skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> most libertarians I know today aren't so keen on things like pigovian taxes to correct differences between marginal social cost and marginal private cost.

Which is weird! I've never understood why libertarians seem to discount external costs so deeply.

I think there is a breed of libertarian that values them sanely, but that it's the less rabid sort that tends not to rant on the internet. I'd include Friedman and Megan McArdle in this group.

I don't agree about valuing happiness instead of freedom, though. It's shouldn't be the government's job to worry about how happy you are, it should be government's job to make sure you're free to pursue happiness should you so choose.
The main piece of advice of the article is finish it, it being whatever piece of software you're working on.

I think "finishing" is generally bad advice, because the problem for many developers is that "finishing" implies perfection and makes completion seem insurmountable. The author discusses various possibilities for what "finishing" may mean to you, but I would simply tweak the wording a bit to be release it. Get it out to the people who you think will use it and see if (and how) they do. Then release again.
> Actually in most cases libertarianism is simply the position of arguing that the Government is causing whatever problem happens to be being discussed at the time

s/libertarianism/internet "libertarianism"
Then he wouldn't have driven his horse to death. He would have enjoyed the time riding and wouldn't have any regrets when he stopped. He would have been happy.
How much is it costing to put people into space currently? Once people get there, what can they do that is worth the expense of sending them there?
People do not move to, and telecommute from, Hawaii because they must do it to survive.

How many people move to, and telecommute from, Hawaii? Who counts them? By contrast, how many people move from Hawaii to the mainland to pursue the same occupation they pursued in Hawaii?
On the whole, the Founding Fathers were extremists for liberty. They were quite radical, by the standard of their day and certainly by today's standards.

Extreme liberty == Articles of Confederation (the first failed U.S. government, wasn't strong enough) versus extreme national socialism == 10s of millions dead.
Is "Runet" a discrete internet, or is it just what Russian websites are seen to be a part of as a sort of internet language subculture?
Indeed. Moving away from the axis-of-rotation increases acceleration. When you are ready, you can go back to zero-g, or .5 g, or 1 g, or 1.5 g, etc. Instead of having to pay thousands of dollars each for airplane parabola rides, it is all right there.

For the same reasons that ski bums live near ski slopes, zero-g bums might live near zero-g. When you live in a spinning orbital habitat, you can have rapid inexpensive access - a veritable season pass - to a variety of acceleration levels.
You need to break these problems down further.

Let's take Citibank.

The government is involved in changing behavior right from the inception of a corporation. It is called limited liability. We as a society accept this as we believe it encourages people to take more risks. It used to be that a corporate charter could be revoked if it were decided that the company was somehow harmful to the public. I am unaware of the last time this has actually occurred.

The government also encouraged risky behavior through GSEs (Freddie and Fannie). There was an implication that the government would take care of things when they went bad.

I personally believe that all of these problems are exacerbated by large public companies. Other than the possibility of having to find another job there is generally little risk in performing poorly or even maliciously at an individual level. Those at the top likely make enough money to survive a lifetime if they were fired tomorrow.

Now let's shift to the issue of energy.

Every drop of fuel you put in your vehicle is subsidized by the government. We spend trillions of dollars to fight wars in order to secure energy resources. These costs are externalized through taxes and it is thus feasible to drive vehicles which are not fuel efficient.

I have only scratched the surface on these two issues. I'm not advocating abolishing all regulation and government institutions. I do wish for more discussion which considers the effects that the government has on society. As the original poster alluded to, good intentions are not enough.
I realize this is a cheap shot... but... 95% probability of a startup being funded? You didn't work on the software that rated mortgage default probabilities, did you?
I haven't read it. I was just thinking my favorite explanation for the Fermi Paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Communication_is_...
I think the Pre looks interesting, but the biggest draw for me when it comes to the iPhone is the tight integration to my mac. If a smart phone isn't going to synch easily and seamlessly with my PC I'm not interested.
Does anyone else think Sergey Brin's quote doesn't quite 'fit in' with the rest of the list in terms of quotability?

"In the future, search engines should be as useful as HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey--but hopefully they won't kill people."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=419503
Edit: Hmm - Apparently this has changed and they allow foreign currency trading now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1phz4-G1tc

I wrote the music and played the guitar and bass.
Speed of light.

If you would want to experience another world, you wouldn't want to have your sensors/effectors too far away from your brain. And it doesn't matter if you would be flesh or silicon.

Even planets in our solar system are already too far for remote interaction.
"Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, character becomes destiny"

My dad drilled this into my head since I was in 2nd grade...
Hi there!

I really don't know as to whether whatever I will be writing down will be of any help to you or not, but I would be very happy if it would. Anyway I'll give it a try.

You ask 'Has anyone here been through disaster before?' Well, the truth is almost everyone (barring exceptions, and exceptions don't account for any rule) has been through some kind of predicaments in life. But the problem is many of us thinks that that our individual problem is the penultimate (no offence, simply stating the fact).

In troubled times, we usually have two options; either to succumb to the surmounting pressure, or accept the challenge and come out of it. If we are negative in these troubled times, we succumb and if we are positive we come out of it, stronger, much more stronger, with wisdom.

You say that you have funds for at least another 6-7 months. That's certainly is a lot of time, provided that you are calm, pateint and positive. I am sure, you must be aware of the fact, that there are many people in life, who even don't have money to eat a single meal. And here you are, 6-7 months.... Things can change for the better.. You never know.. And things have changed in the past.. After the night.. there is always the day.. and after the day.. there is the night.. the cycle.. continues.. and the one who knows this facet about life has known one of the important arts to live life...

Anyway you state that you do like the startup and the projects you are working on.. So why worry? Enjoy whatever you are doing.. and take one step at a time... Don't worry unnecessarily... after all.. worrying is not going to help you..... What sense would it make, if you were making lot of money but you were just not enjoying whatever you were doing....

Before I conclude, I would like to share with you a few quotes that perchance might rejuvenate your spirit....

1> Do the things you FeAr & FeAr will disappear.

2> I will certainly strike the iron when its hot. Else I'll continue striking it till it gets hot!

3> In life when one door of happiness closes, another one immediately opens. But often we get
so lost and absorbed in our sorrows and problems, we fail to see the one which has opened
for us. - Hellen Keller

4> God isn't such a miser that he'll give you just one chance.

5> It's very easy to dream when everything seems to be going right with you. But the most
important thing is to dream when just about everything seems to be going wrong with you.
- Azim Premji (Founder of Wipro-India's 2nd ranked IT Company)

6> Many of the failures in the world were those people who were so close to success when they gave up. - Thomas Alva Edison

7> The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.

8> If you're not failing, you're not trying anything. - Woody Allen

9> The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Lastly, if you haven't watched the movie 'In Pursuit of Happiness,' starring Wills Smith, I strongly recommend you to watch it. It's the perfect time for you to watch it.

Peace & Love,
Somnambulist
This is the kind of fantasy bullshit NASA was peddling before they came up with global warming. Anybody cares to guess what will be current thirty years from now?
Google Blog Converter (Google's tool to move blog data between services)
"That everything great that has ever happened to humanity since the beginning, has begun
as a single thought in someone's mind. And if anyone is capable of such great thought, then
all of us have the same capacity, capability. Because we all are the same." - Reflections of
Passion - Yanni - Acropolis (Live)
I play the Dumbek. Mostly middle-eastern style.
> I've never understood why libertarians seem to discount external costs

Most libertarians are aware that the Government meddles heavily in the economy, and everything bad about the economy that's blamed on capitalism wasn't a fair test b/c it wasn't actually laissez faire capitalism that was tested. There is no good reason to expect external cost problem to be worse under a genuinely free market than they are now. So libertarians needn't say much about the issue.

And anyway, what do you expect libertarians to say about it? Either one can say that Government is the answer, or isn't. Libertarians are exactly the people who have knowledge about why Government is bad at solving problems, so they are the last people you'd expect to want the Government trying to solve this one.
They said $9 billion? Oh boy, that's $9 billion swindled from the companies, then. sigh
> i'd pay $10 just to know the name of the D&B song from 1-2 years ago with certain fight club samples

i run a little site that people go on to help identify music, called http://iden.tify.us you could try uploading it, and see if anyone knows it. there is a signup form, but if you'd rather not signup, just email the song to me and i'll post it (there is a link on the bottom of the site) sorry to threadjack, but this is the exact reason I started my site
I play the guitar (amatuer), keyboard and the harmonica.

Basically I am a keyboardist.

Watch me and my band playing in one our college concerts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqvS4RuDKXg

I am the one playing the keyboard.

It's a Nepali song, but well you might just like the melody, for music knows no language, it surpasses all....
Palm introduce the Pré with WebOS and want us to believe they’re still good.
I play bass. Used to play the piano.
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it -- Richard Feynman

s/Science/Startup/
it doesn't matter if you would be flesh or silicon.

It does matter. It is cheaper to send 100 lbs of computer+powersupply, than to send 10,000 lbs of human+lifesupport.

-

you wouldn't want to have your sensors far away from your effectors.

If you existed in silico, why would your sensors need to be far away from your effectors?
As an engineer and an ex-libertarian that managed to (thankfully) outgrow it, I have to say that what you describe isn't actually libertarianism as practised and understood by libertarians at large, but your own personal interpretation of it. Is is actually somewhat close to my current views and I would never call myself a libertarian, nor would libertarians call me one of them.

You seem to believe in a weak central government and strong state governments that try new approaches and get shit done. This is nice, except most libertarians believe in weak governments in all levels of government. No, not a government that works as well, not an efficient government, but a minimal government.

As an example, take the health care debate. Compared to some european countries with good healthcare systems, the US spends substantially more (~15% vs ~9% of GDP) covers substantially fewer people (the millions without coverage) and the overall health of the population is poorer. By nearly all objective measures, a good public system is much better than an all-private system and yet, we know this is not compatible with libertarian ideology - you will have to search far and wide to find a libertarian group that supports a public healthcare system.

Like I mentioned above, the libertarian ideology is one of minimal government, which is sometimes, but not always the best type of government. This is why libertarianism relies on simplistic catch-allisms (government=bad, regulation=bad, private-good) and parodies of reality like Atlas Shrugged and other Ayn Rand fiction-pseudo-philosophy writings and not your idealistic "engineering and scientific assessment of reality" idea.
I have the same reaction whenever I read about pyschological experiments like the milgram's experiment.
I think that I would have stopped administering schocks long before the end, but given the statistics of people who didn't I'm probably overestimating myself.

That's why I sometimes think it would be beneficial to do such experiments to better understand your character, your limitations and how you react under pressure...

Maybe a group of people who would pick one such experiment a week and have some administering the test and some receiving it would be fun....
Agreed, this goes hand in hand with the whole "artists ship" thing pg wrote about. If you're too caught up in the perfection of something start slicing of limbs of it until it's releasable and go from there.
Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX and Windows, both of which offer a superior and consistent experience.

I love linux, btw, and know my way around the command prompt fairly well. And, of course, it is my first preference for most server scenarios.

That said, my opinion is that it's a near failure as a desktop OS.

I have Ubuntu installed on my Dell laptop and have had it on there for about a month. It's certainly usable, and I certainly get my work done in it, but it always feels like I'm using something that has been duct taped together. Everytime I climb back aboard my Mac Pro at work, it feels like I just took a shower.

For starters, X has to go the way of Quartz. I still can't get this laptop to play full screen video at a decent frame rate. No problem when I dual boot into Windows. No problem when I had hackintosh installed on this laptop. Why is this so hard? It's not the decoding, it's the drawing.

Basic shit like window ornamentation is always "almost there" and it frustrates me that it isn't "there". It's like the uncanny valley of UI, this linux desktop.

Compviz is cool, but feels cheap and has all kinds of redraw issues.

Most of the free replacements for professional tools feel like they're designed by people with severe visual disabilities. Froo, you are in for a rude awakening thinking you can replace photoshop with Gimp, even Gimp 3.0 is still a long shot away.

Thankfully, I can get my work done in a full screen terminal for most of it, Eclipse for the rest.

That's my opinion after using it for a month. So not ready for prime time.
I think it would enhance immersion, much more than the wii controller (which it turned out people wanted). But I agree the lag spoils it (esp visible with the baseball bat). Version 2.0?
I received a government polygraph test over a year ago.

A mock interrogation would not be very effective. The most important
aspect of a polygraph is leverage. There has to be an incentive for the
person being questioned (e.g. they want an out for committing a crime)
so that they want to tell the examiner the truth. There should also be
a real fear of failing the test. Your brother questioning you about who
stole the cookie from the cookie jar wouldn't cut it.

As far as I can tell, the goal of the test is to make you spill your
guts. You might consider yourself confident or be a pathological liar,
but when you're afraid of lying, your body will react to it. It's a
very unique experience and I don't think practicing lying or rehearsing
your responses would be useful. They'll dwell on questions that they
think you're trying to deceive them on and ask you over and over. Each
time, you'll give them a little more ("well, one time, but I didn't
inhale!") to get them off your back. They'll do the good cop/bad cop
routine and occasionally storm out of the room. Eventually, hours later,
you'll crack and think, "fuck it, I've already told them this much, might
as well give them the rest." At that point, you're probably crying or
look pretty distraught so they know they've got
everything.
I meant - "you would want to experience" - as in you personally (you = one human being).

Edit: Sorry, I corrected my older comment, it was supposed to say "sensors and effectors far away from brain".

You cannot effectively "be present" [1] at the remote world if your perceive-think-act loop would be spread over large distance.

So even if you would be in silico, you would still need to transfer your actual hardware, not just dumb robots.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presence_%28telepresence%29
I agree. But I didn't get the same meaning of "finish" form the article that it seem you have. I think his meaning is very close if not the same as "ship it".
piano.
Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that.

Awesome.
The answer seems to be... no

http://www.google.com/trends?q=linux+desktop

In any case, someone's gonna have to define what "year of the linux desktop" beforehand.
Yes. Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
> We're quantifiably more bacteria than mammal.

No. [edit: Upon further reflection, I may have misunderstood you. If you simply mean that humans and bacteria have a lot of DNA in common, then I of course agree.]

> there is the possibility that we're already nearly evolutionarily optimal for this universe.

So you think humans are the general solution for the global^Wuniversal optimization problem? Unlikely. Even if we assume that humanity is somehow optimal right now, will this be true in even 100,000 years? A global temperature change of a few degrees or a change in the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere could render us utterly non-optimal.

By way of example, consider that 500 million years ago there was considerably more oxygen in the atmosphere than now. This meant that insects could grow much larger than they are today withought needing to invest resources in lungs to support their body mass (insects lack specialized circulatory organs, generally). But fast forward today and giant insects are a manifestly suboptimal solution. I'm personnally grateful.
Ever known someone with a FingerWorks TouchStream?

I think you might be surprised exactly how productive one can be with a "touchscreen keyboard on a tablet".
Cocoa with Love: Multiple row selection and editing in a UITableView
Thanks!

One of the best parts of winning: I got to meet pg at the after party.
>those servers are already running anyway.

The power plants are on anyway, I might as well leave my heat on and windows open.
creditdefaultswap.com baby. Web 2.0 mortgage derivatives.

Elevator pitch: It's like Flickr for collateralized debt obligations.
I've played guitar for a while. I try to practice at least three times a week for 1 - 4 hours each sitting.
Ah. Sorry. I misread you. Yes, you are probably right.
I played with it a while ago. Not too shabby. Seems perfect for a 13 year old. It's fun and it makes it easy to make something happen.
I used to play clarinet in middle school and elementary.

I racked up ~5 years before quitting.

I also have a Bb r13 clarinet for sale.
What I meant by in silico was existence in computer hardware. Sending 100 lbs of computer+powersupply there means being there, without being spread telepresently over large distances.
Hmmn -- surely, if something were completely independent/neutral of OS, by definition then it would not be able to exert any influence on the popularity of any OS?

So if Linux arguably is gaining in popularity because of average home users checking webmail, browsing etc; then it seems to me this must in fact be ascribable to some fundamental differentiating characteristic(s) of Linux applicable to these users.

Possible differentiators might be cost, ability to arrange for fast boot to a usable web browsing environment, reduced virus concerns, etc. etc.
1) Call quality issues have been highly-publicized, and refer to more than dropped calls. Voice quality, volume control, reception (different phones on the same network often get better or worse in the same location), etc.

2) You can find a litany of blog posts from people who switched from Blackberry to iPhone and then went back because they couldn't live without the keypad. You can also find people who share your sentiment too. Neither sentiment is uncommon or would lead me to believe that the person expressing it hasn't tried one.

3) Also tons of complaints about spotty reception even in big cities.

None of those three may match your experience, but they all match highly-publicized experiences of others.
Your discussion of health care systems is simplistic. For example, the US system has a track record of innovation and there are very good reasons that some non-US populations have higher average health that are completely unrelated to health care.

While I'm not a libertarian, libertarians don't encourage small government just to hear themselves speak. If one doesn't err on the side of limiting government, you tend to get one useless bailout bill after another as people with power, but not much more brains than yourself, frantically fling money around trying to solve problems they don't really understand. Unfortunately, it's not play money.
I was thinking more about letting two people do it and then try to identify the overlap rather than the product of the two preferences.
Clever and Creative Billboard Advertising
Polygraph tests don't depend on secrecy. I, and millions of other people, have received one and it's fairly well documented. From what I can tell, the way that they polygraph criminals and people in intelligence is roughly the same.

It's used as more of a method to trick you into telling the truth than it is to detect lies. I don't think it's very easy to beat unless you teach yourself how to regulate your heartbeat.
Lord Acton said "power corrupts":

http://mises.org/story/1086

I think that an important part of libertarianism is its fairly consistent position for negative liberty:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/
You are correct on both counts. I will consider how to approach these issues. Thank you.
Yes, I've heard that one you learn to speed read you can't go back.
One area where Tcl missed out was in terms of web servers. There were a number of proprietary ones that integrated Tcl as a server-side language (sort of like PHP), which, of course, is a much higher performing model than launching a CGI for each request. However, by the time those servers were open sourced (AOLServer), the PHP cat was out of the bag.