skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
it would take more energy to mine [granite] than you would get from it. There are only 3-10 part per million of uranium in granite.

Have you read this?:

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution

The Rossing mine in Nambia mines Uranium at an Ore concentration of 300 ppm at an energy cost 500 times less than the energy it delivers with current thermal-spectrum reactors. If the energy cost increases in inverse proportion to the Ore concentration, shales and phosphates, with a Uranium abundance of 10 - 20 ppm, could be mined with an energy gain of 16 - 32.

Extrapolating from that, the energy gain is 1.6 for every ppm of uranium. As you say, granite contains 3-10 ppm of uranium. Therefore, mining granite for its uranium would provide an energy gain of 4.8 to 16. That would be without improving current reactor thermal-efficiency at all, and without improving current reactor breeding efficiency at all (all fission-reactors fueled with a mixture of U235 and U238 breed to some extent).

Running a uranium economy off of such a low-grade ore would, of course, in the real world provide incentive to improve fuel-efficiency (thermal; breeding-ratio; etc.) of reactors (even thermal-spectrum reactors can have their breeding-efficiencies improved). Thus, in the real world, the energy gain from mining granite for uranium would likely be higher than 4.8 to 16.
Wow, I'm jealous. I think the real question is how you can get a job writing about your experience bribing maître d's and eating free meals at some of the best restaurants in New York.
I guess online is just bizarro world in that sense... when everyone is anonymous and there are no barriers, we get YouTube-like comments.

Like it or not, even Hacker News has significant barriers to new users. Arguably that's why it's such a great place to spend time.

I wish it were not so, but it certainly seems to me to be the case.
Backtype (YC Summer 08) launches blog widgets for your blog comments
too bad the compromise bailout didn't have proper oversight either. Instead of making all transactions publicly available, it would still be a gov secret. The only difference is that it expands it from one person to two committees
oh nono, I didnt say that this argument would be false, for starters because I haven't read the book and heard the argument to begin with.

I was hoping, rather, to caution against believing anything without first examining the arguments simply because of "star appeal". Y'know, "a celebrity said it it must be true...."

One wouldn't believe scientific theories from the pulpit without thinking, so why shouldn't one be a little skeptical hearing metaphysics from a scientist?
Remember, the 700 billion would purchase the worst bank assets, so presumably the associated mortgages would default at significantly higher rates than the national average.
Childrens Stories
A children's book site all about the "Jack's Crayons" series. A book series about a young boy and his magical crayons. Fun, excitement, magic and adventure all the way.
Spaghetti code.
I did the same thing as you - http://geeky.siong1987.com . Anyway, I really love the way you layout your web application and it has better UI than mine. Work hard on it. My application does support API developed by developers. But, I implemented this feature in a very poor architectured way.

So, I really think that you should add the features that other developers can developer commands for you
It is in a mix of other ideas. It is not like the religious message is being broadcast 24/7 and nothing else. It is not like it is even a religious message at all. You can be an athiest but decide that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Personally, I feel gay people are born gay. This is something people are born into and either can embrace or be unhappy forever trying to be hetrosexual when they are not. As a Christian I personally embrace these people who cannot change. That is what Jesus did, he went out to people who were abused because they were different or hated because of what they did (tax collectors) and embraced them and brought them in.

For many people it hard to come around and see that it is not a choice.

Just a few months ago I was helping with a religious program and met a guy who is as gay as gay can get but he is married and has children. The marriage is very unhappy. I feel he should have embraced being gay before he got married and had children. But too late. People really need to be who they are and not something else.

Personally I am scared of normalizing being Gay or Lesbian to children. I have kids, they are confused enough without having to deal with the birds and the bee's being that people go to the sperm bank because there lover doesn't have male reproductive organs or because there lover doesn't have womb, therefore they need a surrogate. This type of birds and the bee's happens on a limited scale, we should leave it at that and not weave into our daily lives.
To me "Mending Wall" is more about people's inclination to be open or closed minded. The comfort the narrator may gain from leaving the wall open in places comes at the expense of the neighbor's preference for enforced separation.

Unfortunately I don't really understand what point the author of the article was trying to make.
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." --- Just because it doesn't have the features you expect - doesn't mean it's not a killer product.

It's the first car they've ever built!
Do you honestly think there will never be an electric track ready car? Surely this a pretty damn impressive first step.

As has been noted by others - the clutch is a misfeature - it's fun (I only drive manuals) - but I don't see it as being essential for the Tesla.

And as for the noise - agree but also disagree - a big engine sounds awesome - but honestly - the important thing about a car is how it drives - not how it sounds.. It's going to take a few years for that to happen - but it will.
And while it's the biggest single day point loss, it's not even in the top 10 percentage losses.
Flaming someone online is not as bad as taking a dump on their porch.
The $700 billion is a balance sheet number. My understanding was that the total amount to be spent had no preset limit in the defeated bill. In the end it's true that nobody knows what it'll cost. It cost Sweden between 0 and 2% (depending on accounting method) of their GDP in 1992 according to http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/worldbusiness/23k.... The $700 billion figure is about 5% of US GDP.
OMG. Transfer to who?

you are clueless dude... there is wealth creation and wealth destruction. try an econ 101 course!
It's "strange sense of humor". The original creators of the app thought it was funny.

If I had my druthers, we wouldn't waste ink to put astrological bullshit in the paper every day.

(Length of time in office would indeed be pretty cool. I'll run it by Politics.)
Ah. Then insert a reply rant from me about how Stallman and the FSF still don't get it.
Unless you live in an unbelievably depressed area like downtown Detroit (and maybe not even then), home prices in America are substantially higher than they were 10 years ago. So anyone who has had a fixed rate mortgage for 10+ years (unless they've been treating their house as an ATM) is looking at a profit if they sell their house.

In fact, according to the Case-Shiller index, homeowners in the 20 largest metro areas of the U.S. have seen their homes increase in value by over 60% between January 2000 and June 2008. Of course, this is down from 106% as of the summer of 2006. Falling house prices have definitely put a large number of homeowners underwater, but these people either bought in the past few years or took out one or more HELOCs (home equity line of credit).
If there's only one bank in the world, how can it have less in its vault than the sum of the depositor's accounts, if it isn't lending the difference out of nothing? Have people been depositing forged cheques?
Its not fair when you put it like that, but then canonical are pushing ubuntu as being more important to linux then it currently is. That is fine if it raises the profile and helps linux on the user facing side (a rising tide lifts all ships) but they seem to want to rubbish all the others who are actually doing the work that they use.
Stock market plunges badly as bailout stalls in House — Dow down 7%, Nasdaq down 9%
If it doesn't help, at least you'll be entertained:

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artist...
Who figured they didn't need SSL?
wealth can be destroyed when entities default - just as you hint.

wealth could have been transferred today if people were allowed to short securities, but what actually happened to many was the realization of losses on the books of the finance industry - at least those who bought for the short term.

but you also have wealth being transferred to those who have been holding stock for several years (long term) and watched them wildly appreciate over the past 5 years, and started selling in the past 2 weeks when they realized the bubble has burst.
Steve?? Ballmer?? No. 1? Come on!
I don't see what are the significant barriers? You can still comment, post new links and articles and read like anyone else. If whatever you say has merit, then nobody will care what your score is in the hacker news game.
Anticipating the Next Generation of Search
"..common belief systems... far outside of the mainstream.."

Good thing you're not saying normal people actually evaluate beliefs according to how popular they are. Because that would be bizarre.
PG - "The Papa Bear" - on BusinessWeek's list of most influential people on the web
Would it be appropriate to tell a child not to swear because they don't have a good reason to yet?
It's cool, but I don't see how it's useful at all. Some of the commands are even more verbose than going to google and typing in a search.
Congratulations PG. This is a well-deserved honor.
At the core of my problem is the Hacker News philosophy that a spirited go-getter can create value for people out of nothing.

Yet the oft mentioned depression of the early 1900s showed people queueing for handout foods.

Farmers would still work because people still need to eat. People would still trade with farmers because they need to eat and farmers need work doing. People would trade with builders and mechanics and plumbers and cooks and delivery people and oil companies because they want things that those people have, and in exchange they have skills that other people want. This is business, this is life, has been for hundreds of years.

So how can that also coexist with unemployed people relying on handouts? What went missing to turn the ongoing network of trades into a fallen pile of cards?

Why are some economies sparkling and growing and others filled with peasants eeking a miserable existance?

Is credit somehow the missing link I'm not getting? If so, why doesn't printing more money fix Zimbabwe? If it's not credit, what else can vanish? America isn't suddenly out of education, is it? Is it trust?

Is there really any kind of meaningful answer to this that doesn't involve pointing at the whole world and saying "that, that's it. Everything that is, that's the answer"?
Please, no. That is a well-written book for the most part, but don't take the antics as actual advice.
Oh, I never intended to argue from Dawkins' authority. I only meant to point out an interesting theory (which I personally think might have a bunch of truth to it) and to acknowledge where I got it from.
Thanks for posting this, I found it really interesting.

As a 20-something geek I was surprised to read how virtually every place accepted the bribe in one way or another. It really contradicts my low confidence + true/false mentality.

His attitude appears to have been the magic for making those deals... had he been holding the money timidly he implies they certainly would have turned him away. I will take away from the article the reminder that more self confidence (to a point) reaps benefits in ways I wouldn't always expect.
You buy a car for $20,000. A year later, the Bluebook tells you it's worth $10,000. Who got the $10,000 that you've "lost"?

When your portfolio "dropped" today you didn't gain or lose anything. You still own the same tiny fraction of some company. All that happened is that some guy sold his tiny fraction to some other guy for less than you paid.
One more reason not to blame "bad morals" for the crisis. I guess most "securities" had a long chain of other investments behind them, and one or more chain elements where risky. Of course the guy selling the thing ten steps down has no idea anymore how risky it is. But that is where transparency could help a bit, maybe?
This anonymity is also one of the greatest virtues of the internet.
1)Why require brackets? They seem superfluous. Unless theres something in the design of your code that requires them, I see them doing no good. 2)Shorthand versions of commands. "wiki stargate" instead of "wikipedia stargate"
3) The UI is nice. It took me a second to realize it wasn't a plug-in/extension like Ubiquity, but I had to type in commands at the bottom.

What are you reasons for making this app? I like it, but I can't see myself using it every day.
Palin's beliefs are both noteworthy for how far outside the mainstream they are, and alarming (for a President) on their own merits.
Do you guys think Hadoop would be a good solution to parse and convert 16 GB worth of XML files to SQL? I'm thinking of using EC2 to distribute this in the cloud, as on my desktop it can take days.
Please consider the context of the comment I was replying to. In your example, who "gets" the 10K I lose? No one. A car changing in value is not wealth transfer. A stock going down in value is not wealth transfer.

At least, that's how I understand it. I was curious if the original commenter meant something different.
Papa Bear?
California moves toward open-source vote counting software
" I'm guessing they don't start by calling people's beliefs "bizarre". Bizarre means "strikingly out of the ordinary"; Christianity is one of the most common belief systems on the planet. Just a thought."

If you say, "I am a Christian", few think that bizarre. If you say, "I believe it that someone could bring the dead back to life just by willing it so", many more will think it bizarre.

The mundane ubiquity of various religions seems to have shielded people from any real scrutiny of what those religions ask one to believe. And many of those beliefs, common or not, are just plain bizarre.

I don't disagree that that Palin's beliefs would have a sooner, greater impact on national life, but do you not think that a president's belief in an afterlife or almighty creator will also effect executive decisions?
It's DOM-injectable:

http://www.pycmds.org/#albums%20by%20['foo']%22%20onclick=%22alert(1)%22

It gives me Python stack traces on most funky commands.
You're a Berenstain cub
I think that seems fitting. Personable, nurturing, etc.
Yes, you're absolutely right. I didn't realize your question was semi-rhetorical.
You have the choice - Stallman is just encouraging you to chose the bunch of admin work that you don't want, arguing that the freedom is worth more than the admin work costs.
US teens text 7.5x more than they call
Religious people have more children. Family formation has historically been much more affordable in the US than in Europe and Japan, and most of the rest of the world. So desire and culture has been the primary constraint on an individual's choice to have one or another child, whereas in other places the constraints have been more financial.

Religious people in the US out-breed non-religious people at a higher rate than is possible elsewhere. If you look at the demographics, blue state urban liberals will be an endangered species in a few decades. They barely have children. Compare Hillary's only child to Pallin's brood.
Its a reference to the Colbert Report. Colbert calls Bill O'Reilly "Papa Bear".
I recently switched all of my domains from GoDaddy to NameSecure. I have read too many stories about GoDaddy selling off people's domains with insufficient efforts to contact the owner, or giving away private information without much of a fight. NameSecure, on the other hand, actually went to court in order to avoid giving away one of its customers' information.

I have been quite happy with NameSecure so far: reasonable prices and quick service, and the site is much simpler (less flashy) and less annoying in general.
A quote from Wall Street is perfect here.
"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a Zero Sum game - somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred - from one perception to another. Like magic."
I actually think this is a key point: the Linux kernel only provides a small fraction of the utility a Linux user derives from the system as a whole. The work that Canonical does to insure that Ubuntu releases are stable, supported, and documented pays much higher dividends to most users, and does more to attract new users.

Attacking Canonical for not contributing enough to the kernel sounds to me a lot like attacking the members of local Linux user groups for not including enough core kernel hackers in their membership.
I like this picture better :)

http://danhau.posterous.com/our-fearless-investor-paul-gra
date posted: Nov 25 1999
NASA robot sends back evidence it's snowing on Mars
Depends on how bad the flame is... or flaming is just the first level. What about spam? What about hate speech?
Currently the commands that are available are there just for demonstration purposes. I think it will become more useful when users add their own commands, which will be pretty simple to do once I complete the sandbox.

As for the verbosity, it's there because once you read the command, you should be able to tell:
1. what it does, and
2. what type of input is required

Typing shouldn't be a problem with auto-complete. It should actually be faster than a normal command line!
DNA is trillions of monkeys typing on typewriters for 4.5 billion years and throwing away every page that doesn't contain any readable words.

And sometimes a page happens to turn into another monkey, typewriter or page. Actually, I can't think of an analogy that come close to describing the hairiness of biology. It's the origin of all hair; it eclipses all else.
Additionally, the guy was using development snapshots of the two backup related modules in question. Ones uses dev snapshots at ones own peril.
Visa developing financial service applications for Google Android
Because currency is only a quanta for trade and it's physical manifestation doesn't need to exist in equal amount to all assets and obligations.

As for fractional reserve banking (the regulated version, anyway...), the bank needs only to hold enough capital to write down expected losses on loans. Much of this mess has been caused by the banks voluntarily levering out of this safety margin.
All the other nicknames we use to refer to pg aren't fit for a family publication.
Stallman is a jackass, says rest of the world.

Seriously, what a drama queen. This week it's cloud computing.

The article seems to confuse software freedom with control over personal information --- two distinctly different concerns. The latter actually relevant.
What is the exact solution? If it's a massive parallel parsing operation.. then maybe.

If you want it to parse the XML and put into a database - probably not. You're going to be bottlenecked by the database, so not much point increasing the parallelism of the parsing.
UAE/Saudi might be more wierd points (wierd circumstances after all). I don't think Israel, Italy & Canada would be as strikingly off map as the US.

It may be a dumb map. But I think you might be able to draw correlation even if you take all countries into account.
My employer is a 20+ person startup selling to the enterprise market. We don't feel that they 'hate' dealing with us, although, our only competition is other startups. Even so, we get rave reviews about the level of service we bring to each contract. They are not used to seeing that from their large company vendors.

It's true that selling is hard, but that is why we have an experienced sales staff. And yes, sales can take 6-12 months in the worst case, but I think you underestimate the number you can have in the pipeline at once and overestimate the cost to support each sale.

One more note in defense of enterprise oriented startups: as a hacker, I don't find creating enterprise software to be less palatable than consumer software. The selling is compartmentalized in a sales dept, so it's not as if I'm the one jumping through the enterprise sales hoops. Obviously, if you're hoping to keep your company so small that you don't have a dedicated sales department, it's a much different story.
Recommend a good recruiter in Boston?
Hi all. I'm posting this one under a different name for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I'm a regular reader of YC.

I'm in the market for a new gig. I'm looking hard at some of the posts on this very site, startuply.com, and even monster, but I'd also like to talk to a recruiter about what's out there.

Can anyone recommend someone good who works with software developers? I'd much appreciate any help...

Thanks!
I find it entertaining how computer programmers will complain about people not getting that their work is not about fixing printers one moment and the next dismiss an entire body of academic work that they're almost completely unfamiliar with.
I have 750 x 150 MB XML files, I just want to generate a huge .sql to import it all at once which is much quicker.
That picture always reminds me of this: http://www.boreme.com/media/yr2006/crazy-mean-baby-1.jpg
Project Management Tools
I'm looking for something similar to, say, ActiveCollab, but that isn't, say, ActiveCollab, to help fill a project manager-less hole.

Prefer something that I can run on my own metal. We used BaseCamp for the longest time, but on huge projects, it actually becomes more of a hinderance than help.

Any pointers appreciated.
Part of freedom is being free to fail. Most of the people I have observed fighting this thing are doing so with eyes wide open, knowing full well the economic consequences of defeating it.
Creating a Great Depression: The many similarities between 1929 and 2008
Note to fellow HN readers: while this is a good post, the article is NOT WORTH READING. Just note that PG appears on Businessweek and move on. Do not read his profile or that of other people unless you want your brain to hurt.
i can't believe they put Facebook's COO in the list instead of Mark Zuckerberg
A Google Javascript Mystery
I've been doing some investigation in how ad managers (Google AdManager, OpenX) work, and in looking at the Google JS I came across a very strange snippet of code:

var ja = /function (^\w+)/;
function ia(a){
var b = ja.exec(String(a));
if (b) return b[1];
return "";
}

As far as I can tell, that regular expression does not match any string. What's going on? Is there a bug in the google compressor? Is this some kind of red herring? From usage, it looks like it's supposed to extract function names, but that regular expression doesn't actually work.
EDIT: you're right, of course, it depends on the flame. Perhaps I should say I haven't seen a lot of online crap that ranks ranker than a dump on my porch.