skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's true- no technology can change people's tendency to act in their own self-interest and vote for what benefits them. Individuals can't be expected to take into account the needs of the whole society. That's the the job of the voting system; it should take as input a set of selfish individual preferences, and produce the fairest possible group decision.

Our goal with Hyperarchy is to build a system that can achieve greater fairness. Clearly, the current electoral process has problems that lead to injustices. As a society, we need to move toward a more advanced system, and it's not going to happen unless we build some and experiment with them.

I appreciate your thoughts very much. I hope you'll try our site, and share any further feedback.
If you don't understand proofs, don't read any more maths books until you've read "Prove It":

http://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-Structured-Daniel-Velleman/dp/0521675995

Even though you'll learn to read and write rigorous proofs with this book, it's requirements are high school maths and doesn't assume anything.
The comments on this article on TC seem like a pretty strong argument for disabling Yahoo as a way to comment.
During Indo-Pak partition in 1947 the agreement is that all Muslim majority regions should be merged with Pakistan and all Hindu majority regions should be merged with India.

India betrayed by annexing Muslim majority Kashmir and Hyderabad.

UNSC passed multiple resolutions since 1948 advising India, Pakistan & China to give Independence to Kashmir, Tibet & Aksai Chin.

Obsession with Kashmir is burning rest of the India.
Patents in Apple-HTC case filed in 1994 and 1996, before smartphones existed
Love the scaling. Especially how the grid becomes stacked at mobile-width.
Italy Censors Proxy That Bypasses BTjunkie and Pirate Bay Block
And by running the story, the rightful owner might become aware of the situation and take action.
At http://testyourvocab.com/details.php#which_sample they explain how they chose the words the test is based on:

Quote:

Too limited. Words that are specifically American or British (in meaning or spelling), or slang, or scientific/medical, or anything labeled archaic, or anything else that isn't part of broad, general English. Also, no animals or ingredients, which depend too much on where you live.
Along with many of the flaws already adressed, the most relevant for me was "absolutely sure of" and also taking the words out of context. There were a good number of words that I was pretty sure I knew and had I read them in context would have been correct in my meaning and never given it a second thought.

I'm certain that if I took this same test using a base of 'novel in fulltext' vs. 'list of all unique words in the novel', my recog would be FAR better on the novel.
A truly invaluable life is comprised of the journey

Something worth remembering in all aspects of life, not just your career. Without the low-points the highs aren't as noticeable, and, in my experience, some of the hardest things I've experienced are also some of the memories I cherish the most.

I wish I could express this view in a less cheesy fashion, but I don't think I can. It's a cliché, but it also often happens to be the truth.
Got 21,500 or so. Even as a non-native speaker I was slightly disappointed with this result. Many of the words were just ridiculously obscure and esoteric, and I haven't even seen some of them anywhere in the literature I read.
At a certain point, somewhere in the middle ranges of these scores, formal education at even the best schools will stop having any effect on your vocabulary. It becomes more a matter of where someone's interest lies. Do they read? A lot? Outside of the usual curriculum?

And at the upper end, it's more about personal predilections than anything else. Are rare words like little gems that you save and collect?
Seems not
The readme compares this to the ruby racer (https://github.com/cowboyd/therubyracer):

Similarities:

Both are using similar integration with ruby's garbage collector. Actually, Mustang's code which handles that references is just improved version of TheRubyRacer's code (check the ext/v8/v8_ref.cpp).

Both are reflecting JS objects to ruby and vice-versa.

Diffs:

Mustang reflects all JavaScript objects and values properly. Properly, means all values from within V8 are reflected to Mustang::V8::* objects, regarding V8 inheritance tree which you can find here.

Once reflected ruby object (and vice-versa) is always the same object in ruby world.

All reflected V8 objects acts exacltly the same as ruby natives. For example you can deal with Mustang::V8::Array exactly the same as with native Ruby arrays (eg. they are comparable with ruby objects, etc).

Functions are reflected more accurately. Ruby objects' methods are represented properly.

Classes are converted to V8 function templates, so you can deal with them as with prototypes.

Different approach to deal with contexts, compiling JS scripts and exceptions handling.

Support for regexp reflections.

Way more friendly ruby api.

A very thorough test suite (over 250 tests passing on all ruby versions)

Clean codebase, less magic, fully documented.

Lower memory usage.
Don't Become a Scientist
Spanish here. Got an estimated vocabulary size of 17,7000 words. I lived and worked in the U.K for a couple of years. I think I might be in a better position than some of you when it comes to words derivated from Latin, as they are almost always the same in Spanish. Leaving those out I am sure I would get similar results.
"Aluminum-Celmet" could boost electric vehicle range by 300%
Here in Edinburgh I can get the bus times on my phone - there are iOs and Android apps, plus a mobile and desktop website.

http://www.mybustracker.co.uk/

It's incredibly handy, particularly as there are two bus stops I can take to get me to work, so I check the times as I'm leaving home and head to the one that's coming sooner.
I just realised my generation is now old enough to be complaining about younger generations.

I think the only "generational" debate worth having these days will be the funding of the pensions (promised to people but not always saved for) and medical procedures of the long-lived baby boomers whilst simultaneously dealing with the debt mountains in the West. The debt in the West is approaching, I think may have exceeded in some instances, levels just after the end of WWII. A nice big screen TV doesn't quite have the same quality as defeating fascism.
That will happen if you accidentally click on the weight loss pills advert, fairly unsurprisingly.
I'm in similar situation: 9,780 words.

I knew general meaning of many words I didn't check, but I couldn’t exactly define them. I know that I will understand the meaning from the context when I see them in some sentence.
> surprising that one can participate in scientific discussion with such a small vocabulary

Not really surprising since most of English scientific vocabulary comes from greek or latin roots and is more or less the same in other European languages.
AFAIK a bedside test is always done before a transfusion, simply because the records cannot be trusted even without malicious intervention (and a test is pretty easy to do).
Thanks, evilswan.
Do you have any feedback on how to improve it?
I will shortly release a video version of it.
Best,

Simone
The biggest difference between natives and non-natives is the amount of "passive vocabulary". Sure, we non-native English speakers can express ourselves well enough, we can participate in discussions, even on a high scientific level, as long as we're familiar with the problem domain. But because we've (I'm generalising, of course) read fewer English books, been exposed to the lingo for a lot less than natives, we're limited in our passive vocabulary. Having been exposed to a language for every waking hour of your lifetime doesn't just enable you to speak it better, it also teaches thousands of words you never use, but nevertheless know the meaning of.

On a side note: this makes me feel better about my 25k score ;-)
Dear US Government: Your stupid patent system is actually harming your economy.
100% malware detection in IE9
Ah, cool I know 80 english words. There must be something utterly wrong with how this test works in opera mini, clicking on continue on page two brought me to page one, going back and clicking continue again gave me just a subset of the choices from page one... (at least I guess it is 80, the number was displayed right over the middle of the word "words" in the result captcha).
I disagree. Dream and want it "so bad you can taste it". Then work hard to achieve it.
It is not buring rest of India. Also Kashmeer is a pretty much part of India and Indians love it. WE recently conducted a series of engineering workshops in Kashmeer. We were very surprised with the kind of enthusiasm the young crowd showed towards us. They were upset that because of few antisocial elements supported mostly by Pakistan they are unable to aspire their dreams like rest of the Indians. As far as legalities are concerned: http://satyameva-jayate.org/category/jammu-kashmir-related/

The problem cant not be solved on this forum but the hope is Pakistan is probably breathing it's last, it will get consumed in it's own fire of hatred sooner or later.
Hyderabad state had Muslim rulers but not a Muslim majority.
Oh no, they're taking us seriously! Quick, add more swastikas!

Heh, seriously, 9front development is done more in fun than anything else, but the 3 main developers are sufficiently talented that rapid progress is being made in several areas where most 9fans tend to struggle. Not only that but 9front's developers seem to be very good at avoiding getting bogged down in peripheral features which divert effort from the drivers and cleanups which Plan 9 really needs.
Ah, but what does it mean to ´function normally´? And why is that a worthwhile goal, especially if 50% of population needs to be pumped full of drugs to achieve it. If a guard in a torture camp experiences anxiety and despair, is that mental illness or an appropriate response to a perverse situation? You can ask the same question, albeit on a much lesser scale, about energetic ten year olds forced to sit through boring classes and learn by rote.

There is a lot of bs in psychiatry. That doesn´t mean there isn´t some wisdom there or the potential to help some people, but it is built on top of an extremely flimsy pseudo-scientific foundation, and it´s questionable whether it helps as many people as it hurts. If you find a good psychiatrist and it works for you, that´s great. I still think a fundamental skepticism is warranted, especially given the potential for serious physical and mental damage caused by these (very powerful) psychoactive drugs.
We Canadians pride ourselves as not being Americans ;-)
Use tab and space instead.
What Is Search Engine Placement?
Ruby and Python are very very close. When I initially chose Python to me it was a like a choice between chocolate ice cream and raspberry---one can't really critique something so subjective.

However as time has passed by and I have become competent at Python, I see some clear wins for Python where Ruby lags:

1. Machine Learning with PyML, et al. Python has some of the best tools for scientific programming by far.

2. Two order of magnitude improvements for numeric code using either:
- NumPy
- Cython
- PyPy

3. I prefer Cython to integrate C/C++ code to using any form of FFI.

Yes, the cultures are different but that rarely affects beginners.
Actually they have a link at http://testyourvocab.com/about.php:

"The companion Brazilian project can be found at howmanywords.com.br"

Which right now just says "Calcule o tamanho do seu vocabulário em inglês / Coming soon"
Similar experience, 17,400 words.

German, speaking English on a daily basis, had 8 years of English in school and 9 years of Latin, which probably helped me a bit. (Though I hope my teachers don't read this)

Does anyone know a similar test for grammatical proficiency?
Pears, just like apples, usually don't speak at all, let alone in foreign languages.

Sorry for the pun but since this is a thread about vocabulary and it's sunday when most of the regulars are away instead of procrastinating at work anyway I hope I may be forgiven.
I definitely agree with author's point about how A/C has shaped American life - not necessarily for the better and perhaps with significant downsides, most notably at a social level.

However, I feel like this section (which I consider beneficial without question) was glossed over.

And hubs of business and technology in hot regions of the globe, such as Dubai, may never have taken off... Computers throw off a lot of heat, too. The development of the entire IT industry might not have happened without cooling technologies first pioneered by air conditioning.

That said, I'm just as guilty as the next American. Living in Boston, there's not much I can do about avoiding snow, so at least I have the comfort of my A/C if it gets really bad in the summer. Though I do try to be responsible and limit use to primarily Air Conditioning (eliminating humidity) vs. Air Cooling unit.

[update]
As a follow up for anyone in climates which experience hot days but cool nights: if you own a house with an attic, a whole-house fan is a great investment vs. central A/C. In a matter of minutes a whole-house fan can create massive delta temp if it's cool outside at night. It's actually quite shocking how effective it is.

If you're home all day then perhaps not for you, since the best use is to get home from work and turn it on around dusk, turn off overnight (I have a timer set on mine) and next day close up all the windows first thing before work.
Tata is involved in https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nira_Radia
Nope, you've just been having the wrong dreams. Find the right ones and it won't matter how much you dream about it, when you get there it will be just as good.
oh really muslims are a minority and handled badly in INDIA,infact handling is so bad that:

* Pilgrimage to Mecca is subsidized by Indian Goverment.
* Imam freely talks in support of terrorists.

* Every company offers prayer rooms and allows time to pray. They do not make Temples or allow hindus to take a leave for going to Temples.

* Muslims freely block national highway on eid to show the strength in the name of offering prayer.

* Muslim population is on the rise and India has got more Muslims than Pakistan.
Just so that anyone lower feel good, I did only 8500, I need to read non tech topics probably and never lived in a english country.
I think I have assimilated enough US culture/vocab during a 10 yr stay. Of course studying English since the first grade probably helped a lot too. Non-Native (India) but scored 35,800 :)
Cheater ;-)
I was going to ask HN yesterday how many unfinished app they currently have. This stems from the fact that a developer with a popular app told me currently he has 30+ unfinished apps in his IDE right now. Naturally, I started to feel good about the my 4-5 projects that are unfinished right now.

But, the truth is this isn't school. School strives on following through, passing every test, rinse and repeat. In the world of business you only need one.

"The point of all this is that it doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and (n)either should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because

All that matters in business is that you get it right once.

Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are." - Mark Cuban

My point being, so what if their t-shirt company failed, onto the next one. These guys get it.

[btw Antigua are you from Antigua in the Caribbean?]
I have heard that most of the rich Muslims in India, and many middle-class ones, migrated to Pakistan in 1947. But among the poor, only a small number were able to migrate. As a result, in the post-Independence India, a disproportionately large number of Muslims were poor. However, I believe this is only true for areas near the border. For people who lived far away from the border, it was difficult to emigrate, and so most of the stayed put. For example, Azim Premji, India's richest Muslim, is from Hyderabad, which is far from the India-Pakistan border.

However, it is also true that there is some discrimination against Muslims in India. I've seen it first-hand (I'm nominally a Hindu). However, you probably hear an exaggerated version of it in Pakistan. And, we non-muslim Indians also discriminate against each other: rich vs poor, north Indians vs south Indians, native people of a state vs people from out-of-state, etc. So, the experience is not unique to Muslims.
How is multiple choice a REAL test?

In all the exams I had in my life, from 1st grade to BS in CS, I only had one multiple choice test.
Isn't the whole point of Lorem Ipsum to move the reader's attention away from the text? This text does precisely the opposite.
OK, time to read that dictionary book again.
Also I would say "hard work" is a bad metaphor. More important parts are:

1) (as you said) "work smart"

2) "enjoy your work"

and only then
3) "work hard"
I'm a French native, began English when I was 13 (German is my first "school language") although I used basics of English before (to play some games, use DOS). The test estimates my vocabulary size to be 21,100. There is _no way_ that I know that much words. I think it's biased a lot for foreigners, particularly French ones (which gives you a lot of formal English words "for free"). And even more when you have taken 3 years of latin, 1 of greek.
Lively Kernel 2.0 - new release coming (August 1st)
What need does this solve? Their homepage (http://www.veracity-scm.com/) lists a feature comparison chart, but that it has "user accounts" and "SHA-2" does not really help me figure out why I need this.
FYI, Hackers & Founders Silicon Valley is shortly going to be incorporated as a for benefit corporation (LLC + B Corp cert) to support the early stage startup scene in SV. Also 106 Miles is incorporating as a non profit with a mission of educating entrepreneurial engineers.

One of the reasons that we are incorporating at H&F is to be able to maintain a central repo of this type of information. We need the "Moving to SV or NYC or London" wikis. There's a ton of great blog posts on different topics, but it would be really nice to have a centralized place to keep track of all of that.

Soon...
Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability
French here, and I concur. Quite a few terms are directly borrowed from French or have very clear Latin roots, making them easy to understand even without having actually encountered them in English.
Which product are you talking about?
We're building an enterprise software company focused on document collaboration. Sounds pretty boring, but the technology that we're building is really advanced -- we've implemented PhD theses and then extended them to achieve the kind of collaboration fidelity that we need.

The "consumerization" trend in the enterprise has basically eliminated the "crappy product, hardcore sales" approach to enteprise software. Our role model for product design, technology, and overall quality is Apple.

So: NO! We're not more interested in the company building than the technology building. And NO! We're not interested in a boring product. What we are doing is building great technology for business. Nothing boring about that.

Email me at amal@getliveloop.com if you want more details. We are based in San Francisco, VC funded, and hiring an engineer.
Hmmm, no, I go right to the "blank sheet of paper" (at least in my mind's eye, but very soon an edit buffer).

I write a 1-2 page requirements document (and closer to 1, never more than 2). It tends to have two major parts: broad descriptions of what the system will do and very specific "must have" goals (e.g. transactions/second, max users, as well as functional ones; whatever makes sense).

Enough to keep in your mind for the rest of the project. It's a great organizer (I suppose the first is sort of a mission statement without the buzzword bingo), but again, for it to work it must be very short.

As far as ritual (and it helps that I'm starting a new project right now), I do play a certain type of ... determined music when starting. Archetypal for me is soundtracks of anime combat series e.g. Gundam UC (Zeta, CCA, F91 (Victory tends to be a little too depressing) and lately SEED. There are other titles (oh, the New World Symphony as used by Boring Germans in Space (LOGH) for the "empire strikes back" bit), but what they have in common is that my mind associates them with certain types of action. Certain ballet music works well too (my sister danced so I got into that genre well before college).

(Note, though, that I've been big on soundtrack music since a teenager, a bit before I was doing this sort of thing just after exiting my teens.)
MOTOROLA XOOM ANDroid SMART TOUCHSCREEN TABLET FEATURES AND PRICE
The journalist completely misses the point: high level of urbanisation, high population density was allowed by skyscrapers. To have skyscrapers, you famously had to have 2-3 conditions:

- solid rock for the base to hold the structure (hence no marsh, see NYC)

- steel, steel concrete (look at any skyscraper photos) for the structure

- no open windows above the hight of 2-3 floors because of the wind etc. (neither below, because of the smog) -> hence AC. And elevator.

AC was a key building block for the hubs of "Modern North America". The other key was feeding (artificial fertilisers and huge mechanised farms). And an Empire to finance it (just lift the debt ceiling PR euphemism in today's economics terms).
A thought just occurred to me: instead of bailing out Europe's Southern countries, why don't we just install airco instead?
building an international startup with 5700 English words. Suggestions?
That sounds very useful. Theres a not-very-good web interface here. I keep meaning to write a scraper and use it to present the data in a more web and people friendly form.
Why don't the neighbors find the guy with the deed to the house, and pay him a few k$ to throw out the squatter?
Let's think about it logically. If you were to actually test the users instead of asking them 'which of these do you know?', the ONLY option is multiple choice since analysing text-field input from the user to determine if their definition is correct is at best extremely difficult, and more than likely impossible ... right ?
Kebebasan berekspresi internet
Kebebasan berekspresi internet mungkin merupakan salah satu cara agar bangsa indonesia bisa lebih dikenal luas oleh seluruh dunia. Bagaimana tidak, begitu banyak video lipsing yang beredar di youtube, sebut saja Sinta-Jojo, dan tak lama kemudian beredar lagi video lipsing Briptu Norman yang khas dengan gayanya menirukan gerakan atau goyangan india, yang banyak di unduh oleh pengguna internet. Fenomena tersebut terjadi karena kebebasan berekspresi internet. Sarana yang memudahkan orang untuk saling bertukar ide, gagasan, dan juga informasi. Tak pelak, hal ini justru menunjukkan hubungan yang erat antara internet dan kebebasan berekspresi.Hal tersebut membuktikan bahwa bangsa Indonesia tidak perlu bersusah payah untuk mendapatkan perhatian seluruh dunia, apabila kebebasan berekspresi internet tidak dibatasi.
Sometimes it feels like HN is descending into a self-help group for intelligent but certified procrastinators. Does the consumption of such articles and other forms of self-help literature actually inspire you to create and do? Is the discussion of doing a form of action or the prelude to it?

Just follow my patented 3-D treatment program for hardcore procrastinators. Decide, declare, and do. Just stay clear of the 3 Es: explanations, extensions and excuses.
I found this article extremely interesting. If you haven't watched the 'beating retreat ceremony' video, make sure you do, it's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.