skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I remember a study on general aviation plane crashes. They found that very few plane crashes came about because the pilot made a single, obvious mistake. Instead, the common pattern was a series of missteps, each so small that you couldn't properly call it a "mistake" in and of itself, the pilot was just cutting corners on the recommended safety margin. And then something happened that was out of the pilot's control, like bad weather or distraction or mechanical failure. Because the safety precautions that make it normally possible to recover from these events weren't followed, this resulted in a crash instead of merely a nerve-wracking landing.

I think the same thing happens with finance. If you look at the proximate cause of bankruptcy, it's almost always that somebody has a health emergency or a death in the family or loses their job. But many people have health emergencies, deaths in the family, and stints of unemployment without going into bankruptcy. And the reason why is the same thing Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett have been espousing in investing for years: Margin of Safety.

If you always live on the edge, then it's a given that sometime you're going to fall off. Hold back 6-12 months reserve of salary, and suddenly unemployment doesn't look so scary. Health insurance makes a sudden medical emergency not quite so scary. Have $10-20K in the bank, and you don't need to worry that totaling your car is going to send you into crippling debt.

The irresponsible part is not that these people got sick or lost their job, it's that they didn't prepare for contingencies where they would get sick and lose their job. There's this culture in America where as soon as you start earning more money, you have to spend it on something, otherwise you're wasting it. But there's a tension between resiliency and efficiency, and if you're always being perfectly efficient, things tend to go very wrong when they go wrong. Make your bargains accordingly.
It gets more complicated than that.

Historically, a person put 20% down on their property as a down payment. The interest rates were high, at least 8%, sometimes over 10%. Take the house in 1970s tucson that was $30,000. Interest rate was about 10%, the down payment was 6,000, so the payment was about $250 a month.

Now, drop the down payment requirement, and drop the interest rates to 5%. that same $30,000 dollar property suddenly costs about $175. But, there are plenty of people who can afford $250. So, they value (perhaps erroneously, but follow me here) the object not as its purchase price, but rather as a comparison to what they pay as rent.

Suddenly, people are valuing the property as $45,000. But more importantly, people who don't have savings but have income are looking and saying, "I can afford a house!" Thus, demand rises along with the perceived value of the property. Then, the people with rental property look at increasing mortgages and adjust their rental properties' prices accordingly. Investors look at increasing prices and create a follower effect. Demand increases.

Rent increases. The bubble has renters facing higher costs looking at property not as an investment, but as a hedge against increasing rent costs. This isn't necessarily a bad decision: consider if you are buying in 1999. You can barely afford the property, but you are averaging 3% raises. That $35,000 salary in 1999 is $48,000 in 2010, but the housing cost is the same.

The problem is if you run into this in 2006.
It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice.

a) Why is it that you won't do it?

b) The issue is that they're sacrificing the financial security of their kids by living on the edge and that is irresponsible if you're someone's guardian.

Imagine a company/government says we'll go into heavy debt because we want to give our shareholders/citizens a good shot - is that not irresponsible?
>There's only 5 meters left until we get to the lake so it'll all be very soon.

They're 5 meters away, and they didn't finish and write an article about that? This seems an unnecessary cliffhanger.
related: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/building-better-social-graph...
https://www.piazzza.com/
a free alternative, that I think is here to improve in class discussion. hell with blackboard?
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Running App RunKeeper Pro Looks Beyond Running And Apps
I'm here because someone helpfully provided one of my ancestors with an education into modern sugar plantation processes and methods, including a free trip to Barbados.

If it hadn't been for that, I'd be in Nigeria living large on my 419 business. Blogs, 419s, what's the difference?
Hmm... I don't think that's what I was thinking of. The wording was very specific. I don't recall Google Analytics being part of the comment, but of course I could be mistaken.
I was a homemaker for many years. Not your typical demographic for this site. :-D

As for confidence vs a-hole: I go way out of my way to not be an a-hole. It fails to protect me from personal attacks and accusations (though it does tend to reduce it, it doesn't exempt me from running into a-holes).

My main point is that negative characterizations generally don't move anyone forward and are usually not "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Mental framing is part of that. Most people are trained from early childhood to view things negatively. It is a counterproductive habit for many people and finding another framework can be very freeing and empowering.
Did anyone else notice that one of them shot an arrow at the plane? lol.

In all seriousness I wonder how they would treat someone like him if he just showed up one day. Probably depends on the day of the week.
The problem with our unproven claims is that you speak from the vantage point of the advanced alien visitors speaking on the primitive cultures behalf.

I am not sure what you mean with uncivilized lifestyles. Do you mean wearing clothes? Eating with knife and fork or do you talk about dropping the bomb, invading other countries?
And therein lies the dilemma: one of those three choices must be made first, before we can know what their decision is. Once such a decision is known, absolutely, we should respect it as much as we are able, but to know such a thing requires significant cultural contamination.
If you read that article, what the guy supposedly lied about was that no one else knew about them. But they do live there.
"Jacobs said RunKeeper is poised to hit 5 million users this month, compared to 2 million at the start of the year. After a big spike of one million downloads in the first week of January, new users are still up five times since going free. Interestingly, RunKeeper’s premium $20-a-year Elite service, has also seen a three times increase in purchases, though Jacobs said that, overall, the company is seeing less immediate revenue than prior to the switch."
What is so bad about leaving them alone? I would bet they are much happer than the majority of the FB and Twitter obsessed narcissist that I run into every day.

What is so bad is you making the decision for them -- one way or the other. It's that kind of pompous paternalistic attitude that caused all kinds of pain and misery.

If they are happy with a life expectancy of 30, of having mothers die in childbirth commonly, of dying of things like scratches and measles -- if they want that life, let them have it. But show and tell them what they are missing and let them decide. Don't arrogantly assume that there's something romantic about living like a caveman. It's just as whacked as automatically assuming they would want all of the modernity we enjoy.

What we've found, over and over again, is that contact with primitive cultures destroys the cultures. That's because you'd have to be a flaming idiot to want to live like that (I find the greatest supporters of "leave them alone" are armchair philosophers living all nice and comfy in the west) We can't help that, but it's no excuse to let people suffer when we can help them stop if (If they so desire) There is nothing noble in inaction.

Treat people as you would like to be treated if you were them. It's really very simple. If you'd like to rant and rave about how much modern life sucks, fine. But don't use these guys as props to do so. They deserve better than that.

By the way, this is also a pet peeve of mine, and I come at this from exactly the opposite pov. Sometimes I think "Star Trek" has done more to muddy up an entire generation of thinkers than a hundred piss-poor colleges could have ever hoped to accomplish.
An Egyptian expat user of ours and HN asked us to build this last night, so we did.
Yeah, I agree.

To be honest, I'm not sure I agree with what they've done. I have no proof, or evidence of anything, just a gut feel. That moment could have irreversibly changed each one of their lives - possibly for the worse.

Its all of our world, I know, but still. I mean, they're not zoo animals.
Morals are, beliefs are not. And since morals are heavily heavily based on beliefs, they are heavily influenced by the person who is determining right and wrong.

One person can't have it both ways. Two can have opposing viewpoints and still be completely, logically correct in their own eyes. It's a fundamental aspect of communication between different entities.
I always kind of felt like the two were interchangeable. :-D But then I pronounced "facade" as "fake-aid" for years and years. My mind seems to like to blend and overlap two concepts like that.
this guy is tryin' hard !
Perhaps they have something to teach us as well. We should at least ask for directions to El Dorado, before we convert them to OS X and give them some french fries.
Unless you're going to a top-tier college and majoring in a marketable skill, that is a bad idea too.

There's a bubble in higher education where many people are being promised a good life merely by going to college. These people get out of college, find out that such a good life was just a mirage, and then find out that the $200K in debt they took on for it wasn't such a great idea either.

The responsible thing to do there is to just say no. Don't go to college, and find ways to prove that you can add value to people without that college degree.
I think this is exactly the kind of situation where the Golden Rule fails hardcore. If I think about it in that manner, I think "I'd want the hell out!" Who I am and how I would want people to treat me is largely shaped by the culture I live in. I wouldn't be me if I lived in those tribes.

We shouldn't be thinking about how we would want to be treated in that situation, we should think about what they want, now. And that's generally for those bulldozer things to stop mowing down their homes.
I'm sorry, but I call BS.
I forgot to follow this with: The problem with 2006 is not only that the property value is diminished, making a property sale impossible, but it is combined with a recession. If you could afford it before, you can't after you lose your job, at least not past your savings. (I know people out of work for over 9 months.)
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Then you need some philosophy, metaphysics, and Lincoln-Douglas style debate classes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln-Douglas_Debate

edit: how about a starting point (in no way intended to be snide / insulting, I'm entirely serious about this):

Murder is wrong, right? Why? Completely objectively, why?
Absolutely. At no time did I suggest I know what to do, I said we should think about it.
I second that. Good front-end coding, just like good graphic design is a real skill not a cheap commodity. I don't see who has gained from this exercise except as an example of how not to get your website made.
"A simple mod for Minecraft that adds a craftable hot air balloon. The player can ride the balloon and control the balloon's height using the space bar. The balloon will always float in the current wind direction, which is random and changes slowly and randomly with time."

It always amazes me what people will come up with (and also how simple things can be so delightful).
I can understand living paycheck-to-paycheck if you're making $20K/year.

I can't understand living paycheck-to-paycheck if you're making $100K/year, and yet many people seem to do that. Why not live like someone who makes $60K/year, which is a perfectly adequate lifestyle, and bank the rest for emergencies?
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White iPhone 4 to cost an arm and a leg. Then another arm.
So you think your capability model is bad?
"I would bet they are much happer than the majority of the FB and Twitter obsessed narcissist that I run into every day."

Hi, I am an obsessed FB and Twitter narcissist, and I'm proud of it. I'm also happy about having access to the Western medicine, which, while not the only one, and not perfects, seems to be the only one that consistently works.

And you are not talking about giving them a "right". You are talking about choosing something for them -- we can contact them (which will unavoidably deeply alter their culture, and is quite dangerous) or not (and let them live uncomfortably). It's our choice, and we can't really run from it. By doing nothing we decide for them, whether we like it or not.

Oh, and your parent didn't really say that we should convert them. He said that we should give them access to our technology. And if that converts them, then possibly it's actually them who preferred our culture over their own.

I'm actually mostly on the side of avoiding contact for now -- but mostly because of health risks related to contact, not because I'm afraid for their culture. Culture is about the change, not about maintaining some snapshot of society.
If you really want to learn the fundamental underpinnings of machine learning, you will need a strong background in probability and stochastic processes. I would suggest Python (or MATLAB if you can get access to it) to learn how different methods works. That way you can separate mathematical issues from programming issues. As far as courses go, you should be looking for courses in Liner Algebra, Numerical Computation/Optimization (Convex, Nonlinear), Statistical Inference, Stochastic Processes.

Good References:
1) Elements of Statistical Learning - Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman

2) Pattern Classification - Duda, Hart and Stork

3) Pattern Recognition - Theoridis, Koutroumbas

4) Machine Learning - Tom Mitchell

5) http://videolectures.net/Top/Computer_Science/Machine_Learni...
Treat people as you would like to be treated if you were them.

I wish I had 100 upmods to give. This is exactly what I was saying elsewhere, we should think about how we would want to be treated. Would we want medicine and education offered to us? Would we want the option for some of our elders to live out the rest of their lives in a traditional manner? Would we want bulldozers knocking down our trees? Would we want jobs driving bulldozers?

I don't know the answer, I just know that I'd want to ponder that for a good long while if I had to make a call.
Define "better".

Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. By any good measure of happiness, they are probably happier than us. Most of them would die from diseases of civilization in the event of contact, anyway, so I don't really see how western medicine potentially extending their lives applies.
"There's no such thing as bad publicity." :-)

(Attributed to Mae West and probably any number of other people.)
Ask HN: Are any of you at X where X is some college?
I recently discovered a fellow Hacker News reader at my local community college. It was a very pleasant surprise and I really enjoyed talking with him. I'm posting this in the hopes that others can be similarly surprised.
Good point. Google will be challenged to handle these issues, and certainly can't be so direct about it. But if removing them draws visitors to the smaller search engines, Google will need to respond in some fashion.
Anyone else going to Golden West College?
"Our way of life is better"

Ahh yes, the colonialist's mantra. Even more of a historical failure than the communist manifesto. Go look at how life 'improved' in sub saharan africa. Or the profoundly sad state of natives all over the world, in Canada, Australia, US, and beyond.

Our way of life is not better. It is not for everyone. We have huge wealth and health disparity, large scale violence, drug addiction and homeless to name but a few unsavories.

Your argument is a very old one - this is a 19th century discussion. As such I suggest you look at the history of colonialism, and the atrocities that resulted and continue to result because of it. Maybe start with Rwanda, it's pretty compelling.
This is what good insurance is used to cover. Having operated a business that sourced goods from China, your story is not surprising. I've had materials held hostage at customs because they wanted an upfront, wired payment.

In my experience, Chinese manufacturers have very little incentive or desire to provide credit or terms of any kind. They also have little desire to problem-solve issues or defects. So, it's no surprise that your problem is (according to them), your problem. I don't know if there is even a Chinese equivalent to the saying "the customer is always right".
I agree that it's harder for Google, because we don't have the luxury of hard coding rankings, but I take big issue with this:

> So it's a tough situation for Google, especially when you factor into account potential impact on all the advertising revenue they're generating from these spam sites.

Adsense revenue does not enter in to ranking decisions. Our evaluation process is far from perfect, but revenue is not part of it. We're not blind to the fact that a lot of scummy sites run adsense, but the even scummier ones have already been kicked out of adsense and now use other ad networks or affiliate programs. "Denying spammers revenue" has been at times the explicit goal of projects that launched.
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I wonder what happens to the chimney sweep years later, the person that clambers down the chimney through unexpected shards of glass sticking out on the walls. Presumably they are aware of this as a possibility and take precautions.
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'I'm sure you're up there with those who think that people who owe large sums of money should "just work harder" or "lay off alcohol and cigs".'

You say I'm "up there" like I'm some sort of snooty asshole for working my face off for six months to pay off my debt. I have my vices (I love you, Mary Jane) and I still managed to afford them so make whatever assumptions you will about me, I just found it more gratifying to work on my debt rather than get canned every weekend (not at first, it took a few months to get to that point).

I feel for you in regards to your injury, but 20k is pretty damn far from insurmountable debt. If anything it sounds like you've given up on yourself, and that sucks because I've been there and it's a tough spot to break out of.

I worked my ass off for six months to pay off 5k - work your ass off for 24 months and you'll be well on your way to knocking down that 20k.

Oh.... and just work harder.
I think long term Google will benefit from their actual changes vs. what DDG and Blekko have done, in 2 years when the sites they've banned or selected get better or turn to shit they'll have to rework for that, Google won't. I guess DDG and Blekko are gambling on the fickle nature of "tech" people, but they'll get bitten in the ass by it when the sites they've chosen change and they lose users because suddenly they suck and Google will be there with their proper ranking which can adapt to sites shutting down.

Also the idea that there are people "curating" the way my search works is... unsettling I guess, they're deciding based on arbitrary criteria whether or not they think a user wants a site. What if I like the content DM produce?
You're mistaken. I did not post a parody. I'm serious.

That you have a hard time believing that people who disagree with you (like myself) even exist should perhaps be a wake up call to open your mind.
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This is blowing my mind. Do I understand this right? There are people living in the forests of Brazil that have no idea about the modern world?!
"do or do not" is a false dichotomy? Any contact causes change, so the only way to prevent forcing change is to prevent all contact.
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Still kinda clever. Some services let you "prove" you own a domain by inserting some text into the WHOIS... I can't think of one off the top-of-my-head, but this "hack" might be useful for that.
Your reply is so laced with hypocrisy its disgusting. How do you know their lives are so bad? From what the video showed they seem to be doing just fine.

I would rather be A West coast armchair philosopher than an elitest who feels he is so superior to other people that I have the right to be condescending when discussing their way of life and I have the obligation to convert them to my way of thinking.

FYI: one of the main justifications for slavery - Slavery was good for the slaves; the slaveowners took on the burden of caring for the interests of inferior beings, seeing that they would be fed, clothed and given religious instruction.
Definitely. duckduckgo is much more "not evil" than Google at the moment :)
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Just found this tool from the DMCA that searches to find if someone is scraping your sites' content and then using it as their own. Not sure if the actual take down service works, but the tool is cool nonetheless.
Sketchbooks aren't about being a good artist, they're about being a good thinker
It's just that many (feared and hated) leaders from history took a similar view.

I'm surprised so many people on HN share it.

(Did I dodge the Godwin's law bullet...?)

--

Seriously though, this is exactly the point of view that was used by all colonial movements. It's antiquated, unjust and it's also completely xenophobic. I'm genuinely shocked.
Jaggies aren't a good thing. No anti-aliasing is a good thing if you have a high enough dpi. I don't think 100 is going to cut it, though.
An interesting idea indeed, don't know of an existing solution, but I'd definitely use it.
Congrats man! I saw your original thread when you first posted, it's really cool to see your project taking off! :)
I am not kidding.

You are posting a very typical left wing way of thinking where you have a hard time believing people can both exist and fundamentally disagree with you. You hope they don't really mean it, or at least they are Christians so you have something unintellectual to blame (I am not).

You are advocating some kind of "tolerance" of primitive cultures (consisting largely of non-intervention which is rather different than tolerance) but you have have no tolerance of opposing viewpoints within your own culture.

I did not advocate forced conversion. That you refuse to differentiate between access to better ideas and depriving them of their rights is a straw man.