skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I usually don't drink while I read, but I do enjoy drinking while I read. Usually one beer or one glass of wine. I usually drink tea while I read.

I do agree that if you can't enjoy something unless you're drinking, that's an issue. If I had to drink every time I read a book, I would have to do some soul searching. And you're right, if you can only party when you're drunk, are you really partying?
>After dinner, his father (a Doctor, along with 80% of the family) shared his views about alcohol, predicting that in one generation alcohol will be socially rejected the way tobacco is today because of how utterly destructive alcohol is to the human body.

I think this has a likelihood approaching nil.

The consumption of alcohol is literally as old as human civilization; humans first stumbled upon fermenting grains into ale around the time humans first began farming.

There would have to be some sort of ground breaking discovery to attach the same sort of health stigma to alcohol as tobacco. Right now, the research is extremely mixed. The continual debate over possible health benefits of wine would be one indicator. The fact that data indicates that complete abstainers generally live shorter lives than those who drink would be another.[1]

>Remember! Just 50 years ago, the majority of the United States had no problem with cigarettes.

Remember! Less than 100 years ago, the anti-alcohol movement in the United States was strong enough to put Prohibition into place.

And what's interesting about that is that it illuminates another key place where I think the idea that alcohol will suddenly become socially unacceptable is completely off the mark. We've consumed alcohol for thousands of years, and we've been fairly aware of its destructive effects for nearly as long because alcohol is more immediately destructive than tobacco.

One of the biggest drivers of the temperance movement in the late 19th and early 20th century were women. In the time predating modern social safety nets and women's liberation movements, a woman with a drunk for a husband would end up with mouths to feed and very few options for making an income.

Yet prohibition was a disaster on a grand scale because society at large rejected it. It would take a major sea change for things to be any different today or in 50 years.

[1]http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00....
good one, missing only one important license: CDDL
So what do you make of Wikipedia's NPOV policy? Surely there must be people out there providing information just for the sake of information.
It's a little hard to argue that the GPL forces anyone to do anything.

It certainly places conditions on the use of code which has been released under it, but it doesn't take away the choice to not use that code.
A mischaracterization (and, given your tone, probably intentionally so).

A useful mail system has value to me. It outweighs the (in my mind vastly overhyped) dangers of Google doing something nefarious with my data. If you disagree, you're welcome to run your own mail server. Nobody's stopping you.
There are articles on the subject, I can't recall them off the top of my head. The gist of it is that Dropbox is more than just cloud storage. They've put an unbelievable amount of work into the syncing client itself on all platforms so it's really robust, very cross platform, while at the same time uniquely tailored to each platform and completely seamless in operation.

Here is a little snippet from Quora on the subject, sorry I couldn't find anything more: http://www.quora.com/How-does-Dropbox-integrate-with-OS-X-fi...
I wouldn't call it stupid, so much as superficial. Those qualities, apart from the temporal connection, could be applied to most people who have achieved any notable stature.
Do you only appreciate a nice steak frites because it makes you full?

You seem to think that it's impossible to genuinely appreciate the flavour of alcoholic drinks and to have interest in drinking the many kinds for the variety of interesting flavours.

Why should I avoid certain drinks simply because they have alcohol in them? Can you explain?
Regarding the first paragraph - it brings taste. Same reason we eat nice food rather than the cheapest most nutritional food we can find. It's not alcohol for the sake of alcohol, if I had a bottle of vodka at home I wouldn't bother drinking it. Come to think of it, I think I actually do have a bottle of vodka somewhere in a draw in my bedroom... it's there because I haven't ever wanted to get drunk at home since I was given it 9 months ago.

Whisky in particular I can't get enough of (in the hyperbolic way, not the "I literally drink as much as I can" way!) - I forgot to include, when looking around the room, that I have ~15 30ml bottle samples of various whiskies that I haven't tried, which I regularly add to and try. After trying them I might add it to my mental list of real bottles to buy in the future... often won't.
I guess, that's the same one I came down here to post. Looks like it might be a pretty neat little machine.
> Like with most things it's easy to slide down a slippery slope. One glass of wine turns into two and then you've polished off the rest of the bottle.

A date with one girl turns into two, and then you're hiring infected hookers.

A piece of cake turns into two, and then you've eaten the entire cake and then you get diabetes.

Five miles over the speed limit turns into ten, and then you're arrested for going 50 over the speed limit.

If you don't like alcohol, and find it hard to only have one drink, and decide to not drink at all, that's great! I'm glad you found something that works for you. But your comments strongly imply that your experience is everyone else's experience, and that we're just in denial about it.
I would LOVE for someone at Google to violate their TOS and read my mail. That would be far more profitable than any business idea I will execute this year.
In Brazil, every student studies philosophy
This article was very helpful and it encourged me. I'm in my mid twenties and I've never drank gotten drunk (outside of sampling) and always had peers pressuring me to drink. But this article reaffirmed my reasons for not drinking. Conclusion; I don't see how drinking would enhance my life than when I am sober. Thank Bubs!
I wasn't speaking to this specifically, but rather induction motors and wireless power among other things.
Did you just say what I was implying and use it to defend the opposite point?

My/his point was that writing "oh my god" as "ohmigod" made the alien sound like a teenage girl, not that the possible appeal to a deity had any relevance to the story.
Don't forget MPL2 at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/
Well its just actually a matter of perspective sometimes. If you think you could still keep up there is no problem so long as you still has control over yourself. Remember that accidents happen when we are not aware of it.
Be a responsible drinker.
“You are either building, selling or leaving.”

I like pithy witticisms like this - reminds me of something business guru Peter Drucker said:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs."
In my mind, that's the big gamble with Facebook. It could either be THE source for socializing for 100 years (and hence very valuable), or it could be another MySpace (etc.), and hence not worth a lot.

The cynic in me, would say that people who own stock now don't think it would last and are getting out when it's at it's top.
Goal: become developer this year from scratch. Feedback?
Interested in meeting fellow travelers who are doing the same, have done the same, or are just interested. My email is thegrokaholic [AT SYMBOL] gmail [DOT] com.

BACKGROUND:

28 years old, San Francisco. Programming experience consists of a Python tutorial, making a simple text game for friends. Want to build stuff on computers all day for work, initially freelancing or working a job for experience, and later building products and a company.

MAIN GOAL:
Current temp job ends in May. Taking this chance to leap into professional web development. Saved enough to cover living expenses thru Sept. By May, will have enough to cover living expenses thru Dec. By Dec, goal is to get first client and make $2k from web dev. After taxes, that $2k will cover Jan expenses, buying another month to find the next client, then the next. If I fail, I'll go back to temping and save until I can try this again.

SPRING GOAL:
Build my personal site while learning HTML/CSS/Javascript/jQuery as I go. Lots of overtime at the current job, so I'm just doing as much dev as I can when I can on the side. Using internet tutorials while attending classes at the Noisebridge hackerspace for Frontend Web Dev (HTML/CSS/JS), Python, and Web Apps (learning Git, Python frameworks e.g. Django).

Focusing most of my time on HTML/CSS/JS, but really enjoy learning more Python/Django/Git/Unix/SQL material. Not only is Python/Django what I want to ultimately do at this point, studying this and associated topics (Git version control/command line/SQL) gives me this sense of wider perspective on frontend topics.

That said, reached out to someone who has done what I'm trying to do, and they advised me to only focus on either HTML/CSS/JS or Python/Django for now. What do you think? Is it realistic to attempt them all while achieving my $2k goal by Dec, or am I definitely better of sticking to just HTML/CS/JS this year?

SUMMER GOAL:
In June, once my current job ends, going into 24/7 build mode, building sites for my portfolio while continuing to grok what I need as I go. These will be sites for friends or charities.

FALL/WINTER GOAL:

Then around Sept, switch out of bootcamp mode and start devoting half my time to getting my portfolio out there, and trying to get that first customer, even if it's just subcontracting menial tasks from another dev. Other half of my time will stay devoted to building and grokking new things.

What do you think? Perspective, advice welcome. Thanks for reading.

PS If you're trying to do the same thing, and are interested in an example of someone who has succeeded in becoming a dev from scratch within a similar timeframe, check out the site of proudn00b (http://www.proudn00b.com/). If you know sites of other people who have done the same, drop me a link. The inspiration helps. Thanks!
What the Security State Hath Wrought - James Fallows - National - The Atlantic
I wrote the post for people that use drinking as a way to enjoy an experience more. Those are the kind of people who often slide down that slope. I recognize that a lot of people don't have any issues with this slope. Sorry for sliding you down it.

What do you get out of drinking?
Trendslide Alpha Invites
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Seeing larger developers using a really small computer with a really small screen is similar to seeing a basketball player driving a compact. It makes you wonder... Why?
I see the motivation, but picking one proxy metric to understand your business by seems like an overreaction. Unless it's not a proxy metric, that is; if you could predict discounted future profits, then "estimated present value of net future profits" would be a great metric (assuming those are accurate estimates). But if it's really a proxy metric, all proxies are wrong in more or less interesting ways, so you might want several angles from which to view what's going on.
The Real | Socyberty
That's a good point and I agree.

That was my experience as well at first, but then I realized that there is a certain pattern to the way americans communicate, and it goes something like this:

- First state the positive aspects that you like, or show appreciation for the effort - even though those things have already been said by other people in the thread.
- Then count what you find negative but don't use words such as "sucks" and "not good" etc.. but use words such as "could be better" and "can be iterated on" or "needs improvement".
- Then end the post by encouragement.

This technique has also helped me IRL as I started working with other americans in a startup in the bay area.

It takes some practice, imo, but it makes for some better communication with americans.

Good luck! ;)
a lot of people think that "locking" someones account is setting their shell to /bin/false or something.
a paid platform for writers makes sense, but there definitely needs to be some connection between members.

or at least a feed.
It sounds like it is really a flavor thing for you, and that sounds awesome. You've found something you really enjoy and are able to share that with others.
Some more info...

Email augments my life but does not control it. That's where the distinction is. Much as writing letters is a tool, so is email. If it went away, the world would not end for me and I intend to keep it that way.

Availability? If mail doesn't get delivered immediately, thanks to the joys of SMTP, it will come later (when my ADSL line is back up). If it's urgent, someone can put mouth to phone rather than finger to keyboard.

Updating packages? Cron does this for me once a week. Maintenance? There is none. Everything is done properly once and automated.

I access everything via SSH if I have to which is rarely. I avoid email on the move where possible as there are more important things to do like looking in front of you and not worrying about stuff.

I make sure I don't need past emails. Not everything everyone has written is golden. In fact most of it is useless and just noise.

For reference's sake, I trialled Google Apps on a domain for 2 months as a possible replacement for my setup. It was a pain in the butt. There is actually no support worth anything if it does go wrong which it did terribly (gmail stopped working entirely with a server error). The entire domain approval process is problematic and time consuming and their contracts are disagreeable. Plus it didn't deliver any additional value.

Ultimately, if you look at it, there is actually more work to setting up a system to backup contacts and calendars and watching that than there is to operate my setup entirely.

I assume you are backing up your google apps accounts?
In the UK I'd say that in lots of non-smoking circles, weed is indeed fairly socially acceptable. Not universal, maybe not even for the majority of people (I've no idea how the figures add up).

But for my company, as an example, if I walked into the office on Monday and said "I had a great weekend, was permanently stoned" (not true!), my CEO would be very critical - to what extent I don't know - but he's already critical of my smoking (he attempted to bribe me to quit with a new coffee machine for the office, which almost tempted me), the rest of my colleagues would have no problem with it, so long as I never did it immediately before or during work. Not only with people who don't smoke weed (possibly everyone in our company I believe) but those who don't smoke cigarettes, too.
Packets have emotions.
Having good conversations doesn't necesarilly have anything to do with having structured well thought out dialogue.

"Clicking" with someone, and having a great time incoherently talking about dumb stuff while laughing, can be just as fulfilling (but in a different way) than an intelligent enlightening discussion.
Sure, you don't need alcohol to talk about dumb stuff with someone you're level with. But I find that alcohol severely expands the demographic of people I can get that kind of interaction going with
Not suggesting that. I think there are really people who appreciate the flavors of alcohols. My post was about partyers, not connoisseurs.
Reddit users are the hipsters of the internet
"[Gmail/Facebook/USGov/etc] isn't going to find anything particularly interesting about me by my mail, anyway."

There are two problems here:

1. We look at our data from our point of view. Other people and orgs have their own points of view, and it's their actions driven by their points of view that we need to worry and think about. For example, you think your mail is uninteresting, yet Google enhances the value of their ads by correlating your interests with the interests in your communication network.

Government surveillance can also learn a lot just by recording and analyzing who you talk to. When a law enforcement agency cannot get a full wiretap warrant, they will sometimes settle for a pen register, which just records the telephone numbers of your calls. This allows them to find out who you know, and who you talk to the most. This lets them form more detailed opinions about you and your known associates, which may or may not be accurate. You know, like Google does for ads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register

Oh, you're just not that interesting to the government?

2. Innocent behavior being observed by the government is enough to disrupt your life in minor and major ways. Consider the British couple that was recently denied entry to the United States, merely because their tweets contained boisterous comments about destroying the US (i.e. partying really hard), and digging up Marilyn Monroe's grave. Imagine if they had used the British slang term "crack."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champers#C

It takes nothing more than mere notice to disrupt your life. If you innocently have communication with someone who in turn has communication with a "person of interest," you could find your car carrying a GPS. Just from noting communication networks, never mind the communication content.

I'm not trying to go all tinfoil hat, I'm just suggesting that your view of your data is completely different from corporate and government's view of your data. You could be served an ad (horror!), or you could be served a warrant (horror), based on accurate or mistaken interpretation of any facet of your communication.
Facebook graffiti artist stands to earn $200m from IPO
Someone I know once told me crypto is funny because all you have to do is compromise the OS's socket implementation.
AT&T is vile garbage. I'm grandfathered into their unlimited plan, but throughout NYC, at work, and at home, my reception is spotty at best. As discussed in this thread, their customer service is non-existant.

With an unlimited data plan at worse than dial-up speeds, the data service is useless. I'm planning on switching to Verizon when my iPhone 4 AT&T contract is up, but I'm not holding my breath for any better customer service from Verizon. There really is no cell phone company in the US that I want to give my money to.
That's never happened to me. Perhaps I use more reputable commerce sites (so far anyway).
Or maybe to have well behaved kids you just have to give them a good beating now and then?

Just saying - I don't mean to advise beating kids (I would never do it, and it is also illegal where I live), but to point out that below the surface, not everything is necessarily what it seems to be. These articles advising strictness towards kids pop up with steady frequency... They might benefit the parents more than the kids.

Funny how it is portrait as being advantageous for the kid to leave them crying in the night, so "they can learn to fall asleep again". Or maybe they just got some emotional scars, but hey, they can sleep.

I took the opposite approach with my kid (16 months) - we always rushed to his bed side when he was crying. He did not sleep through the night from day one, but in general, he is very pleasant company. We wanted to give him confidence and I think so far it has worked. He doesn't need to terrorize us because he knows in general we treat him fairly.
There is always a "parenting crisis" in the US. I remember hearing this sort of stuff when I was a kid, 40 years ago, and have seen books on "parenting" from as far back as the 1920s with the same sorts of stuff.
I'll call bull shit on this. Its a great temptation to check it when its just there. I check mine a lot.

But when I'm busy I can easily go an entire week without missing it. I spend easily 80 hours per average week on a computer so I guess I'd be in the upper thresholds of users out there.

I recently spent a month in thailand which included a fortnight without power, did I miss the internet? not really, only in the evenings when I realised I was't tired and there wasn't anything else to do. If anything the amount of entertainment I expect has increased but nothing else. Perhaps an emotional dependancy thats easily placated by other mediums.

But not addiction, theres no physical dependancy, no withdrawals, you aren't going to go into shock and cold sweats from missing out on twitter after 24 hours. I sure as hell don't get a stress headache like when I haven't had a coffee in a few days...
Agreed, especially on the judgement point. I really didn't intend to, but I think I offended a few people here because it sounded like I was passing judgement on people that do drink.

I just bought my wife a 6-pack of beer from the store yesterday and I think she's the most amazing person on this planet.
But the rest of my comment - yeah, I still enjoy the flavour when getting drunk, but even if I didn't care for the taste I'd still enjoy drinking on a night out.

edit: The only argument I would make against getting drunk, in my case, is that when doing it I'm obviously not taking the healthiest path. But I strongly suspect my food and nicotine habits are much bigger problems in the long-term.
IMO. He clearly explained why he stopped drinking (wanting to actually experience everything with a clear mind).

I stopped drinking to see if I could. Compared to that, his explanation is more than enough
http://grumomedia.com/how-create-a-great-product-demo-video-...

Yes blank screen and talking is fine enough. Check out the above link. Its best to tell a story, something along the lines of the problems in your target customers life without your product, then how much better it gets once he has your product.

Keep it short <2 min and just cover main benefit/feature.

If it need to look more flashy for an investor or something use an adobe after effects template from http://videohive.net/ and you can prob find someone on fiverr or similar site to edit it for you.

Remember it just has to be interesting to your target customer, so don't make it about your product make it about them!
"After about 10 minutes, Leo stopped trying to leave altogether."

I think there is another possible explanation: by stopping to chase Leo, it stopped being a game for him. It might not have been her sterner "no" at all.

Also I'd like to point out that the French are famous for putting their kids into kindergarden from the age of 3 months. From my perspective (dad of a 16 months old who is still at home) that seems rather cruel.
Suppressing the median doesn't hurt more than the bottom half.
If you drink alcohol to get buzzed/drunk in order to be more relaxed/social/happy, etc. All I'm suggesting is that it might be possible for you to achieve that without drinking... and then you can access that place any time you want.

If you enjoy drinking and don't need it for the above. Awesome for you.
Wikipedia has an opinion, which it clearly states. It wants to be a free encyclopedia, which it can only do if the information is nominally unbiased.
dj finny's dnb mixes have been sustaining me for years:
http://www.mixcloud.com/finny/

i can't handle the monotony of trance, and dubstep can be a bit too much. a lot of dnb also tends to be repetitive, but finny keeps things lively enough for you to pay attention to code
Does Metcalfe's Law apply to the human brain? (2007)