, I have money saved, my family would help support me, or worst-case is credit cards and medical bankruptcy. As I mentioned tragedy _has_ struck me while traveling: I was in an accident in NZ that required surgery, hospital time, and two months of physical therapy. Life goes on. That's just the ball game we play in America, but it doesn't mean (healthy) people should sit at home for fear of breaking a bone in a foreign country.

Anyway sorry to expostulate for so long on the topic, but it's one that's near and dear to my heart. Hopefully something of what's in this thread will inspire others to see the world while they can.
It's the nature of science to reject arguments from authority. It's a sure-footed, but tedious way to progress.

The nature of mass-media is almost the exact opposite. Its incentives are to present a large volume of "fresh" information, even though 99.9% of it will be considered false or irrelevant in five years. From the reporter to the talk show guests, this information springs from a myriad of "authorities", and its veracity is wholly estimated by the reputation and rhetorical abilities of its sources.

Thus, the media understands and interacts much better with other systems based on authority. Even when scientists appear on talk shows, they are brought over as "experts" - and promptly fail in this capacity with the first self-doubt they express.

The good news is that, in the long run, all the authority-driven drivel evaporates as the "authorities" and their intellectual fashions change (even theology, with its scriptural basis, often differs significantly from one generation to the next). The hard scientific truths remain.
AutoTrader.Com Pays $400,000 for Unlicensed Software Use
Or at least when it's lying repeatedly and deliberately. Fox News shouldn't have an audience (this is not a statement about conservatism, it's a statement about Fox News).

But if you're confirming people's biases, particularly regarding some "other" being the enemy (this week it's muslims in NYC), then the truth is going to take a back seat to that warm feeling of self-righteousness.
Ramit, much of the skepticism comes from the secretive and untracked nature of these types of sales. Take the original article, for example, with the unsourced "I know a guy who makes $5 million+ per month" quote. The comments here on HN are full of people who insist it is possible and a few people who "know what ebook he's referring to" but no one will provide any concrete references. In fact, no one has even pointed out what the subject of such an ebook would be, or what demographic would purchase it.

Without any concrete examples, I'm inclined to assume that it's some variation on the "get rich quick" scheme. This makes the numbers even less believable, as the ebook author has even more incentive to claim extraordinary sales numbers. No one wants to buy a get-rich-quick book from someone who claims to sell 10 copies per month. If an author claims to rake in $5,000,000 per month, then people are going to want to hop on the bandwagon and buy his ebook.
Actually, there's a whole lot of value to the user, but it's not necessarily something that most users know about. The innovations in the semiconductor industry that allow you to get faster clock cycle frequently allow you to do many other things you couldn't before. Devices like iPhone wouldn't exist without that kind of innovation.

Everyone seems to be dismissing the article because it talks about hardware instead of software. But with Apple you can't really separate hardware from software, because their brand is about bundling them together. If you allow Apple to monopolize the market, then they have a lot bigger say when it comes to deciding the future of hardware, which could have serious impact on innovation in hardware.
Why wouldn't I just make a Facebook event?
The NSA, Air Force, etc. are branches of the armed forces. While not explicitly mentioned by name, they're pretty clearly implied by Article I Section 8.

The FAA is a little grayer, and I wouldn't necessarily mind losing it. But I can see it sneaking in under the (much abused) Interstate Commerce Clause, also in Article I Section 8.

I can't put my finger on anything authorizing a giant library. Maybe under the "necessary and proper" clause, with a claim that they need a comprehensive library at hand in order to research for the government's other responsibilities (in real life, do they actually use it for that?).
Ah, this is a whole different matter. It's not about innovation but about "adoption of technology".

I think it makes sense. If you and your competitors are sharing all the supplies, then you can compete only by lowering prices and adopting new technologies faster than your opponent. Hence why they need to discount older products, and why 90% of the stock is sold in a month.

The same situation happens in the Android world too. Every couple of months a new mobile becomes the "leader" of the Android OS, the hardware to have.

Also PC manufacturers only adopt quickly those technologies that are obvious upgrades: a faster processor, more resolution, more memory, etc... But they are worried of adopting some more disruptive technology too quickly for fear that users may decide they prefer the old tech and hence they avoid their new models.

Not surprisingly then Apple is slow to update its lineup, but it's one of the fastest to adopt really new technologies: 3" floppy drive, USB, DisplayPort, trackpad, Wi-fi, etc...
Here's one example of a McArdle debunking:

http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/why-friends-do...

Many more are lurking around the internet, should you feel inclined to dig them up.
Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
I don't think this is true. They're not allowed to tack on a CC surcharge, but a cash discount (while accomplishing the same thing) is OK.
I haven't heard of AMD and Intel making computers to sell to the average Joe on the street. Here's a thought experiment for you: if AMD and Intel had only one really big customer to which to sell their chips, what impact would that have on innovation they do?
Self-replicating nanotech is only one kind. All you really need to be able to do is build nanomachines; whether they're built by identical nanomachines or by some big contraption doesn't matter to the end result.