skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Once a cancer is metastatic, I guess it's just a question of quality-of-life vs extending-the-time-you-have. Last-ditch chemo is pointless if you have to go anyway. But people who get an operation immediately, then get chemo survive much better than the ones who wait for the tumor to get big and / or metastatic.

You don't want to do what many people do - prevaricate till it's too late, then try the heroic (but sometimes counter-productive) last-ditch measures.

Let's just say: if this causes a few of us to see a doctor earlier, and thus saves a few lives (well, improve the quality and quantity of the days we have left), wouldn't that make it worthwhile?
This guy was a legend! Thanks for sharing.
Apologies in advance for questioning an Apple aesthetic at a time like this. Perhaps SJ would have appreciated the design critique.

But someone pointed out to me the similarity with, um, POW*MIA YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_POW-MIA_flag...
and it's kinda stuck in my head now. :-P
Hackers how to configure minimalist Linux desktop: Openbox (Tut + Cast inside)
Great reply.
I thought the OP toxic enough to make one ill.
Look, I'll say it on my real account. I'm not that guy. I find the outpouring of grief repetitive at best and embarrassing at worst. It's the time of year for everyone to strut out their favourite Steve stories and anecdotes. Gotta tell everyone how you feel.

Tell me you can read a comment like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078323 with a straight face.
First, Steve's family asked us to respect their privacy. They never made his fight with cancer a public matter and it's terribly rude to speculate like this. That aside, I did have some thoughts on the alternative treatments this article is talking about.

With close family members having fought cancer more times than I can count on one hand, my honest impression is that for several forms of cancer the current state of "orthodox" treatment (typically chemotherapy and radiation) is a joke worth skipping in exchange for what quality of life you have left.. which in one case has turned out to be 15 years and counting (following two surgeries.)

What makes a lot of alternative methods appealing to me is not their anecdotal evidence. It's that many of them (at least the ones I'm familiar with) don't have such torturous and long lasting side effects. For folks like my wife and I who have already come to the conclusion that we would not pursue chemotherapy and radiation treatments for many forms of cancer, we've got nothing to lose. We've already decided we'd rather die what we consider gracefully than suffer the side effects and slow, agonizing death of a long drawn out battle.

Not trying to convince anyone here, just trying to explain this from the other side.
Don't discount something just because it's quickly written. Strong emotions are a powerful source of artistic inspiration. Sometimes, you can create in 5 minutes something which hours or months or even years of labour could not equal.
to my excuse, from the 30 topics on the first page 28 were about Steve Jobs, on the following pages it was similar ..
I have to disagree here. The author might be insensitive for raising this point so soon, but that doesn't diminish the point's validity.

There's a difference between "Steve Jobs survived with cancer for 5 years" and "Steve Jobs barely reached half the median survival rate for his type of cancer." No one has reported on this point.
The thought of bullshit fake medicine taking another life should be enough to make anyone feel ill.
BrowserStack is out of beta: super-easy multi-browser testing
So I guess you're also the kind of guy who goes to a funeral and tells the people there to just get over it and move on?
You Are Underestimating the Future
> the statistics show that people who skip the N+1th round of chemo and switch to hospice care have better outcomes.

Have you even read the article? This was not a case of choice between living two months with chemo or one month without. The cancer was detected early enough and the treatment prospects were excellent. But, no doubt influenced by irresponsible propaganda about the "cold, alienated approach of aggressive medical treatment", Jobs decided to wait a few crucial months while trying alternative medicine (and had the surgery anyways, except with less favorable prospects, due to the delay).
watch 'til the end, Woz chokes up (and made me do the same)
when the cost of a false negative is so damn high, you'd think they would know not to filter so aggressively
Is a warrant required to search a vehicle during an impoundment? During a routine traffic stop, a warrant, permission, or probable cause is required to search a vehicle. Doesn't this ruling set the precedent that if and only if the police would be legally allowed to search a vehicle, they may search a phone contained within that vehicle? (IANAL)
Five DNS Threats You Should Protect Against
The Legacy of Steve Jobs, A-Z
I think your behaving like a dick is probably more the trouble than your amazement.

This guy meant something to a lot of people. It's okay that you're different. But let people have their moment. Go for a walk. People exist for their own purposes, not your pleasure.
Millenials and teens are not synonymous. Fully half of Millennials are no longer teens. The oldest Millenials are 30.
And is also grossly wrong (or to put it more charitably, over-specific). The only monad that has to do with side effects is IO, and that's a special one built into the language.

Haskell's do-notation could almost be said to abstract side effects because it makes monad actions look like imperative programs, but they're still pure-functional unless they're in the IO monad.
It depends on the type of cancer. For some classes of cancer, there are now treatments which dramatically improve the prognosis, with relatively mild side-effects. This is summarized well in the book The Emperor of Maladies.

Pancreatic cancer is particularly intractable. The survival rate is extremely low. I don't blame him for trying everything. He had nothing to lose.
I'm gonna have to agree and say that the hyperbole about what this man accomplished is over-the-top. He didn't change the world in any meaningful way. He made great products, and that's about as far as his influence extends to the world.

The guy who invented the toilet "changed the world". Mark Zuckerburg has changed the world far more than Steve Jobs. Sometimes people need a reality check.
Once again, more intellectually dishonest 'arguments' from the self-labeled skeptics. How about actually discussing what Steve Jobs did, why he thought it might be effective, and his logic about the pros and cons.

You know, actually doing some work instead of just trying to rack up some cheap page views off of the man's death while contributing nothing of value.
Jack Dorsey and Mayor Bloomberg open Twitter office in NYC.
In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant.

Looking back there were so many telltale signs that I had over the last six months, which I was ignoring as I was busy building my startup. A regular health check has the potential to catch a problem like this. I now nag each of my friends and family in having an annual health check.

Its the best time you can spend.

This was not the first time I made a mistake like this. When I was a kid, I had trouble seeing my teacher's blackboard. I just kept moving closer to the blackboard. I saw a doctor when I had trouble understanding what the teacher was writing from the first row.

Problems like this creep up on you over years, and they are so gradual you don't realize them.

You wont run your site without a Google Analytics/Pingdom. Dont do it with your life. If you haven't had a health check, get it done today.
you can meet loads of high-fliers on their way up and tag along for the ride
very good point - and probably even more true when it's something emotional like this.
Actually, the damage is deeper than the [direct] loss caused by Jobs' (what I consider poor) judgment.

Remember that when his Plan A didn't work, he needed to fall back to a liver transplant. Transplantable livers don't grow on trees; it's likely that by using this liver, someone else didn't get it.

It's quite conceivable, then, that Jobs' decision cost not only his own life, but another person's as well.

UPDATE: clarify first sentence by adding "direct".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STREAMS
>They sure can't win in court as they're not informed that they're being judged before the judgment is passed. There is no possible defense.

You seem to be misinformed about the process. I don't remember exactly what the final process is, but the fact is, you can always appeal the decision to have a real hearing.

>If the Hadopi said they caught your IP,

You can always say that your IP was spoofed, that you had a trojan on you machine, and so on... It's really really hard to prove that you didn't do your best to secure your line, and simply giving an IP harvested on a tracker isn't going to cut it.

There are several activists who downloaded a lot just to get caught, with the hope of going to court. They will get good lawyers to make sure they win, and then the decision will do "jurisprudence" (I don't know if a similar concept exist in American law), and that will be the end of it. Well, probably, I don't know the future :)
Vancouver's MetroLyrics acquired by CBS Interactive Music Group
I wouldn't say I went to Steve Jobs's funeral, unless you consider showing up on the internet today that.
A very revealing article comparing Shuttlesworth and Condoleezza Rice: http://www.blackcommentator.com/160/160_condi_civil_rights_d...
Life is a lot more enjoyable when you accept, as I've just mentioned in a cousin, that people exist for their own purposes and not your pleasure. Some people express their feelings in saccharin ways. Okay. And? Does it make those feelings, or those people, less valid that they're more Hallmark than Bob Dylan?

Death is difficult. Cut people a damn break.
Apple co-founder Wozniak says he'll miss Jobs
Funny that they're cutting the ribbon with a tweet. I know they recently started getting a team together in London (Don't think they have an office yet), but seems Twitter is definitely expanding. I wonder where's next?

Update: You can read an article on it here: http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/10/06/jack-dorsey-and-may...
Can the same thing be done for patent trolls?
>my honest impression is that for several forms of cancer the current state of "orthodox" treatment

Unless you're a specialist with an expert opinion in islet cell carcinoma, your comment is 100% meaningless. Look, Steve was a human. He was flawed. He had a relationship with alternative medicine. He's not perfect. No one is. A lot of people give in to the woo for some many reasons. He was a billionaire, educated, had access to the world's experts, and known for his amazing horse-sense, yet he gave in.

I like this story because Steve is so high profile. I can pull this out and mention it next time a friend considers these approaches instead of going to a real doctor.
Given that presumably none of us have Job's medical records (or the expertise to interpret them, in most cases), and known little about his treatments, I hesitate to speculate on his particular case.

If it was the case that Jobs could've prolonged his life using conventional medicine, then it probably is relevant to those who are currently battling that kind of cancer. The choices that Jobs himself made are his own, regardless of what I might personally think about them. But for those who want to do everything possible to live, it helps to be aware of what works, versus what probably does not work.
According to the more in depth article linked to in exit's comment:

'There is virtually no debate about the best treatment. “It has long been held that surgery can lead to very long-term survival,” says Kim.'

So this would not have been what your family has faced, and makes the criticism of alternative medicine valid.
Second Paris Hackers Meetup
Is it just me, or do other people find IRC logs incredibly hard to follow? Even IRC chats in real time are hard to follow.

You have N people, with up to N*(N-1)/2 different interactions/conversations, all serialized onto a single interleaved display. I can't imagine how people find it useful.
... because conventional medicine has cured pancreatic cancer.
With close family members having fought
cancer more times than I can count on one hand

Sorry for this question, but how did that happen?

I'm asking because I know of nobody in my family to have had cancer. My grandpa did have a brain tumor diagnosed at age 80, but it was benign.

Are you living in a polluted city? What are you eating?

EDIT: I'm sorry if I offended with this question. The thing is I'm worried that I'm living in a polluted/crowded city, and hearing from others that cancer is really not that uncommon, it kind of makes me freak out ... not necessarily for me, but for my baby boy.

Really, I just want to know what is to be done for prevention.
What if the next person on the list was also using alternative therapy to treat cancer?
It's a tough one. There are many people who fall into the group you describe, but there are also people for whom chemotherapy and radiation therapy has been very successful and allowed them to continue living a healthy, happy life.
I was going to try Spotify until they started requiring a Facebook login. I'll try this instead. I like the idea of a total per-month cap rather than a per-song per-month like Spotify apparently has.
Came here to make the same point. I kinda hate his fanboyism, but damn if he can't find the angle nobody else sees.
This is pretty arcane even for Haskell aficionados. I have no idea what it is doing on Hacker News.
i can agree that once the question becomes how you will die of cancer instead of whether, then gentler (perhaps "alternative") treatment may be acceptable.

the issue here though is that some people reject conventional treatment from the very beginning.
Very surprising to read this. Was there anything in particular that bugged you about it?

To me, Gruber captures Jobs as both a loving family man and a visionary who is selective with his attention to detail. This is a nice lesson, as I often spend time focusing on the wrong details.

Even the structure of the article -- a vignette with a narrative device built from a small detail -- is a tribute to Jobs's legendary focus on details.

Beautiful on multiple levels.
Genes man. Genes.
Beyond the problem of "not everyone is there for the same exact reason", the problems facing our society and economy are far too complex to boil down to a specific list of bullet-points. [1] I'd frankly be more surprised, and suspicious, if they did have a cohesive list of solutions. [2]

Their current single obtainable goal, whether it's their intent or not, seems to be forcing the media to at least acknowledge that the economy really really sucks and the government has done basically nothing about it for the 99%, even if they dismiss the protestors as unserious hippies.

[1] Abstracting the arguments to an umbrella term or position makes it vague almost by definition. Would a cohesive chant against "regulatory capture" satisfy the morning news crowd? It's somewhat more precise, but I get this feeling that it wouldn't change the press perception.

[2] The common defense of the fractured nature of Tea Party groups was that a lack of cohesive voice was seen as a sign of authenticity amongst grass-roots movements. And that does honestly ring quite true to me.
I'm not what you would call a Gruber fan, but this is a beautiful and inspiring piece of writing.

Apple, and thus Jobs, has always been "them" to me. With the exception of the CoCo way back in the day, I've never been much of a fanboy, but my computer affiliations have always been with something other than Apple: CBM PET, COSMAC Elf, CoCo I/II/III, Amiga, Dos, Windows, Linux - always something else.

But in all that time, I always felt that, over rated and over hyped as they might be, Apple and Jobs we worth of respect and admiration, most especially for their inspiration.

Inspiration inward, in the sense of invention, discovery, and art.

Inspiration outward, in the sense of leadership, drive, and motivation.

Somehow, a kernel of that inspiration is expressed by this vignette.
Chrome's custom Flash is better, because the Chrome generic plugin code is not very good. And that is due to [the plugin API being very complicated and full of bugs -- http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/05/plugins... .
You’ll always be in our hearts and hands, Steve 
I wholeheartedly agree, but want to point out that for him to do so is to cast doubt on the cult of personality and product that he created.
Our Economy Needs Innovation, New Ideas And Scalable Businesses
Lanes (left-lane = early treatment)
He had nothing to lose, perhaps, but maybe he did have something to lose if he was foregoing conventional treatments in favour of something that was of dubious efficacy. "If" is the key word, as I have no idea what was going on with regard to his very private (as was his right to be) medical treatments.
And taking a contrary position, here's the editor of Natural News saying that Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy killed him:

http://www.naturalnews.com/033793_Steve_Jobs_chemotherapy.ht...

(For clarification, I think the article is bullshit, I just put it out there as part of the discussion about Steve's medical treatment and about people jumping on his death to further some view or other).
yep, credit that the guy partially tried - but prefacing your first interaction about a serious issue by "I'm not available [to contact through most of the usual communication methods]" is sort of self-defeating.
Panic Developers Homepage pays tribute to Steve Jobs
Tell HN: We are selling Ubuntu Laptops in Europe
At my new shopping startup, Giniji, we are soon going to start selling pre-installed Ubuntu laptops.

System76 sells their own linux laptops in the US. But we have always struggled to find alternatives in Europe.

So, we've ourselves decided to offer reasonably-priced second-hand laptops, that come pre-installed with Ubuntu. Most of you are perfectly capable of installing OS's on your own, but it's to save you time and effort, and also make Ubuntu laptops more easily available to the wider public.

We're starting off with Europe only, but maybe if there's demand we'll consider the US too.

If you're interested, please sign up here -
http://www.giniji.com/ubuntu_laptops.html.
Clickable link - http://www.giniji.com/ubuntu_laptops.html

I'll be happy to address any questions or suggestions.
I've never read so many inspiring and life changing stories about anyone. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest men to have ever lived.
The greatest thing with the United States is we've built a system that is complex and there is no one way things have to be done.

Example: free Ivy-League education available at http://ocw.mit.edu for the self-motivated.

My wife & I have 5 nontrivial degrees between us, at a cost of under $100k and no debt. A little creativity and flexibility got us a long way.

Supply and demand. People are willing to pay high prices for education in exchange for credit-card-easy access, so colleges are willing to charge it. Dig & negotiate a bit, be flexible, and the price comes in a lot lower.
If awareness of alternative 'medicine' gained from this incident cause a single person to go to a real doctor and have their life saved, it will be Steve Jobs' greatest legacy.

Stop thinking about gadgets for one minute and consider human life.
It is real. I haven't done it, but I was told of its existence by a friend at a company that I won't name. I'm trying to see if I can convince him to give me the test -- my gut feeling is that I'd fail it, despite 12 years of programming and knowing enough languages that when I count I forget some. I'm just more of a 'learn by doing' rather than 'learn by reading' guy.
I should track down the actual post in which JMS (the "Babylon Five" guy) pointed out that even Shakespeare has only about a 50% approval rating.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure you could conduct a proper tribute to Steve Jobs without throwing in a little kitsch. Have you seen the "1984" ad? The "Think Different" ads? Steve Jobs' taste was not constrained by a self-conscious fear of cheese. ;)
I wasn't aware that Steve favored alternative medicine, sad to hear that, but I wouldn't judge him for it. The reality is, despite its proven efficacy, western medicine's answer to cancer is still painful/debilitating and sometimes borders on humiliating, especially for someone with such a ubiquitous public image. For many, alternative medicine finds its appeal as an escape from the grim and down right scary inevitability of chemo and surgery, it's a way to feel like you're doing something without having to sacrifice your hair, lunch, and dignity. It's a self delusion that I can't blame anyone for indulging in.
At first glance you made some progress and that makes him seem unrealistic in his demands for electronic communication, but what makes you think that the issue was reported properly upstream? I think that you got lucky to find someone who understood that it was a real problem, and unless they have an internal escalation procedure in place, there's a decent chance it will die with her or her supervisor. There's really no way of knowing if your report had any effect or not. Other large corporations have measures in place to handle vulnerability reports, it seems like a problem for a large CC provider to not have a clear procedure in place for handling these issues.
Unrelated, it looks like someone at AmEx finally improved their crazy, broken password system at least, this used to be the password requirement:

"Your Password should contain 6 to 8 characters . at least one letter and one number (not case sensitive), contain no spaces or special characters (e.g. &, >, , $, @) and be different from your User ID."*

Now it's this:

"Your Password must be different from your User ID, must contain 8 to 20 characters, including one letter and number, may include the following characters: %,&, _, ?, #, =, -, cannot have any spaces and will not be case sensitive."
systemtap adds a ton of complexity over dtrace. You can do more with it, but the really simple things that have large benefits are no longer really simple (which causes them to lose some of their benefit).

I've burned a lot of time trying to get it working on ubuntu -- one of my guys actually did by bringing over a fedora kernel. He said it wasn't easy.

I'm hoping Linux gets something like this in the mainline. I don't care of it's dtrace, systemtap, or something in between. This functionality is critical for both development and operation of production systems. Unfortunately, people don't seem to understand that until they have access to such a tool and realize they can answer all kinds of questions they never knew they could.
I thought I was the only one who thought that way.
Ten Steps Ahead - What Separates Successful Business Visionaries
The best five words for Occupy Wall Street that I've heard.

I'd bet a vast majority of people there would get behind this.
There's not much you can do about such people showing up, though, unless you have a very organized, centrally run protest with a gatekeeper for who's allowed to show up. People who have their pet issues will show up and attempt to use the platform if participation is open. I guess you'd just need enough new people to swamp the 'regulars'.

(These kinds of things are, incidentally, why Lenin-style communists argue for agitation to be tightly organized by a vanguard party, which keeps things on message and makes sure protests and other actions maximize tactical and strategic effectiveness, rather than becoming an incoherent free-for-all. But Leninist organization isn't too in favor on the contemporary left.)