skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It is quite possible. Bacteria do all sorts of weird and wonderful things to have high genetic diffusion. One of the most interesting is that bacteria will sometimes link up to other bacteria to upload a copy of their genetic codes. (!)

There is a little bit of hope that it could last for a reasonable amount of time, if properly handled. The issue is that organisms can't adapt if the dosage is too high. Usually adapting to a new threat requires, say, a dozen little changes which each improve survival by 5-10%, rather than one monolithic change which improves survival to 100%. Those combinatorics can only work out if most of the bacteria are being destroyed, not if all of them are.

Antibiotics are used this way today. Many people cancel an antibiotic regimen when they feel better, and it's a medical disaster when they do: the antibiotics need to be continued to the point of Total Destruction of all bacteria in your body, which will make you feel weaker, simply so that none of them are naturally selected to have one or two of these 5%-resistance genes.

The same thing happened with DDT and insects. There was a use of DDT -- spraying inside your house -- which had low environmental impact and which insects could not develop resistance to, because the concentrations stay high. This made it amazing as an antimalarial: mosquitoes just always perch on walls and wait until the night comes before they attack, and we could use this to always give them a lethal dosage.

Unfortunately, someone gave DDT to the farmers and then two things happened: (1) DDT got into the food supply for birds, posing serious environmental risks; and (2) insects could now receive a "partial dose" of DDT and develop those sorts of immunities, so now there are DDT-resistant insect populations.
Turn Off TV: Why Does US TV Book Bad Guys?
I have the same thing actually (a part of my family have perfect teeth even being over 60; i'm not there yet, but almost 40 and my teeth are still perfect in every way), but I do brush my gums (and teeth lightly) daily for hygiene and it just feels better :). I have plaque removed (which I don't have much) every few years as well.

I do think that obsessive brushing 3x / day which people do (after every meal besides breakfast and every morning when getting up) is crazy; I have seem more people ruin their teeth with that than forgetting to brush once in a while.
"Finally, by linking homosexuality and incest, the poster tries to create a link between homosexuality which is now acceptable by most people to incest which is universally unaccepted and immoral. In western countries one is also legal and the other isn't."

I agree with you, but this argumentation is quite terrible.

If your main argument is "homosexuality is now universally accepted and normal". Then punishments to gays before being gay was accepted and normal are completely justifiable. Like Alan Turing's hormone treatment was ok?

Legality is just a approximation of this "is now universally accepted and normal". So it's weaker argument than the previous.

If you accept homosexuality because "no harm done to anyone". Then you should logically accept all other sexual stances as long as no harm is done to anyone. Right?
> " I have friends who are gay; I don't hate them. I just think they engage in behavior that's immoral, just like others of my friends who sleep with each other outside of marriage, etc. I recognize my faith condemns such behavior - but I'd equally condemn anyone who insults, harasses, or otherwise harms someone just because that someone is gay."

And how does that in any way conflict with the support of gay rights?

The legalization of gay marriage in no way denies your right to morally condemn their behavior. It simply removes your ability to actively harm their lives by continuously denying them equality.

You do not have to approve of someone's behavior in order to support their right to do it.

In other words, your very claim that you are not homophobic, and that you would readily come to the aid of persecuted gay folk, should mean that Google's move is not objectionable. After all, Google is not trying to ban browbeating, but merely to assert the right for people to do as they wish, moral or otherwise.
In addition to the other resources in this thread, I'm also finding the Ruby Koans (http://rubykoans.com/) useful for drumming syntax into my head.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4074187
What makes that explicitly bad?
Teknik Menyetir Mobil Yang Baik
> "Where do you draw the line?"

I addressed this part - consent.

The most objectionable part of arranged marriages are the ones where one side is clearly non-consenting. There is still a dramatic misunderstanding of arranged marriages in the West because many fail to appreciate that in many cultures, everyone involved is consenting and uncoerced.

> "Should we eliminate indigenous cultures because their coming of age ceremonies are barbaric forms of child abuse"

Only if the children are non-consenting. It is not about how we feel about whatever tradition, it's all about whether or not everyone has the freedom to choose.

This is not enforcing the Western ideal of marriage onto others - this is giving the persecuted and the non-consenting a legal recourse to choose as they will. Once this framework is in place, cultures will naturally evolve around it - in the same way that the legal protection of black civil rights has over time dramatically altered our collective cultural perception.

Similarly, this applies to, say, women's dress in traditional Islamic nations. There are many people in the US who would seek to ban the hijab, or other clothing that is perceived to be harmful to women's rights. That is cultural imperialism, but that's not what this is about. The moderate, correct stance is to make sure that women who choose to opt out of traditional garb have the full protection of the law. With this foundation in place culture will evolve as it will - and maybe everyone will keep wearing the hijab, who knows. It is possible to enforce freedom and equality without moral judgment on specific aspects of culture.
Start-ups aiming to cause destruction, not 'disruption'
Not back in Manchester. Still in London. But, yes, Manchester is a great city with a great culture. I have a fondness for the place that I will never have for London, and one day may return.

I did not intend to use 'provincial' in any derogatory way but to explain to non-UK readers that Manchester is in the UK's provinces.
Your point, in short: non-professionals work really hard to present themselves as professionals, to the extent that actual professionals now shun the word.

The word has a strict technical definition, however, and that definition is all about trust. What makes a professional unique is that they are ethically and legally bound to do their best for the client. If they fail, they can be held responsible.

Stricter regulation over the word is obviously needed, because non-professionals have appropriated it.
The US has always been remaking the world to its image; it's not always intentionally, though.

Personally, it bothers me more that there's a MacDonald's in every street corner than Google's campaign, even though the former isn't intended to promote any cultural values.
Problem: slaves don't chose to be slaves.
As for the indigenous tribe, at least I am not sure that we shouldn't interfere if those kids don't want to go through those rituals. What is the rationale for not interfering - preserving cultural diversity/turning the rainforest into a museum?

What about a sect that moves to an isolated island and comes up with the tradition that girls first sexual act has to be with the sect leader (such things actually happened)? Why should they be treated differently than some indigenous tribe?
My point wasn't that the probabilities were correct, my point is that the author pretends like this "marginal utility" based argument has no merit. In a world with nuclear weapons, there is some non-zero chance of a nuclear war that results in massive casualties (if not complete eradication of the human race.) Counterbalancing this scenario with the one whereby there is more likelihood of a large-scale war but less likelihood of global extinction simply shows that the point the author is making is not as clear cut as he/she makes it out to be.
Overly cynical. If doctors did not have a professional association their conduct would likely get worse, so there is a public interest being served when professions self-regulate for quality. There is also an anti-competitive factor, but corporate oligopolies do the exact same thing. Libertarians criticize professional bodies and unions while giving monopolies, oligopolies, and regulatory capture a free pass. This is plain stupid because it is those corporate monopolies that are stifling human progress, not the relatively powerless unions whether they're the white collar "association" variety or the blue collar "union" variety.
Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?
"Incest 'relationships' in the real world are mostly coercive, abusive relationships."

How do you know? Headlines tell this?

If most incest is abusive, then why we ban that non abusive incest? With the same logic you should ban all narcotics because most of them are evil (still you can buy alcohol legally).

If LGBT and straight is ok but nothing else is not, you should be able give some waterproof arguments.
The single biggest improvement they could do to help recruiting is to lobby as hard as they can for repealing the &"#&&¤#"!! Defence of Marriage Act.

If you get some sort of working visa in the US, you can in many cases also get a visa for your spouse so that both of you can live there and work there. However, the %#""&!! DOMA explicitly defines spouse as someone of the opposite gender that you are married to.

It doesn't matter if same-sex marriage is legal or not in the country you're from. It doesn't matter if same-sex marriage is legal or not in the US state you're going to. If your husband or wife is of the same sex as you, you're just screwed by the visa process, you can't bring them.
it's diet too; how much refined sugar do you eat?
Who says that they won't run a campaign for that? That line of reasoning seems really strange to me. How do you ever manage to do anything, if all the time you think "but why not do x instead"? You have to start with something.

Were they to run a campaign against antisemitism, you would be the first to cry out "why don't they run a campaign for gay marriage instead".
Consent is not meaningful in the context of a mandatory rite like the Sambian example.

You either undergo the rite or you leave the society. There are no other options.

So you are for imposing consent requirements on indigenous rite of passage ceremonies... I am sorry but I must say that I am both saddened and sickened by that sort of response.
3d printers to the rescue?
I thought 95% of the syntax was a dramatic improvement over straight obj-c, which I actually don't mind at all.

I admit, the one time I paused was when I saw the trailing return types. It was the only part that felt unintuitive.

By mere convention it felt odd, but I'm willing to explore a break with convention. Seeing how well-designed the other 95% of the syntax is, I'm giving the architect the benefit of the doubt, and hoping that this trailing return syntax ultimately proves MORE intuitive, despite my initial recoil.

I'm really curious now about the practical issues of putting Eero into real-world use (which, since we're talking obj-c here, means OSX or iOS development).
This old and tired “but but but ... other languages aren't perfect too” is adding nothing to the debate.

The problem is that PHP is light-years behind any sanely -not necessarily perfect - designed and implemented language.

There is a large difference between “not perfect” and “PHP-style broken” which PHP denialists prefer to ignore.
Harmonie et Méditation Ative
This really is a huge argument against the concept of shareholders. So basically any publicly traded company really is forced to be immoral? Apart from the fact that it is impossible to enforce (how do you decide, as a judge, what is better for the company in the long run - not pissing off the anti-gay people, or not pissing off the pro-gay people?), it makes such companies very unattractive as employers.

Think about yourself, if you are a programmer: would you take on the task to develop a new web site for holocaust deniers? It's just business, after all... If you lose the freedom to pick your jobs, what is the point, really? I'd rather close down my company (but I think you can't do that as a publicly traded company, either).
As a South African developer with 14 years experience, and looking at moving from South Africa, what are the names of some of these events I should look at to make contact with some of these co's?
Sure, you can't outsource your confidential data - that makes perfect sense to me. I was just wondering what would be involved in an Exchange replacement, because, you know, mail serving is pretty much a solved problem. Calendaring, though, seems like it could be pretty hard to get right.

Thanks!
okay. I got it.
Actually this replaces separate templates (at least for some cases) for your app.
How about the browser compatibility? Have you tested?
There is clear evidence for genetic and pre-birth factors in determining sexual orientation. Not all of the variance has been accounted for, but that doesn't mean that a substantial part of the variance has been solidly explained by biological factors. What exactly do you not agree with in the numerous studies that have been done?

Your last two paragraphs don't make sense. That our society is very aggressively hetero normal is not caused by gay rights movements or by homosexuality being determined at birth, on the contrary. It is however caused by people who argue that marriage is only for heterosexuals.
What about disclosing information about Chinese dissidents. Should they do that, or not? Why does the answer seem more obvious with one moral problem than with another?
Can you please describe what is the use of the adapter? How can it be useful?
>Some 10-15% of people are LGBT. It stands to reason that the same holds true of engineers.

Would love to see two citations for this! (post 1940s!)
All of these are solvable problems.

1. Regulators lack visibility? Give them investigatory powers.

2. Regulators can't predict the next crisis? Maybe with bigger budgets they would have higher quality employees. All the talent works for the hedge funds who pay them literally hundreds of times more. If the person being regulated makes $1M/year the regulator needs more pay than that or there will be talent asymmetry. Obviously, the key issue here is that the financial sector gets paid way too much, way more than the value it produces. The profits are based on a rigged financial system.

3. Regulators appointed by politicians due to democracy? Cancel democracy and implement meritocracy. Require positions of power to be filled by civil servants with proven skill who have to pass tests, rather than politicians elected by the stupid hordes. If the masses are going to elect people that are provably useless, the masses should be stripped of their voting privileges for their own good. Democracy is not a panacea. Meritocracy is better.

4. Banks upset that the gov causes them to fail? Nationalize the fucking banks, duh. Banking is not high tech and should not be high tech. It should be a public utility that is the most conservatively run thing in the economy. Banks should be separated from investment entirely. Government should invest in high tech but only using the judgment of highly qualified meritocrats with proven knowledge elected by their specialist peers to oversee government investment within that specialty. Private investors should have no connection to banking.

The root of all social problems is the fact that the most qualified and knowledgable academics and technologists have zero political power, while Chrstian pseudo-preachers hold all of it. Intelligent people (e.g. Those on hacker news) should be pushing technocracy and meritocracy and disempowerment of the idiot hordes who don't even know how to act in their own self-interet.
>slaves don't chose to be slaves.

That's not always true with endogenous slavery though. Very often times people end up as slaves, selling themselves into slavery in order to avoid starvation. The constant turnover between free and slave in these systems curbs the worst abuses. For example, in Rome, it was illegal for a father to sell a son into slavery more than three times. After that, I suppose, it was the father's turn......

in these systems typically slaves have some level of personal autonomy, and there is pressure to free them. In Rome for example, freed slaves were adopted into the extended family of the former master, thus providing legal, political, and economic support for the great Senatorial families. This meant paradoxically that slavery could actually be a means of social advancement.

So I wouldn't say that was always true. In many of these societies, then, prisoners of war end up being a secondary source of slaves but they end up with the protections of the debt-slaves, again with the pressure to free.

One more thing that surprised me about the Roman example was this: Slaves could join professional associations (sort of proto-Guilds) and these associations usually handled burials of their members and the like. Many of these organizations actually had rules adopted for what happens if a member was a slave and the master refuses to delver the body for burial.

So slavery is a complex thing, and a lot of blanket statements don't necessarily work. Yes, a lot of slaves in Greece, Rome, etc. did choose to be slaves because it was better than the alternative, which was being destitute.

Also keep in mind that in most of these places, there is no strong central prosecutorial authority. Your family is supposed to prosecute crimes on your behalf. So if you were in ancient Rome, destitute and without extended family, you really were better off selling yourself into slavery.

As for the indigenous tribe, at least I am not sure that we shouldn't interfere if those kids don't want to go through those rituals.

A sense of humility, that our culture doesn't necessarily have more answers than theirs, and that we don't really understand what we are messing with.
Interactions become inauthentic for a variety of reasons. The most prevalent one in my immediate experience -- the cancer that afflicts much of my present generation -- is that people want to Make Their Point. In general, the belief that conversation is purely about sharing information (as opposed to being recreational) is cancer in its inauthenticity. If you're ever so focused on making your own point that you fail to hear someone else's -- if you ever find yourself 'crafting a rebuttal' in realtime as you're listening to someone else speak -- then that is deeply inauthentic interaction: masturbatory as opposed to coital, self-directed rather than outward-facing.

There are other inauthenticities you see from time to time. One of the key ones is interactions which seek to promote dishonesty. Lots of people in lots of contexts pretend to be someone who they don't really want to become. It's a huge source of stress in first-world countries.

The post has only the mildest purchase on the problem, man. Go outside of the first-world countries and you'll find subsistence cultures where the time spent working is only perhaps five hours per day, perhaps less. Imagine having ten hours per day devoted to just playing with your kids, socializing with the rest of the community, singing together, dancing together.

What would you do if you were to spend ten hours with the community? I guess that the most typical response would be like Jeanette Winterson staring at a painting for an hour:

Supposing we made a pact with a painting and agreed to sit down and look at
it, on our own with no distractions, for one hour. The painting should be
an original, not a reproduction, and we should start with the advantage of
liking it, even if only a little. What would we find?

Increasing discomfort. When was the last time you looked at anything,
solely, and concentratedly, and for its own sake? Ordinary life passes in a
near blur. If we go to the theatre or the cinema, the images before us
change constantly, and there is the distraction of language. Our loved ones
are so well known to us that there is no need to look at them, and one of
the gentle jokes of married life is that we do not. Nevertheless, here is a
painting and we have agreed to look at it for one hour. We find we are not
very good at looking.

-- http://www.randomhouse.com/book/192445/art-objects-by-jeanette-winterson/
Are you seriously comparing a campaign to slavery?

Influencing other cultures is what we all do every day, and yes, probably you included. The fact that YC offers to take care of Visas influences people to choose jobs that are not part of their culture. Selling/distributing US music, movies and books is a huge influence for change in culture.
That's not even talking about the MacDonald's in every corner.

But you're being extremely patronizing to the people that compose those cultures by assuming they are little idiots that have no choice but to be assimilated. If people accept gay marriage it's because they chose to, not because Google strolled around in a bus and brain-washed people.
> Marriage is deeply cultural.

Marriage is a legal contract, and it is the most universally recognized cross-cultural legal contract. It doesn't matter how you got married, whatever ceremony was performed or not, whatever bureaucratic process was performed or not, your marriage is recognized worldwide.

Unless it's a same-sex marriage, because then it suddenly becomes deeply cultural or whatever. That's bullshit.
Back off, politicians: don't mess with Shoreditch