skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yea, I call complete B.S. Look how well the LinkedIn app performs. It's not as good as it could have been if it was 100% native, but it's no where near the bag of rocks the FB app was. I work on native iOS and HTML5 apps every day, HTML5 isn't close to native, but you can still get it to perform damn well enough. FB had no excuse for that shit they released, they should have held onto Joe Hewitt to fix it. (I don't know what the inside story was though).

I read the story on FB newsroom. I see that site is built on OLD asp.net webforms. Not even asp.net MVC. If their devs are constantly using the oldest of tech to create their site, it's no wonder their shit performs so badly.

Now I have no idea or backstory to why they choose these routes, they most probably simply didn't have any developers with enough experience or skill set to use newer better performing tech (I hear it's hard to find good developers).
These are great points. We would love to enable recurring donations. For example, you could allocate X% of your income every month to "Watsi Credit." We also think that a program like this would be great for Corporate Social Responsibility Programs.

Members of our team work for Kiva and Vittana (and I worked in microfinance for 4 years) and we would love to eventually try and offer a healthcare loan product (or at least encourage patients to open savings accounts). That said, there are lots of things that make this a tough market (e.g. people don't plan to get sick like they plan to start a business, cost of treatment can be more than they could ever repay, etc.). In all honesty, we can't even figure out healthcare in the US, and it's twice as hard in countries like Ethiopia.

Thanks for the feedback. We love it!
I found it interesting that the hosts of that show were suggesting that the system would be self-correcting. I think that may have been the case before a global economy, but now if your home nation can't consume, a corporation can either relocate operations or refocus on growth markets.

The final, and most extreme self correcting option they offered – revolution, would probably come too late and have little effect on corporate and financial executives who have by then fled the country.
Does adding a "monthly subscription" type option make sense? It does add another level of complexity(user accounts and whatnot), but I think people would like the convenience of automatically donating.

Maybe having the option to split their donation as they see fit(1/3, half and half, 100% to just one, etc).

Good luck with the site. :)
It would be even better if you integrated some way to fund sustainable projects related to the health and wellbeing of these people.

Saving someone's life is an amazing thing. Helping a community develop programs to saves lives into the future is on another level.
An interesting problem is highlighted on that graph: solar seems to be peaking around mid-day, but energy demand peaks at 5 - 7 pm when solar is pretty weak. The curves showing pre- and post-solar have almost identical peaks; solar hasn't yet successfully reduced peak load. (The California energy system posts a similar graph, with a similar shape: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx , made worse by the fact that the California wind farms apparently perform best in the morning and worst in the afternoon.)

The difficulty is that, unless storage gets dramatically better, we'll still need a huge conventional electricity base. And it will still burn a huge amount of fuel: most generators are not "instant-on" -- it can take weeks to spin up a nuclear plant, days to spin up a coal plant, and hours [1] to spin up a natural gas plant. Of course, there are some savings, but there is huge waste if you have to keep the whole conventional energy infrastructure spinning during the day just to fuel that 6 pm peak load.

Advice to entrepreneurs: finding a cost-effective way to store solar energy for 4 hours will be worth more than another 2% increase in efficiency. And inventing instant-on conventional-fuel plants will also make a huge difference in GHG emissions.

[1] - Page 8 of http://www.euec.com/getattachment/euecjournal/Paper_3.pdf.as... gives times between 1.2 hours for a warm start to 6 hours for a cold start.
Definitely aware, just normally accustomed to license credits meaning "we used this in source code/binary form in our distributable app." I missed the fact that it was referring to the Base64 encoder/decoder which makes more sense.
This made me really misty eyed. It's a really good idea that will change peoples lives. I'm going to share this to everyone I know.

Please share this on Reddit as well and make it viral.

Nothing brings me down like seeing children with medical conditions and parents that can't afford treatment. It's so sad.
To share in the profits and success? The majority of wealth generation happens when you own equity.
I don't think so, even with https, you still have the handshake which middle parties can see.
Hmm, I thought that v.2 shipped with some build scripts, so theoretically you wouldn't have to open Xcode, just do everything via command line.
If you mean the web page at heroku.com, I'd assume that was only momentary while they gave it a facelift. It's up fine for me and so have my heroku apps which i've been using all day.

status.heroku.com also seems clean.

I think you just caught them in a web push.
Huh? The median sufficiently-aged U.S. resident absolutely owns a home (home ownership rates are 65%+), and it's indisputable that the median home size has been growing at a good clip:

http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
I think you'll find that this is not a useful way of thinking. There is always something else you could try and account for. To save your thinking until you can account for everything simply results in no thinking. It's far better to fully understand the simplest model possible and add complication as nessisary, than to start with the hardest system. That is how science moves forward.
It's not difficult to determine who in a web-centric engineering organization would benefit from promoting web-centric ideas in favor of alternatives, thus spurning engineering choices that would fall outside their area of responsibility or skill.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/redux_how_facebook_mobi...
The Jargon File (or Hacker's Dictionary) is also very interesting. ESR "maintains" it now, but a lot of the original writing was done by Guy Steele, RMS, and some other folks at MIT.
A Brief History of Visualization
Great idea, seems like well executed as well.

It might worth trying to get in touch with give well (http://www.givewell.org/) to get a review, so transparency aspect of it will be much better documented.
I can't tell who you think is being served poorly by this. The people who can get their money back immediately if they are disappointed? The same people who might preorder any other kind of book on Amazon.com? The reviewers, who theoretically are less biased about something they got for free? The author, who you presume is using existing sales as a weak ipso facto ex post facto argument for the quality of the book-in-progress (which, as you admit, is purely hypothetical)?
Debian has checkinstall, maybe it'd work for you? (http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/147)
I work remote most of the time. I have a family, which I think has insulated me from the sense of isolation to a large extent. It is good to head into the office on occasion though (once every two or three weeks or so).
Why Google Cares About Social
O how the mighty have fallen...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Ruby Motion.
Curiosity Drops in on Mars in High-Res
I'm not against techniques, manufacturing methods or process patents. What I'm against is the wholesale patenting of DNA. Now, if someone comes up with a new technique which is more cost effective, faster, safer, etc. they will not be able to sell the thing extracted. The techniques here are what should be theirs, not what exists within us.
Yes that's my original prose. Thanks for the plaudits.
Buildout came first and can do more things than pip can. If your workflow was heavily dependent on buildout, I could see how someone would see pip as inadequate. Buildout also came from the Zope community, so that will immediately break people up into camps.

My impression is also that more people use pip now particularly with its integration with virtualenv.

I can't imagine not developing with pip and virtualenv now.
How effective would this be at mitigating XSS attacks?
> In contrast, although you could theoretically save every photo and update anyone ever lets you see on Facebook, it would be difficult enough that in practice no one does.

Actually, facebook does, and that information is (potentially) available to third parties. The intent of my system is that in order for information to leek, you would need to have one of your trusted recipients be compromised.
TL:DR; version: Utilities make most of their profit during 'peak' times (noon to 5pm) and SolarPV systems are reducing the requirement during those times, putting price pressure on electricity.

Here in California we had a similar challenge but with Watar. We periodically go through drought cycles and during the last big incentives were put in place to get people to use less water, rebates for toilets, reduced cost if you were 20% below your non-drought average, no watering during the day, drip irrigation, etc etc. Then the utility needs a rate increase because they aren't getting as much water usage. It is a hard sell though to tell people "You have to use 20% less but we're going to charge you the same amount"

So electricity, like water, is a blended cost where the scarcity unit is priced to cover the physical plant costs of delivering the unit. We wholesale adoption of Solar PV it will require power utilities to come up with a different formula to recover their costs. The end result is that it will shift the cost from business (who pay the biggest power bills during the day) to non-businesses.

[1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/04/19/east-bay-custome...
What the hell kind of comment is this? "Weren't you that guy that got burned on that other thread"? Weren't you the tax lawyer who was wrong about tax law? What is that even supposed to mean? Don't write things like this here. Agree, disagree, loathe, whatever, but leave emotions from unrelated past threads in the past.

A debate about international tax law with a tax lawyer on a thread about fire codes?
But it actually undermines your point. You're arguing that Twitter as it exists today is somehow inherently "democratic" and run in the public interest because some users subsidize others. And that's just incorrect; those users subsidize the others because it is in their financial interest to do so. They want their ads to show where the eyeballs are, that's all. If the economics changed and it suddenly became more attractive for the paying users (the advertisers) for Twitter to be an exclusive gated community, that's what Twitter would become. It is responsive to market forces, so in that sense it's a very capitalist institution.

Which is not a bad thing! I'm not saying that Twitter employees should run up the red flag and seize control of the means of production. I'm just saying that Twitter is a business, which is to say that it's an enterprise designed to enrich those who set it up. The fact that currently the easiest way to make that happen is to let some people use it free is tangential to that.
And so it's permanently married to Apache. Too bad.. is there anything like this that'll run on nginx/lighttpd?
Please keep it as a choice, though. It's easy for me, i'd prefer Paypal over CC.
You're #4 seems legally dubious at best. I can't imagine any court in the land upholding the idea that purchasing any education material with an implied promise of results grants the purchaser 'consequential damages'.

An easy smell test for this idea is the "get rich quick in real estate" infomercial.
Botbrew: Package Management Meets Android.
Applying MapReduce Algo on Gartner Hype Cycle for Big Data
Another important argument against self-correction is the extent to which institutions of government (and by extension regulation) have been captured by the lobbies and proxies for the wealthy. Add to that the fact that one of the only voices for the middle/working class that actually had some political clout - unions - have been on the decline for a generation, and it really starts to look like a rigged system where all politicians profess to support working class values but really are beholden to the rich. Although I certainly wouldn't say that both parties are equally bad in this realm, it definitely is a systemic problem, and one that makes a correction less and less likely as it becomes more entrenched.
Devil's advocate to myself: I heard Jessica Jackley speak once and one of the stories she told that stuck was about the that company offered to automate thousands of dollars to Kiva to go towards microloans. She refused because she wanted people to have a personal connection with borrowers.

I would love to say that if you took X% off my paycheck, I would sign up instantly. But I would just be escaping my responsibility as a citizen then.

It's a tricky situation because I want automation for cash flow, but at the same time I want intimacy with the program and the people it involves.
Unfortunately human nature being what it is, everyone will have to agree together that income (not necessarily wealth) will need to be re-distributed. So in order to do this the high earners (1%, highly profitable companies) will have forgo some income to re-distribute to the lower income earners; this doesn't necessarily mean that some people will make more without working. This means not only do some people need to be employed that are currently unemployed, but also some people (middle class?) need to be paid more for what they do.

From what I can see there are two ways to do this; both of which effectively force _all_ high income people (both natural and legal) to employ and pay more. Both of these methods are generally denigrated in the US media, and I suspect by a largish number of the people who would benefit most by these methods.

Taxes and unions. Both of these lead to higher pay and employment, one is forced and paid for by the government, the other is forced by employees and paid for by employers.

Can anyone think of any other options that would force all high income people to re-distribute their income largely together?

EDIT: I should have said distributed by government and distributed by employers, not paid.
Because beefier != better in all cases.
I am not broke. I am unfortunately of the realization that the idiots in Washington aren't bothered to fix it. I love how this article completely ignores the real problem, instead it blames "corporations" who are also stuck because of government.

Look, I have relatives with their own businesses. What is the primary reason for job loss, government. How about new rules like vehicles of a certain weight are suddenly subject to a host of new regulations which result in having to sell said vehicles at a loss or pay many times the fees just to keep it. How about inspectors showing up at a friends hair care business checking every single brush for a hair, which is a two hundred dollar fine. How about not knowing what your tax rate will be next year because people in Washington won't make the tax rates permanent.

How do they exist people or business to operate in an environment run completely on the whim of a bunch of politicians. it is politicians who are the one percent. Yeah the rich have lots of money and money buys influence but its the politicians who decide what it costs to do business. They just have been damn good at recasting it as a rich versus poor thing and too many people fall for it.

sorry for the rant, but having family also in politics makes me realize where the real scum are.
@flatline - couldn't respond to your thread below.

> It's not difficult to determine

I'm really curious as to who benefits from this internally at FB? Seriously, I'm having a hard time determining who?
The problem with their argument is that pulling out genes in large quantity from an isolated sample is pretty damn easy. Its molecular biology 101; we clone genes all kinds of genes all the time. If you read their technical spec (http://www.myriad.com/lib/technical-specifications/BRACAnaly...) its obvious that while they have the process very streamlined, they're doing nothing fundamentally differently than any other lab would do if Myriad didn't hold these patents. PCR and dye labeling sequencing methods are commonly used tools; the idea that Myriad has come up with anything novel is absurd.
You should check out Jaron Lanier's book You Are Not A Gadget. Very thoughtful philosophical treatment of digital technology and its limitations.

Personally, in the last year I've drastically cut back on my time online and upped the time spent in the real world, whether visiting with friends & family, playing pool at the pub down the street, biking in the city, whatever. It's a much more immediate, and in many ways richer, source of information than Twitter, Facebook, etc. Oh, and I've gone back to a feature phone from a smartphone after realizing it was basically a shiny tracking device in my pocket with an expensive monthly upkeep ;-)
I imagine a lot of people will be reading the FAQ page, so you might want to correct this typo:

In order to be eligible for Watsi funding, patients must be inflicted with an illness that meets the treatment criteria and subsequently be unable to afford the required medical treatment as a result of poverty.

You surely mean "afflicted" rather than "inflicted"
It's not very "creative", but the site is pretty awful on an iPhone. You have to zoom in an order of magnitude to be able to click up/downvote, and the layout doesn't shrink to fit the smaller screen at all.
This argument doesn't really apply if the cost of the service increases by 5-10% annually but the service stays the same, as has been the case for health insurance in the United States.
There are few things left that only humans can do--art, entertainment, interpersonal services, engineering. As technology makes everything else cheaper, these things will stay expensive and provide income for more people. Just like when agriculture went from needing 90% of the population to less than 10%.
Its 2012 and Microsoft is still using Silverlight
Like I said above, transparency and accountability are our two strongest values, and we've spent a very long time making sure our operations are as legit as humanly possible.

Right now we are only working with three partners, all of whom we have a personal relationship with and trust 100%. That said, if/when we expand, we won't have the luxury of only working with people we know and that's going to make the due-diligence process more difficult. But unlike other NGO's (like global giving, kiva, etc.) we don't need a ton of partners to grow. A single partnership with an organization like Doctors Without Borders would ensure we have enough profiles for a lifetime.

However, I love the idea of having the community regulate the Medical Partner via SMS or something like that (sort of like an, "am I driving poorly? call 1-800... for healthcare providers). Great idea!
> Quicky scrolling through my feed I saw two imagines that were originally of a female friend standing somewhere, taken in portrait orientation. On the new feed they appear as zoomed in "body shots" with the head and below the knees cut off.

This sort of thing is especially odd given their face recognition on every photo. Surely they could have it center over the faces.
It works when the people getting the money are motivated to invest it in businesses and people "downstream". But if the richer people just hold on to the money, nothing happens.
There already is a way to share in the profits and success of your company--set up your 401(k) to include company stock. More generally, if your company does well and isn't run by shitheads, bonuses and raises happen. What exactly does it mean when one of Microsoft's 94,000 employees (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx#RevenueHe...) is a co-owner?
CloudSpring | Parse StackMob and Kinvey at WAR
The clean way to use projects like Redis is to unpack them into an "/opt" directory (either in your home directory or the root file system). Then just `make` without the install and add that directory to your system path. In that case of Redis, you have to add the Redis `src` subdirectory to the system path in order to be able to use the `redis-server` command. You probably know all this already, but it's really the easiest way to keep track of projects you build yourself.

I think there is no `uninstall` command included usually because most packages that are installed using `make install` are system libraries that other packages depend upon. And so just uninstalling that one package could result in a broken system. There may be some other historical reason, but that's my guess.

EDIT: Yes, `checkinstall` is a really cool idea, but I've had a hard time getting it to work reliably in practice. Building a deb is a complicated process, so it's not surprising that attempting to automatic that process is not 100% reliable. But you should try it out, maybe you'll have better luck that I did.
Is this the case with an active social life as well? I don't find that most of my socializing and interaction comes from my co-workers (who are significantly out of my age range).

I've never worked from home, but I'd really like to. I like to think as long as I still socialized after work (happy hour type stuff, kickball league, etc.) I wouldn't feel the isolation and depression.
Look at Stripe also -- very easy API to work with. I hear good things.
Yes, that is absolutely true, especially if/when it accepted investment capital or changed hands. But just because it can succumb to those temptations doesn't mean it will, and if it does, someone will start The Next Open Social Service/Protocol, and progress marches on.
Hardware Disruption: Same Movie, Different Era
> "they get to that point by hoarding it"

The ones who get obscenely rich are the ones who invest -- that is, they create or sustain productive businesses. Those who merely hoard don't make it nearly as far up the ladder.
Exactly. I think that's where the "Watsi Credit" idea comes in. You could allocate $X per month, then head over to Watsi and spend your credit whenever you like. The donation is automated, but you still get to choose who you support.

Does that sound like something you would be interested in?
On the 'location' section I'd love to have a link that says 'Learn more about health care in this country.' Or something like that.

I have a fairly good handle on how these situations could occur in the US but in Canada they would be unthinkable! Why, in this specific country, is this person not being taken care of?

As many other have said, best of luck. This is a truly Good endeavor.
FTC clears Facebook's acquisition of Instagram
The article mentions $115K in revenue last year. How is that close to self-sustainable for a 10-15 person company?
It seems dumb in the same way that vertical integration is often seen to be inferior to horizontal integration.

If for instance Twitter is doing this to support Posterous, a tumblr competitor, this will probably harm Twitter more than it will support Posterous.

When I heard they cut of Instagram, I figured it was to support TwitPic (or?) which again seems to be a losing move for them.
It sucks that you feel the need to reply to comments like that.
Startup looks to the cloud to make dumb phones smart
Having an advanced review by a reviewer is not the same as feedback from actual customers.
"if you need OSX, spring for a copy and install it on a virtual machine" ... because that's against the license agreement?
You didn't understand my point. The advertisers are not the ones who subsidize users. Users who click on ads subsidize users who don't.

You are also repeating the last part of my post!
Check out adzerk.com