skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I enjoy Amazon Prime very much as a customer; had it for free before, and when the free period ended, I gladly paid the $80 membership because it does save me quite a bit in the end (I buy a lot more at amazon, although I spend less overall -- mostly at the expense of overpriced local stores, somewhat at the expense of other reasonably priced online stores).

Recently though, I've started making a habit of converting people to use ShopRunner, and letting everyone I know to get on ShopRunner when the promotion is free. The experience I've had with ShopRunner is not as good as Amazon Prime, but it is close. And I fear the Amazon monoculture more than I enjoy Prime.

Don't expect Prime to be as good when they don't actually have to compete on merit. Promote the competition, even if it costs you a little now - it's an investment for the future.

(Re: shoprunner, every couple of weeks they used to have a "get in free today" deal; Now it's $1/year once every few weeks. Set up an alert on dealnews.com to be notified the next time this happens)
Announcing MapBox Streets: A Global Map with Street Level Detail
If I had the ability to downvote your post I would have. Your comment "I have not bothered to learn, nor do I plan anytime soon" goes against everything I believe in as a web developer.

Sure, I may not be proficient in everything, but I try to have a working knowledge of all of the latest popular technologies so that I am not ignorant to what's going on around me. Like others have stated, 30min is all you need to really grasp what's going on in coffee script. Is that kind of time investment really that challenging to come by?
Vliegtickets: de goedkoopste vliegtickets
NYC has really gone to great lengths to protect the existing medallion system - no surprise given the amount of money that it brings in.

I think that's probably the core of it, yes. At the end of the day, it isn't a problem for me to use for-hire taxi services- it's just a shame that I can't use yellow cabs.

I didn't really intend for this post to be a complaint about government regulation- it exists everywhere, and often for good reason- but more about the fact that the average startup has no time to lobby government for change.
Native Clojure in Clojure?
This was fun. Thanks for leaving it to be an exercise for the reader.

The interesting bit is the underscore '_' --it can be either P or G depending on context, but I'm yet to figure out if there's some rhyme or reason to how it works.
This can help to figure out http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953714/face-recognition-l...
not everybody wants to jump into learning solutions that solve other people problems, prefer to learn the ones that solve theirs. if someone doesn't need coffeescript, there's no ROI.
Plans are in place to make the website and announcement, etc accessible under load.
But don't you need to leave the house to return the items? I've always regarded dropping off and mailing packages to be a huge chore.
That's a terrible argument. I still write and read Python with libraries that use C (for example: the entire standard library). If you want an example that fits the point you are trying to make, consider Lua/C, where you _can_ mix the two easily.

The point is still flawed, though - CoffeeScript is not JavaScript, and I have no interest in learning it (I'd rather spend the time learning to write better JS myself). I, and everyone else with my mindset, has their time wasted by this mislabelling; we would not have clicked through if the title said CoffeeScript.
Thank you for taking the time to explain that, I hadn't even thought about it like that, the venom in some of the other responses to people who are skeptical of coffeescript is really alarming.
am i the only who is not excited by any "RoR"-like framework?

i like node because it lets me build small standalone programs/apps which i can link together to act like on big project.

i - for one's part - found that having one master-overlord framework kills a lot of the joy of programming.

ok, there is the "it's much more manageable" argument, but well, my experience is that big apps on RoR need much more maintenance work then similar programs on much uglier stacks (i.e. webprojects using LAMP)

said that - after reading some of the docs - i will probably give towerjs a try.
One of the students asked this during the Q&A period at the end of the talk, he said it was just some Javascript and HTML cooked up to do just the things that he showed. So it wasn't a real demo, only something he whipped up to demonstrate the ideas but wouldn't be available to use for actual coding.
Good call. I called it too, much later than you though.

http://blog.altudov.com/2011/08/27/the-upcoming-amazons-andr...
you took the words right out of my mouth!

unfortunately when academics are indifferent about marketing themselves to the wider world, they are the losers in the long term.
That covers books. But amazon.ca also lacks the non-book products that are so plentiful on amazon.com

I had assumed it was for import/distribution reasons, but I'd be interested to find out the real reason.

The Canadian site now tends to have all the books the US site has.
I agree. I also like Qml better. But. Then again, everyone can do HTML/CSS and that's the thing.
Now you need someone technical to work with you. HN is as good a place to start as any.

If you are a HN reader, chances are you know that an idea is nothing without the team to realize it.

Also, you're probably not a Genius (no offense, that does not mean you're not smart). What I mean is that someone else already had a similar idea.

So now, you need 2 things:
1) Prove that you can bring something to the idea that is not technical skills. Something that a developer having the same idea would like to have.
2) You need to tell people what your idea is. And you need to find a developer who believes in it. A lot (and I mean most) of the devs won't even consider you if you don't tell them first what your idea is.

Meet people in person. Go to meetups. Talk about your idea. I hope you have marketing skills if you don't have technical skills because otherwise... well... good luck.

Another solution is to learn how to code. You'll be able to do a prototype of your app. But to develop a real scalable application, you'll need a tech leader who knows his stuff.

Oh. By the way, your idea probably sucks (like all idea I have). How you realize it is everything. And don't be worried about someone stealing your "brilliant" idea. That's just what clueless people think.
Lead data scientist at Custora here.

The problem with linear regression (or any machine learning technique) in CLV prediction is extrapolation. Since we are making a predictive measure, we are projecting out what customers will spend in the future.

You can't construct a valid training dataset to project a 2 year CLV if you business is not two years old. You need to make some assumptions about how customer's ordering will continue. We have found that assuming that customer behavior follows the latent attrition model is a robust assumption for most of our clients.

Even if the business has been around for a long time, we have found that customer behavior tends to change over time. In that early adopters are often far more valuable than more recent customers, so using the earlier adopters as the training set leads to misleading results.

To use a machine learning framework, you need to make the assumption that customers who join recently strongly resemble customers with similar attributes who joined in the past. We have found that this is often not a valid assumption, and so we make the simplifying assumptions about customer behavior to add power to our models.
To attempt to clear up some confusion that has arisen in the discussion here: it wasn't my intention to come across as someone whining about how the government is ruining my idea. It isn't- as I mentioned in the article, I have plenty of avenues available to me. But yes, my life would be easier if the law were different.

My larger point was that most startups simply don't have the time or resources to dedicate to lobbying governments of any type for change, so instead we just have to dodge around our problems. That puts us behind the giant corporations who bend the law to their will.
Scientists Use Stem Cells to Generate Human Eggs
Just how certain is the 'uncertainty principle'?
Pull Down for Navigation
"Sales" might mean individual transactions, in which case the numbers make sense if prime customers place smaller orders on average.
TextMate 2 will support from Snow Leopard upwards
Cool. That's the whole point of continuous integration. Everyone knows that their own stuff passes; it's "does this change break other people's stuff" that's hard to determine.

This is something I've wanted to set up for a long time. Let's chat on IRC some time?
I love ars, but why post this on HN?
Your original comment did come across as a bit harsh but it didn't deserve anyone's downvote. I think your stance can be summed up similar to mine: Just because I haven't learned Coffeescript doesn't mean I don't plan to, or at the very least, doesn't mean I am against it. I (like you) would like to see the site's documentation in Vanilla because, after all, both Coffeescripters and Javascripters can read pure Javascript.

A side note, am I the only one that has noticed an increase in downvote-readiness here lately?
When you have programmers who are more proficient in writing JavaScript than Ruby or PHP. Better a PHP expert using PHP than a cowboy coder using Node just because it is the new hotness.
Has anyone tried deploying a tower.js app to Nodester yet? Let me know if you need a hosting coupon - chris@nodester.com
Good old patronizing government. And paternalistic.

"Now child, don't question father's drinking, gambling and violence problems, you wouldn't understand."
Great job! I am wondering how does this process take for Match.com case?
I'm quite familiar with that article, and I really like the hypothesis. I suppose it really comes down to what "satisfaction" or "happiness" or "better off" actually means. The popular book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" discusses this a lot as well, although the author seems to realize the futility in calling certain lifestyles/societies/governments "better" than others.
I signed up if only to help them with their Hockey stick graph they need for VCs. ;) Good job keep up the good work.

Note: when you create your profile and don't have an Image (At least in Chrome) you get the "broken link" image and that feel very unfinished, I would correct that ASAP.
Having a baby and saving ~$10 per box of diapers made me a quick convert to Subscribe and Save. Those things just magically show up on time and save me money in the long run.
What They Can't Tell You: Starting Up Outside a Hub
Good list. I would add accountability to that.
HTML5 still taking shape
Stuff I've tried over the course of the last year or so:

1) Caffeine pills, 200mg each, around $4 at Walmart. I wrote about this before. The effects are far superior to coffee. More consistent, no intestinal distress. I could take one upon waking, and another around lunchtime. I haven't been taking them daily for a few months now, and my daytime productivity is certainly lower.

2) Piracetam with Choline Citrate and, sometimes, Centrophenoxine. I would usually take around 2g Piracetam and 1 - 2g Choline in the morning, and repeat the dose in the afternoon. It definitely has some effect, but I can't say whether or not it's really a positive one. I suspect that the key (like what the author of this article mentioned) is to have your tasks laid out clearly. I definitely had a few weeks where I got a tremendous amount done, but it was early on in the project when I knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. Overall, I say the jury is out on whether or not Piracetam has a beneficial effect on me. It might increase crankiness, which I've never read about from anyone else.

3) 1,3 Dimethylamylamine (DMAA), one of the three primary ingredients in Jack3d (a very popular pre-workout supplement). I settled on 2x20mg DMAA pills and 1x200mg caffeine about 30 minutes before my workout. Initially, I would get a mild sense of euphoria while walking to the gym. After about three doses, the euphoria seems to have gone away, but I am still able to power through my weight lifting routine without hesitation or procrastination. I've done this every other day for about a month now, and as long as I'm getting sufficient sleep, the effects seem consistent. I generally take it at around 5pm, get to the gym at 5:30, work out for 60 - 90 minutes, go home, and eat. By 11pm I'm very sleepy, and I don't have any more trouble getting to sleep before midnight than I normally do. Like most Internet/information addicted people, I certainly have my nights of senselessly clicking until the wee hours, but this seems unaffected by the DMAA + caffeine. By the way, I wear a heart rate monitor when experimenting with this, and I don't think I would do any intense cardio while on it. I don't believe I'm anywhere near a problematic dose level, but I'll err on the side of caution.

4) Cardio. I started feeling depressed heading into the holidays, so I did 30 minutes of moderate cardio (140bpm heart rate) every day for two weeks (I typically do a lot of cycling in the summer months, but not so much in late fall through early spring). My depression lifted very quickly. In general, I'm of the opinion that 30 minutes daily or every other day will do quite a lot to increase general alertness throughout the day. I'm going to experiment with something even easier: taking a morning walk first thing in the morning every day.
Amazing. Now, let's all fantasize about bosses who don't suffer from personal insecurities, incompetence and fleeing responsibility that could deal with such an employee.

These articles always sound like the employers are all Gandalfs and all the employees are all the novices.
Yes, you should be doing that. House members can run on bringing home the bacon - though not at the expense of monopolistic policies, in my view. Senate members are supposed to be above such things, in theory, an represent the national interest rather than the provincial one.
Now that most mail in rebates come on some form of pre-paid credit card I'll just use them to buy Amazon gift cards at the local megamart.
The compiler is written in Clojure. It'll compile Java ~2.0 to native x86. I haven't decided what backend i'm using yet, or just output ASM.
That's true. I rarely have to return things to Amazon, so it doesn't come up much.

However, I buy so much from the (I'm a Prime member) the I almost always have a small box around. I just put the item in it, print out the pre-paid shipping label, and drop the box in a UPS box or at a UPS store. It's not that bad.
Manning: Programming the TI-83+/84+
It's funny, when peoples talks about what they want but don't mention anything about what they ready to give. I think it's easy for "the MBAs".
I've started using the bar coder in the iphone app to snap the bar codes of the things in our house we use regularly and putting them on auto order or buying them in bulk.

The $22 hair gel my wife bought was three for $24 at Amazon. I don't have much hair left, so I think those three bottles i just bought will last for two years.... and I never have to search it out again in my life.

We did the same thing with bulk bottles of mouth wash, which we now transfer into small desktop size containers. I laugh when the bottle arrive in the mail.... the only issue is what do i do with all these boxes?!

We've been giving them to our two year old to paint and build things out of.... seems to work well. :-)

( very kind of you to include a link! )
It's funny: I could make a list titled "8 Qualities That Will Keep You From Getting Promoted at Most Companies," and the bullet points would be roughly the same. These may be great qualities for employees to have, but a lot of them are likely to be seen as liabilities. Employers may say they want free-thinking, mild eccentrics, but they create pretty much the opposite incentive structures. (Conversely, nothing gets people promoted faster than being a corporate cheerleader).

Perhaps this is at the heart of what's wrong with most big firms. I don't know. But I think articles like this one need to reconcile the gaping disparity between what people say they want and what they actually seem to reward.
Just wanted to throw out there: please don't start any drug meant to impact the way you see the world without supervision (preferably, professional supervision). If something bad/weird happens, you might not be the first person to notice, especially if the response is emotional/perception based.
As as Amazon user, it does work.

But screen real-estate is quite a bit cheaper than the physical counterpart.
There are multiple replies to tweets asking this same question, all of which cite "arcane contract requirements" as to blame for the secrecy.
There's a meetup at Google's Crittenden Campus (Mountain View) that'll be going over this next Wednesday: http://www.meetup.com/sv-gtug/events/51114452/
I would pay $$ for Google Music.

I have loaded up a bunch of old radio shows & lectures for which I would not have the space on my phone but w/ Google Music I'm all set.

If the team can figure out easy streaming podcasts (like Android Double Twist but without so much spammy/crap content) they will have themselves a nice little business
No corporate development person is going to take a deal to the CEO without having gone through dilligence. So as the selling party, you're forced to subject yourself to this kind of process.

However, you don't have to actually answer everything you're asked in this financial (and technical) cavity search. In one M&A process I participated in, the buyer asked the seller to "tell us your strategic vulnerabilities: if someone wanted to totally shut you down via technical, legal, or data means, how could they do it?" The sellers politely refused to answer this.

Bottom line: there are no rules, and it often seems no one feels any shame doing the most utterly awful, unbelievable things during these M&A processes. NDA's don't mean jack, and if you don't answer enough of the questions, they simply cannot buy you. Choosing which questions to answer, and walking away from all the others, is key.

And, as another commenter said: don't ever need to sell. If you really need to sell, you're probably already doomed.
Specifically, cortisol normally has a significant peak in the morning with waking, but I don't have that. My cortisol levels throughout the day are about flat, so normal for the evening, but not elevated in the morning. According to my doctor, this isn't too unusual, and should adjust up to normal levels after some months of supplementation. I just started supplements two weeks ago, and I'm definitely far more awake during the day and have a much easier time starting the day, but I haven't noticed any other significant changes, so I don't know anything else attributable to this. The only other changes I've noticed have been pretty minor, like an easier time exercising, and maybe a bit more irritable.
From the Raspi Twitter "not allowed to say (arcane contractual stuff)"
Interesting, so then the few people who still use match.com (after you filter out scams and such) don't even have to pay for it because they can contact the other person though Facebook once they match the photos.
I signed up to troutwine's mailing list and started following the github project.

I've participated in mailing lists for big projects before. They seem to work fairly well.
Copycats don't matter at all. All that matters in the long run is stamina, and no copycat will have that. All they'll ever want is a quick buck, some way to copy the success without the hard work. It is never going to work so don't worry about it.

And if a copycat has more stamina than you do then maybe you picked the wrong business. Really, don't worry about people copying you, take it for what it is: flattery.
The entrepreneur’s greatest enemy is himself
Amazon does too. It's a music industry thing. See http://uits.umusic.com/faq.htm
I've done that kind of thing a few times.

But unless I really want something, I find I still fall into the old habit of "I'm ordering from Amazon, I might as well get a few things to make up for shipping." If I can't find enough things to make it "worthwhile", I often won't buy it.

I've been a prime member for years. Shipping is free. But my mind is still usually stuck in the old ways (even if I'm only 28). I have to fight my instinct to tell myself "It's OK to order just one small thing."
Security release for PostgreSQL
Try Audiogalaxy - our users prefer it to Google Music, and it's available worldwide. http://www.audiogalaxy.com
I have an API in rails that I'd like to move to Node without having to re-write all the ActiveRecord code as SQL. Am I right to assume this is a good tool for that?
People who network don't create value. They extract it. Don't confuse the two.

But yes, developers should become better at extracting the value they create.
This effect is even more dramatic in Hawaii because you always get screwed for shipping and things that say free shipping (such as newegg) almost always don't include Hawaii.
Make Mistakes (please, you're designed to)
> Many serial killers have high IQs and there are many average-IQ people without graduate degrees that still deserve a chance at a better life. Some of the smartest people have done some of the worst things in human history.

Irrelevant. I'm looking for simple, cheap, easy wins, without a lot of administration. If you're smart, letting you into the country is probably an easy win. I'm not saying scrap the existing immigration system, just have these extra holes in it.
...how are these things related?
Why? I have a Subsonic server. It supports more formats, transcoding, (effectively) infinite storage. Open API for making mobile apps, etc.

(heh, my reply made more sense with the original title)
This thing that works really well doesn't.
Umbrella Corp Hacked (awesome Resident Evil promotion)
With webcams in all laptops, and iMacs - Cinema Displays too? - there's no need to upload a file. Push a button and allow the webcam to snap a photo, and there you go.

It really bothers me than I can't opt out of getting a laptop with a webcam.
The more I come across sites like these, the more I'm convinced the resume isn't going away. A resume with a link to my Github should cut it for most people looking to recruit. Follow up with a phone call and decide whether I'm able to communicate half decently and that should get the ball rolling.
Contrary to what some doctors tell you, it is really hard to fix a Vitamin D deficiency with dietary supplements. Go to a tanning salon and get 250,000IUs in 10 minutes. Of course this is going to be a bit weird if you are naturally dark skinned, but far more effective than taking pills.
Sex Tips for Geeks
There's going to be a day when I can point my phone at you, and know your name.
Furthermore, you can almost always convert a potential sale transaction into another financing round, allowing yourself to "let it ride" on similar terms. The fact that someone wants to buy you makes you more appealing, and means a potential investor can staple his cover sheet onto the front of someone else's due dilligence process.
So you're saying sandboxing webapps are a bad design decision.
What is your proposal then?
This link goes to the second page of a two page story.
Another look at Dropbox