skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> It doesn't. It covers unexpected health bills, which is a very different thing.

I see conservatives (not trying to label you) make this argument a lot, and I think it is a mischaracterization of 1) what most people mean by health insurance, and 2) what health insurance and health plans are really about: pooling risk and creating groups that can negotiate for lower prices.

Re. 1: just skim the wikipedia article for health insurance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance); the distinction between health plans vs. what you mean by "health insurance" all gets rather confused.
Only that US has this kind of extradition treaty with UK. But I assume US has it with many other countries, too.

Extradition should only happen for the most vicious of the crimes or for war crimes in my opinion, and it should go both ways. But extradition for copyright infringement? That's pretty ridiculous, especially when they have to extradite that country's own citizen.
You'd be surprised how good and feature rich plain ole top actually is. My guess is you rarely deviate from the default options. I made a video which shows how you can get top to show you some pretty interesting stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFKRsLj_Jhg
> Also: The vast majority of non-US websites have very little to gain from blocking US traffic

That's not true at all.
Non-US websites will gain the ability to not have to follow US law, and not risk being extradited for doing so.
Nice article. At first, I thought it would be more similar to our manifesto on Leanpub: http://leanpub.com/manifesto.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a new take on the concept. It's a nice complement.

For comparison, the points from the Leanpub manifesto are:

1. There are market risks, technical risks and a very low probability of success.

2. Both writing a book and creating a startup are highly creative processes undertaken by one or a few people working closely together.

3. Historically it has taken about a year, often spent in isolation or "stealth mode", to develop and release the first version.

4. Historically, startups have been funded by VCs and authors have been funded by publishers, both of which are hit-driven businesses.
Bear Grylls Fired from Discovery
Not a fan of everything he does, but interesting none the less.
A "one-sided" hearing where the offending party has zero chance of defending themselves.

Totally legit.
Extremely well-written article.

It also clearly demonstrates one of the reasons why markets alone are simply not sufficient/appropriate for some problems. The rest of the developed countries outside of the US have long understood this with respect to health care.
The difference between the two is obvious but at a very basic level all TVShack did was provide links. I can't see why linking to content should ever be illegal. And I think this is another case where they are just trying to make an example of someone. If they actually cared about copyright infringement they would go after the companies hosting the content he linked to.
Can someone post the text of this article here, for those of us on mobile phones who don't want to log in, or don't have Google accounts? Thanks
Won't do what's intended in this case. I tried it now just to make sure.

I'd use itertools.count().
It's the nature of the social contract that we give up certain freedoms to gain the benefits of society; that's what contracts do: they bind us.

It's not hard to make a list of "freedoms" we're mostly happy that people give up: the "freedom" to drive 100mph through school zones, the "freedom" to sell patent medicines with Pfizer branding on it, the "freedom" to set tire fires on our lawns. Those "freedoms" are respectively outweighed by the cost of collisions, of medical fraud, and of toxic and repulsive clouds of smoke.

When societies adopt single-payer health care systems, they're expressing a judgement that the "freedom" to take individual control over how to finance health care at the lowest possible price is outweighed by the cost to society of the uncertainty of health care costs.

And, setting aside principle for a moment, your health & well being is in fact one of the most important uncertainties in your life. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow, or stricken with a disease that outstrips your ability to pay for care. With the exception of a tiny, tiny fraction of people in society, nobody can truly provide an assurance of their ability to provide for their own care. So, to bring the principle back into the picture: if you're ideologically opposed to single-payer or socialized or mandated health insurance, it would seem that you must also support the idea that people who can't pay for their care must be denied care.

There's a wide variety of pragmatic objections to single-payer insurance, many of which are probably valid. But if we're going to bring "freedom" and "choice" into the picture --- ideology, in other words --- we should be clear about what the tradeoffs are.
I would expect it to be relative to the chance of a crime being committed by a citizen of one country to the other. Maybe Americans are more likely to be the "victim" of crimes from people in the UK than the other way round. Maybe the US just cares more about certain crimes than the UK does.

The numbers of extraditions in both directions is so small that you can't reasonably declare that there is any sort of imbalance happening. You can argue that the terms are unfair, but not the way they're being implemented.

On the other hand, there are clearly individual cases that are just wrong. This one is a perfect example. Which is why it's getting all this attention.
I bought one of these during the sale they had last year. I'm running CyanogenMod (Android) and everything works as described.

It's most useful when looking at one's phone would be considered rude, but looking at one's watch would not.

I haven't built any faces for mine (yet), but having the watch definitely makes me want to learn more Python/C.
So that's it? If a judge believes it, then it must be true! He's not even a proper judge!
PayPal backtracks on e-book policy
I'm sorry for being a total idiot - what does MVP stand for? :(
Crowdsourcing: A more efficient job interview
"One of the more fun gadgets I've been playing with lately is the inPulse smartwatch. It can silently buzz when you get a new email and show a preview of your email. It's has an API that works with many Android and Blackberry phones, so you can program your own custom apps to do things like move forward in a PowerPoint presentation or show stock quotes. It's pretty geeky, but in a very space-age way. I can see a lot of people wearing watches like this in a few years."
With a link to: http://www.getinpulse.com/
The entire concept of insurance is to share risk. (Egyptians had the bright idea to combine grain together onto shared barges so if one sinks, none of us loses our entire cargo.)

Risk carries an element of unpredictability. If a scenario is predictable, there is no risk to be shared, ergo by definition a scenario with little risk (e.g. known diagnosis and treatment plan) is absolutely and unsurprisingly not fitting for insurance.
wait, where did you see this? kindle is 12.99 and hardcover is 16.95. Maybe international edition? Let me know so I can have the publisher look into this.

In the meantime, email me - j@onswipe.com. I'd like to send you a copy for free.
Show HN: Fixing the Twitter web UI
$50 increase, every year, but it was a 2-day conference. So add 50% to account for it being 50% longer, and you get $300. Seems to make sense.
Wrong. The vast majority of websites don't break US law. Not because they went out of their way to avoid it, but because they simply don't. These sites don't have anything to gain by blocking the US. Ergo, quite clearly, the vast majority of non-US websites have nothing to gain from blocking US traffic. Nothing at all.
this could be said about most filthy rich people - they're all over rated.
Help us spread world peace – Create an app to enhance the smartphone life-cycle
Nobody likes it when their smartphone is out of commission. Help us solve smartphone problems with software!

iCracked, the nation's largest smartphone repair company, has 125 iTechs across the globe with plans to expand to over 700 in the next 6 months. A YC backed company, iCracked is looking to bring on a coder/hacker/engineer to grow the technical aspect of the company as we move into a full-encompassing smartphone life-cycle company. Yes, we're applying the latest technology to smartphone buyback/trade-in, insurance, and repair under one seamless HTML5 Web-App.

This hire will carry a pivotal role within the company and we'll bring them on as soon as we find the right candidate. We need a self-starter, entrepreneurial kind of hacker, as they will have a lot of influence and freedom to pick the best tools for the job. We're looking to bring someone on as a contractor with the expectation of moving into a core team member role. Our main requirement is you work out of out awesome 5-bedroom house in Redwood City alongside the core team.

Requirements:

Strong passion for intuitive and simple/sophisticated UI.

The ability to solve hard problems with elegant solutions.

Thrives in the start-up environment - Never settle for less than great work - Can do attitude.

Benefits:

Work alongside a driven and fun team. Work in a beautiful house. Work within a start-up that's growing like crazy.
Hit us up at founders@icracked.com and tell us a little bit about yourself. We are very results driven, so having some previous projects to show off always helps. Please include your github page as well.
Intel: Optical Thunderbolt cables arriving this year
Last time I saw a hard figure on it, which was admittedly a long time ago, was while I was working at an immediate care clinic. Uninsured folks were getting billed roughly 170% what insured folks were thanks to these negotiated rates.
edit: already posted. Odd that a public G+ post is not visible from a mobile device without logging into Google.
Well, here's Michael Foord's (@voidspace, referenced in the slides) Mock library so you can see what extra stuff it gives you.

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/mock/
Attacking these policies by boycotting US companies seems much to indirect to result in much progress. Instead, petition your (their) own elected governments to bring change. If people are sufficiently outraged, then change should come. If not, then its up to you to educate your fellow citizens.
Can recovery equal failure?
That argument breaks down when you consider the average drug company spends more money on advertising than R&D. Many studio's spend more money on movie promotion than movie advertising.
Who am I going to watch drink their piss now?

/me feels sad
There's an interesting lecture from Albert Bartlett [] on the same subject, but he uses the value of 70 to calculate the years to double.
[] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
As a UKer, it strikes me the US system of health insurance is just inefficient, even if only from a time management perspective.

Do 300M people really have to negotiate their own insurance, and research carefully all the terms and conditions and so on?
WordPress sees 250% increase in imports from Posterous
What if you could replace the device in your pocket with one in your wrist? I would love to free a pocket slot. And a Bluetooth headset could take care of phone calls.
You missed that this was describing research which shows adverse selection is a "at least partly" behind the problem. Without research, you're just hand-waving that it might be a problem, but you don't know if it's actually a significant influence.

Quoting from the article: Hendren didn’t invent the idea of markets falling apart because customers know something that companies don’t. Nobel prizes were awarded to a trio of economists in 2001 for developing this idea of adverse selection in the 1970s. But his use of the concept may at least partly resolve the puzzle of why those with pre-existing conditions can’t get insurance.

Another quote: This individual mandate is a natural fix to the problem of adverse selection in health insurance: It keeps the lowest-cost participants from opting out, and as a result the market doesn’t unravel.
> If "the most rigorous evidence requirement in the world" is your example of "inefficient and corrupt", than I guess we'll just disagree.

That is exactly where so much of the inefficiency comes from! How rigorous does an evidentiary requirement have to be before it costs more than it's worth? If getting FDA approval for a new drug cost, say, $100 billion, would the added safety be worth holding back all the drugs that wouldn't be profitable enough to offset that huge up-front cost? A truly efficient FDA would take into account not just the harm of being too lax, but also the harm of being too strict.

(There's an even starker example of this in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Their regulations are so strict and red-tapey that the economics of nuclear energy in the US are inferior to those of coal, which is much more dirty and dangerous. Caution has costs.)
مواعيد المصارعة على قنوات النايل سات
Freedom and choice cannot be broadly lumped into "ideology". Freedom and choice are integral parts of how markets function. To completely remove freedom and choice from the healthcare debate means that there should be ONE BEST solution. The reason why I value my freedom to make my own decisions about health care is because I do not think that a universal single payer system is the ONE BEST solution.
My plans for Raspberry Pi
Most private research dollars go into patent work-around drugs--drugs that have the same basic function as another, but successfully work around its patent (and get their own patent in the process). E.g. duplicated effort with occasional serendipity leading to something new.
When solar and wind power input is not meeting demand that seems like a good time to spin up the spare fossil fuel generators, at least as a transitional sort of thing. Maybe in the near future excess wind / solar power can be stored as chemical fuel, and burned during peak usage.

An 80% / 90 % cut in fossil fuel usage or higher would be a huge thing though!
I agree. You hear the phrase "I don't have healthcare" too often used when what the person really means is "I don't have insurance." If you live in a developed country, believe me, you have health care.

Not to be pedantic but I will stand on a soapbox for a moment: I'd also point out that we all have the ability to care for our health. Health care is a daily activity which requires no insurance, and often no cost.
what most people don't realize, some or most of the vagrant do not wish to have regular dwellings or homes. Usually due to mental illness or social irregularity, they feel more at home on the streets, than being provided housing by the state or city. I have heard testimony from the founder of Glide church in San Francisco on this very issue. "most of my people choose not to live in the beds we provide, because they simply want to be left alone."

There are so many levels of homeless, some by choice, others not. Help the ones that want to be helped, and find a solution for those who don't.

"We trip over them on the sidewalk every day. We curse, hand them a dollar, or don't. We feel pity, guilt and rage at their presence. The city spends $200 million a year trying to get homeless people off the streets and into a better way of life - but over 20 years, the problem has only gotten worse.

The more able of the homeless find their way into shelters, counseling and housing programs. But the most chronically indigent, called the hard core, steadfastly refuse most help and stay outside. These 3,000 to 5,000 homeless at the very bottom are the most visible, and they give the city its dubious distinction of having what many call the worst homeless problem in the country."

http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/
The really simple argument is that at the previous price very, very few people in India could afford it. So in the end it is more than likely that the revenue that is gained is higher than it would have been at the very high price.
I'm based in downtown Chicago. Whats ur email?
You immediately increased my productivity with that Skrillex song; please send me an invoice.

My humble contribution:

Nine Inch Nails - Me I'm not

Daft Punk - Too Long
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann’s Lesson for Start-Ups: Go Your Own Way
I think what the grandparent was actually referring to was the system in the USA where people get group insurance through their employer.

Setting aside the question of market vs. socialized health care, it doesn't take much observation to realize that this is a very bad system. It both sweeps costs under the carpet and removes consumer choice from the equation, thereby severely reducing the extent to which health insurance companies must compete on both cost and quality of service.

Think your company's group plan is too expensive? Well, you're free to drop out of it if you want. Of course, the money they were spending on your health insurance won't get added to your salary when you do, so ultimately whatever you find will end up being even more expensive.

Pissed off because your health insurance company screwed you over? Well, you've got pretty much the same "my way or the highway" option.

What a lot of folks fail to realize is, just because we don't have a socialized system doesn't mean we have a market system. What we actually have is a bastard system that offers the benefits of neither, plus some downsides that are uniquely its own.
I really liked the shot about web testing. It's a crying shame that a lot of web testing frameworks don't bother supporting javascript.
If you're going to use that definition, then everything becomes an exit... Work 12 months to make $2500, less than you would make in 3 months working part time job at Wal-Mart, must be an exit. Flip a used car for a $300 profit, another exit! Put up a garage sale, exit again!

Seriously, it's a lesson learned, experience gained. Not an exit.

Edit: to the downvoters, when you use the words "hate", "love", "epic" to validate some relatively-minor (to actual meaning) event or emotion, you're taking meaning out of that word ... in some cases just to feed that meaning to your ego.
Care to go more in depth about the pricing strategy? It seems as backwards as it gets. Had you seen it work somewhere else?
Congrats on your first deal, Dan. Sounds like you learned some valuable lessons along the way. They will serve you will in the future. Cheers. PS: Will be interesting to see what new owner does with the site.
> This is not a winnable game for Yahoo, the Internet, innovation, or society.

It is however winnable for Scott Thompson's quarterly earnings, which must be a driver for the decision.

BTW, Would love to hear Fred Wilson talk about how Twitter is preparing, because it's a good guess that they're next.
"As for the issue of linking, it's a red herring here. This was not some neutral site linking to random, user submitted comment. This was a curated collection. They knew _exactly_ what they were doing."
I get that this probably falls into the guilty mind(Mens rea) concept but I still don't find it correct that the act of linking to copyrighted material or not(well to be accurate, it's all copyrighted anyway) can be illegal based on context and the attitude of the person who created that <a>
No need to be worried, the Java API is here to stay. We love Java (as well as Scala).
It could be quite interesting to replace the medium-sized smartphone (that doesn't really want to be in your pocket, run a real OS, or accept much user input) with a watch+earbud+netbook combo. Stow the netbook in a small bag, controlled with the body-based devices for on-the-go communication, and whip out the actual computer to get something done/kill time/etc.
The problem with the web-based tools is that, by necessity, you end up needing to find a way to monetize your userbase. And that means ads, and selling private information, and selling trends, and doing all of these heinous things.

Giving away the tools lets the users help themselves, and frees you of the burden of having to keep the service alive and monetize users.
I'm not a huge fan of inPulse - not because of what they do, which I think is awesome, but because of their size - if I could get the watch of my preference (random example, but here's the kind of watch I personally like http://s7ondemand4.scene7.com/is/image/Signet/8349614?$detai... ) with a few of these features, such as vibration in patterns to show the difference between a call, an SMS, an email... then I'd jump all over it.

As to the screen, I can see many people in the near future being sold on this - hell, it's a cool thing in principle, as a kid my two favourite watches (one of which I had), were one that was a calculator (http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e201156f357...) and one that was a TV remote (http://www.calculatorwatch.net/wp-content/uploads/Digital-ca...), and many of my friends thought they were awesome too. Personally I'm quite happy taking my phone out to actually read stuff - though on a small watch a display for calls would be great if/when using a wireless headset.
> I gave up wearing wristwatches some time ago, if I did still wear them, this would be pretty interesting.

I still wear a watch but check the time on my cell phone probably 50%. The watch has become mostly just a functional piece of jewelry.
And the ion cannon is powered by...? And the raw materials were extracted by machines powered by...?
I will be a full time student when registration opens, but will have graduated by the time the event happens. Does anyone have experience checking in with a student ticket? As long as my student ID hasn't expired will I be OK?
Most of the power loss is related to using AC instead of DC.
Do you have any evidence for that? I don't have any background in pharma, but my background in stats tells me that the odds of passing a controlled study with a placebo would be so low as to be economically infeasible.
That's a pragmatic objection and probably a valid one, but note that the concern is explicitly mitigated by the idea of a market for private health insurance with "guaranteed issue"; the catch with guaranteed issue is that it requires a mandate to work.
I'm wondering what the result would be if this actually did escalate/spiral out of control with everyone suing everyone for every patent they have in Silicon Valley.

Maybe the best way to bring about patent reform is to highlight the absurdity of the system by blowing the entire system up.

Every patent holding company should just literally clog the court system with this BS. The lawyers from both each side of a suit can even be aware of the fact that the other side has no intention of actually trying to win a case and is instead just asserting its patents and forcing the courts to deal with them.

When you file a patent lawsuit, are you required to claim damages or can you just claim nothing, but just file a suit that you want the judicial system to deliberate on. i.e. can you seek judgement without seeking damages?
So why couldn't the UK prosecute him? Why should he be prosecuted under the laws of a country that is not his own?

The problem with the internet is that we're fast becoming subject to the laws of every country. I mean, that one guy almost got put to death by Iran...
Apologies for the tangent, but is this considered idiomatic Java these days? As a person who knows/knew Java pretty well but has been out of the game for a few years, this code seems highly surprising. Instantiating an anonymous subclass with a static initializer to... I suppose be able to use those @Mocked annotations. Then assigning result in that anonymous initializer block, which I must assume works through black magic.

No criticism of your code example. I think figuring out how to make Java do this is very impressive. I just wonder if it's considered wise to do this sort of thing in production code?

(Edited to correct that I don't think that's a static initializer block.)