skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
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This article provides almost no support for the headline.
This inevitably leads to an arms race, with the students and software getting better and better. At some point, sufficiently advanced gaming of essay scores is indistinguishable from students who naturally write well by following the rules which lead to good writing. As long as creativity and originality aren't sacrificed, is it really a problem?
It's a color printer, so there are 4 different cartridges being used at once - cyan, yellow, magenta, and black.
I was looking for a submarine kit for recreational purposes however clearly missed the massive drug smuggling opportunity.

Wiki:
"A narco-submarine (also called narco-sub, drug sub and Bigfoot submarine) is a type of custom-made ocean-going self-propelled submersible vessel built by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine
I think this says more about the assignment and the human grading procedures than anything else. Even the supposedly creative sections in standardized tests are surprisingly narrow in what they consider to be good.
During my first trip abroad, within Europe, I had an embarrassing moment when telling a new friend (from Bahamas) about an embarrassing moment I had when telling a new friend (from US) that I once met someone who was a creationist.

They were all...
I upvoted you for the interesting line of thought, although I disagree with the premise that acceptability of grading algorithmically implies acceptability of writing algorithmically.

In CS, we often grade assignments automatically, although we expect students to write the assignments by hand. Although there are many classes where this would be a bad idea, there are some where it works quite well - if the problems are strictly specified, grading an assignment with what are effectively unit tests is reasonable.

Grading and doing an assignment are different classes of problems - roughly mapping to decision problems and search problems. Just because the grading is computationally tractable or acceptable does not necessarily imply that the act of writing the assignment is.

I agree with your second paragraph by and large. There is a time and place for automatic grading, and most writing should not fall into that category.
Thanks, turns out I had it in my .vimrc already but didn't remember what it did.
For the standardized test discussed in the article, it says the human graders gave three minutes, on average, to reading each essay. These tests are not wanting art. Writing one of these essays is no more art than writing a basic linked list implementation. It's not concerned with how good a writer a kid is, but that the kid can write at all.

Edit: basically, the sheer scale of the grading required for a standardized test means that it's never going to be a real test of writing skills. It wouldn't surprise me if overly skilled writing is actually a negative even with the human grader—I could easily see a rushed grader misreading something clever and giving it a low score.

(The wisdom or effectiveness of these tests in the first place is a whole different discussion.)
The scribd links often do that. Get the actual pdf.
Could you elaborate on letting them pick their own hardware?
You beat me to it.

There used to be a time when the printer manufacturers did bundle full-sized cartridges with new printers. Back when I worked retail ~15 years ago, this was definitely the case with some Lexmark inkjets. We used to sell people a new printer, open up the box, give them the cartridge(s), and then offer to recycle/trash everything else. Eventually printer manufacturers caught on.
Great video. I really enjoyed it.
He states in a comment that the ink cartridges that come with the printer are indeed full size.
Thanks so much! Though I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want these notifications...
"why should we pay the City for the privilege to ride a car?"

To the government it's an indirect form of taxation that is more desirable than "raising taxes" which will prevent you from getting elected. Plus much of it (like hotel taxes) is paid by tourists or people who will not view it as a tax in the traditional sense.
How should Fenzhi monetize?
The Most Epic Photos Ever Taken (Moon landing plus more)
I would guess that technology caught up with them.

With the penetration of smartphones, I bet that that's become a better alternative than web IM for most people.
I used Facebook for a brief period a year ago. Never touched FB chat. I stopped using Facebook and always found it tedious to sign in to both GTalk and AIM. Meebo solved a problem for me.
Hasn't it been long established that printers are a loss leader? I have a HP printer that cost me peanuts and at every opportunity the printer pushes me to purchase HP printer cartridges. Yes you can game the system but most people don't understand that and it never crosses their mind because of how absurd it is.
According to wikipedia, it took 4 years between Jenner's first inoculation attempt and when the British government passed the Vaccination Act (which banned variolation and provided free vaccination for all). Wikipedia also told me that after Salk developed his first vaccine in 1952 (which he confirmed initial human safety, basically what these trials actually set out to do by testing on himself and his family), they then conducted a field test with over 2 MILLION participants before finally declaring it effective in 1955.

It should be noted that detecting the effectiveness of either a smallpox or polio vaccine is much easier than Alzheimer's. For one thing, we aren't even sure exactly how Alzheimer's deals damage. You would -need- a relatively long term, and careful study to tease out real results.
When my $50 laserjet runs out of ink (going on 3 years now; I don't print much), I may just leave it at the end of the driveway and get another $50 printer, even if the > $50 cartridge would last longer than the starter cartridge.
That's how it's been for years (always). Also, that's the reason why they put authentication chips in those cartridges to try to stop you from refilling them or putting in cheap alternatives. However, this doesn't stop the counterfeiters and you can get the cartridges for tenth of the price. http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/569376994/CE400_1_2_3A_Las...
Why do you think rent control is a good idea? How could it possibly be done fairly?
You’re conflating “Rent Control” and “Rent Stabilization”.

Rent Control applies to apartments built prior to 1947 and only to tenants and their descendants who have lived in the apartment continuously. There are no new rent controlled apartments in NYC. When you hear of $200 three bedroom apartments in Manhattan, it they exist at all they're likely Rent Controlled vs. Stabilized.

Rent stabilization applies to apartments built roughly between 1947 and the mid-1970s. Rents can only be increased by a percentage determined each year by the NYC Rent Guidelines Board (http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/dhcr/dhcr1.html).

Tenants can be evicted from either style of apartment if the landlord can demonstrate that the unit is not the tenant's primary residence, amongst other reasons. While it is almost unheard of for a rent controlled tenant to be evicted, stabilized tenants get evicted all of the time. It is by no means easy.

Stabilized apartments can be removed from the rent stabilization program if the rent exceeds a certain amount, or if the tenant's household income exceeds a certain amount.

Typically landlords would love to eliminate RC/RS entirely, while tenant groups would like to see Rent Stabilization expand. The current vacancy rate in NYC is less than 3.something percent (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/decades-old-hou...) so stabilization is unlikely to end any time soon.

[I own in NYC, I don't rent. Calling the million plus people who live in rent stabilized apartments "cockroaches" is itself pretty disgusting.]
Please add [2007] to the title.
Seven Databases in Song
Mozilla is trying to fix this, through the BrowserID (Mozilla Persona) project.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/

This article actually somewhat validates the approach BrowserID takes: you use your email address as your ID. BrowserID provides a way to verify that you own the email address in question (that you are who you say you are).

There's a lot more planned, but the core of it is simple and easy to implement.

ObDisclaimer: I work for Mozilla, but not on Persona.
How much Twitter is paying to its employees?
You should check check the prices first. I know I looked into Brother lasers, and the preinstalled cartridge is only rated for 600 pages. A high-yield black toner cartridge is only $47 and prints 2600 pages. And $50 doesn't get you much of a laser printer.
Unfortunately, people who have not experienced the joy of how well models work, have no clue how important they are. The GP may assume that "Advanced Technology" can get you to wherever you want. For Eg. he may look at a rocket engine and assume that you just need to start a powerful engine and keep steering your way to your destination as you would do in a car. He knows it is more complex that, but will probably never appreciate the fact that, if Newton's laws of motion or gravitation were off even by a small margin, we would never have achieved what we would have achieved. I hope more and more people realize that science and technology is more than just advanced or complicated.
That, and heading off future competition. If Google were planning, for example, on releasing a multi-protocol web chat application of their own in the next few weeks, this would be a well-timed move.

Using Meebo's code base to make their own application might have been preferable to rebranding it in this case.
(disclaimer - I work at Kaggle)

I would recommend downloading the dataset[1] and taking a look at some of the essays. There is a tendency for an educated audience to (justifiably) worry about exactly what you've articulated, but when you read through the essays, you get an appreciation of how valuable a tool like this could be. These are elementary and middle school essays rife with rudimentary mistakes (which are at times extremely charming) and generally not filled with subtle arguments prone to misinterpretation.

If algorithms can help every seventh grader in the country write a solid 5 paragraph essay, that's progress.

[1]: http://www.kaggle.com/c/asap-aes/data
This isn't the case for consumer printers anymore, though. Ink isn't as expensive as it once was (HP/Lexmark/Epson/Canon all have $10-15 black inkjet cartridges), and printers don't ship with so much ink that it's cheaper to buy the printer. It's the same with low-end laser printers too; a $99 Brother comes with a 600 page cartridge, where a $50 replacement prints 2600 pages.

I guess the situation is different for business-grade stuff where the toner costs $800 a pop.
Would it be possible to have a Linux kernel with all it's up-to-the-minute hardware support together with a BSD userland maybe via DarwinPorts?[1]

For users who prefer a BSD userland to the one GNU offers, this would be magnificent.

1. e.g. Debian is doing the reverse: FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland.
It does not necessarily lead to an arms race. Once the students learn to write to the gradind software, the schools can claim the students are getting better, and point to an 'objective, unbiased' measuring stick. Everyone wins except for society, i.e. sll of us.
The physical object is not what matters. Same thing that prevents someone from stealing a license plate or counterfeiting one or putting a bogus health inspection cert in their restaurant window. Obviously if you were to affix a medallion (or license) to a vehicle at some point that would be discovered and you would be in hot water. Obviously.

You are not buying the medallion. You are buying the right to operate a taxi. The medallion is just an easy way for a) riders and b) enforcement to at least attempt to judge who is legit and who isn't.

And as the financial people noted they can remove the medallion if someone is in default. If all you had was a number painted on the side of a taxi that wouldn't work the same (someone could say "oops" and still pickup fares.)
Try APL online
Relevant PBF comic: http://pbfcomics.com/134/
I participated in the Kaggle competition, but I'm less optimistic about the pedagogic value of these systems. A black box algorithm won't explain to a student what their rudimentary mistakes are.

I wrote about this more extensively here: http://bellm.org/blog/2012/04/23/arguing-to-the-algorithm-ma...
'Twas a bug; too lazy to write unit tests.
Auckland has a different system to the medallion system, but still has restrictions:

* The driver needs to have an endorsement on their drivers' license allowing them to operate a small passenger service vehicle. To get this, they need to pass a 'fit and proper person test' (which disqualifies many people with past convictions) and have completed a course.
* The driver needs to be employed by an approved passenger service. It currently costs NZ$449.80 to apply to start a new one - the laws about when the government must grant them are here, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1998/0110/latest/DLM434609.html and there are no direct limitations on the number of taxis.
But you see that was my point. I don't think there is a team or a good product to acquire here. It hardly compares to previous Google's acquisitions.
Hacking a Business - from weekend from project to a company
David Weekly (founder of PBWorks): Hacking a Business - from weekend from project to a company
"My most important advice here is stark and politically very incorrect: Don't give too much weight to the social importance of the issue; instead, do what captures your intellectual interest and creative imagination. This is not to deny the importance of paying attention to the real world. Nor is it to say that abstract theory is necessarily more valuable than applied work. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But I do believe that mere relevance of an issue will not guarantee good research unless you have a genuine drive to work on it. If not, leave it to someone else. Good work on an apparently unimportant problem will have more long-run value than mediocre work on one of greater intrinsic importance. And one's judgment of importance can always be wrong; concepts of relevance can change over time." - Feynman
If I had to bear your financial risk, I would expect a return: if I'm an investor give me shares, if I'm loaning you money give me interest. Why do I not deserve the same rewards as any other investor? I find the entire proposition offensive.
A lot of folks point toward much-less expensive third party toner cartridges and refill kits. I tried that route with my two Konica Minolta color laser printers and had horrible experience with cartridges/kits from several vendors: toner leaking in the printer, streaks, squeaking, colors that were off, etc.

YMMV but for know I'm sticking with OEM toner. And yes, the toner 4-pack is more expensive than a new printer. So much so that when I used up the toner on my printer I bought a new one since I wasn't all that satisfied with the printer I had.
It doesn't mean they can't participate in the discussion. It does mean that if they're the only people in the discussion, there's probably going to be some things wrong with the outcome.
This. I agree that the original rent control program was badly structured, but today, true rent-controlled apartments only account for 1.8% of all rental units in NYC (http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabiliz...). And as the parent says, this number can only fall.

Rent-stabilization, on the other hand, is being expanded (the 2011 Rent Act increased the minimum rent for deregulation to $2500/month). It's less drastic than rent control and seems to at least have some effect on keeping rents low(er, this is NYC) without being open to such gaming effects as rent control.

However, there are always loopholes. When I moved into my Manhattan apartment, I was told before lease-signing that the rent would be less than the $2000/month ceiling (at the time) for rent control. However, upon lease signing, the rent on the lease was $2050 and there was an attached rider saying I would be paying a lower, "preferential" rent - the originally agreed upon amount - presumably to avoid rent-stabilization. Who knows if that would stand up in court, but as long as management companies can make the tenants believe it's not rent-stabilized, it doesn't really matter...
And starting a series of steps that have been automated for you?

For a one person project, git is unneeded overhead.
I believe the legacy api required md5(md5(password) + time) or something like that. Which means they needed to store the md5 of the passwords or modify all third party clients that used this method.
lol.

And there's no way I'm gonna touch git if I don't have to. ;)
There are a lot of good answers in here, but to compile them and maybe add some:

1) The time between payments gives you the ability to verify that the service has been done correctly and isn't in any way fraudulent. Adwords is a great example, they hang on to the cash for as long as they can because once they pay you, they can't take the money back.

2) Immediate payment, even if automated, doesn't give any opportunity to double-check things. If you're dealing with $10 items, maybe that isn't a huge deal. But what if your task queue goes crazy and redistributes tasks over and over, and now you've just paid somebody $10 every minute the heartbeat pulsed and now you've paid them $20,000.

3) Processing deductions. The more you can charge on a single transaction, the better of it is. If you're making many small transactions and are losing 30 cents + 2.9% on each one, that's 33% you're losing on a one dollar process. Obviously, higher amounts negate this, and Net-30 terms help to negate that even more.

4) I assume you're talking digital processing, otherwise, I do not want to be the guy that has to cash 30 checks when I could have only had to cash 1.

5) The most important, possibly, is interest. The longer you can keep the funds in your account, the more interest it draws. I once worked for a restaurant that paid well, but had pretty thin margins due to competition. They always paid on time, but very politely asked that you waited until noon the next day to cash your paycheck, as interest calculations 'ticked' every day at noon at the bank they used, and while it doesn't sound like a ton, the interest on the paychecks of a 30-person staff adds up pretty quick, and every penny counts.

6) Lastly, if you have to track these payments for tax purposes, the less payments you make the better. Rolling in everyone's accruals into one 'lump sum' for payment could easily be the difference between filing monthly taxes in a couple of hours vs. having to take days to file.
Great write up! I hadn't seen it, thanks for sharing.

Two things:
1) Agree about the explanation bit. In fairness, that was not part of the competition. But I do believe that, given the way the features were constructed, many of the algorithms could be modified to also provide "explanation" of their scoring. The value is highly dependent on the features though (length, for instance, would probably be a prominent "explanation"), and I haven't actually tried it.

2) The "This would grade Dickinson/Hemingway/DFW/etc poorly" argument is true but, again, read the essays. These are serious edge cases - ones that should be addressed (by, for instance, correlating algorithmic scoring with human scoring), but this argument doesn't diminish the applicability of the algorithm to the vast majority of essays and students.
I don't own a printer for home use and most likely never will.
He already has wealthy game entrepreneurs on board. Did you notice the big guy smithing a crowbar? That's Gabe Newell, with a personal net worth of 1.5 billion dollars. His company, Valve, is thanked on the Kickstarter page, as well as Bungie.

These people already have the resources and industry support to do what they want to do (the exquisitely produced videos are themselves a testament to their resources!), but for some reason, they're asking the man on the street to carry a share of the financial risk in exchange for no share of the returns.

As interesting as the idea is, if you contribute to this Kickstarter you're a chump.
He doesn't actually say the currency is a fiat currency he just gives his opinion . "I would argue, Bitcoin is a fiat currency."

Also there are three definitions on that page.

> The term fiat money has been defined variously as:

> - any money declared by a government to be legal tender.

> - state-issued money which is neither convertible by law to any other thing, nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard.

> - money without intrinsic value.

Under the last definition bitcoin would be easily considered fiat.

Also he could and does debate whether you could consider the system that regulates the bitcoin currency a government which would qualify it under the other definitions.

> Bitcoin is simply not a fiat money: it isn't mandated by law that bitcoins have value, instead it is people (markets) who decide that. It's the exact opposite of fiat money.

It isn't mandated by law the value of any other law what the value of any fiat currency is. The initial value is as you said in your definition but the initial value of bitcoin is defined (the cost to produce a valid block).

Due to its nature Bitcoin is really a special case when trying to categorize it anywhere. I also think the author uses a good definition to draw out the differences.
To prove his point the OP says:

"Office software arguably solves no important problem: as Berglas convincingly argues, office automation results not in increased productivity, but in increased complexity of rules and regulations."

(at which point a link is given to "Berglas" writing.

Unfortunately I can find nothing on Dr. Anthony Berglas either on the site linked to or on his apparent page at the university other than "research"

http://itee.uq.edu.au/~csmweb/personnel/berglas.html

So we have a claim that office software solves no important problem because some person who I've never heard of and can't find anything about says so.
I had a kendo instructor who said that footwork was 80% of the physical side of it. A fencing instructor said something similar. Boxers and boxing coaches also understand this.
"He discussed how rent controls prevent both raising prices and selling the controlled property, so the owners can't make money from the property in any way."

That's basically the position of every economics instructor I've ever had - at least in 1xx and 2xx economics. I didn't go any further in economics, but I have been told that the basic jist of 3xx and 4xx economics is to demonstrate how everything we learned in 1xx and 2xx models is pretty much demonstrably incorrect in the real world, and why.
So you get all your traffic from Google?
Any Skype Group for Entrepreneurs in the Bay Area
Is there any Skype groups for entrepreneurs in the Bay Area?
"you should be able to go down farther for longer periods of time with scuba equipment (esp. if you use something like nitrox)."

This is wrong - nitrox doesn't let you go down farther for longer periods [1]; in fact, oxygen toxicity happens at a shallower depth on nitrox than on regular air.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrox#Oxygen_toxicity
Makeup Shop Today - NARS Lip Liner Pencil Rosebud
Least successful? Doesn't appear to be. Fifth highest grossing for Pixar (out of 12) and the most Academy Award nominations.