skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There isn't anything particularly noteworthy in this article.
Past experiments with creating lesions in the hypothalamus of mouse brains have shown increases in weight. Alternately, stimulating another region will cause the mouse to eat less.
Transparency, and a crystal-clear privacy policy that takes less than thirty seconds to read and comprehend.
Mega Millions Jackpot Always Has Negative Expected Returns
Www.globalsportsmedia.com
> it's a neurological disease, not psychological.

The more we learn about the brain, the blurrier that line becomes.
Apple actually did die. Think about what happened: They spent 400M to buy NeXT, and after a transition period, they started selling things called Macintoshes that were actually NeXT machines.

In reality, Apple was acquired by NeXT in a reverse-takeover, and NeXT decided to maintain the Apple and Mac-related brands. It’s more nuänced than that, but effectively that’s what happened.
My own link is a duplicate? :)
Recruiter fee agreement?
I received a call from a recruiter, who mentioned that his firm wanted me to sign an agreement that should I be placed in some firm and do not stay the minimum 90 to 120 days, I would be liable to them for "a percentage of the percentage" of their fee, which is between 20% to 30% of the salary. I haven't seen this agreement yet (I'm not sure that I want to). Is this standard?
The paper discussed in the article appears to be http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.30..., and the radiation treatment used is http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1667/RR2214.1. Assuming the dosing was the same as in the original paper, this means that the radiation beam was 10 Gy of X-Rays over a 9mm^2 area, which is somewhat interesting because according to Wikipedia "A whole-body exposure to 5 or more gray of high-energy radiation at one time usually leads to death within 14 days". So I'm surprised the beam merely "deactivates" neuron production, it seems more like something that should be expected to kill the targeted cells entirely.
Hm...! No wonder the fuel efficient cars look funny (Talking to you "leaf"). But it shouldn't be hard to break wind resistance. Say we ionize all the air molecules in front of car and bounce it off our way... :-)

Wait! need to put some thought in to that.
On the contrary, I highly recommend reading JackC's explanation on "theft" vs. "copyright infringement" in terms of "alienable rights": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3696526

I sincerely doubt that nothing would change in a discussion after an explanation like that one. Maybe if the discussion was already restricted to lawyers, nothing would change.
Feels strange to realize that there are Windows/PC-using people out there that may have never dealt with a machine that has a floppy drive. Doesn't seem that long ago that they were a standard component. I can still remember Dell releasing their first system that didn't include one.
I used floppy disks up until I was around 8-10 years old. Around then my transition away from floppies into cds was pretty much at the point that I never used them again.
I occasionally used floppies in primary school but not very often. I only ever used 3.5' however.

I'm 20 now and I didn't remember that floppies were A: and B: so went into the article expecting some interesting explanation and then face-palmed when I realised.

If you'd asked me what A: and B: where I wouldn't have been able to tell you and I used floppies. I feel young...

I saw some floppies for sale in wh smith the other day. I might buy a set.
You hit the nail on the head there. If the author posted a new payment (using whatever metaphor), then a handler could initiate a set of actions in the course of processing <metaphor>.

Maybe this is a real debate in some circles, but I cannot fathom mapping HTTP verbs directly to SQL statements.
Unfortunately The Paper [1] is closed source. I can't find much information; no comparison with existing, chemical synfuels processes (like methanol via syngas [CO]).

There's a serious problem with the general idea: "clean" CO2 is hard to get. You can get concentrated (>10%) CO2 streams from a power plant, which could work for synfuels, but ultimately that's still transferring fossil carbon into the air (if more efficiently). The "nice" idea is to capture CO2 from the atmosphere (I think they are implying this?); this gives you a carbon-neutral cycle (CO2 => fuel => CO2). This is difficult because CO2 in the air is so dilute -- 0.04% vol., or 0.8 grams/meter^3.

Can you get CO2 from the air? There's research in this; the APS assessment [2] thinks it could be done at around $600-800/tCO2, which translates to e.g. $7/gallon gas equivalent of methanol, just for the carbon. The process uses an inorganic base (NaOH) to scrub CO2, so maybe you'd think you could genetically-engineer superbacteria to do better. But the absorbent is not the bottleneck -- it's the extreme volume and flow of air that needs to be brought to the absorbent, over an insanely large surface area. The scale is visualized in [2] figure 1.2 (http://i.imgur.com/Y0D2f.png): a very small, 10^6 ton CO2/year capture plant is designed as a 1km * 1km grid of rows of giant, sucking fans. And the NaOH process isn't particularly inefficient -- it captures 50% of the CO2 in air.

Some more about atmosperic CO2 capture from David Keith [3] and his startup [4]; this was featured in the Economist this month [5]. Wikipedia is a starting point for synfuels in general [6]; George Olah advocates a methanol/dimethyl ether economy using CO2 recycled from air [7].

[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6076/1596.abstract

[2] http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/dac11.cfm

[3] http://www.keith.seas.harvard.edu/AirCapture.html

[4] http://www.carbonengineering.com/

[5] http://www.economist.com/node/21550241

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

[7] http://wiki.ornl.gov/sites/carboncapture/Shared%20Documents/...
Exactly. Having these endpoints instantly turns your API into an RPC-API. This is the start of a snowball of complexity introduced for your consumers.
Apache and the Open Source community already have a Java implementation in the Open JDK.

One thing not touched on in the article but would definitely be worth know is if Oracle will start inserting "pay-to-use" features in the language or release a solid JIT compiler and run time companies must pay for in order to use. I know it's been bandied about in the past that Oracle might start restricting access to some language features and with such a long term roadmap, I'm wondering if they're thinking about making some of these selling point features into business revenue features.
Yes. And that link is also a duplicate. See [1] for more information.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=recursion

:)
With a quarter of the young population out of work, nevertheless the idea that it's "impossible to find talent" continues.

It's like a new blacksmith coming into town and complaining that there aren't any trained blacksmiths for him to hire, while staring at 50 strong farmboys who are holding up "will work for food" signs.

If only there was some way of teaching people new skills... but alas, no such thing exists.
I love Austin, but I think that there's a story to be told about location when it comes to Gowalla vs. Foursquare. Look at FS now- they're partnering with American Express, Bravo, Conde Nast... there is a lot to be said for the connections you can make in a city like New York.
Makes me wonder how long the "Save" button will stay as a floppy disk.
> What farmer is concerned about an individual cabbage?

What a great analogy! We don't think twice about the farmer leaving a few cabbages out in the field, but we get all up in arms when we realize that we are that cabbage.
Silver bullet = Modifying and controlling your diet and exercising.

I understand the thyroid issues for some people, but most would rather take the easy "magic pill" way out. You gain nothing from weight loss plans like that. Losing weight and keeping it off is a lifestyle change. Most people aren't willing to commit to it.
I see what you mean about it being "all over the place" first they discuss a great product alone is not enough but then instead talk about plans and ideas rather than prototypes/implementations.

I've never started a business so my naive viewpoint is that many of the most successful companies appear to be built on having a great product alone then focusing on profit second, for example Google, Facebook, and Twitter. These are the largest of the the large though, so is the story different for smaller companies?
This is great, I left NYC for many of the same reasons the OP cites as wanting to move there. Really, I should write a post on "Why I'm choosing the Midwest"

NYC has so many women. Beautiful women. But if you're looking to have kids, settle down and move away to where your kid has his own lawn to play on, your odds drop close to zero. So many people date in NYC, so few commit for the rest of their lives. I was so naive when I moved there at 26, I thought I would be married within a year. All my friends had gotten married while still in college. NYC just ain't the place.

Lack of a commute? Yes, but add in the time to get everywhere else. That party in Brooklyn? An hour. Finding somewhere, anywhere, where buildings don't dot the horizon and you feel at peace? Try a few hours. Enjoy the subway construction my friend.

I will say that NYC kills when it comes to food. Its the best, unless you're trying to find a nice cheap bratwurst, then NYC sucks it up big time. But the Midwest makes up for it. I have a canoe, a giant deck bigger than my NYC apt with a grill on it and streets that get plowed. Midwest, I think you win.
OMG, a talking cabbage!
Ending the copyright of a work at the death of the author without any minimum would have significant problems. People who are old or ill would not get book deals (or at least not good ones) because what publisher would want to take the risk? And, they might not bother self-publishing either, since their children could not benefit if they die soon.
I was forced to use Visual Studio in school, I hated it throughout and took every chance I could get to use Python or Ruby or something else with a unix-y stack.

Trying it again now would be pretty far out of my way just to reaffirm what I already know, since of course I've long since left Windows entirely.
Here's a counter-point. A cashless society enables dominant private parties and government to introduce friction when and where they chose.

"Your payment cannot be processed."

We saw this recently with the Wikileaks contributions embargo. We've seen it codified in legislation such as (but not solely) SOPA.

So... it may be very convenient to swipe, bump, (grind?), whatever... until it isn't.

I'm certainly not the only person to think of this, In any number of otherwise insightful science fiction stories, cash lives on -- sometimes as a black-market economy, but not only for nefarious activities.
That takes time. We're in an industry that is (relatively) flush with cash right now, so it makes more sense to compete with other companies on salary than to take the time to train new employees. That may not always be the case.
Intelligence outweights socioeconomic status for career advancement
When watching those old videos does anyone else wonder which futuristic demonstrations today are going to be used in court in 30 years?
Clarification on apparent contradictions regarding weakly typed languages
FYI I've already gotten some feedback re the (human attention and computational) cost of proof systems. I'm not sure yet if this problem is (exactly) the same as that.
Is this post a bad omen for Hacker News? In my experience HN has been a safe haven for higher-level tech posts, news, and information; this seems very elementary.
Leaked Google Drive screenshots reveal 5GB of storage
Ask HN: startup in SF or SV?
I see many tech companies starting in San Francisco as opposed to Silicon Valley. Is this a recent trend?

What are the benefits for a startup in SF vs SV and vice versa?
Before you go off giving yourself brain cancer, try changing your diet first. Reduce or eliminate foods that spike your glucose, which reduces your insulin levels, which makes your body burn stored fat instead of food glucose for energy. Good overview here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/01/04/new-evoluti...

Much of what we eat today - grains, legumes, starches, processed foods - our body hasn't genetically adapted to yet. We've had these foods for no more than the past 10,000 years when agriculture was invented, yet Homo Sapiens have existed for the past 200,000 years, and our various Homo X and primate ancestors for several million years before that. Obese people have a worse reaction to these foods, but no one is completely unaffected by them.

Obesity 'cures' like in the OP are just the insanity that results from trying to hack solutions to a problem without fully understanding it.
31st March, 2012: No Internet day . . .?
The reason I narrowed down my selection to Bay Area v. NYC was the following:

1. I'm from the NYC area, and have a lot of friends who will be living there. I also have a lot of friends in Silicon Valley. I don't know too many people who are sticking around in Austin. While it wouldn't be the end of the world to live in a place where I didn't know a ton of people, I'd prefer to live in a place where I have a preexisting friend group. Plus, I went to college for four years here; Austin is great, but after 4 years, I need a change of pace.

2. NYC is arguably the 2nd best city for tech(behind Silicon Valley). With Bloomberg's initiative to start a tech-centric campus on Roosevelt island, and the recent influx of big tech companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Palantir, etc.), it's becoming a very hot city for tech in a very short period of time.
The Conservative party was decimated years ago and was nearly eliminated then eventually the Reform Party which became the Canadian Alliance merged into the Conservative party (both parties were dead anyway).

Reformers were certainly farther right compared to the members of the old Conservative party. Now there is a Conservative party it's the same skin on the outside but fundamentally different, it couldn't be more different, it's pretty much the Reform Party 2.0 yet people see "Conservative Party" and vote for it.

That's my take on it anyway.
Run very far away from that. I've dealt with a bunch cold-calls from recruiters and I've never heard of anything like that. It's possible that it's even illegal (I don't think you can charge job seekers but this might skirt that) but IANAL.
What Game Devs Want From Next-Gen Consoles
It is a curse; I'd love to settle on a nice language, but the hunt is just so exhilarating!
Facebook is watching you (even more than you thought)
To the biz guys here who might think that we're unicorns, I'd like to point out that there are definitely people out there who are very technical and would love to co-found with someone more business-oriented.

Amen to that. I'm a programmer and an idea guy (http://ideashower.posterous.com). But what I sorely need is a bad ass bizdev who I can team up with and git r done.
I'm selling Überzet on Flippa
I think this gets to the point of why these debates are useless when talking on a personal level- everyone is different.

I'm 28, and I still don't want to get married. I have no problem with buildings dotting the horizon (when I want to leave the city, I fly away somewhere far, far away. Or go to Prospect Park). So, I probably wouldn't care too much for the Midwest. Everyone is different.
Why is Facebook's revenue so low than Google's
So y do i think facebook can not match google any time soon atleast in terms of revenue?

There is no doubt in anyones mind that facebook is at the top when looking at the amount of time ppl spend on a website.. there revenue is still 1/8th of what google does.. So, the challenge with facebook is not getting people on their website but to put ads which are more relevant, so tht they can increase the average revenue per
user.

The question is how can facebook do it? Their algorithms can not change overnight that can make ppl click on them. another way to put it is with 800 million ppl on facebook and a large number of daily users why is that their revenue has not been able to catch up with google's, nd will it do anytime soon?
> With a quarter of the young population out of work

Yeah, well.. those are the untalented ones. Not everyone can do every job. Especially in technology. Sorry.

It's hard to find good auto mechanics, too. And electricians, and true salespeople. And anything that requires skills and talent and practice and learning. This is really just a perennial truism, not anything specific to today.
Wish there is an Amazon AMI with your config...
Much better than doing things from scratch :)
It's not as though the audience were disinterested judges -- they were partisans, and more anti-TSA partisans showed up to vote. Popularity contest, that's all.

And nothing will change though the Economist debate, or any other debate. Only declining profits for the arilines, spurred by declining passenger miles, will force change.

By then, TSA-esque processes will probably exist for every form of transport, including automobiles.
The business model of Ivy league free courses is protect the market, destroy competition, preserve monopoly.

At the moment Uni education is a pretty open market, there is Ivy league, there are top state colleges, there are 3rd tier and then the Phoenix type places - you pay your money and take your choice.

The real tough competition, at least in technical subjects, is between ivy league and top state schools. The students can save a lot of money by going to UCB over Stanford, learn exactly the same stuff and get exactly the same job - why pay the extra $100k for a Stanford t-shirt?

What these free courses are saying to the students headed to state Uni outside the top 10, and in fields that don't require a paper qualification (like software) is: don't bother paying to go to UCLA, do a startup or do opensource AND do our courses for free and you will get the same job.
Gradually (at least in CS) UCLA etc will disappear from the market and the employer radar who then see MIT/Stanford vs self taught.

It's really no different from why Nike pay Tiger Woods a zillion $. The idea is to put in the minds of the consumer (or CS student and employer) that there is only Nike or nothing.
I must have been unclear, because Eclipse is exactly what I am arguing against.

The developers of Eclipse made a choice to write Eclipse in Java. Java is a language that trades performance for developer productivity with features like memory safety, garbage collection, and machine-independent byte-code. Though I wasn't there, I would suspect the rationale for this choice is that computers are "fast enough" that this tradeoff is worth it.

The choice to use Java instead of C++ favored the productivity of the Eclipse developers over the run-time performance of Eclipse, and the effects of this choice are so painful that Eclipse has become the poster child of a sluggish desktop app.

What I am arguing for is the idea that computers aren't "fast enough" to make compromises like this. Data-intensive applications will continue to be written in low-level languages. Even if a higher-level language could provide basic functionality that is "fast enough," a lower-level language will free up CPU resources that can be spent making the application even more compelling to the end-user.

I hope this makes it clear why Eclipse is the antithesis of what I believe.
Now this is interesting (from the page):

"Wikidata is a secondary database. Wikidata will not simply record statements, but it will also record their sources, thus also allowing to reflect the diversity of knowledge available in reality."

That sounds pretty cool to me, because you could potentially upload probabalistic data from statistical analysis. If they make this so that you can tell how reliable the source is, you could upload information that's accurate to a given degree of probability.

It would be very interesting if you could version data by reliability, so that less-reliable data could eventually be replaced by definitive data. This is an achilles heel of current data modeling systems.
Submitted :) As someone mentioned on this thread. It definitely helped us think through our idea and communicate it in a concise manner. The biggest take-away for us was : Simplify + Simplify + Simplify = Amplify
> They wouldn't have rewritten those from scratch, would they?

I do a lot of cross-platform integration. This is based on my experience. If you know you're going to cover multiple platforms from the beginning, you will do a lot of things to make that a lot easier.

Most of those would be written to target a graphics framework (like OpenGL) for the visual elements. Then, for each platform there will be a host that OS-specific things like file & network access. You can also use libraries to abstract that for you.

So the amount that needs to be rewritten depends on how similar the new platform is to the old ones. Going from PC to iOS would be about 40%. Going to Nintendo Wii, maybe 70%.

Unless the platform is particularly unusual, most of the hard problems were solved in the first release, adding additional platforms is fairly mechanical. So even if you need to replace >50% of the code, you know roughly how you're going to do it before you start.
Wow, awesome insight -- thanks. I'll put a link to your comment in the original story :)
>massively effect how much attention they are given.

This is very true. And is also a massive problem with news sites. You didn't post a accurate, descriptive title, you posted an editorialized opinion.

Yes, you get lots of views if you distort the article (18% do NOT agree that he lost the debate), but catchy title does not good journalism make.

I think HN should shy away from this sort of thing. We'll all complain about Fox, MSNBC and the Drudge Report for their ridiculous headlines (This just in, Obama sacrificed a child! Click for story!!), lets apply the same set of critical standards here.

Otherwise we'll become /r/politics..
> But the likelihood that anyone in any position of power at NBC even saw that page is slim to none.

Which is exactly the problem. The only reason that the web page wasn't reviewed is to save money/time. Which is a great thing!

However, with the SOPA/ACTA style of repressive laws that follow the "shoot first, ask questions later" principle, a lot of burden will be put onto companies to review/censor all their content prior to being published, and especially for small companies, the costs would be significant.
Microsoft releases ASP.Net Web API (via Apache 2.0 license)
20-25 years might be fine, but I still wish there were stronger fair use laws, and that people are more easily allowed to remix someone's work. Think about how much more "fan-art" could be created around more creative works, which would serve both the author by increasing the popularity of the original work through both increased awareness and loyalty from the fans, and also the public by enhancing the culture around it.