skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My small client is in the medical field and I created a brand new system from scratch that has become indispensable for his offices. If I ever get time, I'll turn it into a SaaS product and sell it to others because there does not seem to be a good competitor out there.

My large client had a fairly large and complex application written for him by a small company about 12 years ago. It was written in Visual Basic.NET and designed horribly. Since meeting him 8 years ago I've made major improvements to the system both in functionality and in maintainability including re-writing areas that I am naturally working on in C#, moving the business logic out of VB.NET screens, etc.

$150 per hour where I am (Top 5 metro area in US) is good but not great. I could definitely charge more if I wanted to squeeze my side clients for every dime and could even change my billing to something more akin to a percentage of NPV of projects but it's just side work for now.
Because the law happens to make the advertising platforms liable. It does so because enforcing this as an individual crime is impractical for the government, so it essentially outsources the work to advertising publishers.

See e.g. a similar case brought against the New York Times in the 80s, and the resulting investment by the Times in a reviewing process where humans went through submitted ads looking for discrimination.
This is not anomalous to progressivism in California; it basically defines it. Rich heirs with massive trust funds, inherited real estate subsidized by tax advantages, and no income on a need scholarship at Berkeley complaining about how we need to raise income taxes so the rich can pay their fair share.
Please keep flamewar rhetoric off HN.
The best book I've found for learning how to get the best from Python's language features is Powerful Python: https://www.amazon.com/d/0692878971

'Idiomatic Python' is also good, but I would suggest that more for a beginner, or for someone transitioning to Python from another language. If you have a colleague who loops through a collection by creating an incrementing their own counter variable, then give them a copy of this book.

If you already use most of python's idioms correctly (e.g. if you've learned programming primarily from resources about python), get 'Powerful Python' to learn more about how things work under the hood, and learn ways to make your code more readable and/or more efficient (for CPU and/or memory).
I'm a php dev (5 years laravel), and vue+vuex (1-2 years)... primarily, is 150/hour really do-able for someone in php/vue stack? Is there a specific type of coding you do?

I've got some imposter syndrome/esteem issues I find it hard to pitch > $50/hour for my services... (I'm in utah)..

Average pay around here is also like $70-80k which I think is something like $35-40/hour, so again $150/hr just seems really high... I'd love to get $100/hour freelancing..
I've lived in SF downtown (right by Mission and 5th) for a few years and know some of this first hand. Some of the reasons I've heard directly are:

1. The only city with so many shelters for homeless. Other cities would just let people die of cold, heat or hunger or send them to SF.

2. Besides homeless shelters, there are absolutely zero places for homeless to go to. At least in third world countries, poverty is acknowledged and there are charitable organizations which help keep people fed and pooped (example Churches, temples, charitable individuals). But in America, churches only get tax breaks and serve the middle class. They don't really do as much social service as their tax breaks should enable them to do.

3. SF is crazy expensive. There is no f-ing way an average homeless person can find a job, make $500 this month and can actually find a home. Why don't they go to a cheaper city/town? Most cities/towns won't allow them to sleep on the street until they find a job. The flight/bus to cheap town is expensive. Cheap town usually looks down on them even more. No shelters in cheap town.

4. American background check system is brutal. One felony record and you are instantly eliminated from many jobs. So, many of these folks with a small time felony charge are can't just walk into a safeway to find a job.

5. There are too many ways to fail in a society with no safety net. A lot of SF homeless were once good citizens. They either got divorced or had a healthcare trauma or lost a job or a combo of things and their nice $50k savings account dropped down to zero in an instant. This is how quick poverty in America is.

6. Poor person penalties are too large. $600 penalty for car getting towed in SF? Are you f-ing kidding me? This will literally cause a poor family to be thrown on the streets.

There could be more reasons but these are ones I'm familiar with. Most homeless weren't homeless from childhood. They were forced into homelessness by some circumstance. At the end, we (including me) are all responsible for this. SF needs to acknowledge their strategies are not long term sustainable. Rest of America needs to stop exporting their homeless and needs to set up retraining and rehabilitation centers. We are all to blame.
oooh!
One of my least favorite quirks of Stata
[0]: https://www.ft.com/content/afa1d4de-33bc-11e6-bda0-04585c31b...

[1]: http://fortune.com/2016/06/16/uber-profitable-markets/
Because American culture has a tendency to exclude certain groups, and allowing that to go too far in vital markets like housing and labor is bad for social stability.
Not sure about where you are from, but in Canada distances are routinely given in hours or minutes, and it always means by car unless it is specified. As in, "Toronto to Ottawa is around five hours, or an hour by plane."
I feel like FB could have covered their ass if they had a pop up menu for every rental ad that says "All ads must abide by the Fair Housing Act...click for more info. Check this box if you acknowledge your advertising practice abides by it"
What kinds of things do you enjoy building? The best side projects play to your advantages.

Definitely try to sell some existing side projects on SideProjectors or Borderline.biz - even a small purchase feels like a success.

If you're stuck for possible profitable ideas, I can suggest quite a few depending on your preferred tech stack
So much varies by industry, specialization, time of year, time in economic cycle. My clients typically find 40% by aggressive networking (in-person, LinkedIn, Meetups, conferences), 30% by who they currently know in industry, the balance cold approaches and other.
I'm running a mid 2012 i7 MBP (bought at release) w/ 16GB & a 2TB SSD (recently upgraded from a 1TB SSD). I also have a keyboard overlay as a precaution, since I've had to replace keyboards on previous Macs due to spills or sloppy cleaning.

My 2012 is decent, but 2013 - 1015 MBPs are the best.
I have counted steps. Knowing the numbers is extremely useful when walking stairs in the dark.
Facebook is aware, by virtue of the filtering in their system that allows such targeting to have, that such advertising is illegal, and chooses to present it (_and make money from it_) anyway.
Papers, not really since I was out on the edge at the time and I haven't caught up with the field since then. Nothing I did ever made it into publication but it was pretty interesting. Mostly was focusing on the redundant connectivity of various metabolic pathways in healthy human cell lines and comparing them to the reduced pathways in cancer cells where mutations and large scale chromosomal loss restricted the ability to process and regulate several key compounds. The general idea was to look for pathways that were nearly always preserved even when cancer cells were extremely evolved/mutated from their original lines and map those to drugs that would target the enzymes mediating those reactions. Basically you'd try and knock out a weak link in the cancer metabolic network for which a healthy cell had significant redundancies.

A major conceptual difficulty was the somewhat nebulous definition of a metabolic pathway, beyond what reactions were drawn together in a textbook diagram. Also somewhat thorny was the concept of building a network with any sort of transitive property with a notion of mass conservation built in. I wrote about 30k lines of terrible Perl code exploring this stuff, if I had independent backing I would definitely dust it off and finish the project but it's pretty far in the rearview mirror at this point.
Digital Change and the Content Trap (2017)
> But the trouble is that there are hundreds of factors that correlate with protected group membership. Are you going to ban them all?

It's a tough question to answer. I believe you were debating me about the use of ZIP code as a proxy in another comment thread so I'll touch on that also.

If it's found that organic food preference is systemically being used as a proxy for a protected class, as ZIP code has been in the past, then it might end up being banned. By following this process could you end up with a list of hundreds of banned factors? In theory yes, but in practice it seems unlikely, just because of how long it would take to study each factor and go through the process of adding it to a banned list. It took a long time for redlining to be made illegal. The article you provided says that organic food preference is gradually starting to mirror the general population, so if current trends continue it eventually won't be useful as a signal for race-based discrimination. Furthermore unlike redlining, there's no vicious circle of "I eat non-organic food -> I can't get a loan to buy organic food -> I have to continue eating non-organic food". By the time you had enough data to decide whether discrimination based on a particular factor constitutes de facto discrimination against a protected class, that correlation might have ceased to exist.
This is neat.

We are also facing a global sand shortage crisis due to increased demand for concrete.

https://theconversation.com/the-world-is-facing-a-global-san...
The fun of Sherlock Holmes was that he was written to be somewhat plausible, while having a result that is far fetched. What would happen if someone built a map of London in their head? And know where all the major shops were? And studied cigar ash, and the fonts of newspapers? Etc.

The implication is that Holmes perhaps had a brain that was particularly well suited to such trivia, and a habit of observations. With practice comes skill in making and retaining such observations.

Now, the stair example is indeed a bit much. I doubt holmes would have counted the steps in every staircase he saw (though then again, if one practiced making such observations....). But Holmes did enjoy throwing people off guard, so knowing the number of steps in ones’ own home might indeed be a useful tidbit, precisely since it would offer the opportunity to throw Watson off guard.
Google/Microsoft/amazon/facebook/other big top companies seem to only have people work in group settings, but the problem is they pay a metric shitload of money. I've worked for several of them on this list. Work at one of those for 10 years and you might be fixed for life. I also used to work at Microsoft back when we all had private offices but I was lucky enough to be there when the stock was steadily appreciating.

I recently went to a startup but I don't know if they will make it, and I would love a company with private offices and a bit of stability. But I'm afraid I'll be left looking at the other companies left i haven't de-FAANG-ed yet. What is the name of your company?
This paper (Figure 2) lists the protein sequences of 14 different plant hemoglobins. I am no expert, but they don't seem too different to me, any of them.

http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/plantphysiol/115/3/1259....
> Actually, once the blocks are manufactured, you can ship them anywhere.

But you won't want to, because they're insanely heavy. At 35 tons a semi-trailer can only carry one.

You really need to build these on-site. The amount of diesel you'd burn to move them long distance is astronomical.
Yes. Because it’s not stopping a white person who happens to be going to an HBCU from seeing the ad. I get flyers all of the time from politicians that target those evil liberals who are trying to change “the culture” of America because they are targeting based on zip code.

Let’s just say when they walk the neighborhood and I open the door, they are flummoxed when they don’t feel comfortable using their usually spiel...
When we post moderation comments here we're not making any statements about acceptability in general! Only about what tends to have a good vs. bad effect on HN, relative to the goals of the site (which are described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN is a specific kind of web site and all we care about is keeping it on track for its particular purpose. I'm sure those comments are entirely acceptable in many other contexts.
This is spot on. China can only win in its local market with SAAS and IAAS products. With terrible offerings for the most part with a handle of offerings that are really great. When it comes to matured products I feel China can win. DJI, Xiaomi, One Plus they’re good offerings of an already mature product.

But when it comes to bringing a totally new product to a global market. Is there anything that’s been “new” and not an iterative design on a already global product for a lesser price.
It's very odd that detracting from a two minute hate gets labeled as the flamewar.

I get that if everybody commenting is in agreement, then there is no "war". It's just utterly anti-intellectual, and I thought HN was above that.
Concrete doesn't evaporate though, so there are some positives in its favor.
It can get much more granular than that. E.g. you may not want people living in certain neighborhoods to see your property listing.
‘Then how many are there?’

‘How many! I don’t know.’

‘Quite so. You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.’

'Oh, well what do you see and observe NOW, Mr. Holmes?'

'It appears you have faced away from me and dropped your trousers, revealing your exposed behind.'

'Quite right, and quite "elementary." I shall seek employment elsewhere, you pompous ass. Good day!'
I'm glad this had a happy ending! :D

Sometimes I feel bad piling on a downvote train -- especially considering the psychology research showing that people usually just dig in further in such situations...
The publication is indeed liable. The language isn't about placing the ad: "To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement..."

A classic example was a case brought against the New York Times for discriminatory housing classified ads.

Now, what's interesting here is that Facebook is involved in the targeting. So, if you only place housing ads in the Chicago Defender, and don't place them in White newspapers, the Defender isn't involved in your discrimination; however, if you place ads in the Defender stating "Black Tenants Only" and the Defender published those, the Defender would probably be liable. And if you pay an advertising firm and tell them to only place your ad in "Black" newspapers then that firm that did the targeting would be liable.

(Although in terms of enforcement priorities, such discrimination is probably very small-scale and wouldn't be very high up on HUD's or DoJ's list.)
It wasn't just Wansink.

Everyone around him knew and participated to some extent.

His postdocs (except the one who said no), his PhD students, and all his other co-authors.

They all knew and never said a word.

When Cornell was told, they made some pious noises and ignored it until it became too public.

Journals ignored all criticism until it became too public.

This is a system that does not police fraud.
I love sleeping on my side but you're right, it causes back, neck, shoulder, chest issues from being curled up all night.

The best thing I found was to invest in a great firm mattress. Then every couple of nights I'll remove my pillow. It was tough to do at first as we're not used to lying so flat.

However it does force you to lie on your back, align your back and neck in a flat position. You can feel it all resetting to the correct position. Putting your pillow on one side of your face helps to stop your head rolling sideways.

Even if you only do this for a few hours a night before grabbing your pillow back it still makes a positive difference.
It all depends on your goals, I agree. You can certainly use university as a means to come out a better educated, well-rounded citizen, or simply a method of acquiring the credentials necessary to get hired. If you can afford the former, great, but for many, it may be come across as a luxury.
It would end where the specific categories of advertising are not the ones specifically covered by legislation. Off the top of my head - housing, employment, and political campaigning.
you must be kidding because of the itanium. uh, right?
If the giant block was literally just suspended and a crane would hoist it up and lower it to recover energy. Then this would put continuous stress on the crane structure. Much higher than a series of smaller blocks being lifted intermittently.
Here's an idea: It's possible to make unreinforced concrete using seawater. Wonder if that would work here.
Me too have to 2012 no retina MBP, I upgraded the HDD to an SSD 500Gb and the RAM from 4GB to 10BG
Im more than satisfied but still stressed when I think about the upgrade
What I meant to suggest is that many people in the US took for granted the benefits of their hegemony, much like the British intellectuals took for granted the benefits of their imperialism. Hence, it may be a surprise to some that loss of US hegemony may be replaced by a China-ization of the internet outside of China.

Orwell was an anti-imperialist. I didn’t mean to say that imperialism was a good thing - that wasn’t what he was saying. (US hegemony may or may not be a good thing compared to the alternative - that will only become clear with time. I think it’s less obvious than in the case of imperialism)
If there isn’t a steampunk novel featuring this technology, there should be.
Yes, you could use a pre-existing big hole, and carry concrete blocks from the bottom of the hole to the top of the hole. All you're really doing with this approach is swapping out the tower crane for a gantry crane though, for negligible savings. The hole's not really helping you out that much.
No, for a simple reason: A muslim (say) is free to read a catholic newspaper. A muslim is not free to look at catholic-targeted advertising on facebook. In the particular case: If a muslim can't find a house fitting their requirements in their muslim newspaper, they could just buy a catholic newspaper and have a look whether there are any offers in there that are of interest to them. They have no such choice on facebook.
> "($CONSERVATIVE_PERSON| $LIBERAL_PERSON | $GROUP | $PARTY ) DID A THING, I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT, AND YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT".

This phenomenon is more concisely expressesd as "boo outgroup".
Also (mostly) unrelated to the story, but the first thing I thought of when hearing about kinetic energy storage was a story I heard several years ago about a data center that protected itself from catastrophic power surges by using a massive spinning flywheel to store energy from the grid and harvest its rotation to run a generator that powered the servers.
People went to twitter specifically for the outrage. I think the alternative to twitter is nothing.
If you reveal sensitive information to someone in confidence, and they betray your trust, of course you're going to feel betrayed. And of course you're going to hold back on other sensitive information in the future.

Most Googlers realize this as well, which is why they too are upset with the leakers. It shuts off any visibility that they would have otherwise. Visibility that can be used productively to alter company policy, like was done with the defense contract.

Ultimately, preserving the confidentiality of sensitive discussions, is part of the social contract that benefits the employees themselves in the long term. Going on an anti-corporate diatribe and tearing up this social contract isn't doing anyone any good.
Non-men are treated very differently by society and therefore they have different experiences to men. These tend to lead to different perspectives, skills, etc.
You can target whoever you want to in traditional media. With traditional media for instance, you can target off campus housing to a majority White college,but there is no way that you can stop a minority from seeing the ads.

With FB, you could target an ad to people who go to that school who are of certain race. (https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/609543/faceboo...)

This is specifically not allowed by the Fair Housing Act.
Huh? A big stack of concrete blocks weighing 35 tonnes each seems to me exactly the opposite of being purpose-built for the wind. Maybe if you built it out of feathers then it'd be purpose-built for the wind, but gigantic concrete blocks don't get blown around a lot.

This seems like it'd be much more resistant to wind than buildings, which are hollow.
what?

it's sharing a car as opposed to everyone buying and owning their own.

#facepalm
The adtech industry is probably having emergency meetings with its legal staff. What's this imply for targeted advertising, and how are we going to police the legality of which ads can target what given laws against discrimination?
Per the article, the cranes are automated. Having paid operators would probably kill all the cost advantages and then some.
I wouldn’t trust anything the FDA approves after watching the Netflix series on how it is simply a big Pharma publishing house now.

It’s so reliant on company money that it can’t do its duty to protect the people it is supposed to protect.
That they're not ride sharing services does not make them unlicensed taxi's.

Private car hire where you book someone to drive from x to y location at z time has been a thing for a lot longer than these apps. That's what Uber and others do.

Taxi's can pick up people who hail them at the curb. That's their differentiator from private cars and uber. That's what they have paid licencing fees and bought medallions (depending on area) to be able to do.
I applaud that your company promotes from within and encourages professional development. I think that is more likely to happen when a company can rely on most employees sticking around for a while, which they probably will because of the opportunities provided inside the company. A virtuous cycle.

However, it also sounds extremely expensive to run a business with everything you described. It might only be possible because you appear to work in the group of large corporations that exist off of a government contracting system that has been criticized as being fundamentally broken. Projects cost way too much, take too long, and are frequently late and over budget anyway. I've heard a lot of that has to do with the government constantly asking for changes and asking for too much, but whatever way you slice it the only reason it works is because it is basically non-competitive. Does your company create successful consumer products?

Spacex is aerospace too, but they are disrupting their industry. I wonder if all the engineers there get their own offices and stay in the same roles for years, with the same technology.

I don't have enough experience to know which works best, letting engineers become professionals in their niche, making the business not very adaptable but having some deep strengths, or moving fast and breaking things, being adaptable and fast moving, but have some crappy code gluing things together that will need replacing in a few years.