skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Another big problem: hypothetical $20,000 electric car with acceptable range doesn't exist yet. The closest thing we have is the Tesla, which costs $100K, carries two people, and... well, still doesn't exist yet.

It's no good saying that the price would magically come down immediately if they were produced in sufficient quantities. If anyone had the ability to build a $20,000 long-range four-seat electric car they'd sell millions of 'em anyway.

The technology for cheap and practical electric cars will arrive eventually, but it's probably still a decade away. When you can buy a decent electric car for $20K then people are going to convert anyway, with no need for a huge scary government program forcing them to do so.
I don't know a single person who takes near-term Peak Oil seriously who is not some random blogger or pop star.

Edit for the down-modders: Our "years of consumption" for oil, which is known oil reserves divided by current usage, has increased pretty constantly since 1920. In 1945 we had about 20 years of consumption left, in 2000 we had about 40. You can find this stat as figure 66 in "The Skeptical Environmentalist" which sites the primary source. "Peak Oil" is an unproven baseless scare-mongering prediction about the future.

It should also be noted that these kind of simplistic doomsday predictions have been going around since at least 1865, when Stanley Jevons predicted that England's coal supplies would run out and torpedo the industrial revolution. He failed to account for the incentive effects of rising coal prices.

But you know what they say about those that do not study history...
The real engineer's guide to weight loss:

"The Hacker's Diet"

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

Written by John Walker, author of Autocad. He claimed to have solved every problem he had except weight loss, so he just treated it as another engineering problem. Very interesting read for those with scientifically oriented minds. The Palm software is cool, too.
Haha, you're probably right. I wasn't thinking of how to best be a karma whore, but that would have gotten more interest. It was just an interesting article.
>Energy independence should be an economic goal of any developed country.

Why? The whole idea of comparative advantage is that you can increase your overall standard of living by making the things that you are best at and importing everything else. The only reason why you would want to be independent is if you planned on fighting a war with all the other countries in the world at the same time (granted, this could be the policy of our current US administration). Interdependence creates peace.

If China attacks Taiwan, they will have the huge percentage of their GDP that consists of trade with the US on the line. So I consider outright military conflict unlikely. However, if we were as "independent" as you suggest I think war would be much more likely.

Why again is independence a good thing?
My goodness, if he'd advertised his thoughts as "The Cholera Diet: a great way to lose 20kg" they could hardly be less attractive.

If he could discover why he desires cheeseburgers so much then perhaps he could find a way to _want_ to eat less. As it stands he is using force on himself and there is a heavy psychological price tag for that, as he acknowledges. This will effect the rest of his life in ways he may not appreciate.
>I'd imagine you'll have to pry the wheels of their gas-guzzlers from their cold dead hands before they get in some cheap, mass-produced, plain-vanilla electric transportation, virtually devoid of status and "bling."

Why can't you have electric transportation AND status and "bling"?
> Do you think it would be good for a powerful globalized government to fund free electrical cars for the people?

Any organization large enough to do so would be fearsome, bureaucratic, unpredictable, and with an agenda of its own.

I feel voiceless as one of 300 million US citizens. I have no desire to dilute my voting power by another factor of 20.
During WWII, we were cut off from natural rubber, so we invented synthetic rubber.

In the ecology movement of the late 1960's, the federal government mandated removal of all lead from gasoline by 1975. We made it. (Anyone remember "Leaded or unleaded"?)

In the first oil scare in 1973, Detroit responded by pulling 2 old inventions off the shelf, front wheel drive and fuel injection. Effectively doubling the world oil supply within 5 years.

Why should now be any different? If the federal government mandated all new vehicles being electric only by 2014 (grandfathering in all existing vehicles), we'd make it. And the problem would gradually resolve, like every other problem.

The only thing stopping it is special interests. Anyone in congress supporting this would probably cut off his own fundraising lifeline.
It's worth noting that the betas only work for two days if not activated by a CS3 serial.
I managed to miss out on seeing this video 6 months ago. I think it's even more true now that 6 more months are out of the way.

Catchy and creative!
How many ground-up rebuilds of large, highly popular projects succeeded in the 3 hours between those two comments, to change the ratio?
New Image-recognition Software Could Let Computers 'See' Like Humans Do
I think what he's missing is that "Web Application" is one of the first things to come out of the technology department that's largely lived up to its hype. People like that.
Another step in the abolishion of software patents?
Arrington wrong on copyright
>2: The US government bonds aren't very high interest rate.

Currently US government bonds have a low interest rate. However, we also would be doubling our debt on this plan, and inflation expectations have been ticking up. Furthermore, such desperation for energy independence might be looked down on by international investors who already view the actions of the US government as reckless. What might the US be planning in the Middle East that they need to take such rash actions to get off of oil for?

All these factors could swing interest rates higher.

> 4: The government

Administrative costs by the government will be non-zero.

>8: Because this type of thing requires strong government authoritarianism.

Actually, I just don't think the technology is there yet. If scale production was the only obstacle in the way of the electric car right now, then it would require an investment in the $1 billion magnitude to start up efficient production, something within the reach of modern car companies. Economical, comfortable, useful, and safe electric cars are not available with modern battery technology. As soon as the technology is ready to make an attractive electric car, I expect to see consumers converting to them voluntarily and at-scale in the free market.

Now if we want to force everybody to convert to an inferior and immature product right away, then we do need strong government authoritarianism, yes.
Bah. It's turning into Digg....

But it's been doing that for a long time. I quit reddit way back when.
I especially liked the suggested fixes - pay programmers for completing projects and "have product designers receive evaluations from managers who have an interest in the design projects succeeding and an excellent understanding of the technology."

If the latter is a change for a given organization, it's unlikely that overly complex software is their biggest problem or that eliminating it is possible or will make a difference.
but that isn't what he says. He says that there lives are NOT any worse. This is very different than saying they don't realize they are worse off. I.e. it's a contradiction
The Birth of a Virus, In Pictures
I rely on Toggl for time tracking (which I then use to bill my clients), and Google Docs to maintain my various (and extensive) list of accounts, as well as various documents essential to my business.

If I lost either I'd be screwed. I'm not so worried about the Goog, but Toggl (and before that 14Dayz) does worry me a bit.
It works for me... anyway, here is Google Cache link:

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fpeople.c...
Going from PayPal to Google Checkout is like trading in your GM for a Ford. Both have the same risks and the potential to royaly screw you in the end.
"Dieting and exercising suck. This is possibly the most miserable thing you can do to yourself. You are not going to have fun."

Bzzzt! Wrong attitude. If you hate the exercise you are doing, find another one, there are more sports than anyone can count. If you hate healthy food, learn to cook, I guarantee that anyone who knows what they are doing can prepare a healthy meal that tastes better than pizza or a burger.

Setting out to make yourself miserable is setting out to fail.
>Why should now be any different? If the federal government mandated all new vehicles being electric only by 2014 (grandfathering in all existing vehicles), we'd make it. And the problem would gradually resolve, like every other problem.

How about if we wait for the technology to be ready instead of setting an arbitrary deadline? And what's so important about switching to electric cars that it can't wait 10 years?
Browsers Are a Battleground Once Again
Live Search cashback: Big splash or little wave?
Perhaps the Shell geoscientist, Dr. Marion King Hubbert?
Uranium is vary common. On average you could extract more energy from coal by using the trace amount of fissionable material in coal than you get by setting the stuff on fire.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power) As of 2004, nuclear power provided 6.5% of the world's energy... At this point, the enriched uranium, containing more than the natural 0.7% U-235, is used to make rods of the proper composition and geometry for the particular reactor that the fuel is destined for. The fuel rods will spend about 3 operational cycles (typically 6 years total now) inside the reactor, generally until about 3% of their uranium has been fissioned, then they will be moved to a spent fuel pool where the short lived isotopes generated by fission can decay away. After about 5 years in a cooling pond, the spent fuel is radioactively and thermally cool enough to handle, and it can be moved to dry storage casks or reprocessed. As opposed to current light water reactors which use uranium-235 (0.7% of all natural uranium), fast breeder reactors use uranium-238 (99.3% of all natural uranium). It has been estimated that there is up to five billion years’ worth of uranium-238 for use in these power plants.[33]

PS: The five billion year figure makes some assumptions about the rate of use but once you start looking into the numbers it's far enough into the future that our predictions are just about meaningless.

Edit: There are a lot of odd regulations and political history around whey we do it this way but long term supply is not the real issue with fission.
60 Second IQ Test
I've seen Congress people talk about it at length on CSPAN. Granted, not necessarily a great vote of credibility, but does not fall under the headings of blogger or pop star.
The more exposure to Ruby I get, the more convinced I am that in 5 years it will be a maintenance nightmare of Perl-like proportions.

A culture that prizes cleverness over consistency is an evolutionary dead-end, this transcends the merits of the technology.
Sometimes, the arbitrary deadline is the thing that forces the technology to be ready.

Do you think JFK had any idea if the technology would be ready when he declared the goal of a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s?

We need more vision and less debate.
Another exercise in utopian ego-centric social planning using back-of-the-napkin stats that ignores all side effects. There are an infinite number of these pseudo-analyses that can be done, and they're easy because you don't need to collect any hard evidence.

For example, I propose that we start a forced diet and exercise program for the United States. The cost of this program will be negative $25 trillion. It will pay for itself in reduced medical costs. The present value of our Medicare obligations are around $50 trillion, so let's say we save half of that.

I could churn out another 50 of these in 50 minutes. It's easy - just imagine yourself as an all-knowing dictator (and since you already think you know what's best for everybody, you're half-way there!) and then pull numbers out of your ear.

Let's ban alcohol! Net savings = the amount we spend on alcohol each year + reduced health costs. And it worked so well the first time! Heck, let's ban fast food!

Of course, all of these ignore the intrinsic value that comes from not living in a society where some politician has control over all your consumption choices, but Americans long ago stopped caring about their own freedom.
<sarcasm>Because we know that foreign energy dependence has kept us from waging war on other countries.</sarcasm>
How Do You Watch Movies? | Tech Jaws
Sounds like a fun parlor game.
The problem with xml dumps is that it is a backup-like feature, and users are notoriously sloppy with backups.

It is great that you provide the feature (and I'm slightly embarrassed that http://scribbl.net/ doesn't) but what users really need is the ability to get their data after the application has gone down. Not that I see any way to do that given the current state of the internet.
Why make the government pay for the entire thing? As oil and gas prices increase, the costs of purchasing an electric vehicle are going to be on parity with the costs of purchasing an electric vehicle. I imagine that the Big 3 in Detroit are wringing their hands over Toyota's success with the Prius.

And, with the bevy of new electric vehicles that are getting released in the next couple of years, you're going to be seeing more and more of them on the roads. even without massive governement intervention.

I for one am actually glad that gasoline prices are increasing. I think that we should tax gasoline heavily like most of Europe does. Do you think they drive around in those tiny little cars because they are comfortable? Increased gasoline prices decrease consumption, and increase innovation in fuel efficiency and alternative energy vehicles.
"start from scratch" is a quote off of matz's slides.
Of course there aren't 1,000 DVD Jon's out. You only need one :)
I do especially like "Is it better to change Milan’s diapers or answer another email?"

I think diapers are a little more time-sensitive than just about any email. Ok, a lot more time-sensitive.
My understanding is that this prediction of oil running out (always a few decades in the future) has been commonplace for almost a century. How is it possible to know what will or won't be discovered, either by way of new deposits or new technologies? 30 billion (estimated) barrels were just discovered in Brazil.

I should perhaps add that I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other. I just like being skeptical, and I smell ideology in these predictions.
> trying to grok sed/awk, bash scripting where appropriate.. even perl is sneaking into my head

May I suggest that you roll all that into one neat little endeavor of learning Python... :)
Thinking out loud: could this desire for "cleverness" stem from the fact that most Ruby programmers work on webapps?
I'd say it's starting to happen already.

When I see a Hummer these days, my first thought is "chump", and wonder what the price of a fill up is at current rates. I think among some high earning demographics, the car with the most cachet is already the Prius.

Of course, then you have the ginormous Hybrid SUVs being pushed now by Detroit. Do people really not understand that whatever gas you save through the "hybridness" is more than offset by the few tons of metal they're driving around, compared to a smaller non-hybrid?

(Yes, this question is rhetorical.)
This article was terrible. Staying fit is easy if you can have a great time doing it. I work out with friends and try to play as many sports as I can with people whose company I enjoy. The self-discipline with respect to eating can be tough, but he's right, if you can keep your intake low for a couple of weeks you won't find yourself wanting to eat so much all the time.
Arguably pop star :)

Maybe "celebrity" would be a better fit.
TipJoy’s New API Lets Web Apps Share the Love (and Cash) With Their Contributors
"It could sort of tarnish the Live Search brand," Rosoff said. "But there's really nothing there to tarnish."
What if Gas Cost $100/gal?
It's not about oil running out, it's about supply peaking and not being able to keep up with demand. That's happened, China and India demand is only going to continue rising. Short of some new technology, prices will continue to rise from now on.
Unfortunately many people like to play it in legislative buildings.
Good list. Not really sure why, but I especially liked "How to Get Rich" by Felix Denis. Really got my juices flowing.
Usually you use the factory pattern because you want to customize the concrete type of object that's instantiated, correct? In Python, you'd just pass the class itself in, and since every class is a callable that constructs an instance of itself when called, you can use that to control instantiation:

class Foo: ...
class Bar: ...
def factory_client(cls):
my_instance = cls()
...
return my_instance

foo_instance = factory_client(Foo)
bar_instance = factory_client(Bar)

You can do the same thing in Java with Class objects and reflection (Class.newInstance() etc.), but reflection is a.) slow and b.) clunky, so most Java programmers create factories instead. Parameterized classes are much more a part of Python culture than Java culture.
"The coal lobby would be in favor of a plan like this, they are itching to start burning all the extra coal we have in the USA."

I'm surprised the Republicans have not jumped all over this.

This could give them a card to play in the energy independence debate. There's a lot of coal in some so-called swing states, and coal miners and their friends and neighbors are part of the demographic that have been voting Republican on "social" issues but are now swinging Democratic on "Bush is utterly incompetent" issues. Proposing a program to transition the country to coal powered electric cars would go over well with this group.

To the rest of the country, it could be sold as more pragmatic than trying to generate all our energy from solar and wind in the near term, while still offering a path to energy independence. They could play up arguments about how coal generated electricity is already less carbon emitting than the gasoline engines in autos.

This might not be as easy a position to take for Democrats, because the staunch environmentalists on their side may not be happy about increased coal burning.
> We need more vision and less debate.

If "vision" means rash feel-good actions and "debate" means thoughtful consideration of all view points, then I respectfully disagree with you. I think we need more debate and less "vision".
"In my Data Structures course in college, when we got to AVL trees, my prof turned and wrote on the board, in huge, clear letters:

AVL Trees are EVIL

...and that's all we had to learn about them. He had us implement red/black trees and splay trees instead. To this day, I have no idea how threaded AVL trees work. But if that's OK with Dan Weld, it's OK with me. "

Thank goodness it wasn't: "LISP is EVIL". Or replace lisp by anything useful and generally misunderstood.
Nice to see this just a day or two after all the "TipJoy is dead" proclamations. There's no question that micropayments are going to be huge when someone gets it right. The only thing is, can Tipjoy actually get people to pay?
Swedish artist ships GPS to make world's biggest sketch
At a certain price, there is always enough supply for the demand.
Much of Canada's oil (I'm thinking of the Alberta tar sands) hasn't historically been economical to produce, because it's harder to get out of the ground and refine. In the Middle East, by contrast, they dig a hole and it comes bubbling out like in the Beverly Hillbillies. (One interesting consequence of that is that petroleum economics haven't been widely practiced in the Middle East.) Anyway, with the price of oil having gone up so much there is now huge investment going on in northern Alberta to develop this stuff.
I am in the top 5% of fitness of those above 30. My weight has been consistent for more than 12 years. I have more muscle today than I did 12 years ago.

Frankly, I have never followed any diet. I simply limit my carbohydrates to a level that matches my physical activity. I eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and limit fats. I lift weight three times and try to run about 2 times and it works.

All those micro-managed diet programs have never worked for me. The main thing is to enjoy your workout and to enjoy the fitness lifestyle.
Fair enough, but these predictions have a way of turning out wrong. I think the ideology driving the prediction is the operative factor.

Edit: I'm being too hasty this morning. How exactly does "supply peaking" not have to do with "oil running out"?
There's no such thing as clean coal, it's an oxymoron made up by energy companies, it's newspeak! What's next, dry water?
Do I get bonus points for not really seeing much point to the Singleton pattern when I read the GoF book? In fact, I can generalize that to say that all the patterns seemed either obvious or pointless.

I still haven't decided what that means about me as a programmer.
(serious) body builders:
a) aren't normal (they're a small minority)
b) don't have 50 pounds of extra flab

This article is obviously not targeted at body builders.
Of course, but then you can't expect low prices, demand dictates price which is exactly what we're seeing now.
so we charge those cars with what? Pedal power? No, more than likely we charge them by burning fuel in some power plant miles and miles down the grid, losing energy in the process due to storage and conversion.
Supply and demand are the operative factors, price is up because demand is up while supply remains steady. Ideology has little to do with it.
The Ford Motor Company vs. Facebook valuation point can be explained by the fact that Ford has a debt/equity ratio of more than 23 (debt to market cap of 11, 170 billion in total debt - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=F) and is, like the rest of the US auto industry, in a downward spiral. This isn't a good company to use as comparison, because public perception of its economic muscle is much greater than what the stock market says. In relation to its revenue, Ford is in serious trouble.

Facebook is grossly overvalued by any traditional measure of company value (valuation/revenue in the region of 100), but on the other hand Facebook isn't priced by the open market. The only thing supporting the company's valuation is Microsoft's 250$ million investment, which was probably more politically motivated than motivated by economics. (At a valuation like this one, which other market players would be remotely interested in investing?)

At this point, what happens in Silicon Valley isn't a bubble. Investment is under control. Certain companies are overvalued, but the valuations aren't supported by any form of mass hysteria: if anyone is burned, the effects will be local.

And don't forget that even during the IT bubble at the turn of the millennium, many sound companies were created. There is bound to be a smaller or larger degree of dead weight dragged along by any new breaking of ground in technology. This isn't a new phenomenon by any measure.
I look at who's making the predictions, what else they think, and what agenda they have. From that perspective, ideology has a great deal to do with it.
Help, I can't stop.

And who is Carla Gray?
Erick is pretty down on the payment rate of 25%. But think about it this way: the content is free and no one needs to pay. That 25% do is pretty astounding actually.

As we move to other models of micropayments, this issue won't be as big.
I've had really good luck with paypal personally. This current issue is a pretty big deal, but I find it tough to beleive he found no satisfaction with the on-phone support. Maybe they have gone downhill lately.