skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Air and sea combat tend to place a big premium on being faster. If you can cruise strategic distances or sprint tactical distances significantly faster than your opponent, all sorts of choices open up for you. (Notably: you choose whether to engage at all, and you get all sorts of opportunities to concentrate force.) And for physical reasons that aren't going away just because of cheap chips and bandwidth, it's difficult for little vehicles to keep up with a conventional-sized aircraft, ship, or sub. Then unless the smaller vehicles are lots cheaper (in some appropriately scaled way, perhaps "cheaper per ton") to build and operate than the big ones, it's not obvious the smaller vehicles naturally have a direct advantage in slugging things out.

However, little drones (and other small-scale autonomous devices with fast computers and high-bandwidth connections) could still have a large effect on high-intensity air or naval combat even without scenarios of a modest number of supersmart drones duking it out with a conventionally-sized aircraft or ship or sub. One scenario that seems likely to me is many supersmart drones and balloons and buoys with staring passive sensors cooperating with a modest number of devices that resemble modern radar/sonar platforms and with a small number of devices that resemble 1980-era missiles or torpedoes. (In this scenario, the small vehicles do have a clear cheapness advantage in a suitably-scaled way: roughly "[much!] cheaper per kilometer of effective sensor aperture size".) Another scenario is that a war of attrition involving progressively smaller, slower, and stealthier devices might make it a new kind of PITA to secure the immobile facilities (e.g., roads and ports and airfields) that current big-vehicle systems rely on.

Of course, it's somewhat moot trying to analyze high-intensity war as a problem of engineering on the battlefield as long as we don't understand the strategic dynamics of high-intensity war in the presence of incredibly cost-effective indiscriminate weapons like hydrogen bombs. It seems to be at least as much an intractable game theory problem as an engineering problem. (And as David Friedman said, "when I am picking problems to work on, ones that stumped John von Neumann go at the bottom of the stack.")
I also think this is interesting. It seems like only yesterday that Al Jazeera was ridiculed by people as well as the industry in our neck of the woods around the time 911 happened and afterwards. Now that the stories are more aligned with our values they seem to be heroes at least amongst Internet circles. One take away perhaps is that people will consume what they want to hear. To navigate the complex world and gain a critical advantage is to understand that these outlets represent one perspective that to many people is very real, even if we personally don't agree. You could compare this in some ways to outlets like Fox News. I'm often skeptical about the reporting, but considering the number of people that do see this as their major meal of the day, I'm going to listen every now and then so I can try and understand where others stand and come from. News will always be inherently biased because people construct what is truth regarding their world. While we aren't directly involved in what comes out, we have the ability to process the stuff that comes in and make our own understanding.
My gf got me one of the AR.Drones for christmas, and I have to say that it is, by far, the best nerd toy I've ever had. Seriously, it's remarkable.

If you, at all, are thinking about getting one go for it. You'll love it.
I have had similar results, however once I enabled shadows, Flash was the best. It looks like Flash is solid for both simple and complex animations, however the other technologies are great for very simple animations, but their performance greatly decreases when more effects are added (ie shadows).
OK, so that covers the first sentence, except maybe "because of entitlements." (Although you'll note that without TARP we'd be just about breaking even in that scenario.)

It doesn't cover the second half, which claims that taxing "the rich" at 100% wouldn't cover the deficit even though the total income of the richest 1% of Americans is almost as much as the entire federal budget. (23.9% of income, GDP is 14.27T, 14.27 * 0.239 = 3.41T)
Just done watching it since i found a copy earlier today.

Makes the US military's spin sound like Goebbels all over again.
"old people need" auto completes with "to die"

Sadly, this really does reflect on us, the vast number of English speaking google users. Trying to remove all offensive reflections of the garbage people type in is impossible though. It's not really bounded.
The point is billionaires won't live like regular joes. You think just because the tax is higher they will start purchasing a Timex instead of a Rolex?

Even now it would be hard to justify a $100k car as a business expense, with a simplified sales and property tax code it would be even easier to stop.
An epic 750,000-layer PSD is done
I would definitely want one of those!
This is exactly right and many people would be surprised to find out exactly how much a hospital stay can cost. Our son was partially delivered when the OB moved the umbilical cord from his neck and it ruptured. Long story short, three days in the neonatal intensive care unit cost about $40k. We paid almost $5k out of pocket after the insurance and some hospital discounts were done covering the rest. The costs could have been significantly higher if there had been any further complications or treatment, we were lucky the three days were essentially just for observation.
It doesn't have to be the money raised in a series A, we are talking about a bubble in the seed level. In fact it does look like the start to investment without much thought/diligence/etc. There is a large amount of capital chasing early stage deals, people are writing checks after one meeting, giving away uncapped convertible gifts.
You know Al Jazeera is reporting the truth because every side is complaining it is against them. Every Arab country - including my own, Bahrain, has thrown out Al Jazeera at one point or another, for being "anti".

For the record, for the Israeli side, I gather they actually (privately) like the station because it was the first Arab station to interview them. Whenever they report about an Israeli issue, they actually get an Israeli to talk about the Israeli point of view.

The problem is not with Al Jazeera, it is that it is the only station with global reach that actually speaks truth to power, challenging those with power on any side. They alone remember that the journalist's role is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

(The one exception is Qatar, which they never report on, but frankly nobody cares about that.)
A question from an American..

I am attempting to understand the political landscape in Egypt. Two questions:

1. would it be correct to say that there are in fact two MB orgs, one that is non violent and slightly good and one MB org that is violent and not good?

2. Given the almost outright banning of opposition political parties in Egypt what political parties is the military involved with?
They had an idea, but I imagine total access to explicit description taken from private US diplomatic correspondence galvanised preexisting public sentiment somewhat.
Really? I am in the Canadian Forces infantry, and if anyone ever used the term "clip" in reference to a magazine, and was actually serious, I'm pretty sure they would get beat up. May I ask what country you are affiliated with and in what branch of the military those servicemen are? It is interesting to see such a basic difference in terminology.
My background is in HCI and I didn't know that the practices of UX, interaction design, usability warranted the need of a lean(er) approach. But if more startups realize how important well-designed user experiences are, I'm a happy camper.

Also: gray serif set in a small size? The subpar typography makes the article very annoying to read.
Another good example is Google using it for their scripting project for Google Docs. Works using Rhino on the JVM.

I used to work on this project. It's pretty rad from a tech standpoint.
Quite bluntly, I don't think Dvorak is really HN-worthy, and this article does not change my opinion.

So instead of commenting on this sort of thing and upvoting it, let's do something to improve HN.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ycombinator+company+list
1) The scala compiler is a little slow (compared to javac).
2) Lift is a pretty new framework and we run into warts/bugs from time to time. It can also take a bit of time for new engineers to get their head around it.

Those are the two biggest things I would say.
Sublime 2 Out
I like the idea in general, but the main points seem to be (1) do BLAH, and (2) make sure you do BLAH in small steps while measuring it.

Point 2 should be obvious for any startup. I would like to hear more about point 1. For me to spend money taking any workshop there should be some useful takeaways that I can get a feeling of why the workshop would have been useful.
I think most of the rich people as described in the article (top 2%) already get most, if not all, of the perks he lists. It may not be in the law, but make no mistake.
These people don't go to the DMV (who cares about the express lane), don't read their own mail (so much for gratitude letters), often don't drive their own car (carpool eligible in most places), don't care about social services and how much they cost and already have a large influence on the election process.

Scott feels as if he's "on a path toward certain doom" when paying attention to news. In my case it's when I think about how little hope there is to radically change the system considering that the people in charge are the ones who profit the most from that system, by a long shot.
>If we could offer packages that would be available to everyone but easy to buy at the same time, wouldn't it be good for everyone? For example you can pay $X for the "lexus lane", $X for another privilege, etc. - this way if someone actually wanted the privilege, but wasn't "really rich", they could still get it - not a total aristocracy and noone is forced to do anything.

This is completely different because everyone would be eligible for the Lexus Lane. It's very likely that plenty of middle-class people would choose to pay for it. The defining characteristic of an aristocracy is special rights under the law for an elite class. All you're talking about is a service the government is offering with an aim to profit.

Scott Adams on the other hand is talking about restricting to the top 2%. That's what makes it an aristocracy.

I'm not saying a visible aristocracy codified in legislation is bad.

Also I don't think your concept "full aristocracy" has meaning. All aristocracies exist on a sliding scale somewhere between "Lexus Lanes" and "slavery".

Anyway personally I'm not really against a visible aristocracy. I actually think it probably makes sense to recognize power, because at least then there would be accountability.

If Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and George Soros are unofficial Kings due to their enormous wealth, it's probably actually a good thing to make them official Kings because then they become accountable for getting results. Everyone would know who to blame - King Bill III.

That puts all the incentives in order.

I kind of suspect that our current elected officials are mostly just a trivial front-end for the true deciders who prefer to remain invisible because then they can't get lynched. Making them visible doesn't seem like much of a negative to me.
for some more perspective on this, yesterdays thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2152622
>Communism sucks, so there's no alternative to the 0.1% (winner) takes all (80%) system that we've got.

Wow, thanks for making things so clear. I had no idea that the alternative to our emerging world of total corporate feudalism was straight-up dictatorial Stalinism! Who'd-a thunkit?
Very interesting question. I'll try to answer. I feel this way myself although I haven't taken much time to consume their material or examine why I have my opinions.

I believe it was because that I figured that any network owned by a bunch of dictators from the Middle East wouldn't have my best interests, or the interests of the average citizen, in mind. Seems like I also remember OBL releasing tapes to AJ -- they always seemed to have a magic touch of finding these terrorism videos nobody else could get. From the rumors I heard, they ran so much pro-terror and anti-Israel commentary and opinion shows (in my mind) I began to think they were part of the problem and not part of the solution. I also remember quotes from some of their shows with the most ridiculous Islamist propaganda. Seems like there were some spying allegations involving their reporters too. And IIRC, didn't they have reporters/producers that were so close to insurgents that it was difficult for the U.S. Military to separate where journalism ended and where terrorism began?

But thanks for asking that. I need to reexamine my feelings and make sure they are valid. Most of the items I bring up above I heard third-hand or from rumors. Perhaps they run a fine news organization and just have editorial content I might find objectionable. No reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.
$150K to each YC startup barely moves the needle when compared to the overall amount of seed funding that goes on. It's nice for the YC class, but I doubt it'll have that much impact on the ecosystem as a whole. Maybe ultra-competitive seed deals will be less likely to have valuation caps.

As for whether valuations are creeping up and things are getting bubbly as a whole - perhaps, but so what? Bubbles are great for entrepreneurs, and despite their chaotic collapse and impact on investors, are arguably good for society as well. A lot of innovation takes place and progress gets made when money is cheap. After the bubble collapses, this innovation doesn't just vanish - instead, it sets the stage for further economic growth.
With out the community and the government those opportunities to get rich would not exist.

If the perfect world the rational rich person might realize this and protect and improve the system that allow people like himself to be possible.
Ask HN: Which audio book did you find is best narrated?
I prefer listening to something than reading. I want to start listening to audio books but main problem with them is if the narrator is not good then its no fun listening. So, I'm looking for some best narrated audio books (genre doesn't matter).

Who is your best audio book reader (narrator)? Can you suggest any best narrated audio books?
I didn't get that sense at all. The US military are great at spin, but what's really amazing is the eagerness of the US media to be spun.
When we think about drones we talk a lot about military operations. Sometimes I hear stuff on rescue but the theme is usually "tasks dangerous for people." I thought it would be interesting to think 100 years in the future when drones permeate everyday life and are used for the routine and mundane also. What will drones be doing then? I'd like to hear some of HN's most clever, outrageous, imaginative, but mostly, entertaining ideas. :-)
I'd love to see some demo apps.
I am with contagion on this one, the time to raise capital has been greatly reduced, and yes the valuations are up across the board in seed raises. The question is specific to the SV environment, it wasn't "is US technology in a macro bubble."
"But some things are not as clear: one of my current assignments is to write about travel in Thailand in the first person POV. Obviously, this is already a deception, but then, it’s often acceptable in the industry."

"And I don’t trust commercial websites anymore."

Today, I’ve come to a point where I am seriously rethinking whether I should continue being a cow, laboriously ploughing word fields for farmers looking to harvest internet traffic crops."
It's not far off. The US deficit in 2010 was $1.42 trillion, while discretionary spending was $1.36 trillion [1]. The total household income in 2006 was ~$7 trillion [2], of which the top 1% ("rich") make over 20%, which would be around $1.4 trillion in 2006. Presumably the number is lower in 2010. Additionally, we couldn't really take 100% of that money in taxes, because they are already being taxed at 40% or so. It's not clear to me how to calculate total corporation income, but the deficit is about 10% of the GDP, so it's probably not true.

As far as I can tell, none of these numbers are exceptional (percentage-wise) compared to other countries.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budg...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... - mean income*number of households

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/06/us-income-gap-rich-...

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_pub...
Neverware Breathes New Life Into Schools' Aging Computers
3 Tutorials to Check Out This Weekend: Crisis Edition
How does top colors work? Where can you set the colors?
مسلسل العشق الممنوع الحلقة 161
I don't really hack my car either. I have a couple of times, but it is not something that I feel driven to do.

Same is true for my washing machine. I don't think I even understand all of the settings. Yet I use it regularly.

Does that mean I am not a hacker?

How many hacks must a hacker hack for a hacker to hack hacks?
Plus their employers get to write that extra amount off as an expense, and the employee doesn't have to record it as compensation. This means corporations are subsidized over individuals. This is one of the things the Obama health plan does a good job of fixing.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0128_egypt_riedel.asp...
@1, It's not because there is one reason for something, that that is the only reason. Law is an amalgamation of practical and moral considerations. It would be much more utilitarian if we'd neuter or euthanize everybody with an iq under 90 at age 18 or 25, yet we don't. Is it because of some other utilitarian reason? No we don't because it's a violation of a moral right to self-determination.

@2, I shouldn't say this but I'm getting downvoted left and right today anyway: why aren't you posting from North Korea if it's so great?

@4, this is in the margin. This discussion started with you claiming that "America's (presumable, most of the West's, or even most of the world's) set of rules don't even come anywhere close to representing your ethics", but the only thing you disagree with is some implementation detail (an implementation detail, oh irony, where the tradeoff between morality and utilitarianism was made more in the direction of utilitarianism - statutory rape serves to make prosecution easier).
The UX world has struggled to find its best fit in Agile. At SIGCHI Montreal a few years ago, it was a big topic of discussion where pain points were discussed much more than proposed solutions. I like Jeff Patton's view on UX in Agile, which is in the same vein as the 3 points you wrote down.
That depends on whether the law of diminishing marginal utility applies to money.
My tax plan is to eliminate income tax up to $90,000. After that, income is taxed at 100%. The government awards tax credits for everyone making less than that, so that everyone's salary + tax credits = $90,000.

"But wait," you say "How will we incentivize entrepreneurs if they can't earn more money?" For everyone making over $90,000 (approx. 11% of the population), their pretax salary is used to assign them national ranking that's publicly available, much like a ladder tournament, which could be subdivided into regions, industries, etc.

The rationale for this system is that we use one system - money - for two unrelated social purposes: reducing suffering and establishing status which incentivizes production. In my system, these purposes are less coupled.

The $90,000 number was calculated by dividing the total US income by the number of workers, so this would need to be adjusted yearly. If this system was applied globally, the average salary would be $25,000 which is quite a step up for billions of people. It means that today, humans create enough wealth annually so that every two-parent household on the planet could live like the American middle class.
Frankly, the great thing about leading edge datastore development right now is that it's all over the map. Many of them will fall off the map over time, but having a couple of additional models to add on to the current great RDBMS tools can only be a plus.

I imagine that a significant driver of datastore heterogeneity is that there are a number of very different in-house datastores that are supporting extremely successful commercial ventures. It used to be that "you don't get fired for choosing Oracle." Now that Amazon and Google, etc, have paved the way, it's much more feasible for a corporate infrastructure developer to try to find a way off of the high-dollar proprietary systems like Teradata.

I also think it's interesting to note that some (most?) of the largest scale commodity RDBMS users couldn't get close to where they are without something like memcached.
Data Informed not data driven: How Facebook does product (long)
Systemic bias, plus negative media during the Bush period (i.e. Iraq war).

I think receiving the Bin Laden tapes was probably what ruined their US reputation (which is ironic; seeing as getting those tapes is what any good, objective, media agency in that region should have been doing! :D)

Al Jazeera is one of the best news sources I know of - they report on a region fraught with extreme opinions, differing cultures and a lot of nastiness (both from within and without). And manage to do it well/consistently.

That is my impression of English Al Jazeera anyway, have no experience of the Arabic arm (and I feel it would be silly to automatically assume they are the same :)).

Interestingly I find them a good source on Western stories too; when writing Wikipedia articles I will often use Al Jazeera both as a source & to cut down into the meat of the story - they tend to have a "back to basics" style of journalism.

EDIT: BTW, over the Egypt issue I have been enjoying their coverage; a lot less flag waving than the Western media. They just had an interesting report about the problems of looting and thugs inciting violence in the crowds.
They can. http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
Great question and great discussion. As well as the topics other people mentioned, I'd also add two more things:

1) Al Jazeera's model and cost structure is incredibly threatening to large US media corporations, which influences their coverage

2) There's a fair amount of anti-Arab feeling in the US -- some political, some historical, some flat-out racist.
It's difficult to take this article seriously when it doesn't practice what it preaches.

Also, "pro's"?
Whenever I try, it barely works and usually crashes. Right now, barely works would be a kind description.

The stations I get via cable/sat tv etc don't have scaling problems of this sort. They might have crap coverage and you could argue that is a scaling issue of some sort but.. at least I can manage to watch.
From what I understand, this stems largely from the fact that they were the only major news organization with an embedded presence in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war (others being unable to get in after it broke out due to the lockdown.) Their ability to report the actions of the IDF and provide graphic images to back it up did far more to generate international condemnation of Israel at the time than any other voice. They played a similar role more recently with a reporter aboard the Mavi Marmara, although he was able to get far less real-time footage out.