skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Imagine you threw a single stone into the desert and asked your friend to go find it. It would be hard. Now imagine you threw 2 stones into the desert and asked your friend to go find them. It is twice as hard to find both stones as it is to find 1 stone. Imagine you threw 3 stones. It is 3 times as hard to find all 3 stones as it is to find 1 stone.

Now imagine that numbers are built out of stones. To "build" a 1, you only need 1 stone. But to "build" a 2, you need 2 stones. Thus, if you wanted to write a 3, you would have to go in the desert and find 3 stones. It's 3x as hard, and so you'd expect people to "build" 1/3 as many 3's as 1's, 1/5 as many 5's as 1's, and so on. Just as you'd expect there to be a lot more single story buildings than skyscrapers. It's easier to build a single story building.

Thus, the distribution is exactly what you'd expect. While it doesn't actually take stones to build numbers, we don't write the number 3 unless we have 3 of something. Unless you are lying. Which is why this is a great method of detecting fraud.

UPDATE: What do I mean when I say "3 times as hard"?

Imagine the desert is a rectangle of 10 squares. Kind of like a mancala board or a ladder on the ground. You start by stepping in square 1, and to get to square 10 you have to step through each square.

If there is only 1 rock, what are the odds that you'll have to walk all 10 steps to find it? This is the same thing as asking what are the odds that this rock is in square 10. The answer is 1/10 or 10%.

Now, if there are 3 rocks, what are the odds that you'll have to step into all 10 squares? Well, what are the odds that there's a rock in the last square? 26.1%, or approximately 3x as hard. It's interesting that it's not exactly 3x as hard, it's 2.61x as hard. Which makes the data in the OP seem even more logical since you'd expect 30.8% 1's given 11.8% 3's--the 32.62% actual number is not that far off.
Serious question - Wonder how LastPass makes money then? (free or $1/month)

Or can we say that once you have acquired x number of customers at %5-7/month, it may then be easy/feasible to switch over to $1/month model since you already have a "traction" at this point
Making mud huts doesn't seem very realistic in the middle of a sandy desert, a war zone or a disaster area. Nor are they entirely easy or quick to build & their ability to cool would be temperamental & inconsistent.
It isn't hypocritical. Facebook is a giant startup, after all. Perhaps much of the loose, casual culture still remains there, and you don't have to worry about the corporate shell games and hierarchy that financial firms like GS would have in scads.
2 IITians turn down lucrative job offers, tread new path in farming
In February 2011, they founded an NGO, 'Farms n Farmers (FnF)', which does everything from soil testing to providing a market to farmers. Its activities have now expanded to adjoining districts including Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Banka and Purnia.
I was expecting to see DMCA takedown requests included in this too. Still, pretty interesting to see these numbers in relation to other nations.
I can't even begin to think how Google could pull out of the US. I can't begin to imagine how the economy and markets would respond to that. Moreover, I doubt anyone at Google even has the authority to make such a move. I believe there's a clause somewhere that redistributes decision-making power, if the head has gone insane. Pulling out of the US, I would imagine, would constitute insanity to most shareholders.

On a second point, I don't even believe Google should have pulled out of China. This is clearly a moral judgment on my part. Baidu has replaced Google in China, and their censorship is just as bad, if not worse, than what Google would've been subjected to. I've been told that not doing anything, is just as bad as doing something bad - and I believe it. By pulling out, Google may have absolved itself from immediate guilt, but what's the end result? If they had stayed in, they could have at least had half a say in what was going on.

Lastly, there's a clear bias in sentiment towards the Patriot Act here, and in the highly intellectual community. I need to remind everyone that while sometimes it seems like we're the majority of the world, universities, start ups, and high-end jobs account for a small percentage of the world we're living in. Add to this, the fact that people remember disaster a thousand times longer and intensely than peace and prosperity, and I think the reasons for this act's existence comes into place. I don't particularly agree with the Patriot Act either, but I doubt it's something that will go away any time soon. Thus is the problem with short-term election democracy. Everyone's wondering how they can be re-elected in the short term, and stop caring about the long term.
You're right, it's situations like that which brought up this idea. Some way to reliably document a statement or idea and the date just seems like a useful service.

The notarization would be a bit difficult since each state has their own rules and laws. Additionally, I think they all have a residency requirements, at least the two states I've been a notary in did.
If I could fit that into my budget, I would have been living in a nicer place to begin with. :P
the supreme court's "liberals" and "conservatives" aren't really divided along the lines that exist in the legislature. scalia is a pretty strict constitutional originalist and pretty consistently gives broad support to free speech.
Prediction: Apple phasing out pro software
It's more simple than that: Scalia is a constitutional originalist. He belongs to the right-wing judicial camp that believes the constitution means what it says. Sometimes he gets it wrong and I have no doubt his personal life and culture influences his decisions. But a strong first amendment stance is consistent with originalism.

Outsiders might not realize it but not all "conservatives" are cut from the same cloth. There is a rich and diverse right-wing ideological taxonomy.
"It was something I could probably code in a weekend or so"

I think that's a key point. You look at the solution, think about the effort required for the value it gives you, and $10 feels about right.

For someone who can't produce it themselves, the value is usually much higher - and related to the size of the problem solved, not the amount of effort required to solve it. I don't know whether that applies in your specific case (for example, selling a 'one use' service on a subscription basis may not be the best plan), but it's a useful general point I thought of reading your comment.
Someone please make this!
I like the history section of the wikipedia article:

<blockquote>The discovery of this fact goes back to 1881, when the American astronomer Simon Newcomb noticed that in logarithm books, the earlier pages (which contained numbers that started with 1) were much more worn than the other pages.</blockquote>

Can you imagine the sense of observation and curiosity that would make someone look at a book of numbers and say, "I wonder why these pages are more worn than those ones."
Baidu has replaced Google in China, and their censorship is just as bad, if not worse

I disagree with you on that point, that's not far off from the sort of logic that it's not immoral to be a contract killer because if you weren't doing it, someone else would be hired and the target would die either way. Your logic isn't quite as basic, but you could extend to "if I let someone else be hired for this murder they might do it in a less humane way".

And, obviously, don't think I'm comparing web censorship with murder on the moral scale, just comparing the justification for being a part of something you disagree with.
By comparison, the NASA budget is $20 Billion.
The cost to give every child in America a free school lunch is $20 Billion.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is requesting less than $8 Billion this year.
The entire National Institute of Health (NIH) budget is $31 Billion.
The Environment Protection Agency responsible for assuring breathable air & safe water against every corporate interest is asking for less than $9 Billion this year.
The U.S. “Smart Grid” industry is worth $21 Billion.

Et cetra.
Apple may release two iPhone models this fall
How about:

if ready? && set? then fight!
Proof of that is the success of airlines like Ryan Air. The CEO (don't remember his name) said something like: people don't care about drinks and pretty stewardesses, they care about getting cheaply from A to B (even if it means shitty seats, no food, earlier boarding times, etc...).
Hey Shiun. I really doubt you're going to find many Western men who think of any sexual service as part of a PR agent's role.

That said, (and I mean no offense!) the choices you give do stand out very much. If you'd like a little help rewriting this for an Western (well, American) audience, I'd be glad to help. My email's in my profile, just click on my name!
I've been using Jenkins to do every single thing I used to do in cron these days. Lots easier to visualize execution, and catch potential errors. More overhead, yes. Saved me tons of time, yes.
Do you know what to do when the police try to seize your computer or phone?
Just depends. The cops will still screw with you, hence, "You can beat the rap but you can't be the ride."
Following your tip by curiosity, I googled one my old passwords, which was leaked in the most recent Lulzsec release (in MD5 form).

And there it was, in cleartext, on the second page of the search results, along with the username that I used on battlefield heroes beta.

It was on a pastebin with another 60k combinations of usernames and passwords.

The password was only 6 characters in size though (along with every other on that pastebin), so I guess that made it a certainty that it would get cracked.
"Dear Google: If you want us to trust you to not be evil, why do you position your company and our personal data in a place (the USA) where the ruling regime can freely do all the evil they want, regardless of your organization’s basic philosophy?"

Oh, I can answer that: Because they have to exist somewhere, and they haven't yet started their own country.

When mankide moves into space and Google can claim an asteroid or planet all of their own, they can make the rules and won't be subject to someone else's. But on Earth, there is nowhere that fits that description.

Today's Utopia of freedom is tomorrow's den of villainy. I mean, prior to the Patriot Act, the US -was- that place. If the US can't stop from going down that route, why believe anyone else can?
1. Involving your friend in your wife's employment is a huge no-no. It only makes you more dependent on him, and he certainly knows this. If he places your wife in a job, don't be surprised to see him leveraging this in the worst way possible if things don't work out as expected.

2. You are maximizing a stake that isn't yet worth anything, and may never be worth anything. 20% of $0 is $0, just as 25% of $0 is $0. Perhaps a better way to look at this: figure out how much this venture would need to be making before the total value of your compensation package (equity and any eventual salary) would exceed what you're already making now at your six-figure job. The number is probably much larger than you think it is.

3. If your compensation is stock granted outright for services, you should be aware that this may create undesirable tax consequences for you. You should speak with an experienced accountant about this.

4. The fact that your friend needs to continue working to fund the venture is a huge red flag. What if he loses his job? What if he has a medical emergency? What if his wife divorces him? If you're going to get in bed with an "investor", he should be putting in most if not all of the cash up front. Which begs the question: if your friend says he's prepared to invest $15,000/month for 10 months, is he capable of transferring $150,000 to the new company tomorrow? It doesn't sound like it.

Again, the risk you're concerned about is a result of the fact that you are pursuing a deal structure that makes no sense. I would highly recommend retaining competent legal counsel before you go any further.
Google Voice Search in French, German, Japanese, Spanish & 47 other languages
But as a Linux user, what really are the alternatives to Dropbox for online file storage?

What?

My guess that there aren't any "alternative" because the problem Dropbox aimed to solve wasn't a problem limited to what flavor of operating system their target demographic chooses to use.

Do you want to sync or share files using an interface that you're already pretty familiar with and (hopefully) are accustomed to (the file browser), Dropbox.

I don't understand the question if it's being applied to one operating system, when it's a function that is inherent to all OSes; the desire to share files-given that Dropbox works Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
I haven't kept up on the debate. Why would new TLDs be worthless, approximately?
See this: http://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=35b716c94225

tl;dr: It is Apple's fault, OS X is buggy and so far there are no known good workarounds, if you know any I'm sure Russ would love to hear about it.
It wasn't, but it was my understanding that that self-policing was in effect because they didn't want the law to exist.

Now that the law -can't- exist, will the self-policing continue?
Last week I was reading an article about producing random text that was disturbingly close to human-produced by analyzing word frequency of massive amounts of data.

It seems that it would be cheaper to produce articles this way instead of hiring low-wage workers to do it.

Hmmmm...I guess there's some money in there for someone who'd stoop to that.
Yes. As a taxpayer in one of the higher tax brackets (like most here are i presume) I sincerely hope they plan infrastructure on established bases the way you describe.

The US Military has a habit of staying where it goes. Many people have opinions on that, I do not, but I am a realist so I think its fair to assume that if you've got a large, established base in a warzone (like the Green Zone in Baghdad), treat it like you'll be using it for 100 years. Because if history is any indication, you will be.
Also, as vague as "community standards" are, it does seem to me that they have some value in regulation. For instance, would you be in favor of allowing pornographic billboards in your town? What if the porn was political in nature?

I would still say that in that case, freedom of expression must be balanced against the community's moral standards. That may be vague, but it's real; I think there would be a pretty broad consensus among parents of all religious stripes, for example, that they don't want such billboards up where their children would see them.
Clever and totally pointless - my first publication
That's a moral-judgment argument that's landing on the side of a slippery slope. I suppose, the best way to think about this is to address it by adding to it: If the market only has room for one contract killer, and you decide to only take on 75% of the clients who come to you, would it be better for you to stay in the business or let someone else take your place?

Obviously, you face a moral dilemma either way. You don't want to kill, but you can stop 25% of the people from dying, by continuing to kill. I see this as more the situation that Google was in, rather than a flat out replacement logic. Ultimately, I think which way we answer depends on how we see the world, and what moral principles we use to govern our own lives; I doubt everyone will agree on this.
I think I've found something I shouldn't have. Wave in a Box Demo
HTC EVO 3D Brings 3-D to Smartphones
Provy is a provisioning system in python
LastPass does it the usual way - they've got a premium (enterprise) product which they sell for $12-$24 per user per month. They can then write off any losses from the free product.

https://lastpass.com/enterprise_roicalculator.php
When your mental model of a person fails to produce correct predictions, that's a sign that your mental model needs updating.

People seem particularly prone to holding on to caricatures of political figures even after the evidence strongly suggests the caricatures are incorrect. I think most of the Supremes are not adequately captured by "conservative/liberal" or "dumbass/intelligent" (for suitably egocentric definitions of "intelligent").

In this particular case, I think you have a poor sense of what "original intent" argumentation is about. Original intent arguments don't actually center around what the founders "envisioned" in the sense of their ability to imagine the future. It's much more like, if we took the founders and educated them about the present, what would they think? It's a challenging thing to do, but perhaps not impossible. It's not hard to imagine them agreeing video games are a form of speech, given the diversity of forms speech had even in the late 1700s.
Apple is building two iPhones for September release
Fishy Chips and Hack-Proof Circuits
My car gets 50-55 MPG and could auto-route me places if I want. It starts when I shove a piece of plastic in in and push a button. It makes no noise below 10mph, later models of this car make no noise below higher speeds.

My car has changed loads.
Noone will miss them much when they strike? Regardless of how "large" the supply of cabin-crew is; a strike that cancels flights will still affect my hypothetical holiday, and I will miss them an awful lot. That's more because there's a latency in the training duration and short-term availability of staff, than because there's a labor shortage for aircrew. (My understanding is that cabin crew is an exceptionally competitive job with many more applicants than successful employees).
The more important question is: What kind of political pressure is Google providing to fight against complying the PATRIOT act?

If none... how is that do no evil?
True. Also worth remembering, however, is that you can't definitively say that their replacement is doing more/worse than Google would have done - after all, if Google weren't willing to walk away, that could ultimately mean complying with the Chinese government just as much as any other company - we just didn't see it get that bad because they did pull out before then.
Apple's Flashy Music Margins
Royal Dutch Mint introduces first QR coded coins
I'm especially happy of multi-touch and proper contentEditable support. MeeGo Forums have more discussion on the browser
While I don't think it was presented as such, the "start your own airline" comment is, to me, the correct response to "people aren't being paid what they deserve". It turns out we are unlikely to agree as to what people deserve to be paid for their jobs, so we have decided the most fair thing to do is rely on labor markets and competition.
Actually it doesn't sound like things have changed.

Here's a recent article detailing how Branson gave 8,500 Virgin Atlantic employees 2 week's holiday + 2 free tickets to fly anywhere on the airline's network as a 'birthday bonus' for loyal service:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194942/Virgin-staff...
Sprint wants to kill bloatware forever
LPTHW has a good rep, but it looks like it focuses on teaching someone who's never programmed before.

Would anyone like to recommend something similar for people already well versed in (a) mainstream language(s)?
Lets just drop the 5 from Perl 5
Though, I should say, that masks another contingency with possibly the same effect.

We have an economy which is predicated on cheap energy. As such it's frequently cheaper to produce goods by comparitively inefficient automated processes due to the reduction in manpower required, or to produce goods at distance from their end user as the reduction of labour costs from a remote supplier outweights the transportation costs.

It seems plausible that an energy scarce world could reverse the economics of both situations. It would have enough other consequences that I'm not at all suggesting it as some sort of worker's utopia, but greater employment may be an interesting side-effect.
I know the code snippet doesn't actually work, but I used it because it looks pretty cool. `if ready? && set? then fight!` is the first Ruby snippet one that I really like. :)
aka "the failed experiment of full page adverts". TL to wait for the link to appear to the article.
Things like this really just blow my mind. Our world is getting more and more complex each year, and out voters are not being more and more sophisticated. And our electioneering systems are not doing anything to aid that either.

I am an optimist but if our nation sees significant decline ahead, I think it's in no small part due to the drag of our BS political cluster^^^^ in Washington DC.

As a great American once said, "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man." The trouble to me is that we've got nobody minding the store. People support policies -- on both sides of the aisle -- that are obviously and objectively against their self interest because they buy into political advertising and dogma the same way they buy into I'm a Mac, I'm a PC.

I'm an optimist, but i see precious few problems being solved by those we the people hire to do our statecraft.
He could take into account the content of the comments on the poll, for one thing.

You're right that the results of the vote show a pretty clear 'winner'... I'm not sure that's the end of it, though.

If 1000 people wanted a specific feature in my app I would obviously take that seriously and consider it carefully. But it doesn't mean I have to do it, just that I should be paying attention.

I also think that the people who desperately want comment scores back are simply more vocal about it. I don't care all that much, and I don't remember if I voted in the poll or not (but I do remember seeing it on the frontpage). I think this should be taken into account, too. I'm sure 37signals gets thousands of emails asking them to add <pet feature>, and few asking them to leave that feature out. Just because your users want it doesn't mean you aren't still in charge.
It was a turnabout from these comments he made in 2008:

http://www.lawsofplay.com/articles/justice-scalias-opinion-o...
I really liked the Pinboard.in pricing scheme: start with very low prices (something like $1 subscription for life) to get passionate users talking about you and progresively make that price higher based in the number of users you get. No free plan to fight link spam. And a premium yearly plan that archives the content of your links.
Ask HN: fix the "Unknown or expired link" when you click on more
I frequently get the infamous "Unknown or expired link" page on HN. Could the maintainers of this site please improve this aspect?
It mostly happens like this: I read a full news story, click "back", scroll down and want to read the next page on HN. Boom.
Although I don't understand how he reconciles that with his rather strict views on "obscenity" and how that can be strictly regulated.

The constitution doesn't specifically address either, yet nudity can absolutely be regulated (or according to Scalia completely banned) while violence is just fine.
Foreground and Background Mind for Engineers
Yes, I do recognize that.

In the big picture, however, it's generally better to fix the part of a system that's broken (the PHY) than it is to try to compensate for the underlying problem in upper layers.

It's also good to be careful about your terms. "Mobile" means operation out of a car or other motorized moving platform. "Portable" means a device that's being carried by a pedestrian. When the bandwidth of a radio channel gets wide, these become very different environments.

All I can say about new protocols is that you can go to your local Uni and find (quite literally) a ton of conference proceedings on this very topic. It seems that somebody has been funding a ludicrous amount of research on TCP replacements for decades without anything practical coming out of it.

Out of all that literature you ought to be able to find something that works or find a good reason why it can't be done.