skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I hardly think fitting phone glass on a production line is a "mid level" skill
Am I missing something here? As far as I know the MPAA is not a U.S. Government institution. It's a trade organization. Although what the MPAA is doing internationally and domestically is disgusting, I don't think that this is a case of the American government meddling in Aussie affairs. It's more like the netizens of America, Australia, and many other countries are being attacked by the MPAA.
I got one of these as well, from the Algorithm course. Word for word.
I remember a joke from college that went something like this: There was this mathematics professor that used to tell his students that if they failed at proving a conjecture they should try to prove the opposite, and if they couldn't do that either they should quit mathematics. He had to stop saying that after Gödel published his paper. :)

I haven't studied Gödel's proof and have to admit I would probably have to brush up quite a bit on my maths to be able to, but to me this simple joke offers a more pedagogical and perhaps more meaningful understanding of Gödel's (first) incompleteness theorem.
Feels like an app, not a monthly subscription.
Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust
Ensuring That Ideas Are Employee-Owned
This may be a good defense for the less tech savvy who find themselves in the wrong side of law enforcement for participating in DDoS attacks. It makes proving intent a lot harder.
What's the moral advantage of using American over Chinese workers? By a similar token, why not just raise the wages of those Chinese workers by 100%. They'd be madly richer, very happy, and still far cheaper than American workers. Then again, the existing wage level is such that it commands some 8 000 applications a month (at Foxconn).

Part of the gist of the article was that US regulations make building out flexible manufacturing capacity rapidly incredibly difficult. Quicker to do it in China. Ironic considered the PRC's legendary red tape (no pun).
In Antipiracy Debate, Media Worlds (and Generations) Clash
Lane-Keeping Systems Aim to Nudge Drowsy Drivers
Inventions Offer Tools to Endure Future Disasters
So now disagreeing with someone's interpretation of economic data is worthy of downvoting?
I don't agree with Jobs comment (to Obama, as quoted in the article) that the Chinese build higher quality products. The recent Apple products I have owned all start having hardware failures after the first year, and are completely broken down within 3 years. Japanese and Taiwanese laptops I have bought, which have similar hardware and similar price, simply do not have the same quality control problems, nor did the older Apple products I owned that were made in California.

It's entirely an issue that Apple can make more profit per product by making low quality computers built by virtual slave labor in China with no enforced environmental laws. This works for them because they have managed their brand well, particularly with Ives lovely case designs. Certainly not because the electronics and quality is better, it just isn't.
I think you are making the implicit assumption that some people should not have a greater voice than others. Is that correct?

If so, do you favor removing Paul Krugman or Glenn Beck's bully pulpit? If not, why not?
It's not about engineers vs. "Hollywood". I'm not even sure what either of those categories are, and I doubt the people who fall into those categories could agree who belongs in them and who doesn't. Also, the distinction is completely meaningless when you consider that many of the labor interests behind the "Hollywood" position are scientists and engineers who do the logistical grunt work of the on-screen magic.

Lose that false dichotomy and the rest of your post stands on its own: we won't win if we give up.
The cost advantage varies by industry. For some industries 6 weeks on the boat for final product is a lot. For others, every component 6 weeks or so on tens of boats is more problematic.

I agree with the gestalt of your statement, however; painting this with broad brushes, e.g. manufacturing has left the US for good, is simplistic.
Indeed... why isn't there an IIAA (Internet Industry Association of America), modelled along the same lines of the MPAA/RIAA?

Google, Facebook, etc. could be the main contributors, but smaller companies would donate too (there might be a very significant long tail).

It could lobby for everything Joel talks about.
Taking on the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
If you dig this, you'll want to check out Safecast.

Safecast (http://blog.safecast.org/) is "a global sensor network for collecting and sharing radiation measurements to empower people with data about their environments." They are working on some really awesome tech and helping people in Japan.
Create a book about airports. Contact a publisher beforehand. Do some interviews, people wait around for ages and have nothing to do. Take lots of photos of the most interesting or attractive areas. Shoot some videos. Determine what the most perfect airport would be. Create a feature matrix of airports.

Create a site regarding coupons or discounts for duty free shops. I know I am travelling soon and was wondering what duty free shops I'd encounter at the airports I would reach, their products and their prices. Get some shops to signup with you and submit their deals when they happen. Finally, I've heard flying at night is safer radiation-wise than during the day and astaxanthin is a good antioxidant to be on. Have fun.
The 600g Textbook
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Not at that volume, but yes there are. All of the major EMS companies have a significant presence in the US.
The problem with the film/games comparison is that film is totally passive for the viewer, games as we currently understand them require active involvement for the full duration.
I don't see how this could be a bad thing.
Homosexuals also have eyes. Does this mean that nature doesn't select for eyes?
The solution is radical meritocracy and an end to privileged elites (nepotism & cronyism).

Society must not tolerate the creation of an aristocratic class, or that class will engage in anti-meritocratic privilege (nepotism & cronyism).

Meritocracy is the next step from democracy. In a meritocracy, ONLY non-privileged competent people are allowed to hold positions of power.

Corporations control the government through privilege games (cronyism and nepotism).

End the privilege games by outlawing elites from government.

End the dumbocracy (rule by the dumb) in favor of meritocracy (rule by those who have proven scientific credentials)

So the health minister should be elected by all who can prove they are informed about health - they hold medical degrees, biology degrees, or can pass the relevant exams. These educated meritocratic voters from the science community elect the health minister.

The real problem of corporations controlling government is a problem of aristocratic dynasties and privileged super-rich elites gaming the system to consolidate wealth and power. It's simple game theory.

The solution is cutting off the power of elites and placing power in the hands of non-superrich meritocratic highly educated experts who have no sex appeal but do have proven competence in their scientific field. These meritocrats, given power by the votes of informed people, would be able to reign in the out of control disasterous cronyism and nepotism that has destroyed our economy.

The solution is meritocracy. Democracy itself needs to be modified in such a way that a tiny group of elite families no longer dominate it. One big way to remove their power is instituting a wealth cap, say $100 million per person. Another way is through inheritance tax. The tax dollars from the superrich should go to empower the poor through high quality education at the private schools where the superrich send their children currently.

When stupid people ask you how our country is going to get out this mess, you respond, "by empowering scientific experts and disempowering the (a) stupid Christians (b) privileged war-mongers (c) nepotists and (d) crony capitalists"

Meritocracy is the only way out of this broken country. Credible, sensible, rational scientific policies can save us. Dumbocracy and privilege will destroy us.
I think a good chunk of the huge step down is when they made it US-only for licensing issues. I was an avid UK user until that time.
50% of Americans made less than $26,000 a year in 2010: http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010

Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices...

And, if Federal Reserve created inflation hadn't destroyed their purchasing power, they'd be 20% ahead on wages at the bottom than they are today even if those wages had stayed at the same literal dollar amount they were at over forty years ago.

The middle class is getting hammered and because they have less disposable income they save less and spend less, hence the economy grows slower.

Wages as a percent of the economy are basically the lowest ever: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the...
You make a good point. Much "organic" produce in the US is now grown in China, particularly of processed ingredients. China is selling the certification, the food is grown in toxic soil with fertilizer and pesticide, then a gentleman signs off that it is organic and it can be sold in foreign markets for a premium to naive customers.

Certifying that something is "child labor free" or "slavery free" is just as reliable.
It's disturbing that we're to the point that people are celebrating this - lawmakers actually carrying out the will of their constituents, standing up for something sensible and refusing to pass a very dangerous bill that is probably unconstitutional should not be rare.
Many people make their voting/donation choices based on a single self-serving issue. Is it wrong for sexually active people who don't want children to vote/donate based on abortion, or for gays to vote/donate based solely on gay marriage?
I’m not in the position of supporting a family, but is that really enough to support a mortgage, car(s), daycare (if we’re assuming both parents are working), putting kids though university, buying supplementary insurance, etc?

I get the sense that “average” is no longer middle class unless you really loosen the definition of middle class.
Not arguing with your general point, but I think the Brazil rule was to get around tariffs (35% on 100% imported goods for the Mercosur bloc).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/13/us-brazil-foxconn-...
Well, the leaked documents talked about in the article are diplomatic cables (I think) so it would seem the MPAA has been getting assistance from the US government to get in the ears of the Aussie government.
But that skews in the opposite direction: If they lost more users, that means they lose customers more quickly, so the value of a customer decreases the higher you raise your estimate here.

Losing more users is good in that it means they gained more in the same timespan - for fixed changes in the number of users (which is the datapoint we have). But it also means they are having a hard time keeping them.
There is extremely strong evidence for a genetic basis to intelligence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Though other factors come into play, environment, education, etc., we are not all gifted with the same faculties, and it is ignorant to claim otherwise.
Yep, those omissions are painful. I am not sure how the decision making process goes but if you look at the MS link vs the GCC one you will note that GCC has done basically nothing in the concurrency space in C++11, whereas MS will have implemented a number of items there. Clang is in the same boat there in terms of basically no work on the concurrency area.

As a member of the Visual Studio team (though I work on the IDE shell area, not the C++ compiler) I can say that the C++ team is a LOT smaller than many people seem to imagine. I think people imagine that VS is one giant team, it is really lots and lots of small-ish teams. The STL work is done by Dinkumware and I think there is one (maybe two) MS assets actually helping out there. One of the folks talking at Going Native (Stephan Lavavej) is said person, and he is awesome. The compiler work is split between a front-end and back-end team and obviously some pieces require coordinated effort from both teams to implement, on top of other non-standard requests they have to field. I personally would like them to focus 100% effort on purely standards only stuff until they get more 'caught up', but I don't run things :)

All of this takes nothing away from GCC and Clang, they are both awesome products developed over a long period of time by lots of accomplished compiler devs. MS has recently(-ish) spent more resources focusing on native development again after a long period of promoting basically all managed (or primarily managed), I think that is a good thing, balance is healthy.
I don't know what makes me more angry, outsiders meddling in my governments affairs, or the fact my government allows it to happen behind closed doors!
Yes, it's quite interesting that the position of the author of the article seems to be that if only the US had hordes of slaves kept captive in slave camps where they can be awakened at midnight, then perhaps we could be more "competitive". You are right to be questioning this as an advantage as opposed to a reason to ban the import of all goods from this slave society and put the "businessmen" that knowledgeably profited from it in prison for crimes against humanity.
Am i wrong or does 'Well here's what Godel proved: There's no way to really know whether or not any theory is consistent.' completely ignore Gödel's completeness theorem for first order logic.
Aah, but (neo)classical economic theory is defined by its unrealistic assumptions about reality.

Essentially, you are claiming that North Korea is also a democracy, only without free elections.
From TFA:

“The case was filed by … the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its international affiliate, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), but does not want that fact to be broadcasted,” the US Embassy, Canberra wrote.

So, not necessarily exactly what I wrote above, but is certainly points to what I was saying.
> Why not pass it and then never use?

Separation of powers makes it difficult in many countries to do that (legislature and judiciary being separate).
There is no natural progression of law here. The first US copyright laws lasted seven years. Works were sold to publishers, they were printed, and shipped around the nation on boats and trains. Seven years.

Now with a mouse click anyone can upload music and books to digital storefronts.

The law has caught up, directly in favor of those who own the majority of successful IP. As culture has accelerated our laws have only gotten more draconian.

I'm all for this fight, but don't doubt that it will be just that, a fight that the victors will write the history of.
I support this notion. I dont think there is any current organization which deals with patent rights + free internet etc. There is EFF but no one takes it seriously. EFF is such a joke that Google autocomplete doesnt even find it even if you type EFF!

Patents stuff is too confusing for me, but the concept of ad space on popular websites to spread the voice of Joel/Internet would be awesome. I think Reddit will participate because they have been pretty devoted so far, definitely not Facebook though. I dont think they want any of this drama..... asusal.
If there is anybody reading this from Poland - you can sign up a petition against ACTA - http://www.petycje.pl/petycjePodpisyLista.php?petycjeid=8316...
It's not intrinsically shit work. I have worked in industrial factories. They can be good jobs. Obviously they can be crap jobs as well. All depends on what sort of society you want your children to live in.
Behavioral Pricing: A consumer’s worst nightmare, a merchant’s dream
Excellent. Is the EFF a reasonable organization to lead this fight? I am not a member of the EFF but sometimes I give them tiny bits of money when they do something that I particularly like.

I am not 100% sure about this, but isn't the "Internet economy" much, much larger than the "Entertainment economy?"

I don't hold out much hope of curing the corruption in our political system but I do hope that we can continue shining a bright light at corruption so more people know what is happening. Unfortunately it is the threat of a bright light of public accountability that causes attacks on Internet freedoms.
Thanks for the feedback and good point. I'm actually kind of torn on the importance of design. I think the sentiment is that you are competing with designs of the popular sites that people already use (e.g. NYT, Google, Facebook, etc.), but I think that people are fine if things are rough around the edges -- even if they moan and groan. As I said, though, it ultimately all needs to come together.
Chuck Moore is one of my heros, and has been since those '70s that he talks about.

Try as I might, I have had a hellofatime using Forth (and now Factor) to get nontrivial things done. But I keep trying, because I find the philosophy so compelling. And I figure I'll learn something.

He has always considered Forth to be a 'personal leverage' tool rather than a programming system suited to a team. Similar in this regard to Lisp and J I suppose. The fact that he has never hired a programmer (!) reinforces this notion.

I wish him luck with his chips....

Bob
> it may become a target of the US government.

The FBI might target them, but most likely for their laissez-faire moderation where deleting a subsection literally dedicated to child pornography caused a major uproar.
More to the point, what's stopping Google from declaring war on the MPAA? I imagine a lot of money would be lost if Google just pulled every site belonging to a member of the MPAA from the search results.

Aside from a few people at the top of Google with a sense of restraint and fair play, if Google alone decided to ruin the movie industry, they could - quickly. Obviously an IIAA pays more respect to the current way of doing things, rather than just making a unilateral decree that the movie industry doesn't get to exist anymore if they won't extend the same courtesy to the tech industry.

Slightly less drastically, I wouldn't mind Google making a note in the SERPs about which members of Congress are in favor of censoring freedom of speech. A small note with that person's position on SOPA would be a handy tool to keep the public informed.
Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed

This sentence is a jumble of confusion. Wages have not been "stagnant", wages adjusted for a flawed [1] measure of the cost of living have been. Nominal wages are way up. You are correct that health care costs increased, but those costs are mostly not paid for with wages [2].

In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably. Workers simply receive more of their benefits in the form of untaxed health benefits rather than taxable wages:

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa...

Further, the stagnation of wages themselves is due mainly to Simpson's Paradox. Immigrants enter the US and occupy low levels of the wage ladder, lowering the averages. But the immigrants are better off, as are non-immigrants (who's wages did not stagnate):

http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission

[2] Those health care costs are, however, used to adjust wages downwards via CPI.
The fee does seem high for individual academics, but I bet the costs of running a journal are low compared to what libraries currently pay for getting them. Moreover, storing information and making it available is a library's mission. Therefore, I hope that libraries, rather than individual researchers, start to host the next generation of open access journals.

Libraries also have infrastructure in place - they already host their own websites, so running a journal just requires adding another page to it.

The most annoying part would be coordinating the different reviewers, but I think that job would be done by the editorial boards, composed of researchers in the specific fields.
The only thing that can save Zynga and demand its current valuation is online poker.
The only thing that can save Zynga and demand its current valuation is the legalization off online poker.
I wish it were reasonable to suggest that a company perhaps NOT set it sights on maximizing its profits at the expense of all else about society's infrastructure.
Arguably the bigger problem is that interesting content is determined by popular consensus, which rewards ingroup signifiers and pandering to the majority.
The iPhone Economy
I emailed this explanation to my son, and asked him if he understood it, He will be twelve on 2/2/12. His response was

"ya. it means that there is an unlimited space in between every number."
Thanks for the feedback and I agree with what your saying. I'm definitely doing side stuff (no TV, learning new languages, working on my ideas, etc...) but one thing you miss is the feeling like you're making an impact. Even though the universe is small (i.e. your company) a day job can make you feel like you are making an impact almost instantly. Whereas it can, and probably will, take years for my own side project to reach the point where I'm impacting the number of people that I do in my day job.

The feedback loop is missing from side projects, at least compared to a day job.
Credit to ivanzhao http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3494442 - I thought this was so good it deserved a link of its own.
Neo-classical economics is merely an approach to economics based on game theory and utility maximization (as distinguished from, e.g., behavioral economics). The article we are discussing is a perfect example of neo-classical economics - it's pure game theory.

If you want to argue that the assumptions made by the article are more accurate in general than the more common assumptions (good information, low transaction costs, elastic supply and demand), be my guest.
Building a Google Plus inspired image gallery | techbits.de
This is so different from industry to industry that I don't think it makes sense to aggregate the statistics. Plenty of photographers and illustrators for instance make large fractions of their income from reselling stock images long after they were created.
I'd suggest a short default copyright period with a renewal system for the works that do require a long copyright period like the infamous Mickey Mouse.
Check out Feed-Forward.net, I'm the founder and CEO I think you'll like what we're doing, given your interests.
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alter...
If that's the real reason, it seems that Brazil's protectionist tariffs are having their desired effect (forcing more manufacturing to be relocated to Brazil). No idea if they're a net positive for Brazil's economy, but this move will probably be taken as a vindication.
What's stopping Google is reasonable principals. They shouldn't censor the Internet, because that's stupid and against everything the blackout stood for. Where they can fight is in competing with Hollywood dollar for dollar by lobbying and funding campaigns.
You're right -- most freshman composition programs simply aren't very good. There's a distressing amount of politicking going on behind the scenes there. I actually used to sneak interesting material in by lying to the department about what I was teaching. But even then, the fact that students enrolled because it was a requirement, and not because of what I was teaching, made it difficult to find material with a sufficiently broad appeal. You have to be a really good teacher, and in some ways a really bad employee, to teach composition well.
Sparrow (http://sparrowmailapp.com/) does this really well.
Unsigned Integer Arithmetic API in JDK 8