skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This hits close to home for me. My wife is currently going through the process to get a one-year internship to for her psychology doctorate, which is required for graduation. Having to pay for the privilege is an understatement - her university counts this as a 'class' so the tuition cost for her to turn in some paperwork at the end of the year will be about $3000. In addition, with gas at $4/gallon, there'll be about a $200/mo commute cost for the next year. So far the internships she's looked at pay a $5000 stipend for the whole year.

Of course that pales in comparison to the cost for child care for this year; most of the child care we've looked at in the Bay Area is ~$1700/mo, so her internship is going to cost us about $20,000.

I don't see this system changing anytime soon. As it stands, there are fewer internship slots than there are students. Because it is so competitive, my wife has already been declined by two agencies which had openings directly related to her thesis. I already don't understand how more placements aren't willing to get nearly-free labor, so forcing employers to pay some kind of minimum wage for interns will only reduce the number of slots available to students. Indeed, in addition to all of the indirect costs (child care, etc) we would gladly write someone a check for her to have an internship in the area so that she can finish this year. If she is deferred because there are no placements, it is another year before she starts a "real job".
That's all true - but we frequently pretend that it isn't. How often do we read or see someone push themselves forward as the Voice of Dispassionate Truth, when the reality they are as much a "true believer" as any other partisan?

How often to we entrust the role of Gatekeeper to someone only to discover they've been using their position to engage in insider trading?

As long as we allow people to put themselves forth as harbingers of Truth, nothing will change.
I don't really agree. If you use some goofy username, then sure - maybe you need to do that. If you just have your username equal to your actual name, then they should be able to find you quite quick.

I don't like putting my email on a page that spambots can scrape at will. Sure, you can obfuscate it with a (d a_imy oyo (AT) gma il) but humans can pick that out.
Is this real? Everyone sounds like an obvious caricature of themselves.
The Elusive Search for Happiness……
I'm new here (this is my first comment by the way, so hello everybody), but I'm sorry to see a long-time contributor go.

The fact that I'm new doesn't mean I don't see that the signal-to-noise ratio is not really good. I came across some very good and inspirational articles, but also a lot of things that in no way have something to do with the reason people follow HN.

And I share z92's belief in a cool community we have yet to discover.

On the other hand, this is probably the fate of every community: it's great while few people are a part of it, but its quality degrades rapidly when it gains serious traction.

Best of luck, even though we don't know each other.
Like any strong company, Microsoft needs to acknowledge and act upon new trends, not theorize and hope that markets will adjust and have a space open for their Oldies-but-goodies products. If Microsoft wants to stay relevant, they need to have an organized structure of market research, design, and innovation through all levels of the company. If Microsoft continues treading tech water, they will be nothing more than a giant software library, skittishly sucking up new ideas and hoping for the best. Innovation on a broad scale is not easy, but it would keep microsoft in the forefront of the tech industry and set it ahead of their trendy competitors. Acknowledgment of mediocrity is the big first step, and a culture of innovation and design will follow.
It's finished when you have a disaster and recovery plan. If you don't have everything being backed up in some way, you're just running programs and waiting for them to die, or for accidental mistakes to be made and data to be lost.

At the beginning, this can be simple as a 3 or 4 line script that compresses all your files, dumps the database, and copies it offsite, which you run on a daily/hourly basis.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: Blogging and the iron law of oligarchy
After you subtract the cost of the credits, how much are you left with? Hourly rate?
I know in some European countries (I'm thinking specifically of Germany) it's much more common for employees to be issued a company car than it is in the US. Is that true in the UK as well? Or are there other things commonly provided as in-kind employment benefits that would otherwise cost a lot of money?
On Bushido, launch apps from github repos
First Jeff Atwood kept posting all the links to HN in his blog. Now people are perceiving this is the new TechCrunch? Wow.
Ask HN: Does Google give a third_party access to a user's history?
Does Google give a third_party access to an user's history after taking the said user's permission.

For example, does Greplin get an access to my Google account's web history if I register for their service.
PS3,PC,And Xbox360 Hacking Forum|| + ISO's and Game Backups All FREE
Does that take into account that in the US a lot of healthcare spending is done by employers and thus wouldn't even be included in incomes?
I think you need to take another look at the connection between western intellectuals and communism. They defended it and, for decades, denied the abuses and murders committed in the Soviet Union and in communist China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
People understand this is why other people release betas right? To test new things? To test unfinished products? To gather early feedback?
I've been using Unity for a month or so in Maverick Meerkat (10.10) and I find it great for daily usage, in spite of it's minor glitches.
Once again, you're misinformed and you're still being extremely rude to preach about how science works. I'd be positively shocked if you have as much of a background in the hard sciences as I do. Setting your implications about my ignorance aside for the moment, I'll share some supporting research:

A 2010 systematic review found that most studies suggest spinal manipulation achieves equivalent or superior improvement in low back pain and function when compared with other commonly used interventions for short, intermediate, and long-term follow-up.

Dagenais S, Gay RE, Tricco AC, Freeman MD, Mayer JM (2010). "NASS Contemporary Concepts in Spine Care: Spinal manipulation therapy for acute low back pain".

Many, many other citations of relevant research can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_manipulation#Effectivene...
The 'move on' part doesn't exactly speak well for capturing new customers. Certainly not well enough that you'd sacrifice a better, more appropriate name?
No, it doesn't mean that. If anything comes of any of the experiments it will be posted to my blog or web site, and I'll probably tweet it as well. If people read those and think they're relevant, they'll get posted here.

Certainly anyone who helps will get personal replies.
I imagine the reason that his student didn't get hired was because very few tech companies would hire a manager straight out of university.

People or product management isn't something you can learn in a classroom, but something you need to learn by doing. While larger companies like Microsoft will take graduates into product manager roles, startups (especially funded ones) tend to prefer hiring managers with experience or domain expertise.
This strategy is ripe for gaming indirectly and influencing organizations to hire based on race, rather than merit. You're going to end up with some bad hires to just to fit the quota. Not a nice solution.

edit: I'm an Asian, if that matters.
Certainly the amount of over-confidence, downplaying and sheer denial over the Fukushima incident has been quite astonishing to witness. Repeatedly, pundits of all kinds lined up to insist that the plant was in a safe condition and that everything was under control and that there was no possibility of contamination spreading beyond the plant perimeter. It may take some time before we know the full extent of the environmental damage. If I was living in the north or Japan I'd be extremely concerned about the health effects over the next few years and decades.
It's an exaggerated portrayal of the differences in Earth's gravitational field, not a depiction of the actual shape of the Earth.
Users always resist change. We should not be afraid to change because of that. Unity has a huge potential IMHO and the best time is when unity does not do very much. It will evolve with people learning to use it. "Release Early, Release Often". I am completely with Canonical, Mark and Ubuntu. The fate favors the brave. Go for it Team Ubuntu.
As for the geeks, they know how to take care of themselves.
Data Mining Thesis Scripting
The writing of a data mining thesis is not an easy task. To be able to write a good data mining thesis, students need to understand what data mining is. With understanding of what a data mining thesis is and how to write one, students will be able to handle the task efficiently.
Well, I guess the quality of the name is another point entirely, and the scheme might unravel there. :) I just thought it was an interesting idea. If the quora spike did come from Tron, I think it's at least interesting to consider engineering such an accident. It might be good, bad, or a wash, but IMO I think the bounces would be an overall positive. The name... that is another problem.
Geoid measurements aren't a measurement of what the earth's surface actually looks like, but what it looks like mathematically through gravitational measurements. Because the Earth's uneven distribution of mass, the object never looks like a sphere (although to be clear, the Earth is actually oblate spheroid -- it's like someone sat on a ball just a little bit, and that ball is bulging at its sides).

Additional reading if you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth#Geoid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid
I don't want to identify the company or the agency...
The half life of most software is 18 months or less (the number of users decreases by half), so you can be way sloppier in it's construction.
> how this guy ever became a president?

Democracy ensures a people gets the leader is deserves.

And, before you shoot me, remember I am from Brazil and we just had 8 years of Lula. Yes, we got what we deserved too ;-)

As far as Reagan is concerned, he was not the worse Americans did to themselves, by far. Could have been, but he got incredibly lucky.
Simon van der Meer
You might want to review the history of industrial pollution in the US - and remember that it was all the miraculous promises of science that brought us TMI, Love Canal, mercury poisoning in fish, smog and everything else.

To the average person, it seems obvious to them that "scientists" are why companies can strip away entire mountains, it was "scientists" that killed all the eagles with DDT, and, above all, it's "scientists" who assure us that "ingredient X" give us cancer, or high blood pressure, or whatever, and then, 10 years later its "scientists" who then turn around and hail "ingredient X" as the a panacea that will ensure you live a long and healthy life.

Now, you and I both know that's not how science works - but that's certainly how it's perceived.
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You invoke "the science" as if it is some infallible magic spell which always shows truth. Unfortunately, "the science" is too often a set of results commissioned by imperfect humans juggling budgets, grant proposals, biases and conclusions they are expected to reach. It has been very wrong before and no doubt will be again.

Funnily enough I might have wholeheartedly agreed with you before my wife, who suffered from back pain which numerous conventional health care professionals have failed to correct, was recommended by a friend to see a chiropractor. She did, with immediate and excellent results; her back problems are now largely a thing of the past.

Yes, another "meaningless" personal anecdote, I don't expect to convince you. But it's caused me to examine my former blind belief in "the science", especially when it comes to health.
Take good care Colin, enjoy your longer days and please stay in touch.

Thanks for your tireless efforts at making HN a better place, they'll be sorely missed.

Where else would one find a juggling, programming mathematician :)
I would love to see this with the background sound of running ASR-33s...
In my case, $500 went to the university (less than what they'd normally charge for the two credits), which works out to about a 42¢ decrease in my hourly pay.
Maybe what the startup community needs is a closed forum, something like Forrst where you need an invite, and if you violate the community rules both you and your inviter gets punished.

There are advantages in having an open community in that it encourages people thinking about startup and not well connected to the community to get involved, but I'm starting to think the benefits of a closed community may outweigh the disadvantages.
Where do Microsoft hire their designers from? How can one of the richest companies in the world not be able to hire crack designers to actually produce something more than a glossy tacky UI.

Or is Microsoft so engineer/developer focused that they let the engineers design the interfaces that normal every-day people will use.

And if Windows 8 is supposed to be the touch friendly OS from the ground up, why are they still relying on Ctrl + Alt + Del and implementing that god awful Ribbon UI across the board?
I know about the hydrothermal vents, but I don't think nature needs them.

The sun example was discussed to death in another thread. Sorry, I think it is just a silly comparison.
It's plausible. They were approaching a new technology they barely understood and knew they were being watched and recorded.

And, while on IRC, I most probably look like an obvious caricature of myself ;-)
I must be missing something. How is it possible that they don't have umpteen copies of the sources checked out of whatever source control system they are using? Even if the central repository was destroyed, every developer should have a more or less recent version checked out somewhere.
I think of Microsoft like a talking head on TV; they may be interesting or entertaining if I am bored, but they are just spewing opinions and are not directly involved in the topics they opine about. Microsoft has not taken actions proving that it knows anything about how to market a tablet, so its opinion has only entertainment value.
> I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs.

Hmmm... I'm making 6 figures as an engineer. I really doubt my brother the heavy equipment operator can say the same.
Twitter Now Censoring Links
me too, flagged but it won't go away
To be fair, IBM trying to be more like Apple (among other microcomputer makers) resulted in Microsoft ;-)
> WinFS was marketing through vaporware.

That may be how it looks from the outside, but from the inside that's not what it looked like at all. The WinFS team Truly Believed in what they were building. They tried to get Office on board with coordinating data through there; tried to get the OS on board; tried to get all the app partners together to make the whole "queryable store with all of your information and explicit relationships between all items" vision work.

But, the tech just couldn't get there, no matter how well that team delivered. They were in the worst possible space. Below them, they had huge dependencies on the .NET framework, which was at the time proven for small applications but still in its infancy scaling up to a system-wide service, and WinFS was not the top-tier internal client that Avalon, SQL Server, and many others were. Above them were a huge set of application dependencies, none of whom wanted to make a bet until they knew WinFS was a winner (playing dependency chicken -- you're on our schedule because our VP demands it, but I'll only do my work when you show me that everyone else has done theirs).

Of course, I was just in developer tools at the time and only saw it as a third party, so my view could be a bit off. But I'd caution against assuming that there is some amazing marketing organization at MSFT that is carefully concocting ill-scoped and ill-planned projects just to maliciously steal airtime from your favorite other projects. The reality was quite different. Sometimes, projects fall short of their plans. And if they're ambitious, sometimes becomes often.
I don't know how common my thoughts are on this compared to other people, but if I were to voice-interact with my technology, I'd prefer that it was like interacting with Hal or Jeeves. Memorizing a list of commands and syntax to say out loud would be simple enough, but the thought of such strict syntax turns me off. Spoken language has always been fluid, fun, and spontaneous in my experience, and I hate the thought of it becoming like concrete.

I realize others think differently, but I wonder whether I'm truly alone or not on this.
Why would Top Gear use a calculated track capacity number (55 miles), given that they could have measured an actual number?

Probably because they had a show to shoot. They where apparently already having trouble getting all the shots they needed due to the short battery life, combined with the break problems. I'm guessing they simply didn't have the time to take the car out again and run it until the battery died.
This is particularly dangerous, and I really worry about health sites in general, because if people trust the advice too much, they may not choose to go to doctor (rising health care costs, no insurance, ...) in lieu of listening to advice from the site. Then, when a severe case breaks out, people will spend weeks trying others' recommendations rather than getting a real diagnosis

Not to be a Debbie downer, but Im curious as to how you could indicate when a symptom is serious enough to warrant real help. Unless you try a Quora style system (only allowing doctor rs to respond)
There are variations in responses people have to text, but for the most part, there's a general range of what's prefered by the masses. Since web pages are solely created to communicate to people, it makes sense that time spent understanding readers' responses to text would be crucial in web design. I understood that from your article.

I teach reading and have read a lot on how the eye moves across the page, how information is brought in through text, font type and size, color and so on. Overall you have a good general point, people don't want to work to read. Key points I like are...

1. don't use small text,
2. use contrasting colors that aren't too stark,
3. create line spacing that doesn't over-crowd (1,5) and,
4. use white space.

I love sites where there's just enough text on a screen to allow me to fully engage in it before scrolling. Everyone wants a pleasurable web experience, especially those wanting traffic!
I didn't expect the word to get out so fast! I've known about Bushi.do for a couple weeks now, and it's really as revolutionary as Jacques says.

And I'm really honored that Sean chose to feature a project I'm working on, LocomotiveCMS, as a way to show Bushi.do's capabilities.
Hadapt: A platform for data analytics
I haven't been a part of the community for very long but have come across a number of threads that had your cross-postings or insight on the subject at hand. I enjoyed seeing your contributions and am sad to see you go. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on your blog.

(Also: loved your username)
"TinyGrab was attacked and the attacker was able to gain access to one of their servers. Although the details are scarce, the attacker corrupted the codebase for TinyGrab 1. The TinyGrab team was forced to migrate their entire userbase to the newest version, a version which wasn’t completely ready for yet."

I didn't find any mention of it in TFA, but do people just not do backups anymore? Or rolling, dated backups? My wife owns a small retail/web store, and I backup her Quickbooks, the database, and the source code nightly, and keep at least a few weeks of those backups on the drive where it's stored, 2 different backup drives, and and offsite place.

Is this overkill? Perhaps, but it would have saved us from that.
Thank you for sharing so much interesting stuff. It has come to the point where, if I see your name next to a submission I think to myself "oh , here's a good one".

I wish you all the best.
TC pumped and dumped them. It will be interesting to see if they can stand on their own two feet but I doubt they will. The homepage is anti-new users, and if you register in spite of that you better subscribe to popular topics or else you'll have no new content and no reason to come back.
"and when the phone rings, the Xbox pauses automatically."

That sounds terrible.
Seriously, if you're not running backups and testing them, you're not done. It's unbelievably cheap insurance.

We started doing informal "keep this in each of our houses" off-site backups on simple burned discs from our first week, and bi-weekly dumps to Iron Mountain a few months later.

Spend some time making sure the backups actually work. We found errors in our source repository that we had to write tools to fix, but since we budgeted some time, it wasn't a big deal.
Quantcast (http://www.quantcast.com/quora.com) and Compete (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/quora.com/) are better tools to measure traction. Looks like they've had a slight decline lately. With all the buzz they received early this year, I'm not surprised it's lower.
RiderOfGiraffes: I feel the same dilution since joining over three years ago, especially lately.
Perfect! I live in Germany, but I'm not a citizen, so my political engagement is usually somewhat limited.

I'll take a closer look later, but the short answer seems to be "everything". Mostly solar everywhere and wind in the countryside and offshore, but also hydro, geothermal, and biomass.
> Any decent H.R. manager knows that diversity in the workplace is absolutely essential.

I've seen this mantra for years, but I've yet to see any actual studies that shows it to be true.

Or did you mean from a legal perspective?
Matt Cutts: Overdoing URL removals
i think he came across as a patriot and presidential. after reading this, i am not surprised he went on to become president of our nation. and we are better off because of it.
I totally agree with this, but it's kindof sad to see people just give up on this community.

I've seen some things tried in the past (like hiding karma in comment threads), and I think it would be great if we could try a few more things in the future.

I'd love to see HN try making users "earn" karma. You "spend" your karma when you upvote or downvote somebody. Upvotes cost one point, downvotes cost two. This is good because it incentivizes people not to downvote people (it's "expensive"), and also prevents brand new users who don't yet understand the conventions from downvoting things just because they disagree with them.

I think that one of the big problems lately has been comments being inappropriately downvoted. I asked a question a couple of days ago about how google justifies things like google charts (which I use heavily), and was downvoted to -4 for it. 3 years ago (when I joined) this wouldn't have been the case.

Meanwhile I'm starting reddit-style to see joke threads pop up in the comments.

I really think that a lot of this is new users, and I really think that slashdot's style of earning the right to moderate is a solid concept. We should try it.
he doesn't want crack anymore. he wants that brown. i feel him.
Check out Forrst. It might be what you are looking for. http://forrst.com/