skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I read about 5 books a month.

Math books: always worth reading.

Programming books: never worth reading.

Fiction: a pleasant way to spend time, but rarely pays off.

History: mostly crap, but personal memoirs are often insightful.

Books that changed me: Orwell's "1984" (role of words), Hunter Thompson (personal courage), Henry Ford's "My Life and Work" (work attitude).

Good stuff that should be better known: Eric Hoffer's "True Believer", Jerome K. Jerome's "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow", Marcus Aurelius.
Why do you think it won't work? And what about approval voting?
Ultimately, people don’t want drills. They want holes.

Yep, that's going into my quotes file.
Everyone should learn as much about the issues as they can, though when it comes down to it you only have to be more informed than the average voter to improve the pool. Which isn't too high a bar.
I'm not sure how this isn't just describing a combination of functional programming and dynamic programming.
The government represents dimwits too, you know. They usually form a key constituency.
How will Congressional immunities influence the legal consequences of a fist fight?
UK to get PS3 vending machines
I guess focusing on the comment above, “and has no direct tax”. I have been told there was no direct tax in US till 1913, so how did it work then? we seem to get along just fine to that point? Assuming what you say is true, that it will never work….

“This would never work in a country that isn't a tax shelter from other nations,” but isn’t Manhattan N.Y. U.S. also a tax haven to foreigners, other then U.S. citizens? And doesn’t the Cayman Islands support competition among, within and between taxing districts of the world, for which they attract wealth? Maybe it’s the competition among governments that makes it work in Cayman, giving money owners a better deal then they get else where.

“Somebody”, yes… if direct then apportioned. Tax somebody with competition, perhaps maybe best.
It's just the clicheness of it that bothers me. Nobody in the country needs a reminder. It's the same with all the various holiday messages.
Open-Xchange Closes Series B Venture Funding of $9 Million
Wordpress did/does both and so can you.
[Off topic]

is it just me, or does this site look broken in firefox 3?
Um. Threads?
I am not a pedigreed programmer, but it sounds like git does this with branching.
A Startup A Day's 73 Non-Partisan Reasons to Vote
It's not that they stopped, it's why they stopped. Reading the comments sheds light on even more problems with rspec and options for other testing stacks.
fivethirtyeight.com may have a more reliable method. Time will tell. An aggregate of polls with solid math applied to it might just win by having more data.

Now, if there were a US-legal prediction market, that would be something.
Mr. Benioff, Tear Down That Wall
Interestingly, a friend a couple months ago was telling me about ultra ETFs. They use leverage to ensure (quite reliably so far, though they're new) a daily return of double the index they're based on. He specifically recommended one that is short the S&P.

I haven't talked to him since, but I suspect he's buying a beach house ATM.
Because it ruins the damn game.

Do you play WoW?
Interesting graph. (although someone needs to be introduced to the concept of a logarithmic scale)

I found it particularly intriguing that (as far as I can make out) at no point in time did Everquest 2 have more subscribers than Everquest, and the same is true for Lineage 2 and Lineage. I wonder if that's one of the reasons Blizzard are continually upgrading the existing game rather than releasing a replacement?

As for other software: well, I think a lot of subscription-based and/or web-based software already does this. You don't choose to switch to GMail 2.0, it's just a steady trickle of new stuff.

Conventional games on the other hand are very hit-driven - they don't peak after a year or two but within the first few weeks, after which they fall off more or less exponentially. They do release expansions for many games of course, although I think it depends heavily on the game how well that sells. (the famous extreme example is of course Railroad Tycoon 2, where the expansion sold more copies than the base game due to piracy)
Well, that's not entirely true - athletics are associated with 'fun', and math isn't. How many students here have seen the poster in your math class 'math is necessary for....' and then lists a bunch of occupations (aka 'work')?

Why not focus on the fun side of math from an early age?
Amended FDL will allow Wikipedia to adopt CC license
Fired? Don't delete your company's Exchange database
OpenSUSE community announces first elected board
Still trying to get my parents to switch.
Their data 'only' represents 160 million visitors per month from their 'stats' network.
Install, import favorites and change default to FF, they'll prob never notice the difference.
Yes, it is, but since you've radically increased the size of your space, you'll need yet more bits to describe a specific thing than if you start from a TM that only describes multiverses like ours.

Due to the way K-complexity is defined, there is no escape. As you increase the size of the space you are considering, the bits needed to cut the space back down to something specific grow in proportion.
There seem to be two MMO models, the subscription model and the subscription-free model where you pay for better gear. I don't know if there are any hybrid games (I don't play any MMOs myself) but I could imagine that once the premium practice was legitimised, people would get upset about having to pay for the subscription.
Old Gray Advice
Why won't they? In my limited experience working with parents and the in-laws, they've generally been excited to use something that I positioned as better (even if it was barely founded).
10 Ways to Make Press Releases More SEO Friendly
Tried it and they noticed.

I'm probably going to try switching them to Chrome first over Christmas.
The number of people in the country will have a marginal effect on the time it takes to count the votes, since each voting station counts the votes received there. The central system where the results are registered might need a database with 30x more rows, but that'd hardly be a problem.

"Why not do it electronically, assuming it's done properly": that's just the problem - it can't be done properly.
They get comfortable with things and don't like tech change.
Expansion packs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruins_of_Kunark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scars_of_Velious
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadows_of_Luclin

Man, I feel so old.
What One Word Describes Your Current State of Mind? - Interactive Feature
well you always have the option to lie. delete some files from IE, then when they ask you to fix it, bs them with tech stuff "sorry mom, but the latest auto update changed the drivers and now IE won't render"

then simulate trying different options to fix IE, and then give up and say "Sorry folks, you gotta use FF"
The Healthy Skinny Pill
I have spent all my life in Bangalore, India and I'm nearing 30.

The Indian culture gives a lot of importance to having good math skills. If your mom asks you to get something from the neighbouring shop, you better have your math right. Kids are always taught to count the change and demand the correct change after a transaction.

So, addition and subtraction have to have on the spot without the help of a electronic teller. Perhaps that can give an insight into why I insist that the Indian culture requires you to be sharp with your basic math.

I have alternate story about maximum "fails" in the board exams. A lot of students dread Hindi (an artificially imposed third language in South India) and to a lesser extent English.

Yeah, I agree with your premise that good secondary math skills are a result of ultra-competitive nature of college admissions and job market. But, it still doesn't take away the fact that a student with average overall score in India will be better off than an average student in US when it comes to "usable" mathematics.
My dad was pretty shocked how easily some malware managed to get onto his work system a couple of months ago from an ad on an otherwise legitimate site, despite fully patched IE and up-to-date anti-virus software. The anti-virus software did catch it, but only after it had made it onto the system. He got a mac and uses Safari at home now.
Identifying Effective Startup Advisors
Great article describing how to find entrepreneurial Advisors who can add real value to your ventures.
If only he didnt have that silly mustache. He looks like a pedophile.

Oh well... I just voted for him anyways :)
I really should try that over Christmas. Thank you.
No, because threads can mutate global state.

I would think this would be more like backtracking done in a side-effect free way.
Knuth no longer writes checks
Transactional Continuations. That sounds important.
Heh, my mom switched in an instant, and my dad didn't even notice. She uses an older laptop (circa 2003~) and Firefox 3just runs so much faster on it compared to IE7/8
I don't think the specifics of past bubbles repeat, but you can still learn a lot about human behavior from such events. I have long speculated that cycling interest rates over time 3 - 4 - 3 - 4 etc would help curb the creation of bubbles as minor shocks would drive up cash reserves.

In a bubble people increase investment and risk, but they also decrease efficiency. In a down turn people increase efficiency at the cost of avoiding useful risks. Both are useful and both are damaging when they stretch out over time.

The last bubble popped because they raised interest rates way to fast at the same time oil went sky high. Getting people to live in smaller homes has long term benefits to the economy but few people want to live in small houses. etc.
What's New in OpenBSD 4.4
Hi Joel,

One thought I had might be to use some of your ad revenue as a prize pool each week/month/etc. That way people could play with the potential to earn some real money. Hopefully it snowballs so that you can offer bigger prize pools attracting more traffic in a happy money making circle.

I think this could be a really nice niche to be in as you could end up as the "default" free poker site to play at. Why play somewhere else when you could potentially earn real money playing free poker?
Google Crawlllling, Timing Out? (reader, gmail, docs)
For the last few days Google Reader, Gmail and Docs have been very slow and timing out. I have experienced this from multiple locations and connections. Anyone else noticing this?
I read non-fiction books exclusively. I find them to be a nice break from my imagination. I tend to look down upon people who look down upon people.
I read the title as "forbes.com is Apple's secret weapon", leading me to expect an article about the Jobs RDF.

Flash and the low price of RAM are two things lately that have given me that feeling of awe about the progress of computing. Technical progress is amazing.
I don't know enough to answer that but intuitively it seems that as long as the two parties alternate presidents and tend to get a similar number of the popular vote there isn't much incentive to change.

I'm not sure if a change would be drastic, it would probably just be a gradual move to capture new voters without alienating old ones.
That worked on my grandparents (they didn't even notice).
Chris Neukirchen discusses the fact that 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ... = -1
Double the loss though right? The banks went under for similar reasons - way too much leverage.
You think it could be more reliable than following the money?

What about an aggregate of money-based prediction markets?
Hehe, yeah - and () after writing stop or play
I re-labeled IE "DO NOT USE".

This makes me think I should re-label Firefox "Internet".
Delegate! I don't have to know anything myself. To take care of the physical security and hardware requirements, I'd hire the makers of slot machines. For usability and reliability, I'd team them up with coders and UI people to write the software, and open source it for public review.
"I have been told there was no direct tax in US till 1913, so how did it work then? "

This is not entirely true. There was an income tax that was put into place for a number of years around the civil war, but was later abolished. Im not certain on the exact years, though.

Either way, taxes still abounded back then, they just werent compulsory. But they were if you were alive, eating, and tried to move around society. In other words, if you lived in BFE and had a farm, you probably didnt pay anything -- but if you lived in the city, you almost had to when buying tea, other food items, paying for stamps, other imported items.

The debate about whether we should have income tax or not is somewhat moot outside of armed rebellion. Its here to stay. The point that is more important is that it should be uniform, easy to follow, and LOW. I should not pay 50% of my efforts to the government. 5%, ok, 10% maybe, but 50%? no. The amount is what makes the income tax so unbearable, not that it exists at all.

Brian
Whoa - that was just weird. Posted at the exact same time.
Due diligence, recession style
This may be the most relevant hacker news I have seen all day. If it's not true, I expect a strong response back. And if it is true, I hope there is a good explanation or things change quickly.
I have an Aeron at home and a regular office chair at the office.

I would say the difference between the two isn't huge. The Aeron is more comfortable, but I don't know that it was worth all the added cost.

I'd recommend going to a store that specializes in "back" furniture. In Arizona we have http://www.relaxtheback.com/ which had some pretty decent options.
How I Made the GeekStack Logo With No Design Skills Whatsoever
Cloning From the Frozen Dead
Go vote! If you guys can stand in lines for a xbox 360 and iphone you can stand in line to vote.
So would you mind giving your opinion on Net Neutrality? I've always been a bit torn and I bet you have a good perspective on it.
"Another way to read quickly is to cut bait on the losers. I start ten or so books for every one I finish. I don't mind disliking a book, and I never regret having picked it up and started it. I am ruthless in my discards."

Tyler Cowen
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/12...
Haven't we already voted in a poll from PG http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=349421 asking "Allow stories about the election?", with 49 yes and 218 no when I last checked?
Build Anything
Obama Extends Lead But Race Not Over
Startup Idea: Hacker News reading recs.

I use Goodreads now, but it doesn't really solve the problem recommending books to me that people like myself enjoy. It shows me what my mom and other people I know read, which is interesting, but most of the time not particularly relevant to my interests/career.

If there was a review site that essentially did what this thread does--let people with common interests recommend books to each other, I'd look there first when I was choosing what to read next.
Not really. Not proud of it, but I just don't see that much value in reading. It seems like a waste of time to me. I'd rather use that time to get more done.

I might start reading about web design and related topics, since that's what I do and I could probably learn a lot from this kind of books, but honestly I'm not interested in reading fiction at all.

Maybe it because of all those boring books I was forced to read as a kid at school.
I doubt this would be legal. My assumption is that any payout at my poker site would label its activities as gambling.
Keep up the great work, Sridhar Vembu. Many of us are rooting for you and Zoho. Your example of a bootstrapped startup successfully taking on the largest players in the industry is inspiring. I think Zoho is one of the most under-appreciated business stories of 2008.
Seems sound. But how does a bell curve for voting look like? I can imagine a histogram..
I see you registered that name just to post that.
Lying for the greater good?
Dell asks employees to take unpaid leave
That's really interesting- I, too, had flagged Salesforce as an 'open' company. Their API is comparatively good, and the AppExchange is virtually unparalleled in terms of openness to third parties.

I wonder if this is something specific to Zoho, or if they're taking an anticompetitive stance in general.
I got a really comfortable chair from warehouse stationary (New Zealand) for about $300. Basically I went in, sat on every chair in there regardless of price or brand and chose a top 3. Then I tested these against each other several times and walked away with the one that felt best.

My suggestion, rather than being a specific chair, is to test many.
Apple iPod Genius Quits, Replaced With IBM Guy
Solar power game-changer: Near perfect absorption of sunlight from all angles
Fewer Roads, Less Congestion
er, ok then i'll rephrase - "we're mostly sure it can't transfer.." or "we've never been able to get it to"

I doubt the writer meant it the same way you do. He was talking about the known things that hes not wrapped his mind around. In this case, explaining why the theories don't necessarily conflict should do.
Top Reasons for Entering the Deadpool
All my bad habits are hidden behind a clean, stable public API.
This seems like the logical conclusion you arrive at being an engineer who can't effectively communicate with non-engineers. Although it's definitely true that it's easier to show people a product rather than explain it ahead of time.
There aren't enough companies that know how and when to give up on projects.

The two biggest mistakes are that people don't base their decision on relevant cash flows* and/or egos get involved.

No one likes 'throwing away' money (/time) or admitting that they were wrong, so marginal projects are allowed to linger on and on and on...

The best way to do the assessment is to get someone from the outside to take a look, who has no vested interests or loyalties. They don't have to be expensive, just able to add up and maintain independence. Once the costs of completing projects are out where everyone can see them the decisions sort of make themselves.

*Any income/expenditure that is going to happen in the future but could be changed by a decision now, excluding money already committed or spent and depreciation.
But it would allow you to prove whom you voted for?
I don't think you understood what I mean. I mean that if you have someone who speaks at a rate of x and that gets unintelligible at a playback speed of y and another that speaks at a rate of 2x and gets unintelligible at a playback speed of y/2 then all other things being equal you have no advantage in listening to one instead of the other if you playback at the maximum intelligible speed.
I think the nature of this site is that we are somewhat critical of the mainstream (digg, etc). I.e. we look down on them. I didn't mean my comment to be taken personally, it is just my opinion, and it may be flawed. But I don't think so.
I'm reading "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. It's about Robert Moses, who was responsible for building much of the road infrastructure around NYC, and many of the bridges into and between the boroughs.

Several of the bridges he built were done so to alleviate traffic, but traffic was always worse after the bridge opened up. There were two main problems: more people wanted to use the "fast" routes, and the total volume of traffic increased.
I like the Council on Foreign Relations. They do rule the world, but they aren't as extreme as they are made out to be. It is more like, no one ever questions them, because they are always right. If the NY Times has a bias, it is in favor of the Council on Foreign Relations's world view. When you get down to it, it is really bizarre how much influence these think tanks can have, the most profound example being the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Ce...

Globalization is not so bad. Either way, it's inevitable. The CFR may rule the world with their quiet influence, but the rest is conspiracy theory. If the world eventually unites in world government, it will be the UN running things, not your mysterious new world order.

Obama is not a member of the CFR, but he gave a speech to them, as required of all serious presidential candidates.
I read. I tend to reread older books nowadays: you get to the point where new books really stop seeming interesting.

I have Anathem, for instance, and it's not a very pleasurable book for me to read. Stephenson is not deft enough with words, I feel: he lacks a certain subtlety. I'll end up reading Anathem, but it's taking me a while. And I find much value in rereading books that I'm certain I don't fully comprehend. I read Joyce and Beckett a lot.

I also put lots of books on my Kindle. That's where I get new books, mainly, unless the new book is special to me in some way.

But yes, I read. I read a lot. I love reading. I devour novels. I also like nonfiction, though there are fewer nonfiction authors that I enjoy.
I don't think they did; it was different subsets of the "Internet crowd".
That's a staggering number; it's larger than the current British Army.
"I'll fix it later"
There is nothing momentous about Greenspan's mistake.

It's very naive, a bit sad, and very silly.

It is all those things because everyone knows:

Short term pressure for profits is very likely to lead large companies to make decisions which will doom them in the long term.

Every libertarian could have told you that.

Why Greenspan has a such a naive and fundamentally flawed view we will never know.

Perhaps after a life time of fighting damaging over regulation he simply lost perspective. Who knows.

But please stop with the pompous OMG WTF BBQ FREE MARKET FAIL! articles.
Turkish Bank Robber Reveals Secrets On YouTube
There could be very short book in this!

The ECD process methodology.

Chapter 1: Core Principles.

- Just build it.

Chapter 2: Defect management.

- Just fix it.

Etc :)
This makes me wonder how many amazing species have been lost through deforestation without us ever knowing what benefits they could have had...
It's not that hard to host a rails app yourself with apache + mysql + mod_rails.

Just rent linux server and install apache, mysql and ruby, then "gem install passenger" and follow the instructions.
thinking 256, 512 etc as special numbers :|
Isn't many worlds worse? The universe forks at every step! At least with the reduction to the generating turn machine we have only a bounded number of bits the description truncates.
I don't wanna rain on your parade, but it sure would be a lot nicer if the lines were nice and crisp... This may be related to the zooming you did in Word?
Interesting; I submitted the same link you did about 5 minutes before you did. But you wisely chose to summarize the blogpost instead of using the author's title (like I did).
Ask HN: How do you drive traffic to a new niche blog?
What are the most effective ways to drive traffic to a new blog that is targeted to a specific niche audience. Sites like digg and reddit don't have fine grained niches that make the content relevant to most viewers. For those of you who have successfully launched such a blog, what is your advice?
Reserve some blame for the American college admissions culture which says that students who participate in a greater number of extra curricular activities are worth more than the student who did well in math.
Politics, nothing new, too much of it on the front page already. Flagged.
Is That Steam In The Cloud?
I agree. Though even with the axiomatic approach I have to do a lot of problems to really understand. Of course the problems are mostly of the type "Prove that lemma" or "Find out whether that proposition is true and prove your answer".
It's been a while since I've coded in prolog, but that sounds a lot like what they were trying to do.
Time to Lead
Some git fu
This is blowing my mind. The implications for AI and genetic programming could be huge.
Intel CTO Rattner: Wireless Power Likely to Produce Devices that Run Infinitely