skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
All you need is to have a US IP address to get it working. But, that requires a VPN (which is sometimes expensive) and you`ll always have to go through it to access the Voice service. That most likely means no access from an Android phone though I'm not sure.

As for the phone number, it's going to be local to whatever adress he put in in the US, there are no Canadian phone numbers for Voice.

What really makes me angry is that Google purchased GrandCentral to get their voice software, then they completely shut Canada off from service and haven`t opened it in years. It's not like GrandCentral didn't get the CRTC approvals required to give service, so what's holding up Google? I'm really mad at them for how all these services only work in the US. There are legal considerations, but you'd think it wouldn't take 3 years to go through these kinds of hurdles when you're freakin' Google!
and from the article, can vary greatly by individual
The article explains the reason that it will be hard ever to have clear science on this issue:

"There is little debate that people already suffering from hypertension should back away from the salt shaker. But because measuring sodium in humans is difficult, requiring constant urine collection over days, it is nearly impossible to stage large-scale studies that might establish a connection between high sodium and lethal events.

"'Large-scale trials of sodium reduction on hard outcomes, such as heart attacks, strokes and deaths, in general populations are impossible, for logistical considerations, and will never be done,' said Dr. Lawrence Appel, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and chairman of the salt committee for the 2010 United States Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines."
No, privacy is really required for something that aims to compete with Facebook, simply because Facebook can't compete on privacy.
The IR-filter most cameras have is a real problem too. I have a webcam with the IR-filter removed.
Or brand a US-based proxy server as a way to access geoblocked stuff :-) $5/month should be enough to proxy a chunk of multimedia through US-based servers, and I know people who would pay it.

I'm only semi-joking. I can't convince myself that it would be ethical to do this, but I'd like to see it happen as a way to get people talking about geoblocking as something that incurs a cost to Canadians.
What makes you think that he is an Ask.com employee?
Sigh, this is how we're portrayed to the world?
Thanks to the _Social Network_, they shall forever be known as the Winklevi to me ...
From the article: "The plan for this section is to write a simple program and then poke it in gdb until arrays start to make sense."

I poked arrays and pointers with printf() for too long before they started to make sense, would have loved an early introduction to debuggers!
Just updated my profile to include "Growth Hacker". Curious to see how long it takes before I'm officially the Top one here.

Just nobody ask me what the term means, ok?
Depends on the course and instructors. I wrote this as a TA for our Computing Systems class: http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3214/fall2011/projects/esh3-debu...

When students came to me for help, my first two questions were always "What does gdb say?" and "What does valgrind say?" If they couldn't answer, I'd tell them to go find out.
I had multiple work opportunities to move to SF area from Chicago and declined them all based on family and employment ties to midwest. After reading this article I just dont know how a an upper middle-class midwest product manager/engineer with couple of kids and a wife makes this move in a financially responsible manner. Would love to hear some feedback from you guys on this.
I, for one, am very much looking forward to the eventual release of an 'AppBot' client, or whatever they end up calling it.

I may sound like a broken record, but I am incredibly disappointed in Twitter's behavior, especially given the great disparity in the feature sets of TweetBot and the official Twitter iOS client. (and don't get me started on the state of Twitter clients for Android...)
Here is what I think after interviewing 20+ GHs and doing it myself for the past two years.

growth hacker (noun) - one who’s passion and focus is growth through use of a testable, empirical, and scalable methodology.

Basically, a growth hacker is the blend of a product, marketing, and data. They sort of operate as R&D within a startup.

Resources:
http://www.quora.com/Growth-Hacking/What-is-growth-hacking/a...
http://startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hacker...
http://www.vlaskovits.com/2012/07/youre-a-growth-rookie-not-...
http://www.aginnt.com/growth-hacker#.UDvRGmPlWPI
Yes but I don't even remember being told it existed. My intro to C professor made sure we knew that Vi and Emacs existed and gave us enough information to be interested in learning more; why not gdb? My guess is he probably didn't use it.
Free Societies Need Bad Security
Artificial Intelligence,

Knocks on the door,

Nobody answers.
Are there fees attached to this?

I'd be interested in using this, but I get so frustrated with Bank of America's fees. They want to charge $10/month just for using OFX to access your own financial transactions!

Given the level of security that most banks implement, this is completely indefensible in my books (given that the same information is available through the shoddy web interface).
Unfortunately, yes (from my unfairly biased midwestern perspective) (and I know that I am certainly wrong but would love to see your version of this article :)
Whether or not the raw numbers correspond 1:1 to actual calories doesn't really matter. What matters is that you adjust your caloric intake based on whether you are gaining or losing weight, and which direction you need to be moving in. Even though the relative amounts aren't necessarily exactly correct, it gives you a basis for adjustment.

The same goes for counting calories burned while exercising. You may not be able to figure out an exact count, but you can get in the ballpark, and that means that you can then adjust your habits so that you are moving toward your goal.

Counting the calories precisely will not allow you to scientifically formulate an optimal diet and exercise plan on paper without experimenting on yourself. It will, however, anchor you and protect you against fudging the numbers in the direction of letting you eat more or exercise less.

You could, I suppose, use an unbiased rounding system to try and use only as many bits of calorie information as you believe are significant, but that's a lot more work for very little theoretical gain.
Greg, I'm sorry I can't comment on the original article I don't have a FB account.

What was the amount of traffic at peak times between level 2 and 8?
Eh yes, a book is data. In fact it's nothing BUT data!
If it wasn't, I would not be able to download it.
At most institutions, there already is such a system in place. Research subjects are typically anonymous to the research team, but there's a 3rd party "honest broker" who maintains the link. It's not a technical problem as much as a policy one.

The issue is that with most research studies the patients sign a consent that goes over the parameters of the research. Most consents in most institutions for years have had the clause that research results wouldn't be returned. Part of this is that research is, well, research. So you never know what you're going to find and it's usually very speculative, full of hand-wavey equivocations. Sometimes it's just not practical to re-contact people. Even in cases where it is, the research team is very often not in a position to offer primary medical care, so now you're burdening a doctor with test results they didn't ask for and might not be able to interpret. Finally, research usually doesn't employ the very strict guidelines that are in place for clinical diagnostics (since these limit how fast you can analyze data and push the envelope). Tubes can get mixed up, results can be just above the level of noise. All that is par for the course in research because you're supposed to be on the bleeding edge (well no excuse for tube mix-ups, but I digress...).

Returning results has the potential to add overhead to a research study, and for some, might make the entire study cost prohibitive (if genetic counselors and specialty care docs have to be on hand to interpret results for patients). Also, you run into the specter of "incidental findings" with genetic tests. For example, while health insurers can't discriminate on the basis of genetic tests, I'm pretty certain life insurers can. So a high predisposition to early onset Alzheimers might force a person to pay higher rates (or not be able to get life insurance at all). They will forever have to check the box next to "Have you ever been told by a doctor that...."
For python, ipython --pdb <derp.py> does the trick. Don't forget to install ipdb too, much nicer than plain pdb.
Apple Seeks Order Blocking Sale of Samsung Products
That article is from 2 years ago, and what from what I understand, it was a barely-functioning prototype.

As recently as March of this year, they updated their roadmap. The second heading is "The Road to Beta". It also includes the line, "After these features are tackled, we feel that Diaspora as a platform will be Beta". It's pretty clear the founders themselves never even considered it to be a beta product.

See: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Roadmap
Woo, Finally got level 8
Explain, in detail, how they copied the iPhone? They look similar, but so do many of the other smartphones out there. When you say they copied the iPhone, I expect to see pretty much an exact copy. If you want to jump outside of the Apple fanboy camp for a second and look around an electronic store – you'll see all kinds of electronics that are almost 100% the same as the leading competitor. Laptops, TVs, MP3 Players, Washers & Dryers, Fridge, Stove – you name it. Then take a stroll down the Entertainment isle and point out an original movie.
Ditto. Sorry ;-)
Too bad they don't let a developer just kill an "app" and all its associated tokens. So Tweetbot could have a "Tweetbot Mac Alpha" app and then when they were done with the alpha, they could reclaim all those tokens.
Ah, perfect. Thank you!

I guess didn't think of going through iTunes to remove the credit card I had to add to get the free XCode app via the Mac App Store.... yes, the whole setup is completely insane. ;)
How to guide to holding CS Student Recruiting Events
"Design patent '305: Icon interface and grid layout

Design patent '677: iPhone design, edge-to-edge glass and display borders, front speaker"

Some part of me just wants to scream.
I agree. About.com has a lot of decent "here's the basics" and "how-to" type articles. I don't even understand why it's seen as a content farm, since their contributors are of better quality than say those who write articles on AOL.
What's with selling OSS? Let's say you provide the sources, but you sell the software using the app stores of the plattform. It's basicly the business model Red Hat uses.

I am askin' myself why software developers don't try this.
They... don't want to ban the S3?

Edit: Oh, I see, that came out since the trial started.
Ironically, "Nice try, x" is a Reddit meme itself.
Twitter are gambling that they are now powerful enough to say "No more 3rd party clients", and thus start streaming ads down peoples throats (oh, sorry - "Richer stories" is apparently the nuspeak). I'm not sure they're yet in a position to dictate this, especially given how bad their own clients are compared to some other options.

The interesting thing about Twitter compared to e.g. Facebook is that the social graph is very weak. I (and in anecdata, many people I know) use it to follow some "big names", and a splattering of smaller names, for broadcast information. I occasionally send something out, but it's not a strong set of connections. The network effect is thus minimal; migrating over to app.net would be easy, as I'm not that bothered that I have exactly the same followers/followees. When the pain of the service outweighs it's smallish value, I'll just jump ship.

Even more people out there are just passive followers of celebrity names. Facebook or similar could launch a "Flitter" that did everything they wanted, and get a mass migration pretty easily - once people get annoyed enough to start looking around. If Twitter continue on this path, that threshold will be reached much sooner than I originally expected.
Sea Ice in Arctic Measured at Record Low
The verdict was a monumentally stupid decision and I hope it won't prove to be too harmful in the long run.

One way to look at innovation and progress is that all inventions must eventually become a commodity. Something which is novel, hard, expensive and rare today must become a cheap and ubiquitous commodity tomorrow. It is this process that allows you to "stand on the shoulders of giants" and easily leverage past technologies to produce newer, better ones.

Here we see Apple (and to a lesser extent, MS, RIM and other parties) actively fighting this process. None of these parties want touchscreen smartphones to become cheap commodities available to everybody - there's a lot less money to be made this way. Android is Google's attempt to commoditize the smartphone and is probably responsible for erasing tens of billions from the market caps of other companies, the flipside of which is that today tens of millions of people all over the world have access to technology that would otherwise not have.

This is why I think Android is ultimately a force for good and I hope it's simply too late to put the genie back in the bottle and that this verdict won't have a lasting impact.
http://code.google.com/p/webfinger/wiki/WebFingerProtocol
The process perhaps, but most definitely not the design, were the USPTO to be reformed.
AirBnb is issuing DMCA requests for their interview questions??

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/05885612f96982a7e4062a13...
Sunlight is tricky because colors can be distorted according to the angle of the light through the atmosphere, hazing, dust, etc.
Thoughts on Machine Learning – Dealing with Skewed Classes
Just FYI, he's not talking about the decorator being anonymous, he's talking about the function the decorator is wrapping being anonymous. What he means is that, since python lambda's are one-line, you can't do something like:

ifAuthorized("admin", lambda x:
// more code here
Yes, but you'll end up shafting merchants - c.f. my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4440507

Note that in this case, the credit card company punished a merchant who wasn't even connected to the fraudulent transaction.

The rule of thumb is that the more lenient the company is for the customer, the more harsh they are on merchants, the higher their fees for merchants, the more reluctant merchants are to accept them, and the harder it is to find a merchant who will accept the card.

(Note how many businesses accept Mastercard and Visa but not AmEx).
Agreed. It's pretty much my go to web resource for entertaining. A fairly good curated selection of recipes, good explanations of flavor combinations, good crafts, theme ideas, and everything else. Lots of the sites with reader contribution end up being pretty awful.
If this is at all interesting to you, I highly recommend Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat and What to Do About it (http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702)

which is a more accessible version of his more rigorous book Good Calories, Bad calories.

I've been on a bit of a health binge since the beginning of the year and have been doing lots of research into these things. In a nutshell, not all calories are the same the some can wreak havoc on your system (grains, it turns out, aren't that good for us). The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf, is another great book - he goes to great lengths to discuss the science and biochemistry behind the points he is making. Highly recommend.
i suggest you try dell voice :) they are doing exactly the same thing
A collection can be a collection of references. You don't need the music now to put it on your list of favorites and conversation topics.
Andrew Binstock: Longing for Code Correctness
Also it is a blank page if you do not have Javascript.
You're speaking to the first part of my claim, but not the second, namely that JavaScript and CoffeeScript don't separate the idea of a function and a method, which is what allows you to use first-class functional combinators as decorators.
> The comment above says "upto 20%" - that seems a bit high, no? Is it not possible to make better estimate of calories?

You could claim a different number but you'd be fooling yourself. Pick a number that seems reasonable relative to BMR and your goals and adjust as you go. That's kinda the whole point of my company is helping people make these adjustments without going through the hassle themselves.

Humans learned to cook because it allowed us to extract nutrients from food more efficiently and thus survive. If eating too much is your problem, tending towards raw food might help (but not to the exclusion of proper meals). If you're an athlete, not so much. I wouldn't take any one movement or fad all that seriously.

Juicing is a fad designed to bilk money from people, any diet/fast predicated on getting the majority of your calories from nutrition-less sugar is loony and bad for your health.

>For a moderately active person, which is better? Eating 2 huge meals a day, or 5-6 small meals?

It depends on what moderately active means. I think this is highly individual but I'll tell you what the "usual" is.

Strength trainers will generally eat 6 meals, but that's so that they can fit more calories in without getting stuffed.

Runner eating habits are highly variable and have a lot to do with glycogen replenishment. Carb-backloading before going to bed is a current fad for both runners and strength-trainers, but it seems pretty similar to the carb-loading stuff from the 80s, but with the benefit of more rigorous testing and study.

This is one of those things that require tinkering and experimentation. Some people eat 2 meals, skipping breakfast, some eat like hobbits. If you're trying to lose weight, optimize for eating habits that prevent snacking as well as over-eating during meals. Portion control is paramount.
Site took forever to load for me. Copy-pasted the contents here: http://pastebin.com/wRwW6BZN
I'd hazard a guess that none of the examples you gave were easy to code :-) Also, I'd argue that Gmail and Facebook type clients are non starters as its hard to do meaningful encryption in Javascript since you always must trust the server.

But if you disagree, please write one - I'd be a very willing beta tester and would even be keen to help in a limited way.
Our Computing Systems course had two projects that absolutely required using gdb:

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3214/fall2011/bomblab/bomblab-cs...

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3214/fall2011/buflab/buflab-cs32...

Our version of the course was adapted from the CMU course: http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ I thought it was an excellent course. It taught students both concepts and skills that I had picked up in a much more ad-hoc manner.
> "May I ask what you mean when you say "until the market develops"?"

Without speaking for OP, naturally:

One of the biggest issues with web businesses is public acceptance of the new business model: think Netflix, Spotify, or even AirBnb, all are dramatically different ways of doing things that require a non-trivial amount of social change to gain traction. Changing society and the way people perceive/do things is really hard.

Doubly so if there are licensing issues in the way - a la Spotify or Netflix.

In other words, if you're going to have to go all-in and expend an enormous effort for adoption, you don't want to do it in Canada. It's easier for these services to proliferate first in other countries before importing it to Canada where consumers are already chomping at the bit.

See: Pandora, Spotify, Netflix, all of which built up enormous pent-up demand before they even showed up at Canada's doorstep.

> "I'd hope that any company not offering their services to Canadians would have a pretty good explanation as to why they aren't taking advantage of that market."

There's one very good, almost universal reason: Canadians don't spend as much. In fact, per capita, they can spend half of what the average American consumer spends.

The reasons are numerous and not at all negative - lack of access to stupid credit, general cultural aversion to debt-building, lower credit card usage amongst the entire population, high taxation resulting in comparatively low disposal income. These are all things Canadians in general take pride in, but it also makes the market less interesting to businesses.
It completely depends on how you use those points and what types of transactions you choose.

The Blue Cash Preferred is a bad card for any single individual living in New York, for example, since he/she will spend very little on gas, and not enough on groceries to recoup the $75 annual fee.

However, cash back shields you against arbitrary inflation by the credit card company - it's very easy for a company to start requiring more points (or more miles, etc.) to purchase the same reward - and in fact, they've done this a lot with airline miles over the past few years.

As a result, cash back tends to be slightly less lucrative than points, just because they're able to charge an implicit 'premium' for this kind of security.
Why is it scientists can't get an accurate grasp on the calorie content of foods, and how our bodies process them?

I just posted another article that talks about the difficulty of doing human nutrition studies. Way back in the 1970s, I saw a television news magazine report about a group of nutrition researchers who found human volunteer subjects who were willing to be shut away from their normal life for weeks (months?) at a time (being paid for their time, as I recall) in conditions under which EVERYTHING the subjects ate was weighed to the nearest gram. The TV report even showed researchers washing crumbs off plates with distilled water so that the subjects ate every morsel of their measured meals. That was part of a study designed to elicit new information about human nutrition. Alas, I've never heard of results of that study. (Probably, the sample size was too small to have adequate statistical power to reach any firm conclusions.) This will always be the problem with human nutrition studies: people think they remember how much they eat, but often enough they don't really remember in detail, and the usual study methodology for a nutrition study is to rely on subject self-reports. If the sample size is extremely large, sometimes there is enough statistical power to pick up a few tantalizing signals from masses of carefully gathered data, but then there is still the whole issue of how well actual human beings apply advice based on the studies that have been done to date.

I am amazed at how much day-by-day obesity in very young people I now see in my town. I never imagined that most Americas in my generation or the younger generation would be as bulky as they now are. And the United States isn't even at the top of the world league tables in obesity. People all around the world today have eating tendencies based on human beings evolving in conditions of food scarcity, but there are fewer and fewer places each decade that still suffer from food scarcity. (Ethiopia is still poor, but it is now a food-exporting country.) The challenge for humankind in the remaining years of my life will be learning how to do what is "unnatural" and eat less than what is readily available to eat.
And they are free to put their work in Creative Commons.