skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Anecdotally the hormonal IUD's seem to have more of an effect on sex drive than the old fashioned pill. Me and the wife found that out after a clinic doctor gave her a prescription for it saying it reduces the risk of cancer (true, but unanimously agreed that it isn't worth it).

It must be noted that the anecdotal 'warnings' IE weight gain, depression, etc. may be a result of the well known drop in sex drive. Because, you know, sex has this mystical property that releases pleasure chemicals that reduce depression. Depression having the obvious side effect of weight gain. Also the impact on the hormone cycle anecdotally causes cravings.

The pill itself might not have side effects of weight gain, but I'd bet it's side effects do.
I think this comes into the "You don't find a technical cofounder, you earn one." category. And trying to get a programmer to build this for you without even giving them founder recognition or founder shares is absurd. No one will work for the biz guy who wants to outsource all the work for meaningless amounts of the company. As a Biz guy, the person who holds the biggest share of our company is our technical co-founder.
1) Everyone seems to miss the last 4 paragraphs of pg's essay which discuss tactics for tackling a frighteningly ambitious startup idea: namely, tackle a less ambitious portion of it.

2) YC companies like DrChrono have very large ambitious in the healthcare industry. It can be done through YC.
RIM will become another case study MBA students read about when discussing the Innovator's Dilemma.
Sorry, no grammar cop points for you. That was a correct usage of the word "irony."
I disagree completely. Sure there are guys who might lie, but a lot of guys would love to be able to not ever have to worry about the female using birth control. Males (and females) hate condoms, but the idea of having a child before you are ready is a very scary proposition. I think this would sell very well if the surgery were painless and not too invasive.
Popcorn machines
A variety of concession supplies and equipment in stock and ready to ship!
I think everybody might be looking at this backwards. Google already has very precise gps-correlated maps and street view data, it doesn't seem like they would need our help to determine street addresses.

Recaptcha pairs a known with an unknown to verify, maybe the addresses are the known factor.
3D printed shoes
The real reason for a lot of this is personalized medicine, or rather more specific medicine. A gene translocation or even a SNP may be able to differentiate cancer types and change the course of treatment.
I don't know why you were downvoted for this because, at least in my town, this is completely true. The rate of single young[1] people getting pregnant is through the roof... and the attitude (from some young people I know personally) seems to be "whatever, fuck it"

[1] I mean 18 to 21 year olds.
Competition in this market would be great for motorcyclists. GoreTex is the trick that makes replacing a car possible -- riding in the rain is no problem as long as you have waterproof gear. But a full, water-tight GoreTex riding suit is insanely expensive.
Slightly related, but if you haven't yet seen Luis von Ahn's TED talk on reCAPTCHA, I recommend it highly: http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_c...
Why don't companies ever learn? Any company that has tried something like this (Microchannel, Rambus,gif) quickly lost its marketshare to a free alternative.
All of these sorts of things start making a lot more obvious intuitive sense when you learn some basic “geometric algebra”. See e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284160
I have one of the original Chromebooks, from their pilot program.

It's a great device for what it is, and the built-in 3G has actually saved my bacon on a couple of occasions. It made a great loaner device for when my girlfriend's parents had to drive halfway across the country with just a candybar pay-as-you-go phone.

Google's failing was twofold, in my opinion:

1) They initially said the device would sell cheaply, in the $200-300 range. Instead, the two launch devices were $500+, a price range which encroached on territory already covered by other, more powerful, and more featureful devices.

2) Lack of proper marketing. The Chromebook may have been less powerful, but it had a battery life like you wouldn't believe. I used mine daily, taking it to meetings at work to take notes on, browsing the web on breaks, yet I only had to charge it every few days, sometimes just once or twice a week. And that SSD! Every time I showed it to my coworkers, the first thing I did was close the lid to put it into hibernation, then re-open it and show how it was instantly back at its previous state. It truly behaved as though it remained powered on throughout the process, despite going into a low-power state that could last for weeks. Unfortunately, these and other great features were unknown to the average consumer.

As far as updates, however, their setup is top-notch. It automatically downloads and installs updates just like the Chrome browser does, and they update fairly often. I only wish they could do the same with their phones.
The glory of central banking.

http://coinflation.com/
Depends, there are several sequencing technologies and they all have strengths/weaknesses. At my job, we use 454 sequencing from Roche and since it relies on PCR it has problems with tandem repeats and homopolymers that might not trip up other methods. (Sanger for example)
Regarding the title of this submission: as demonstrated by the other comments here, it's good to have some context before you make snarky remarks about the work of others.
NJIT mathematician publishes 2012 Major League Baseball projections
Ditto, I too think this discussion is a bit tired. It's a free market, if someone agrees to do something for a certain pay, let them. Obviously, in most cases, you are going to get more commitment and possibly even higher quality work from said person as a co-founder. It all depends on what you need. There are thousands of examples of successful projects with hired work (I can speak for the European market), just not so many on the web, but I would guess the lack of success in that area correlates with other factors.
But wait, wouldn't releasing the source code violate Apple's copyright? :)
> Does that seem reasonable to you?

Actually, I can sum up my beliefs very simply. I am against big things. Big government, big business, big whatever. Big things breed corruption. I don't mind regulation or even government involvement, as long as it's happening on a very local level and I have the freedom to live someplace else.
How To Email: Seth Godin's Email Checklist
Most things by name, downloads by date added (an os x file attr)
It really depends on the job doesn't it? Google doesn't get sued for making logic puzzles part of the hiring process just as Hooters is free to exclusively hire buxom young women for their floor staff. Like many of the complicated regulations in the US there is no clear line and many loopholes to be exploited.
File type.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Genomes_Project

Here's the project explanation, but the data itself is 1000 complete (hopefully!) genome sequences. The hope is to find the variants, be it single nucleotide differences, copy number difference, etc. Where I work we use it to help figure out SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) to see if something we sequenced is a mutation or just a variant with no effect.
Ask HN: Since when Google started showing how many times you have visted a page?
You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 3/25/12

Just notice below one of the search result.
Memo by Jo Moore, British special adviser and press officer, 2.55pm on September 11, 2001:

> It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?

It's an extremely common practice to release unpopular information, or pass unpopular bills when something else is bound to hit the front page.
HiringThing is hiring: New startup looking for a Rails engineer to join our team
Need an option for "Name on most things, but Date Modified in one or two places"
Interesting. Thanks for your comment here and the one above. Although I firmly believe that hangman is a game, and hence the assumptions of game theory are in full effect, I had not considered the information theory take on things :)

Since you asked about the Nash equilibrium for this case, here it is:

In the event that you did not have enough questions to uniquely identify the possible words (and assuming that words with more letters than guesses are not allowed ie every word can be guessed with the right questions), the game becomes a matching game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_pennies].

First both players will work out the minimum number of question paths that can identify every allowed word. Any word in more than one set will be ignored as a dominated strategy by the hosting player. Then the guessing player will pick randomly between question paths, and the hosting player will pick randomly among the disjoint sets of words at the end of those question paths, with the specific word not mattering.

You can see that once both players are picking between several options, with the entire game riding on their choice, the actual letter guessing becomes unimportant. The game itself resembles an unfair rock paper scissors.

If the players were betting $1 per round, the expected value to the guesser is ($2 divided by the number of disjoint sets) - $1.
You're arguing personal anecdote (experience) against another one. Which is exactly what this article was about. While you cannot point to one person who belongs to a minority whos having some trouble and extrapolate that to the entire population of minority, neither can your counter example disprove the reverse statement. Logically speaking, one example of discrimination proves that "at least one person of this minority group is discriminated against" which leaves the stronger statement "many people of this minority group are discriminated against", while the negative (your experience) can only state that "not all people of this minority group are discriminated against", which strictly speaking isn't refuting the original point at all, since very few people are confident enough of their data to argue that all people of a minority are discriminated against.
This isn't all true: The US used mills (1/1000 of a dollar) up until the 1960's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)
Best Buy: Grasping at Straws
Is this similar to the method of summing the area of trapezoids defined by the points and an axis?
Acer Aspire Timeline 5810T battery
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Ok, but in this specific case, the premise of this being an item that is stealing attention away from the more significant cuts in the budget simply isn't consistent with reality. Go to any national Canadian newspaper. The headline will not refer to the elimination of the penny; it will refer to changes to Old Age Security, or cuts to the CBC. The penny has been but a footnote to budget news. The reason that is the only item of the budget getting attention on HN is because I don't think any non-Canadian HNers really care that our retirement age is now 67, or that health transfers to the provinces have been reduced in this budget.
Huh, maybe the external devices are different. Built-in trackpads come configured to use two-fingered clicking as right click by default, as far as I've seen.
Lesson from Pwn2Own: Focus on Exploitability
This sounds like you're asking if an employee is willing to work for an employer who makes a profit off the employee's labor. And that, my friend, is exactly how business works.
Bookies Using New Technology for Old-Fashioned Betting
I think having an agent would work if you're doing contracting, or consulting.

That's why we have agents for Hollywood---the deals are so big, but they're transient. No one expects to get signed onto a TV show, then still be there 10 years later.

Also, agents help renegotiate contracts year to year.
Subaru auto parts
CGP Grey has an excellent youtube video on the whole issue for the US. The US currently makes 4 billion 1 cent coins annually. And they have already been abolished at US military overseas bases.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U

(Come to think of it, doesn't the US military use a lot more metric system than the general population. If so, this would be a good reason to increase the military since it would appear to be the only way progress happens!)
"If I say, "Harvard admissions are set up in such a way as to admit large numbers of Jews," someone believing in a Jewish conspiracy will hear my dog-whistle and agree with me."

Actually, in the past Harvard deliberately restricted the number of jews they admitted: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ha...
Automated code should be beautiful too. How can you debug what you generate if is so ugly? I would even say there is less of an excuse since 100% was written by you and you can easily rewrite all of it at once.
The prize doesn't come with any money, but the winner gets free software for life! ;)
Give me a quick (or configurable, or special URL) that includes a "search on Google Scholar" link and I will switch from Google. Ever since Google's visual refresh that removed the menu item for search on google scholar, I've lost one of my timesavers.
Consumer psychology impacts on product packaging design
Mainly name but sometimes file type...
I immediately knew it was about your mother after the first few paragraphs. Just a bit sad that the debate here quickly degenerated into the political correctness of IQ tests and the very loaded debate of IQ and race.

When you omit skin color and gender from the story, it's an inspiring story of family values triumphing over environment. It would also be reasonable to say that this family probably has a higher level of native intelligence than the average but they also have instilled the value of hard work and perseverance to make the most of their potential so even if they were average, they would get better results given the same potential.

I'm always puzzled at how quickly intelligent debate breaks down among Americans the second gender or race become part of the discussion.
There is nothing illegal about giving IQ tests to job applicants. If companies are afraid to do that, it's because they are run by idiots.
There's cutting fat, then there's cutting muscle.

The two aren't too similar, but I wouldn't want anyone cutting into me who wasn't a surgeon.

Now with politics, we often have people who claim to cut waste, but are perceived as cutting necessary programs.
Www.2012airmax4saler.org
Just watched Moneyball last night, and the end of this post makes me think of what was said in the movie. I presume this to be true, because it's one of those simple things (for a little longer, FMRI's are starting to read thoughts afterall).

The point was that a scout can spot a player with great talent and abilities, but no one but the player knows what goes on inside his head, and no one knows how he'll do for sure in the big leagues.

Seems like a perfect analogy to founders. YC is spring training where they've identified people with potential and will then try to coach them onward.

The big difference, though, is that you can get 'the majors' (a successful company) without YC, and as stated in a similar post today, the greatest founders will find a way regardless.

Props to all who try. More props to those who try, fall, and try again.
Those tools are a nice start but not as good as BES or some third party tools.
It looks like the new RIM CEO has opened his first envelope.
There are lots of people with high IQs who have ADD type issues.
SyFy Needs to Move Beyond BSG and Find a New Science Fictional Franchise
You cut yourself badly a few times a year? To each his own, but that sounds fucking crazy to me. I manage to live my life both without artificial hormones and without non-emergency invasive surgery and I haven't had as much a a paper cut in as long as I can remember, probably over 10 years. Also I am not pregnant or had any pregnancy scares.
It's true. They won't listen until after the journey. See Wizard of Oz.
There isn't a practical difference between those when there's no consensus about what's alienating. Offices must be bland, because society has decided that making brittle people unemployable would be a worse thing to do. I actually sort of agree with the logic, while disliking the forced choice.
"How not to write a HN headline"
Amazon is split up into many different teams and each team follows it's own process. Some of these teams do what they call "agile."
The Value of an MBA for Entrepreneurs
Reflex: Flash Components made easy.
T-Mobile Said to Hire Advisors to Help Sell U.S. Towers
I'm sure embracing Android would be a win for RIM, but would it be too little, too late?
My experience is that usually people haven't actually thought their ideas through. Not even the parts that are within their grasp to imagine and design. In trying to implement stuff, or just in preplanning discussions, you as the programming are always asking, "So what about here? What should happen in this case?" And then there's a pause making it clear the person has never considered this, then they throw out an answer like they had thought about it. But after a little while their answers start to contradict, and their idea is not even conceptually possible.
There is an increasing number of similar reports coming out; this is probably the worst I've seen so far. This system is corrupt. People don't want to hear that for the same reason that no human wants to hear what goes against their religion.

One of the most shocking facts here is that the researchers had to sign confidentiality agreements promising not to say when they failed to reproduce a finding.

There's also this interesting detail:

The most common response by the challenged scientists was: "you didn't do it right."

That could be true. But it also is precisely the psychology of the witch doctor.
Thanks! Just hit submit
Fascinating article. I am reminded of things my grandmother said about breaking into the field of physics (and later really helping greatly expand the field of astrophysics). I am also reminded of women complaining about the problems with trying to raise a family and get tenure as science professors today, and conclude that in many ways my grandmother had it easy.

So it sounds like Gwen's experience wasn't unique. It may be that we are actually becoming more rather than less hostile towards women breaking into male-dominated industries.
> Where RIM went wrong was underestimating the importance of software and the surrounding ecosystem.

RIM is quickly discovering that it is not a software company -- and never has been. They are also discovering that software is hard and is the future of mobile.

I say this as someone who was happily employed there a little as three weeks ago (I left to join a startup -- and yes, I absolutely loved my job at RIM). They have some good people but the majority of upper management is lost without a map.

They opted to create another mobile OS/ecosystem. The talent is certainly there, but the time is quickly running out. Apple has been working on iOS for years. Microsoft has been in the OS business for decades. Android is based on Java which has countless man-years behind the tools. RIM is working from QNX which is nice, but is not a full-blown OS/toolchain. There's a lot of work to do there; they've really only been at it for less than a year.

And let's face it: BBOS was something only its mother could love.
If you have the time, I'd be curious to know your answers to the following (95% confidence intervals if you want):

1. how many seconds did it take you to think up this refutation of IQ tests?
2. how many psychologist/psychometrician man-years do you estimate go into developing any particular IQ test like the RAPM or BOMAT?
3. what probability do you give that psychometricians have not also thought of your objection?
4. conditional on their thinking of it, what probability do you give that they have done nothing to cope with it?
5. how many seconds would it take you in Google or Wikipedia to find the real answers to 3 & 4?
6. how many seconds did it take you to write your comment?
Video of new 3D web page view in Firefox - pretty amazing.
FTA: I feel confident in assuming Steve Jobs didn’t pitch OS X by saying “It’s like Windows for Apple Computers.”

True, although Windows was originally pitched as "it's like the Macintosh OS for IBM PC-compatibles."
Rust definitely seems cool as a no-compromises systems language. Why is Mozilla developing it, though? What is the intended use? Supposedly it will be used by Firefox, but for what? Rendering? JavaScript compilation?
On HN for 1310 days and you don't know why streptomycin was downvoted? Bit surprising.

It's because he or she offers no references or even any explanation of where this bold (if not just flat out wrong) claim comes from. Your supporting evidence, commonly derided as anecdata, is not much better.
This is why it's so shortsighted to say things like: "computers are so fast nowadays that everyone should be using GC/dynamic-typing/etc." A person who says this is limiting their thinking to the way we do things now. Parsers may not be on the critical path of most compilers, but if you could run a parser/linter/static-analyzer on every keystroke, you could start doing things that weren't even possible before.

We'll always be able to find ways to use extra CPU cycles to make things more pleasant to use. We'll add more pixels or decrease response times or do deeper or more frequent analysis. There will never be a time when computers are "fast enough" that low level languages and programming for performance become obsolete.
>No silver bullet.

My partner and I use Implanon, which has no associated cancer or heart risk. See my post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3774010

It's not perfect, but the side-effects are small and it's the most effective form of birth control besides true abstinence (as opposed to "virginity pledges," et al). Works for three years, nothing to remember, no risk of uterine perforation like IUDs, and none of the nasty estrogen side-effects.
I would think he would invest the $60k towards things needed to make his idea into a business. For an internet company, software development is going to be a major component, although there are others, like design.

Point is, there are people structured to accept risk. These people include investors and entrepreneurs. There are other people who provide services that businesses need, including designers, lawyers, programmers, etc. These people generally aren't structured to accept risk, they need an hour's pay for an hour's work.

Because programmers can often be confused as to what role they play in a business through fast-talk, there's this notion that has developed that there are lots of programmer/investors available, who are willing and able to accept risk in lieu of payment.

There are clearly programmers who will accept that arrangement at least once due to their naivety, but they they generally learn pretty quickly, and I think it's becoming more common knowledge in the programmer community that it's an arrangement best avoided.
Saying the PDF reader on Playbook works is like saying a bucket of cold water works for having a shower.

I actually enjoy reading on a Playbook more than an iPad or a Kindle. But the PDF reader is abysmal software.