skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are about 800,000 doctors in the US (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/ranks/rank18.html); lets conservatively estimate 5 times that many other medical workers providing patient services (e.g., nurses, PA's, medical office assistants).

All these people need to be trained on the new system, except the ones who are replaced by it (1). Every hospital and doctor's office in America need to modify their business practices to fit the new electronic system, and more than 300 million sets of medical records need to be entered into the new system.

(There are about 300 million people with medical records, many of whom have seen multiple doctors.)

The new system also needs to correctly deal with most aspects of medicine, and be flexible enough that unforeseen circumstances can still be tracked.

I don't think $100 billion is unreasonable.

(1) [edit] amusing question: Obama talks about "212,000 new jobs created". I wonder how that compares to the jobs which will be "stolen" by the new technology he proposes? I'm all in favor of creative destruction, I just find the language amusing.
Amazon and Microsoft are billion dollar companies that sell products and services. Google and Yahoo are billion dollar companies that sell ads and services.

It would be irresponsible for Google or Yahoo to hire MBA's right now when both companies are uncertain about the profits they normally see.
The issue I have with this article is the fundamental difference between the way the record companies and newspaper companies went about offering their data online in the first place.

The record companies have always charged for their music; getting free music has always been theft.

Newspaper websites (excluding the WSJ) have always been free.

The comparison to the two would only be valid if the record companies had offered music for free at first, then wanted to start charging.

The newspaper organizations have set up a business model that simply doesn't work: they have established the value of a news article to be free. That's nearly impossible to change ex post facto.

The only chance I see of this changing is if some of the major players drop out, making a real shortage of good news stories. That might inflate their value enough that they could start charging effectively.
The game changer for an all-electric vehicle may be a successful ultra-capacitor design or an electric battery with very rapid recharge. Progress on those things certainly seems to be being made in research.

But pending delivery of that technology, all-electric is NOT the next step. And you need to produce and sell what is the next step; prototypes aren't going to save the company.

I do think all-electric fits very well into a renewable energy, energy independent, environment-preserving future. But we're not there, yet.
Cost-benifit analysis: If the green lobby knew the meaning of this phrase, they would realize how ludicrous 90+% of their proposals sound.
Make it a mythtv box?

http://www.mythtv.org/
I'm also betting against installable software (Silverlight plugins excepted!). You just need to look at Joost's traffic since they went web-based rather than desktop client:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/08/joost-has-a-heartbeat/

I'm hopefull that over the coming months / years Microsoft manage to get Silverlight out there and available on as many platforms as possible, allowing me to write applications that can take advantage of that reach.

In the meantime the aim is to start building up enough user numbers to create a viable business, I've got very low overheads and no debt so hopefully that can come from the existing Silverlight install base + people who are willing to install it if they think the application will do a job for them.
It makes sense to be hiring if you have work for people to do and the money to pay them. Take Amazon, if they are able to swim during this period where their competitors are treading water, they'll have a significant advantage when things pick up again. Likewise, labor is cheap right now (comparatively). Workers don't bargain as hard for salary because they don't think they can get another job. Often workers who get jobs in a down economy have lower earnings for years because the raises they get are likely to be based off that original, low salary for years to come - they might even start thinking that's the going rate for people in their position.

Google and Yahoo's profits aren't the same as Amazon and Microsoft's. They're probably more elastic as people rely on their free stuff rather than paying up. For example, we're no longer buying AdWords to my knowledge and rather just hoping people find us through regular search. Likewise, I'm sure the market for Google's premium $50/user Google Apps has dried as people use the free version that's almost the same.

It's tough times, but if you can see what needs to be done and have the money to do it now, you'll put yourself in a good position later.
Ohhh... I've done a lot of interesting things with old computers, including just shooting one with a shotgun, that particular bastard well deserved it though...

The coolest project I've done with an old box involved playing with power-on over ethernet. The box I've had was configured (using BIOS) to power up in the middle of the night, send "wake up" packets to other machines (they were turned off), wait for them to power on, incrementally backup up their entire hard drives and power off everything including itself. I would wake up in the morning with all computers powered off. That was fun to watch multiple machines waking up, buzzing their drives and turning off by themselves.

These days I never turn anything off though...
Hack your brain: How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio
Microsoft Leads $24 Million Round In N-Trig To Bring Multitouch To PCs
Wufoo is great for this
Efficiency vs Politics (Exxon proposes carbon tax)
Most of "Insecure Interactions" is still a serious issue with Rails. It's very easy to wind up with XSS, SQL Injection, and XSRF in Rails apps; to avoid them, you not only have to be using Rails, but using Rails right.

The simple cases for all of these are automatically eliminated with Rails; for instance, searching for "O'Malley" in a search box isn't going to trigger SQLi. But somewhere in any large-ish application, someone is going to do a custom join or a complicated conditional, and that brings SQL input validation along to the party.

Same deal with XSS. Rails gets rid of XSS, if you (a) default to h() style filtering and never override it, or (b) rigorously audit your code. But most large applications have code paths where something other than Erb is generating HTML (for instance, some library may use HAML to generate a report), and those code paths often escape output filtering.

I'm not trying to stick up for the CWE 25; I think most of these lists are pretty silly. What they're really intended to do is to help enterprise programmers feel like they have their minds wrapped around the software security problem, so that they have a place to start. Other lists, particularly the (equally outmoded) OWASP Top 10, have succeeded spectacularly at that.
Practicing self-control consumes real energy
An Homage to Preloaders
Exactly which of the general principles I've been harping on doesn't pertain also to software systems?

Also, physical systems like the steering wheel are presentations of things that we were evolved to grok, like physics. Programmers should choose abstractions that have qualities that also make them easy to grok.
I say this sounds like Marie Antionette begging on her way to the guillotine. I believe you reap what you sow. I find msnbc worlds better than CNN, who just recently cancelled their sci/tech reporting. That being said, I read maybe three stories a week on msnbc. I don't consciously remember the last time I bought a newspaper. If these people would realize their problem is that they aren't reporting on things people want to read about, they might find their way to a paying audience again. They have generalized the public into large segments, while in reality we exist across lots of little niches of interest. I like tech, scifi, some business, Dr 90210, and I occassionally look for topless photos of hot actresses from the 70s and 80s after watching old movies. Pics from then, not now of course.
I'm not sure what the answer is 100%, but sense the direction to water in their desert isn't in the form of the same business and reporting structure, but in tablet form.
Well, obviously, you would only buy things you were interested in.
>Ron Graham was amazed that an elderly and seemingly frail Paul Erdos could easily beat him

Table tennis is a game of skill, that's why.
Why? Uninitialized variable attacks are a fairly recent finding. If you're a C/C++ coder, that's not at all a meaningless suggestion.

Leave an integer on the stack uninitialized:

int offset;

Have a conditional that usually determines its value:

if(something) offset = packet[0];

Later, use it as an index:

buffer[offset] = data;

The "offset" variable, when uninitialized, takes its value from whatever was left on the stack. Attackers very often control that value (for instance, any time you memcpy or strncpy something out of a packet into a fixed-size buffer to parse it, you're also splashing attacker-controlled data over the stack).

You're picking on one of the few cases where the CWE 25 is actually topical.
cost-benefit analysis: If anti-slavery lawyers knew the meaning of this phrase, they would realize how ludicrous 90+% of their proposals sound.

I'm not saying that buying eco-credits is anywhere near as important as stemming slavery, I'm just saying cost-benefit analysis ignores all qualitative benefits--e.g. clearer skies, lower overall pollution, freedom, etc.

Cost benefit should be considered, but it shouldn't be used to write off major concerns.
He didn't have time to pull off such an elborate hack, because the Bush Administration organized this auction in a big hurry, hoping to get as much land as possible leased out before Bush left office. If the whole auction is declared void and repeated, then when it happens again, the Obama Administration will run the show.
The whole green thing for websites just seems extremely stupid to me. Its like being penny wise, but pound foolish. A single Semi probably affects the environment more than most websites(except behemoths with hundreds of thousands of server farms)
Thanks for drawing attention to this. Seems like blogs and twitter are more and more becoming platforms for posting about blogging and twittering. Could we start a list of bloggers/tweeters who actually contribute value?

Terry Tao,
PZ Meyers (Pharyngula)
That's what they where charging, which is why many people say it was a corrupt auction.
There's a whole style of play called hard bat that people use, in which they only use hard rubber (or pips out). The fact that they cannot spin effectively can be an advantage -- they aren't affected by their opponents spin!

Given the right technique, they can be deadly, since basically, any spin that you give to the ball is reversed when it comes back (very low friction on their paddle, so essentially their hit does NOT change the direction of the spin. So, for example, if you give them topspin, it will come back at you with underspin).
Do you think there are other industries that would be a good example for the medical industry to follow? It seems like coming up with standards for such a complex area has been a stumbling block for healthcare. Is healthcare more complicated than other areas that have seen massive success with IT or is that just an excuse?

Does anyone have any good resources that describe frameworks for developing standards or examples of other industries that have done a good job with standards?
Dziuba misses more often than not, but when he's right, he's right.

This Twitter thing is much ado about nothing, imho.
Great job! I've only looked at the video though. Your user experience looks quite intuitive which is important. I would continue to work on that. For example, those that say to use Flash for video, well you can detect what the browsers capabilities are.

Don't worry too much about the Silverlight installation. If the product is good, that won't be a barrier.

I also believe RIA apps are much better than AJAX based apps.
Or try the newly invented "pistol-grip" http://tabletennisonly.com/images/SW_Pistol_Grip_Blade_All_W.... Very ergonomic in my experience.
I would buy an LCD monitor and mount it to a wall somewhere in your house. Hook up the computer to it and use it to display photos, show the weather or other useful information. Over time you can add enhancements to it to better suit your needs, for example by turning the display into a touch screen, adding an IR remote, adding a mic+speakers and using skype to turn it into a video phone, etc.
Storage server. I use Windows Home Server, but OpenSolaris with ZFS would be just as good if you don't need Windows system backups.
First, this is like saying C takes care of buffer overflows:

1) buffer overflow - programmer - count

Conservatively, that action item cost the industry over 5 billion dollars. So, generally, "bad programming: use good programming" is not an effective answer to security.

Second:

(3) Fails on complex queries and query builders all the time; there are situations where you can't parameterize everthing that varies in a query.

(5) Would have precluded Github, which used `` expansion in its first revs to invoke git.

(8) First, Rails isn't single-threaded anymore, and second, you can end up with race conditions at the database layer if you aren't careful with transactions and isolation levels.

(9) Is only true if you not using any unaudited C extensions; quick, tell me how many of the gems you brought in have an ext/ directory with code in it?
Microsoft rejecting Adium 1.3.2 connections
Your comparison to slavery is completely retarded, both because is a vast overstatement, but more so because it doesn't even make sense.

If you rtfa, you'd see that the cost benefit analysis is one of the stronger points: How many trips were avoided, how many packages not mailed and how many phone calls not made because of the internet?

Trying to measure one's carbon footprint, and then lessen that footprint is noble. Profiting through some obscure calculation that includes some things but not others is opportunism.
I think you have a great point.

Essentially when making a cost-benefit analysis you need to have a shared understanding of what constitutes costs and benefits.

In the case of slavery the justification puts the costs and benefits on the side of the enslavers, little cost and huge benefit. If you look at the side of the slaves there is the opposite huges cost and no benefit.

This is the same with the environment only in this case I suspect that mostly the people on the other side of the equation are future generation who get a damaged planet but none of the instant pay-off from our wastage.
Great points by Altgate. I have been wondering why no one mentions the opportunity costs associated with the Internet vs. its alternatives. Information and products need to get delivered...the web seems pretty darn good to me as a green solution
PHOTO: Windows 7 vs. Dance Dance Revolution
>if you give them topspin, it will come back at you with underspin

You are describing the effect of "long pips".
I'm a subscriber to the website, it's a great product. I really enjoy the reviews. Recipe wise I usually look at what they and others do and then go my own.
I'd set it up in the guest room as a machine for the guests to use while they're over. They usually just need the Internet and access to a printer.
I think his point was that some benefits are intangibles like "Freedom" as opposed to quantifiable gross product increases.

In the context of environmentalism a "cleaner planet" is mostly an intangible because on that scale it mostly doesn't affect anyone directly or fast.

Also it might be nice if you didn't feel the need to call things "retarded". It seems pretty unnecessary.
Electric Sheep makes an amazing screen-saver -- could be a great piece of wall art? Other benefits would be that you'd be contributing to a massive art project and it'd make a great conversation piece: "what's that?", "oh, that's just Harrison Ford dreaming..."
Clearer skies should be part of a cost benefit analysis. The problem is an industry's pollution could be killing people, but when they have been getting away with it for a long time they see pollution controls as government interference and fight it.

EX: Pollution from coal fired power plants killed a lot of people in several ways. A dramatic example: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=873954

But, when it comes to less dramatic damage it's easy for them to fight it.
spin is charged in this context
How about we all finally just move completely to citizen journalism and be done with this noise?
I have an old box lying around, meself. At first I used it as a file server/experiment (installed FreeBSD and Samba). Now, the drive is getting a little small for that. I'm thinking about

- HostAPD and experimenting with different wifi configurations, like one open/one closed network, maybe incorporate RADIUS or something cool.

- Try another OS that's intrigued me, like Haiku or Plan 9

- Set up a virtual honeynet, maybe connected to a graphic representation like in that one xkcd comic, and watch the malware go
How can investigative journalism support itself on the web?

How does Drudge make money? (These are two very distinct questions.)

What do people want that they are not getting from the media now?
The Human Equation: Organizing people for profit
Here's a tip: if "retarded" is the best adjective you can come up with, you've already lost the argument.
Will Windows 7 stymie Mac OS X's growth?
Let There Be Light: Stanford Startup Aims to Bring Light to 1.5 Billion
While it would be interesting to compare online access to offline access, CO2stats is providing a service that could really change things moving forward. You can't buy carbon credits from Blockbuster for the total cost of shopping there; CO2stats makes it possible to move towards a completely carbon neutral world.

Obviously they have a long way to go...sites like Animoto use much more CO2 per user than Craigslist, and that's very hard to account for in a general way. But to complain that they don't give you credit for how bad the offline version would be is unfair.
If you'll allow me to conceed you've got a point, I'd like to offer a rebuttal that takes us in a new direction.

(Again, yes, you're right about the break even analysis).

Aside from the basics (roads, schools, telephone lines) that the taxes on his employees pay for, there is one thing the payroll tax pays for as well: Unemployment insurance. Now, nobody wants their business to fail, but the failure rate for businesses is quite steep. This is a tax that literally protects the employees from the bad business decisions made by the business owner, even if he ends up bankrupt.

Unemployment also keeps the supply of labor at a fairly constant rate. Say I worked for one of this business owner's competitors, who went out business, and have a mortgage. To make ends meet, I immediately take a job in an unrelated field. Now, that business cannot hire me because I've stopped looking for a job. (I know, i'm simplifying here, bear with me.) Unemployment lets me spend more time on the market, looking for offers in my field.

Sort of like FDR's Treasury Secretary said about the New Deal. "People don't eat over the long term. They eat everyday."
Freedom isn't an intangible, it's the core reason for the argument. Besides, a cost/benefit analysis, done properly, is not limited to monetary concerns alone. In trying to refute the original post, the argument proves it: There is a significant lack of understanding in presenting a proper cost/benefit analysis.

In the context of environmentalism a "cleaner planet" is mostly an intangible because on that scale it mostly doesn't affect anyone directly or fast.

Then it's the job of those who suggest we worry about it to properly portray effects that are worth worrying about. (BTW, I'm not a climate-change denier, just looking for concrete solutions.)

I called this argument as being "retarded" because it equates those in opposition to carbon credits as morally repugnant, on the same level as slave-traders. That's so extreme it doesn't even make sense.
Sure, what I could see of the app, and design looked very good. So congrats on that.

Good luck with it :)
I donate the computing power by running BOINC on mine. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Building New Musical Instruments with MIT Students
Clearer skies should be part of a cost benefit analysis.

External costs of coal have been quantified by ExternE.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.html

The report of ExternE, a major European study of the external costs of various fuel cycles, focusing on coal and nuclear, was released in 2001 [...] The external costs are defined as those actually incurred in relation to health and the environment and quantifiable but not built into the cost of the electricity to the consumer and therefore which are borne by society at large. They include particularly the effects of air pollution on human health, crop yields and buildings, as well as occupational disease and accidents. [...] The report shows that in clear cash terms nuclear energy incurs about one tenth of the costs of coal. Nuclear energy averages under 0.4 euro cents/kWh (0.2-0.7), less than hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (2-10 cent averages in different countries), gas ranges 1-4 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.05-0.25 cents/kWh average.

The EU cost of electricity generation without these external costs averages about 4 cents/kWh. If these external costs were in fact included, the EU price of electricity from coal would double and that from gas would increase around 30%. A summary plus access to more recent work is on ExternE web site. http://www.externe.info
Memristors made into low cost, high density RRAM (Resistive Random Access Memory)
If you run the math, you'll realize that's not even close to true.
3) Have you tried named_scope? It solves most of the query building pain for me...
I actually use the HN comments to get a feel of what the article is all about and if I see a lot of +ve vibe I venture out to read the article. I also find scanning over the comments as a way to get the gist of the article without reading it.
Too much choice sucks. Too much choice with too little information sucks even more. Consumer Reports and CI directly address this problem, and they do it fairly well.

ConsumerLab is another one. They just test vitamins and dietary supplements and post their results on their website.

http://www.consumerlab.com/

The problem they address is not choice, but difficulty attaining of safety information. It's easy, for example, for metal impurities to get into supplements like DHEA. The FDA is not going to step in, so a free market alternative arises.
Reading about Rails in InfoWorld is excruciating.
good insight!
Rails certainly feels like a treadmill at times:-(
it's hard not to hate the tech when historically MS makes their stuff ignore standards and evolve into something for Windows only.

Adobe, while not perfect itself, has been committed to keeping Flash cross platform. This makes Flash harder to hate than Silverlight despite the high cost of developer tools
I turned my old one into a bit of an entertainment machine. My HDTV has a VGA input, so I just hooked it up to the TV. I use it to play old Nintendo games, watch DVDs, iTunes movies, and TV shows off of Hulu.
"CO2stats makes it possible to move towards a completely carbon neutral world."

Given the fact that there's no consensus yet as to the benefits of a carbon neutral world, don't you think this is premature? Throwing money into a pit that might change something someday... assuming it needs changing in the first place.
Because much of it is unreadable drivel, compromised by iffy product placement and factual errors.
New Games Powered By Brain Waves
Donate it to a third world country school. microrecycoop.org for example.