skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As far as I can see, they in fact oppose specific programs, not critical thinking skills in general (clarified e.g. here: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/texas_gops...) - the phrase about critical thinking was a mistake. I couldn't find much detail about the programs, but it looks like it is specifically geared towards having students challenge accepted beliefs and authority, which may be both good and bad, depending on maturity level of the students (imagine student that refuses to accept arithmetics or grammar because it's all enforced authoritarian rules and he wants to self-express by making 2+2=5 and riting wiz no gramor it al - probably not a very good idea). Also, wikipedia article on HOTS states:

Many forms of education reform, such as inquiry-based science, reform mathematics and whole language emphasize HOTS to solve problems and learn, sometimes deliberately omitting direct instruction of traditional methods, facts, or knowledge.

The last part of this phrase - about omitting instruction of traditional methods, facts and knowledge - can be very dangerous. It is important to question and challenge existing conventions and authority, but this can be productive only when based in solid background of knowledge, understanding and facts. Otherwise it may easily lead to nihilist know-nothing attitude in which disdain for conventions and self-importance replaces any need for knowledge, rational thinking and relation to facts. It could also put student that do value traditional values, methods and knowledge as somehow defective and failing to achieve "higher", "cooler" stance where these things are irrelevant.

It'd be very interesting to know more details about the specific program(s) in question, without these details it is impossible to know if there's any justification for RPT's opposition to it.
I 'd work in academia, I would be useless for anything else
I agree with this. I'm currently reading John McCarthy's paper "Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine" linked to in the article, which I've been meaning to read. I don't have any real formal maths/computer science education so looping over would have been futile in many cases and Wikipedia, namely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols, has been an invaluable resource for me in understanding the paper (and other things in the past).

Another example is partial recursive functions, which I didn't know the definition of. A quick Google/Wikipedia search helped here.

I've found myself looping over once or twice to make sure I haven't missed anything and, if not, proceeded to search for definitions or further explanations.

I'm not entirely sure if this approach would work for other papers such as the Turing ones, since I'm familiar with Lisp already, but it's working very well for the paper I mentioned earlier.
> You can't knock-off a Chanel handbag. Why should you be able to knock-off an iPad or an iPhone?

I'll admit I'm not clear on US law, but aren't there some clothing makers who 'take inspiration' from high-end designer pieces and do very similar designs for the mass market? As long as they aren't labeled incorrectly, they don't seem to get into trouble.

(Not that this applies to this case, since I highly doubt most people would mistake Samsung phones for iPhones, not after a minute or two of using them. You yourself realised the devices weren't iOS in no time. In every mobile shop I walk into here, there are big Samsung signs and iPhone/iPad signs at the appropriate counters, and basically everyone knows what they're getting.)

Why should the icon layout or organisation of a mobile phone OS be protectable in the first place? All the old phones of yesteryear had icon menus as well. Or is sliding-screen navigation protected as well?

> I'm not particularly sympathetic to many kinds of patents that are being enforced these days, but Samsung is clearly trying to make slavish copies of Apple products, and Apple certainly is entitled to defend themselves against this.

Are you conflating patents with copyrighted design here? And how does the Galaxy Nexus 'slavishly' look or feel like an iPhone?
Why the hell would anyone want such thing? The fact that people might use both things doesn't mean they can go together.

Hell, there is a lot of things you can glue together, but these aren't ones.
If there was no internet, it's obvious we'd have space exploration instead and so I'll probably either design spaceships or fly on them.
I started a sweet shop (online and offline) in September... I'd have probably done that a lot earlier in life..
Got it up and running, choppy on the NexusQ but it certainly looks very promising, now to roll up the sleeves and help out

https://plus.google.com/109944805317147383619/posts/gnzpC8HE...
Sure, anything you can list as a contribution is potentially going to come up at interview, and anything you can honestly say you've contributed to is potentially valuable on a CV/resume, particularly early in your career. I'm not disputing either of those things at all.

But if you get to the point where you're discussing your contribution in an interview, you've already got past one of the big hurdles, and the guys interviewing you are now going to be forming opinions based on what you actually say to them personally. In that respect, contributing to an Open Source project or hosting something on GitHub didn't convey any particular advantage just because in theory the recruiters could look you up, and just giving a link to a GitHub account rather than highlighting specific contributions isn't really worth much at all.

My advice to someone wanting to stand out in those early days would simply be "Make stuff, preferably stuff that looks interesting". Whether you contribute to an OSS project or build something else makes little difference IME, and so I think the cookie-cutter "You simply must have a GitHub account and contribute to OSS" wisdom is just plain bad advice.
From their security page:

We are very secure and make sure to cover many angles to insure your data can never be compromised. Many often ask what exactly we do to make the data so secure. Unfortunately, one of the things that makes the site so secure is that we do not disclose the exact encryption practices.

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

It's also a bit weird that it's apparently two unrelated products in one. Pinterest and LastPass: two great tastes that taste great together?
Regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, to say they "turned a tweet into $1 million" is a bit of a reach.

They saw a tweet advertising an event which Branson would be at, borrowed several thousands of dollars from their parents to attend the event, and used that opportunity to get an email address that was capable of reaching Richard Branson, which they used over a period of time to develop some sort of relationship with him and another (Murdoch), and through a series of pitches both in person and remote, they secured initial funding.
They thought that someone with a F1 would like to show it to their friends. So they manage to put 2 extra seats behind the driver. http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/rydeordiekid570/MC...
It's great for 10 folks, but I need a 10,000 person solution. sigh, i guess i need to build it.
Still computer games. The industry was small but wonderful in the pre-internet days.

Alternatively, I've always wanted to set up a fast food restaurant. Lot of work, but I think it'd be fun.
How many drugs and/or medical devices that are on the market do you think are going to lose their FDA-approved status? Probably zero. At most the one or two that are mentioned in this article. But the chances of having a systematic review conducted on all of the approved drugs to look for wrongdoing is basically zero, despite the fact that the ethics problems and corruption within the FDA are systematic.
My side project isn't exactly a search engine, more of a front end to get recent information from blekko, twitter, Facebook and Google plus.

www.unscatter.com

I use it to keep up to date with topics on a regular basis and also when searching for recent info on topics

I haven't heard about common crawl mentioned in another comment, going to go check that out now.
Seems questionable to me also, but my understanding was that it's legal (and common) for employers to routinely read communications that take place on company-owned equipment. Do they have to stop reading it if they realize that the employee is communicating with an attorney? Or is it up to the employee to avoid using employer equipment for such purposes?

edit: Some searching digs up that the ABA model code of conduct suggests to attorneys that, as part of their duty of confidentiality, they should warn clients not to email them from their employer's email address. So it seems that the ABA is at least wary of whether such email would be confidential.
Ask HN:  How should I handle this weird situation with angel investors?
Let's assume I get angel funding for a Travel Site. Neither I nor the Angels knew if the site would be successful or what kind of products we would launch in the future. Angels take 10% of the company, the site grows and eventually launches additional sites that target a similar audience - perhaps Luggage Buyers. Angels now own 10% of the Travel Site plus all the other sites that were created. This is all good so far.

Now let's assume I get angel funding for the same Travel Site, but this time, I have a complete strategy in place that outlines all the future sites we're going to launch once this becomes successful.

Is it better to let the Angels know what the plans are for the future sites, so that they are more eager to invest? Or should you keep it to yourself in case the Travel Site fails, in which case you can still go after those opportunities yourself without worrying about legal issues from the Angels?

Also, if you do let the Angels know about the future sites, is it possible to stipulate that they will not be automatically invested in those sites?
"... and that notifications UI, I want that too." ;)
...and so we told Richard, "Hey, just sign up for LastPass!" He was so grateful, he gave us a million dollars.
Patent attorney here. I never really thought of it that way, but I can kind of see his point.
> I felt like there should have been more moderation tools for the users so they could better decide what they wanted to see. I like the way Reddit allows moderators and that's something Digg should have done a long time ago.

That was the ex-employee's view of how a few users can ruin it for the rest of us. Something to keep in mind anytime someone complains about the moderators on Hacker News or Stack Overflow.
>> While TorrentFreak has learned that various ISPs will start the implementation at different times, it remains a mystery which company will be spying on filesharers.

Lets be clear here, they are spying on _all internet users_, not just filesharers.
Cite? I've never heard of anyone becoming rich because their research was funded.
>> Judeo-Christian principles formed the basis of America's economic system.

To some extent, yes. E.g. concept of private property, rule of generic impersonal law, prosperity through individual achievement, etc. Not all societies accept these principles to the same measure. Of course, you can accept the same principles without agreeing with the rest of conservative Christian platform, but they can claim these principles as part of their cultural heritage.
Translation: We know nothing about security, but we still want you to use our site. Look at this padlock. Security.
Whatever you think of the console itself, that's an impressive amount of fundraising. I think Ouya has shown one thing for sure and that's making your Kickstarter a pre-order of sorts definitely encourages people to donate in larger sums. Of the 36K backers, only ~2000 have donated less than the $95 that gets you a console.
Yes, you are right. Even backing at the $99 level gets you the $99 console! THAT is value.
I agree. One of my good friends is a realtor. Facebook changed the way she does business. It is the source of 80+ percent of her leads and is, quite frankly, the MOST important social network to her.

Github may be the most important social network for a certain class of open source developer, but the author's attempt to extend its importance to demographics beyond this group makes the author sounds as if they're just trying to stake a claim as an early member of a new "cool" social network.
Here's a better venture idea based on the experience, "Scott... got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet containing all his usernames and passwords."

How about designing computers that crash when users try to store usernames and passwords on them. Users will eventually learn to stop doing that.
Example of Spector360 use in Australia:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/public-serv...
Of course! Companies use this trick again and again all over the world.
BrainTripping.com
> I hate to say it but Facebook is not going to be overthrown, ever.

For ever is a long time. As eevilspock said, I'll take this as an exaggeration rather than literally. However even then I have to disagree. Virtually any prediction we make (pundits, bloggers, analysts too) certainly will be wrong regarding the tech sector. Disruptive technologies are unknown to us until they are surprised upon the general public. Facebook may stay around for a number of more years, or some new tech will push it into non-existance.

The great thing about guessing about the future is that it is free, and you don't get called on it if you're wrong.

Lastly, the only thing we truly know about the future, is that it will be unlike anything we can imagine today.
Concert entreraiment company (a la sensation/tomorrowland)
Yes. I'm sure milesokeefe suggested it because discontinuing a product and then relaunching it is standard practice for companies which want to get rid of anchoring biases.

(And I'm not sure I'd say that trying to evade cognitive biases is a "trick", really.)
Yes. That's why the author mentions using other plate images from the time, having the same typeface, to seed the algorithm. He mentions that higher res photographs exist, which might yield a plate image of a similar resolution to that chart's smallest characters.

He is not asking for magic, and it's obviously not "creating information from nothing". No one here is stupid. It's "matching low-density patterns to correlated high-density ones", which you already know if you read the article. Maybe there isn't enough data at all to do it - I don't have access to these images to know better, but that doesn't make the idea any less reasonable.
10 Years of Atari/Atari Games VaxMail
Link for such SCADA exploits?
This is quite an eye-opener too...

"How secure is MySocialCloud.com?
From day one, it has been our goal to provide the best security on the web. While we don't expose how we keep MySocialCloud secure (if we told you, it would be unsecured!), we do ensure that not even our employees are able to see any of your sensitive data."

One of their videos shows a bookmarket so I'm going to presume they're using that for somekind of encryption clientside with AES???
Lennasins - ANN Back Propagation Tests
The more I see things like this, the more I believe I have no idea how the world works.
Advanced Caching in Rails: Revised
Kam Umar Larki ko Chodaa
Currency Trading: Secret of Successful Currency Trading
There's nothing wrong with storing usernames and passwords. There is something wrong with storing them in a spreadsheet.
The most frightening part here is that at the end of the day, criticisms of this kind have historically led to increases in FDA budgets, because the more the agency fails, the more people cry that it is underfunded in its crucial mission to protect public health. See for example the "Alliance for a Stronger FDA", in which many drug companies lobby for increased FDA funding, both to curry favor with current officials and to exclude competitors.

http://strengthenfda.org/

http://cherryhill.legalexaminer.com/fda-and-prescription-dru...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fda-funding-b...

As these links show, more failure means more funding, but sometimes also shakeup which reduces the upward arc of a bureaucrat's career and limits them to "just" lifetime employment with tenure (it's called 'career status' and federal employees get it after three years).

So, if this is how they react to cries that the agency is underfunded, can you imagine how the FDA would react to criticism that might result in decreased funding?
No problem. Just something I noticed. Good luck.
This is more complicated because their employer is an agency of the United States federal government.
This is just straight up retarded. The idea that musicians can support themselves with just live shows is ridiculous. Many artists, especially in the dance music world rarely go on tour or play live. Other artists contribute to albums, for example Brian Eno with U2, who rarely, if ever gets on stage.. Not to mention countless sound designers, engineers and other technical experts who have no involvement with an artist's live shows. Assuming with the author's proposed 'solution' these support people start getting a cut, then that's going to drive already expensive tickets even higher.

Author's making money off of book tours? Really? Stephen King rarely leaves the house, for example. So now we have to turn writers into performance artists?

Why not make every app and piece of software free as well? If that were the case, half of us would be out of jobs and many won't get into the software business to begin with.

This whole thing around free is getting absurd and it's being driven by people who have no problem spending $6 on PBR at a Williamsburg bar, yet scream about paying 99 cents for a song that they listen to every day.

Less piracy equals lower costs. Why not ask graphic designers to work for free? After all, they're creating a digital object with a very tiny per pixel cost and it can be reproduced at almost no cost. I guess graphic designers can go on tour and do sidewalk drawings in chalk or donations to pay the bills. But hey, they'd be famous right?

Being famous doesn't pay the electricity. People paying for your stuff does.
If I remember correctly, one of Dan Ariely's first two books covers this kind of human behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely#Books
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Or get a Gen 1 or Gen 2 AppleTV, both of which are (very) easily rootable and can run XMBC smoothly and cost less than half the price of the Android tablets I've seen.
1.75 million accountants in the US.

A good number of whom are vested in keeping things complicated.
Interesting article. I'm perpetually fascinated by the causal chains that have influenced aspects of our lives that we otherwise entirely take for granted.
I'm not seeing much of an argument against factory_girl (in unit tests) other than: it's not as fast as setting up your model by hand. And no description of the alternative?
A dream of a baby
This cute baby really knows what exactly to dream about. This is really a nice funny photo, which will make you smile.
I challenge anyone here to take their futuristic ideas and try to execute on them given whatever financial resources are available.
Sorry, no links. It was all personal discussions (aka. "war stories") with people working in the industry.
Why Do We Wear Pants? Bicycles.
"And I shall call it... the Internet!"
Building Incorruptible Infrastructure
> advertising has done an enormous amount of good for the world by providing services for free that otherwise couldn't be free

Sorry, I cannot let that slide. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Advertising simply shifts the cost of the lunch to the price of the advertised products, and then adds additional costs (using Google to illustrate):

• Cost of building and operating Google's ad infrastructure and business. Huge.

• Cost of ad production, ad agency, and other overhead. Huge.

• Cost incurred by the advertiser's competitors who don't need to advertise, but are forced to do so to not lose customers to the other. Expensive advertising arms race ensues. Huge.

• Social cost. I'd argue this is the largest. The health of society, democracy and the free market rests on the populace being well informed, not misinformed, not manipulated. The rare cases where advertising is honestly informative are far outweighed by dishonest or manipulative advertising. If you don't see this, I won't try and convince you right here, right now. There are better ways to inform the public about good products, for example something like Yelp but without Yelp's conflict of interest which stems from, yes you guessed it, advertising!

Who do you think ultimately pays these additional costs?

As to your point about the developing world, or the poor for that matter: I think you are trying very hard to feel better about your job. I understand. I had to work on an advertising system for a few years. But advertising often targets the least informed and the least educated in society, and when it does, it wreaks its greatest social cost. If GMail advertising is not targeting users in developing countries, it's only temporary. I'll bet they already are.
To interact with my real life contacts online, the best social network is email. ;)

Seriously, Github already plays a part in Facebook [0], WoW [1], Linux [2], and Google [3]. No need to wait for "the next". However, its part is quite indirect and it could easily be replaced in all four examples.

The fact that it is based on git makes it inherently replaceable. This is a good thing and probably a big reason for its adoption. If github is down, which networking connections break?

[0] https://github.com/facebook
[1] https://github.com/Blizzard/api-wow-docs
[2] https://github.com/torvalds/linux
[3] https://github.com/google
Scala Adding Macros to the Language
Or maybe cost of doing business? I mean, I can self sign SSL certs, so why does the browser give me warnings on https URLs? Mozilla must be arm in arm with Verisign. I'm shocked an open source company could be this evil. I will never browse the internet with Firefox again. I hope they get burnt for this.

NOTE: All of the above was sarcasm
Here's a simple explanation of Higgs Boson with ping pong balls:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18712914
I personally think that this is the greatest value that kickstarter has brought us.

We now have the option to forego the traditional cycle of [product development -> promotion -> sales] and instead pursue a [promotion -> sales -> development] path, which reduces the risk of irrecoverable sunk costs significantly.

In a way, it shifts "risk" from the producer to the consumer.
What, you mean they set an extremely ambitious goal and failed to achieve it completely? THOSE BASTARDS.
This link is blogspam that adds nothing to the actual article.
Ask HN: Still acceptable to use PHP for new projects?
We've all heard the discussion of PHP over the years- its faults, why other languages are better. However, it is the language & ecosystem that I know best and have the most experience with.

Obviously, the user doesn't care about the backend of a system. From a developer's point of view, though, is PHP still acceptable to use for new projects, even though "better" languages like Python and Ruby are way more available than they were years ago? Or is it no longer considered a good idea to use PHP if I'm starting with a clean slate?