skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
... and it turns out that there is a mathematical formalism (namely, probability theory) that allows you to reason on the basis of all this information, provided only that you make your best attempt to quantify the allegedly unquantifiable. Which is in fact perfectly quantifiable; it's just hard to give a good justification for whatever particular quantifying you do.

My reasoning, for what it's worth, goes as follows.

It's surely impossible to make a coin that literally always comes up heads no matter how you toss it. (Imagine that you contrive to send it vertically into the air with no spin at all. It will come down the same way as it went up.) So let's charitably interpret my hypothetical friend's claim as something like "if you toss this in a normal sort of way, it'll come up heads at least 99% of the time". That seems like it might be achievable with something that looks like a normal coin. Now, how likely is that given only that (1) it looks like a normal coin and (2) my friend has told me what he has?

Well, now it's time to pluck numbers from the air, in an attempt to quantify my beliefs about biased coins and my friend's trustworthiness and so forth. I suppose I think there's about a 50% chance that it's actually possible to make a coin that behaves as described. If so, it probably isn't particularly hard to figure out how to do so, in which case the makers of magic tricks and practical jokes and suchlike will surely do it and sell the fake coins at a reasonable price. Except that in most countries it's a serious offence to sell fake currency, so really convincing fake coins would have to come from abroad and be shipped in surreptitiously. Let's say a 10% chance, given that such coins are possible and not too expensive to make, that it's commercially worth while for someone to do that.

Now, my friend is purely hypothetical, so who knows what his character and interests might be? Let's suppose he's known to be interested in this sort of thing. Then perhaps he's about equally likely to procure such a coin, if it exists, as to play a joke on me by claiming to have such a coin and just hoping it comes up heads. (Of course if no such coins exist then he'll certainly do the latter.)

So, my prior probability for the coin's being fake in the appropriate way is about 1/20.

Now Pr(coin is fake|heads) / Pr(coin is normal|heads) = Pr(coin is fake) / Pr(coin is normal) times Pr(heads|coin is fake) / Pr(heads | coin is normal). That's 1/20 times 0.99/0.5, or about 1/10.

So, before the coin toss I'd have given roughly 20:1 odds against the coin's being fake; after it, roughly 10:1.

(Note: I have deliberately done the calculations only very roughly. That's usually good enough in practice, and all my prior probabilities are crude estimates anyway.)

Of course, if (e.g.) my friend starts offering suitable bets on the outcome of the next few tosses, that will itself be evidence that the coin really is fake. So if you happen to have such a coin, you won't be able to cheat me out of as much money as you might hope :-).
I find this to be a huge technology story. In the past, leaks have generally gone through journalists in newspapers. This had 2 qualities about it. The public didn't have access to the raw leaked information and the journalists, in most democracies, are protected from prosecution.

By making the leaks downloadable on the internet, so much more information has been made available and this is having repercussions that I haven't seen before. The organisation that released the leaks is being attacked from many directions - denial of service, refusal of corporations to handle web services or money and an Interpol alert for questioning about a condom breaking.

I don't know how this will turn out but this is history in the making. It will surely have repercussions on the way we will be allowed to use the internet in future.
Really? Acetylsalicylic acid is available as a cheap generic drug in Germany.
Care to elaborate?

Why do you think Stack Overflow is obsessed with FAQs?
How about real prevention:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorectal_cancer#Risk_factors
Isn't money the reason most of us start businesses? The road of an entrepreneur is a long and difficult one and, unless you already drive a Porsche, surely money (or freedom, which is usually bought by money) is a primary motivating factor?
Urban areas are noted for their lack of quality grocery stores: http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=lack+of+grocery+sto...

When you factor in travel costs and time, the price inequality between cheap fast food and good quality food is exacerbated.
You won’t get 100 tablets for one Euro. Five Euro or so is maybe doable, you still have to buy them in a pharmacy.
When your startup is terminted on PayPal or AWS on dubious ground, come back and leave a comment.
Research in Motion financial well being in Third Quater Fiscal 2010
I hope the risk of dieing is significantly lower than 1:10 with entrepreneurship.
"Wanting to make money" = "wanting to thrive".

Of course you do. Anyone who doesn't is a fool. It's not only 'okay' to want to make money, it's the only sane way to be.

Don't get me wrong. I've always said 'I don't work for money. I love doing my job.' but if they didn't pay me, I'd go elsewhere and do my job. Money is a vital component of living today and it's very hard to move forward (as a person or business) without it.
How is this relevant to whether or not he committed a sexual assault?

If there's a weight of evidence showing he's guilty then he should be extradited and tried.
Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! is also a great listen via audiobook, especially on road trips!
The world is changing around us. Thanks, in large part, to a hacker. It doesn't get much more on topic than that. It's also a very interesting new phenomenon.
Google Maps now uses vectors (not tiles), allows rotation, 3-D, faster loading
It's actually the dose used in cardiovascular prophylaxis to prevent clotting...

You need a much higher dose to get an NSAID effect.
You mean as opposed to say mountain climbing, dietary habits or aspirin ?

I don't see you complaining about things being 'off topic' in those threads.
A fairer comparison (city to city, with education-obsessed parents), would be between Shanghai and Cupertino.
Who’s NAPping On Your Network?
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Actual original source: http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20101206/googles-andy-rubin-...

This change is mainly to benefit mobiles, and is introduced in the context of the Motorola Android tablet.

I imagine (and Andy Rubin says this too) that this will gradually make it to the desktop/web version of Google Maps especially for those browsers that support WebGL or SVG. If so, this would mean API changes to support all the new viewing aspects etc, and hopefully rich support for addressing individual map artefacts in vector form.

This negates OpenStreetMap's main selling point which, for me, was that it uses vector data. That said, it may allow better comparisons between mapping service's data as vector data can be compared far more accurately and efficiently than bitmap tiles.
Amazon's API format is irrelevant because their service is so popular. Once the API is stable and client libraries are available for common languages most developers will be unaware of the actual mechanics.

If you're launching a startup then you don't want to give your early adopters an excuse to not work with your API. If you're developing an API for internal use then you won't be using an off the shelf client library in any case.

Furthermore, a clean API is a sign to other developers that you know what you are doing. If you are targetting an industry where coders get a say on whether or not they will choose your service then you'd better put your best foot forward. I've seen far too many APIs that show a company has no clue on the technical side, which causes me to cast doubt on other parts of their service.
I was vaguely aware of the Windows thing, but to me Aero == bubbly chocolate
Ask HN: Any Canadian startups accepting foreign workers?
I've just finished a Computer Science course in Australia, and am finding it very hard to get a job here (there's very few positions available for guys with limited experience).

I've been wanting to move to Canada for a while now, but I would have to have a valid job offer before I can do so.

Are there any startups (or even established companies, I'm not really too fussed) that are able to accept foreign workers? I'm aware that not all companies can legally do so, which somewhat limits my opportunities.

I do have experience with many languages, and have even produced a web application for a local company, so showing experience shouldn't be too much of a hassle (if required).
A possible blunder. This is way bigger than McKinnon and he had to fight tooth and nail. If Assange is not extradited to Sweden there is a good chance he will be sent to the US (maybe as an enemy combatant).
So, that's about 5 cent per day then.
Lots of things succeed despite being inelegant, but that does not mean it's not important to be elegant.

Amazon can afford to have an inelegant API as they're already dominant (and when they launched, they didn't have many competitors).

If someone launching an Amazon EC2 competitor today strapped together a pig-ugly set of RPCs over HTTP, I doubt it would encourage its use.

Elegant APIs are a sign that you respect developers.
I don't think anyone really knows at this point. I don't see this "killing" Java at all though. I don't think the Oracle path is clear but I don't think it is gone. Time will tell though.
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Unless they actually charge him with something in Sweden -- which I believe is actually a requirement for this sort of warrant to be issued -- they won't be able to move him to Sweden.

Hopefully sanity doesn't desert the British legal system as well.
There's this video about Senseg who is the leader in this technology. He actually talks about tixels:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/28/senseg-amazing-haptic-t...
On what possible legal grounds?
We did a study on this a few years ago [1], primarily in the UK, US and Australia, which supported the anecdotal experience I've had working with a number of businesses (and therefore business founders). That is, most people start their business for reasons other than money; financial ambition is usually important, but not the primary factor.

Even those who 'just want to get rich quick' usually want to get rich for some reason - family, holidays, ego etc. That's what drives them.

[1] http://www.shirlawsonline.com/editorials/54-what-motivates-p...
I might if there are another 20 of them over the next week or two, and they aren't about combining them into an astonishing new mountain climbing strategy that involves aspirin-based dietary habits. :)
> If there's a weight of evidence showing he's guilty then he should be extradited and tried.

Agreed. The corollary of that is that if there isn't he should be set free.
Wow, fuck THIS guy.

I understand by starting off my comment like that, that I have now become one of "those" commenters, and thus safe to ignore, but it had to be said.

"Fuck You" is popular because it RESONATES, not profanes, and not just with black youth. I'm a thirty-year-old white dude, and I instantly felt kinship on hearing that song. Plus? Catchy as he'll.

And calling out Eminem's lyrics as "vile" truly proves that he hasn't a clue what he's talking about. Of COURSE they're vile. Eminem is playing the role of the abuser in that song, not to glorify it, but to call attention to it. His lyrics have always been painfully self-aware, and you really think he's going to let himself off with the weak-ass excuse "guess I don't know my own strength?"

This entire article really reads reads as if the author is railing against the WORDS in the songs, without taking the time to understand what the words MEAN, i.e. complaining about the form and ignoring the substance. In that, this article is far more deplorable than any of the songs it complains about, in that it will probably convince further people that it's entirely acceptable to dismiss songs based merely on the expletives contained therein.

And man, fuck that.
Really? Shanghai has 19 million people. Cupertino has 50 thousand.
I am not sure where I disagreed.
Ask HN: what do you use for hep documentation in your web app?
A cms? Blog software? Hardcore?
I think what you find on HN is that these fit into grey areas, and basically the community decides on if they stay on the home page or not.

How I look at it is that you are never going to be reading all the articles on the front page right? So if this doesn't interest you it is as simple as skipping it. If one day there is 15+ of these type of grey area links on HN, then that will be a problem, but I just don't see that happening.
That was supposed to say "hardcode". Thank you autofill.
I'm not sure what's common there, but note that he has quite a bit of mobility, money and power and the charges are (while quite possibly complete nonsense) for serious crimes. Also, the number is reported as hearsay by Sky, which means it isn't exactly solid information.
You assume there needs to be legal ground.
There is GNUstep for Apple-free Objective-C (http://gnustep.org/), and Vala is another interesting modern language (http://live.gnome.org/Vala)
If you are officially accused of being a terrorist (or aiding a terrorist organisation) by the states, they can hold you indefinitely. The UK can hold you as well without reason for a specified period as well (90 days?).

The UK has very little to gain from his release and much to lose - it will injure US/UK relations.
EBay founder puts up R6m to fund SA mobile innovation project
That's what I was thinking when I read this. I'd bet you would get even more benefit from taking a low dose of hemp oil, because not only is that a stronger (and less toxic) anti-inflammatory, but it's also anti-angiogenic. In any event though total morbidity is much more interesting than cancer risk.
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I also don't see countless near-dupes of those threads being upvoted
If he is (perhaps secretly) deemed an enemy combatant, he can be held indefinitely in custody without having any charges against him.
Amazon Web Services Gets Level-1 PCI Compliance Certification
I suppose you're right. I just felt frustrated seeing the same topic over and over, and wondered if anybody agreed.

On the whole, Hacker News is a great place, arguably the best of the news aggregation sites on the Internet. Even people who disagree with me here have upvoted other excellent submissions and posted excellent comments, so I'll at least thank them and the community as a whole for those.
If you enjoyed that you've probably also read "Touching The Void".

IMHO the ultimate tale of high mountain survival: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=KnRdFe5TXVkC
just imagine our ancestors lived only in savannahs, somewhere between africa and middle east, and a few them foolishly wanted to explore north and eastwards... and they were right. In the same way, a few foolishly played with fire and other sharp objects ... and they were right again, inventing precious tools.

My opinion is that this "wiring" is crucial in what makes us human. It makes us grow and discover our full potential. So you will still have people wanting to dive in apnea for 5+ mn or crazy programmers experimenting stuff with twitter. And that happens even if those people are extremely logical/intelligent people.
We use it on the server side with http://midgard2.org/

Check out https://github.com/midgardproject/midgard-core/tree/master/s...
"wikileaks is all about freedom of information..."
I don't want to hurt any hacker's emotions but I feel "freedom of information" should end where it endangers those people's lives who are working for their countries, whether soldiers or diplomats.
Freedom of information and expose MUST be for common man's good, not just for gaining publicity.
Expose the wrong, not the mundane.Otherwise it's pure eavesdropping and bragging about your power to do so.
Diplomacy IS "the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations" (as defined by Merriam Webster dictionary). That is precisely what all the exposed diplomatic cables were doing.Anything wrong with that?
If I study hard to get a job in foreign services and someday, somewhere, someone decides to divulge my confidential, professional conversations just for the heck of it, and it destroys my reputation then what it should be called? Expose or public titillation?
And if freedom of information or "openness" is so vital then why WikiLeak's founder guards his privacy so fiercely? One rule for others, one for himself?
I think (hope) there would be a fairly strong backlash against any suggestion that he is to be extradited to the US on anything associated with terrorism.
> I'm guessing when you're standing on the top of that summit you establish a connection with nature that you can't get from simply running a marathon.

I don't claim to know anything about their motivation, but the accounts I've read are somewhat different than the romantic image you seem to have. For example, I submit this:

"The only food I'd been able to force down over the preceding three days was a bowl of Ramen soup and a handful of peanut M&M's. Weeks of violent coughing had left me with two separated ribs, making it excruciatingly painful to breathe. Twenty-nine thousand twenty-eight feet up in the troposphere, there was so little oxygen reaching my brain that my mental capacity was that of a slow child. Under the circumstances, I was incapable of feeling much of anything except cold and tired."

Source: http://outsideonline.com/outside/destinations/199609/travel-...
If that is indeed his plan then he is incredibly naive.
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I don't think you disagreed either. Not sure why you got downvoted there... I upvoted you back.
So many upvotes, I find information cascade happening here.
Blackhats retaliate against businesses who rebuked wikileaks (BBC)
How can you "scrap" code? They certainly haven't deleted it, and just because they have stopped active development doesn't prevent them handing it all off to the Apache crew.
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It depends on the problem. Of course, I always have a decent shot at it myself first, but if the problem is easy to describe and is most likely just a case of knowing some trick I post it fairly quickly. I see nothing wrong with that - that's what SO is for and it's great at what it does.

If it would take a significant amount of effort to distill the problem to something that can be described on SO then I'd spend a lot more time trying to figure it out first. Not only would it take more time to post, but it's also less likely to get answers and those answers are less likely to be useful.
Your prior belief that the coin is "special" should be extremely small, since you've examined it and can see no reason for it to come up heads all the time. After flipping, your belief will be larger, but still small.
Facebook: We won't block Wikileaks, for now
Math Puzzles’ Oldest Ancestors Took Form on Egyptian Papyrus
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Oh god, is it that horrible shocking sensation you get when stroking the metal casings of amplifiers and other home equipment? As if you get a million small shocks? I hate that...
Phần mềm CRM quản trị quan hệ khách hàng 
CRM viết tắt của "Customer Relationship Management". Đó là một chiến lược được sử dụng để khai thác và hiểu biết thêm về nhu cầu và hành vi của khách hàng (customers' needs and behaviors) nhằm mục tiêu phát triển (đẩy mạnh) mối quan hệ với họ (khách hàng)
Assange's Op-Ed in The Australian
I'd have thought a charge of espionage or treason would be more likely.
Things I am worse at at 55 vs. 25: the 50 yard dash.

Things I am better at at 55 vs. 25: everything else.

Seriously.

Magic Johnson (great American basketball player) once described the difference of being a world class athlete at 30 vs. 20: you have to be a whole lot smarter about how you use your body and recover when competing with younger people.

We programmers OTOH get the best of both worlds: the ability to work smarter against a physical and mental landscape that doesn't degrade nearly as fast as a world class athlete.

Frankly, when it comes to work, I can't think of a single thing I "used to do better", not creativity, not work habits, not personal habits, not physical or mental toughness.

I believe that programming, like running, is one of those things where the performance curve can remain flat until retirement, providing you take care of yourself. I'll let you know if it does.
Tầm quan trọng của quản trị nhân lực
Quản trị nhân lực (Human Resources Management - HRM) là một tên gọi khá mới trong chuỗi khái niệm và thông lệ liên quan đến quản lý con người. Thực ra, trong suốt hơn 50 năm qua, thuật ngữ này đã được sử dụng phổ biến ở Mỹ để thay thế cho thuật ngữ quản lý nhân sự (Personnel Management). Càng về sau này, HRM được nhiều nước trên thế giới áp dụng, đặc biệt là Úc, các nước vùng Scandivania và Nam Phi.
Spoken by someone who doesn't know the British legal system well at all. The lack of sanity in the system is breathtakingly clear. We recently convicted someone for making a joke via Twitter, and he didn't have the resources of a government(s?) behind the conviction:

http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2010/11/with-conviction-of-...

The British legal system is extremely thorough, but excrutiatingly slow. The problem with this approach to justice is that we tend hand people off to foreign governments and then it's too late to recall them. Lessons be will learned, no individual blame will be attached, and Assange will be ruined.
What it was intended for -- to replace email and IM. Problem was that it didn't integrate with existing stuff, the real time typing actually made it unsuitable to replace email since the other side can replay everything, and other people editing your messages = loss of continuity.
Do not downvote if you don't agree. He raises a valid point (with which I myself don't fuly agree but it's a valid point nonetheless).
Come off it, you expect him to comment in every thread that he believes is off-topic?

This sort of argument should have a name (I'm sure it does) - "but gov, you didn't complain last time I cleaned your windows badly".
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I have (most of Sydney is West) but 'beaut' and 'shiela', really? Even bogans don't use those terms much nowadays.
Soldiers use extreme methods to meet military weight rules
mans fucked.
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Sure, but have you ever used them in a real world project?
And outside of academics?
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1977508