skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've dreamed about the possibilities for automated fact-checking to improve online debate, and considered attempting to write it myself (using data sources like Wolfram Alpha and Google Public Data, and parsing natural language with a big dirty pile of regular expressions, which can't be the best approach but it's an approach I could attempt in a weekend).

For example, a program could examine a text for sentences matching "[X country] is [comparison] than [Y country]" and check that against online data sources. So if you're typing a comment into reddit or wherever, it would first check your comment for claims it can parse, and alert you if you are mistaken about something so you can change it. And if you are correct about something, but didn't supply a citation, it could add it automatically.

This could have several awesome effects:

* It would make online debates more accurate, spreading truth and knowledge.

* It might set a standard of factual accuracy; people might come to expect assertions to be backed up with citations, and regard claims as suspicious if no supporting reference is provided.

* Just knowing their facts will be checked (possibly by a future version of the software being re-run on old forum comments and highlighting inaccuracies for all to see) might make people more careful in their assertions.

If voice recognition technology improves, then this might eventually fact-check TV in real-time.
Apple teases its new NYC store
10 essential LibreOffice Writer tricks
Business | Webupon
You can get amazing photos from point and shoots
or even your iPhone

When you capture rare moments, the best camera in the world is the one you have with you.

However, I do not agree with the statement above. Expensive cameras with expensive lenses allow for more composition freedom that you just can't get with a cheap camera. For instance, I'm pretty sure that if your friend would take pictures of sports events or pictures of landscapes, or macros, she would use more expensive gear.

However your friend is also a professional. Good professionals are using the cheapest equipment they can get away with. A cheap DSLR can be replaced every month. You can also have a backup with you in case accidents happen (and in case of events like weddings, you really have to be prepared for everything). Plus, a cheap DSLR is more practical - for instance I love my Nikon D3000 - people bitch about how it isn't ergonomic because of its size, but I like how easy it is to carry with you, while also have the advantages of a DSLR. As I said, the best camera in the world, is the one you have with you.
> I think you misunderstand the evolutionary process. I suspect that if the virus was released, because it is already so contagious, it could infect most of us within 10s of human-to-human transmission generations (especially if any of the early spreaders had a large number of contacts, or was well connected).

On the contrary, I think you are misunderstanding the evolutionary process. Why do you think it was possible to evolve this new transmissibility in only 10 or so passages in ferrets? Influenza mutates and adapts with breathtaking rapidity (another thing which makes it very interesting to study, and hard to combat).

Also, selection can happen within a single individual. As soon as an infection gets inside of a cell, variety begins arising. The immune system then begins its battle, and it becomes a numbers game. The varieties which reproduce more rapidly will also be targeted first. If a different variety inside the same host can fly under the radar by reproducing at a more measured pace, it will gradually win out within that host.
Nothing special. Euro would be exchanged with national currencies. No money will be lost or anything. Just a giant currency conversion, but with some turbulence around it.

Having said that, the Euro is a great project. It will trigger a common European economic policy and that will push Europe to the next level.
This is hilarious.

The author disparages Norvig, from the shaky ground of apparently having barely one decent photograph to his name.

I restrained myself earlier from posting a comment to the effect that Norvig had demonstrated, but not strongly enumerated one key idea, that you should restrict yourself to taking pictures of things that you care about.

Andrew says this

"When it comes to photography, engineers spend a disproportionate amount of time following compositional rules, shooting photos with straightforward narratives, and thinking about their photos as bullet points of technique before, during, and after shooting. It's as if the aim is for an acceptable, homogeous pastiche with the consistency of oatmeal."

then shows us pictures of coffee cups on the grass. Thanks for demonstrating oatmeal.
I think if you don't believe yourself to be interesting you've got deeper problems to address before you start following this article.

If you truly believe that you are a boring person that nobody wants to talk to, you probably have a self esteem problem. Low self esteem is something people are naturally attune to. Talk like a loser ,and people will assume you are a loser. (the converse is not necessarily better however...)
Interview with Dr. Richard J. Roberts, Nobel Prize in Medicine 1993
Quote: "Because drug companies often are not as interested in healing you as in getting your money, so that investigation, suddenly, is diverted to the discovery of drugs that do not heal completely, but chronify the disease and make you experience an improvement that disappears when you stop taking the drug."
A more expensive camera will get you a bigger sweet spot in order for you to take more pictures in different light conditions, but it's like tennis rackets with a bigger sweet spot, it's allows beginners to pretend they actually know what they're doing.

What's wrong with that? If a person's goal is to get nice-looking photos of moments that are important to them, what's wrong with using a camera with a bigger sweet spot? If it means spending less time fiddling with the camera to get all the settings just right, that's more time spent actually participating in life instead of behind a camera.

Why does everyone taking photos have to be expressing themselves artistically? What's wrong with people who just want to capture a moment where someone they love has a sparkle in their eye?
Would Curiosity's success mean we're closer to the Great Filter than we think?
I am constantly amazed that printing more money, thereby devaluing the currency and causing hyperinflation, is even considered as a viable option.

Does anybody read history? Is there any good example in the past of this actually working out well? I can only think of disasters when this was tried (usually by desperate politicians) in the past.
Cheaper ways to buy and sell
Show HN: Beta Users Now
Well it's certainly not a science as the scientific method is nowhere to be found. The closest thing to it at most universities is the math department, which seems to end up in the arts faculty as often as not. I'd argue there's widespread acceptance that neither math nor computer science are sciences (in the sense that, say, physics or biology are), and if something isn't a science, it's either an art or its own thing.

Who did you have in mind as the source of hatred?
Depends a whole lot of how it disintegrates. Every country for itself, or a divide into southern and northern fractions with radically different policies?

Anyhow, short term, there will be a lot of fallout where exchange rates for contracts and loans stop being predictable leading to a drop of trade, and quite possible a lot of failed banks and other big institutions (probably saved by their respective governments, but it will still be a shaky time).

Long term (assuming the sovereign debt is made into national currency and not kept in Euro[]), the increased flexibility will make the economic status of the different Euro members a lot sounder. There will be consequences of less trade though, since it is not free for the companies to protect themselves against currency effects.

[] If they keep the debt in Euros while not being on the Euro themselves, then I expect hyperinflation. Thankfully for them (but not necessarily for the creditors) they will be able to do such a transition by a stroke of a pen. Sovereigns play by their own rules after all.
Science education prize goes to Open Source Physics
That's a fair point. I think it's a great thing to read slowly for engineers new to photo (for the average person it's way too technical). I'd say as a rule don't try and put everything in there together at once. By the time you're done thinking about all the technical considerations the dance will be over and you'll be standing in an empty auditorium.

The best thing to do is assess your skills, and try and take the best photos you have given what you know.

Learn one new thing at a time, and don't move on till you're comfortable with it. Tools enable creativity, if you take on the whole shebang you'll drag yourself down.

Do experiments with new techniques if you want to, but don't just go looking for excuses for techniques full time, that's where people get in trouble and wind up creating a photography textbook rather than good photos.
This article is horseshit. Practically the first thing I realized after getting a real camera was that I had to develop my eye.

Also, calling Peter a "developer" is more than a little condescending.

Also, you can hack photography. Lenses are an algorithm. Go read Fergus's paper on coded apertures or Ng's plenoptic camera stuff.
The Role Twitter Played in the NBA Lockout is Fascinating
I have always been dumbfounded by the fact that Google didn't try integrating wave into gmail. If they managed to make a back-end to support turning any email exchange (between people with Google accounts) into a wave at the click of a button (and without leaving the shell of the gmail interface), I have a feeling this product would have been a resounding success - the same way gchat became an instant success when integrated with gmail.
I don't recall saying anything about government run... On the contrary, I find it equally sad that given all the creativity that people exercise in designing ways for me to talk about what I had for lunch, all we can think of for motivating production is market economics or government bureaucracy. There is obvious demand but it is too volatile for the market to capture efficiently and often those with greatest demand are also those with the least means. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of population amortized vaccine/antibiotic futures market?
Yes, changing the treaties now would really be a big problem; but it looks like they're thinking about bilateral agreements to start with. That would be a much faster approach.

As for taxes to levy, I didn't mean that they would be levied by the EU, but that the member state would have to do that automatically to keep the imbalance in check. Not easy to enforce, but I'm pretty sure a way can be found if there is the political will.
Uh oh, I just registered a domain with them a week or two ago. Any more details to this?

Thankfully, I paid with Paypal, so I assume I'm safe.
I have regularly wondered how all these Hedge Funds (let alone the Banks) are doing so well without some kind-of inside information and/or some means to "generate interest or concerns" in the direction they would find the most beneficial.
I distinctly remember 2001-2003 during in the post dot-com, post-911 recession when there was loud outcry to cancel all visas to open up jobs for American-born workers. And in subsequent years these ideas took on the form of erecting a wall around Mexico, and eliminating technology-related visa categories, and ending up in today's environment of extreme hostility toward business travellers at American ports of entry.
There are photographers, and photo-equipment enthusiasts.
Rarely has one blog post complained for so long about something that matters so little.

He isn't arguing there is an actual flaw, he is arguing that the feature isn't identical to what he hypothetically wants He doesn't give practical problems with it, just hypothetical problems.

For example, he says it's hard to tell 'the importance' of a fork. The importance of a fork is whether or not it is the original project, or a fork. If it's the original project, it's what you were looking for. If not, it's not, unless you were looking for a modification or feature missing in the original. In the latter case, you don't need to see the 'importance', whatever that means, you need to see the diff. Or have someone recommending it.

Anyway, the post just rambles for pages.

Speaking of flaws, HN has one big flaw, which is not showing sub-domains (and thus tricking me into clicking this link, thinking it was an official github thing).
Yes, I agree, Peter Norvig gave a fantastic, all-points overview of why most people struggle to get pictures to come out in poor situations, then gave buying recipes for tools that actually work in low lighting.

Of course, back in the days of film, very few people would even attempt to take pictures in such poor lighting, unless equipped with high-end lenses and fast film.

Norvig even threads the fantastic exemplar of capturing dancers throughout his piece, which acts as a fabulous counterpoint to all the technical detail.
China makes Wall Street look like the Sisters of Charity. 'Serve the People' -- yeah right Lei Feng would be rolling in his grave.
I find it interesting that many of these points are actively discussed on The Passionate Programmer[1]

[1] http://pragprog.com/book/cfcar2/the-passionate-programmer
Offtopic, but a fellow Electro Freak here. I wish we could get back thesixtyone from the old days.
Hey, that's me!

I think you may have missed my point. Norvig's post, in and of itself is mostly fine--though I'd say the tips on composition in there, which you must have missed were poor--but within the context of the present day, with boatloads of engineers who take up photography to become camera junkies, it's problematic.

By the way, if it wasn't clear I'm an engineer as well.
In fact you are more or less correct. It is as if they put in dogs and got out cats. That's just how Influenza works. It mutates, adapts, and evolves extremely rapidly. This is why it never has been, and likely never will be, eradicated (notice that those "in the know" don't even talk about Influenza eradication in passing).
We created BetaUsersNow.com with the goal of allowing startups get immediate access to a pool of Targeted users and immediate feedback during their beta phase. During past 7 months of our own beta phase, we have been signing up users from all walks of life and have collected their detailed demographic information - including city, state, country, Gender,Birth Year, Yearly Household Income, marital Status, Web/Computer Expertise, Web Usage on a Typical Day, Areas of Interest and device ownership (iPhone, iPad) etc. This will allow a recently launched startup to directly go to a pool of its target demographics and test products out. In a nutshell, BetaUsersNow will provide you a pool of targeted users, that fall within your target demographics, who will signnup at your website, follow your instructions to use your website, app and give you actionable feedback.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
If you take the long view, it's possible that photography as a technical hobby is merely a stepping stone to gaining a better understanding of the art form, with the eventual goal of improving the hobby both technically and artistically.
I agree that photography as a technical hobby is an "incomplete" picture, but having an absolute rock-solid understanding and experience of the fundamental technical foundation cannot possibly be a bad thing.

Most technical hobbyists will probably remain just that -- but it's possible someone will surpass them and tie together the artist and the engineer into something that will astound the world. Or whoever they show their work to, which is possibly nobody.

It's possible this has already happened, we just don't know about it yet. And maybe we never will.
You should know the basics to know why you're ignoring them. When you start writing, you have to use proper grammar, spelling, etc. Once you have that down, you can choose to ignore rules or making them work for another purpose. That is what really pushes the boundary in the arts, but having the basics is useful in and of themselves.
HN does have sub-domain support if the link is posterous or a few other sites. I don't know why it is not enabled for all links though.
How to Make Your Startup Go Viral The Pinterest Way
> One thing I've noticed in the Valley is engineers with super-expensive DSLRs, taking pictures of the most mundane things, mainly birthday parties and pictures of wine glasses. I guess it's like any other hobby, and I guess the belief that the best technology out there will result in the best output, and that's what makes Silicon Valley what it is.

It's really a shame that photographers are not out-there on the streets taking photos of places and people that do matter, documenting every day life.

For example I bought this photo (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L3tT3HbZcsU/TeAwqf6XyxI/AAAAAAAAAf...) for 15 Euros a couple of months ago from an antique bookstore. It was taken in Bucharest in the late 1930s' in front of a night asylum, by Jewish photographer Teddy Brauner (the brother of the better known Victor Brauner), using a normal Kodak camera and probably not thinking too much about aperture or light or any things like that. He just knew to be at the right place and to catch the right moment.

I cannot see this kind of work being done by today's photographers in America. I mean, I'm sure that there are people out-there documenting the worst recession in the last 80 years, but judging by what gets promoted on Google+ as being "state of the art photography" it seems like America's problems would be solved by taking photos of nice sunsets and beautiful mountains. There's a great opportunity for us people who like to take photos to help the others around us make sense of what's happening, but it seems we're more interested in technicalities and in kitsch photo-art.

(if anyone's interested to learn more about Teddy Brauner, I could only find this NY Times article about his later work: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/05/arts/photography-review-an.... He was not allowed to take photos anymore in Bucharest when the right-wing came to power, but he managed to escape to Palestina in 1942 or so).
Jobs. It would seems that we have an obsession with creating jobs.

If you hear politicians, and if my perception are right, they talk about jobs. Not whether or not we get more purchasing power than ever before. Not whether or not our lifestyle is more fulfilling than ever before. Jobs. More jobs. Less jobs. More competitive Americans. No manufacturing jobs. Colleges not creating enough people to fill jobs. Robots are destroying our jobs. Robots need to be maintain by something or someone, probably another robot or human being.

But jobs are just proxy. A proxy for our self-worth, our independence, or whether or not we have a future. Jobs, for us, are just means to an end. Yes, some of us are musicians, football players, programmers, scientists, etc. We like our jobs. I suspect the vast majority of humans don't really enjoy all that much working their job.

Rather than talking about creating jobs and destroying jobs, which is an assumption that exists in a world where there are scarcity and there's boring things to do for humans to maintain their existence, why not talk about the end, what should our goal be in life? We can then rearrange our actions in life based on our conclusion what our life should be and what we want to achieve rather than just simply on what needed to be done at this point in time.

After all, if a strong FAI comes, we may not even have jobs. At the same time, we ought to figure out what's our life purpose other than going to a job and work for someone or operating a business just to simply maintain our existence. There's no longer a need to grow your food, goes to the hair saloon to cut someone's hair, pump the gas, etc. How are we going to live for the next 10,000 years and 10,000 years beyond that and so on?
I remember being very close to buying this exact version of the SMB OST a few months ago - it was I think 30 dollars, just that one. This bundle is a dream come true for me right now.
The US really needs to emulate other countries here.

The problem here is that the "immigrant" visa is really the same thing as a work visa, and that leads to a great deal of abuse.

For one thing, the eligibility is tied to an employer, who is incentivized to embellish, cheat, and otherwise finagle their way to a visa. The expectation that the visa is temporary also sets a lower bar for entry - even though many of these people will eventually become American PRs/citizens.

The recent trend to "stage" the H-1B green card process is a step in the right direction - though it doesn't go as far as it needs to. There is still a major problem of indentured servitude. Once an employee has a green card process in the pipeline their employer has them over a barrel - and many will not hesitate to use this as an opportunity for abuse.

Not to mention, with the green card backlog the way it is now, it would be years before "your huddled masses of immigrant entrepreneurs yearning to breathe free" are actually able to start businesses. First they have to go through ~8-10 years as a rank and file employee, before they're granted the legal freedom to pursue their own future. The startup visa would go a long way to alleviating that, though the heavy involvement of VCs in that initiative will mean that bootstrappers and other scrappy startups that don't want to raise hojillions in funding will be still at a severe disadvantage.

How do you fix this? IMO the US needs to setup a track for immigrants to immediately receive green cards, where having a job offer is not a prerequisite (though it would certainly help). The focus needs to shift away from fulfilling "temporary shortages" (which we all know is bullshit) to simply permanent, mass importation of worthy talent. Set up the process to filter people based on the assumption that they will permanently stay, as opposed the the current process where we'll let just about anyone in, since they're "temporary" H-1Bs anyways. This will raise the calibre of people you're letting in, and also make sure you're giving top talent maximum freedom once they're here. The whole "immigration policy masquerading as work permit" thing really needs to GTFO.
Another alt. energy inventor succumbs to threats after open-sourcing his work
Another amateur inventor succumbs to intimidation and threats after attempting to open-source an energy discovery with the potential to free earth and humanity from the machinations of oil barons and metered power grids
This book change my view and thoughts on professional software developers too. One of the most inspiring I have ever read.
I've got a strong (but untrained) interest in the psychology of bias, and I don't think it is possible. Humans, even smart humans, even smart humans who study bias are notoriously unaware of their own biases and self-deceptions. We tune out information that challenges our belief system, we form alliances, we make the fundamental attribution error, and we attach meanings that tend to reinforce our beliefs.

It's really good to try to be unbiased, but understand that it's an asymptotic kinda of thing.
While I agree we need to encourage immigration, the "facts" stated in this article seem like a causation does not imply correlation argument that drive me nuts.
Cloud centers bring high-tech flash but not many jobs
No Death, No Taxes: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism
Good work. I almost got hooked to it. But there are many out there doing the same job.