skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I feel like we're talking at cross purposes here. Here are my thoughts on the matter, as neatly as they can be summarized in a 1-minute forum posting:

1) We should allow & encourage more immigration of high-IQ, educated people. Said IQ would be determined by using IQ tests on individuals, not by racial/country of origin quotas. Exceptions would be made for people with outstanding achievement in some field - we shouldn't exclude a world-class dancer because he has an average IQ, for example, or a great programmer because he doesn't have a college degree.

2) We should discourage immigration by low-IQ people, regardless of how hard they are willing to work. Everyone would be assumed to be in the "low-IQ, uneducated" group until he has proven otherwise.

Do you disagree with either of these points?
Just slap a tm on it and be done with it.

Once your business becomes mega profitable where the cost is peanuts...THEN you can go and get it registered.
IRC is most definitely still there.
unified field theory*

general relativity

big bang

the theory of mind

the discovery of evolution

Einstein

Rosalind Franklin

Darwin

Galileo

Michelangelo

Newton

Alan Turing

Da Vinci

Ghandi

MLK

The list is endless... And who knows, maybe one of you will be on a list like this at some point in the future...

* getting closer...
The intent of this analysis is to look at the elements of his speech and his plan that relate to the economy, which I think is a very relevant topic for the entrepreneur types around here.
Why ``Open Source'' misses the point of Free Software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...
His multiple mentions of how entrepreneurs will help lead us out of the recession and build the technologies of tomorrow were very refreshing. He gets it.
Supposedly they started including legal downloads in their tallies around the time iTunes rose up to prominence, and the trend is still downward.

I have often wondered if people buy less music because they can try it first and realize it's not worth buying. I can't count the number of times I have been excited about a new album, downloaded it when it leaks online, and realized it sucks. Before, I would have been excited, bought the album when it came out, realized it sucked, and regretted my purchase. Now I can save myself the money.

Of course, the reason could be as simple as attention spans. People only have so much time to be entertained (at most 24 hours a day)... and there seem to be more movies, tv shows, songs, video games, websites, etc than ever. If people are spending more time watching movies and playing games, they are probably spending less time listening to music... and hence less money buying new music to fill that time.
Journalism faces almost the same obstacle. The current business model is not working any more and there are no alternatives.

I have not bought a single newspaper this year - and I have not even looked at online advertisements on newspaper websites.

I think the newspaper industry is going to largely collapse and it is going to burn everyone (worse reporting, no more investigative reporting, etc....)
Finally a Solar-Powered Air Conditioner: 6 Tons of A/C Using 4 Solar Panels
I like how he called it WTF instead of FAQ.
Dosn't email clients such as gmail automatically block images though? How do you track it?
Education in America is pretty messed up. One example: it's just about the only field of endeavor, in history, where people think it's a brilliant idea to pair the worst students with the best teachers. (cf. http://teachforamerica.org/)
I spent about an hour doing this manually in Photoshop yesterday. Great tool to have in my bookmarks.
It's not a problem to be fixed at the macro-scale... it's a fact of life. You are not going to know everything about everything. For the things you need done that you can't do yourself, you end up paying someone else to do it. Your knowledge of that area will determine what quality you get for the money. Same with companies and industries.

The best way to convince a business that something is good is to demonstrate that it saves money or makes money. Direct or indirect, the link has to be pretty clear. (That's basically why startups are created and why they are important.)

Very very few people have the balls to be first. Usually innovative ideas are adopted out of necessity by people who would not have done it if they had the luxury of worrying about the risks.
I am not an OO fanatic but OO is extremely useful for juggling a bunch of information in the best bad way possible. And juggling information in that best bad way possible is a way different problem from functional programming paradigm of finding perfect, elegant solutions to well defined problems.

What's the difference between:

data Foo = Foo { a :: String, b :: String }
doSomething :: Foo -> String
doSomething foo = a foo ++ b foo

and

class Foo {
String a;
String b;

String doSomething(){
return self.a ++ self.b;
}
}

If there's some deep fundamental difference between functional programming and OOP, it's not this.
Milestones alone are often abused, too.

In startup work, people are invested and there's too little time and even less reward to compare what I'm dong to what someone else isn't. If someone doesn't deliver, someone else steps up and we move on.

In mature organizations, everyone is not running to the copier, and people begin to take notice of the terrain. Politics, unpredictability, and general people challenges are perceived as a drag on the system. As a defense mechanism, especially if incentives are involved, milestones are defined not for the common good, but to route around points of potential failure.

Milestones make it really easy for the offense to blame special teams and the defense to blame the coach after the team lost, even though they all celebrated success at different times during the game.

I agree, progress and outcome is what counts. And I think iteration and feedback loops are essential: yesterday's unrefined solution isn't the best answer tomorrow.
Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made
(inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424043)
Interesting!

A few days ago I blogged how I wished that my readers could copy edit my posts:

http://overstimulate.com/articles/readers-as-copy-editors

I'll try this out. (I was debating prototyping a "copy edit" feature by hacking my Disqus widget to post changes as comments to a hidden thread)
Productivity: It Comes from Software Design Rather than Software Tools
How Positive Psychology Can Boost Your Business
Yes, I am on the Mac (sorry for the lack of info of the last comment), and I was trying cmd+shift+arrows. And yes, control+tab works, although it stills not jumps directly to the next tab if, as an example, you're on google.com with the input box selected it will jump first to the adress bar...

don't know why... but thanks. ;)
Another Google service bites the dust: Shared Stuff
And people wonder why politics shouldn't be on HN.
This is an evaporative system, and will need quite a bit of water to operate. I'm not sure what the cost of water / electricity are in the target area for this AC unit, but here the cost of the water would offset the energy gains.

It's still a neat accomplishment, and if you have access to a stream then it might be the thing to do.

A neat alternative to evaporative systems are double-stirling cycle systems, one engine driven by the sun, the other driven by the first to cool air using it in reverse.
I have a couple friends who worked for Teach For America (they taught before 9/11 basically 5x'd the yearly # of applicants so that it is next to impossible to get a position with TFA).

TFA is not about a long-term commitment to teaching. It is a grass-roots program to expose the teacher to a novel experience and to mingle the students with someone who is not from their area.

TFA has one of the strongest alumni networks in the U.S. Some TFA alumni choose to continue in teaching; (sometimes in a grassroots, impactful way) there are over 60 charter schools that have been started by TFA alumni.
I'm not traumatized or especially disgusted. Disappointed, maybe. You've got a weird habit of reading things about motives and claims I haven't made.
A New Era: Artists' Digital Rights Get Organized
2) I have a deep, very deep problem with commenters who
say stuff like "piracy for life" or "I'll keep pirating
till I die". They're just confirming the views of the
music labels.

I do agree to an extent that statements such as these may in some sense undermine The Pirate Bay's case. However, an argument could certainly be made that in the era of essentially free copying (i.e. almost no marginal cost) society is better served by a regime without copyright. I cannot look inside the commenter's head to see if he is making his statements on this basis, or simply likes to receive free digital information-- but in the limit it ends up being the same: such statements are ultimately an expression of the need for some type of copyright reform so that the laws can be more aligned to how people on the whole actually behave.
There is a world of difference between blind people using your site versus search engines reading your site.
You absolutely need to do this.

If cost is an issue - you can file a single application in a couple of classes in your local country, then broaden it out when funds allow until you cover the main countries you plan to operate.

At the company I work for at the moment, we filed globally from very early on (probably cost £100k or something and takes a year or so), but every time we have an issue with a fraudulent domain name registration or something, we can recover it in days.

Plus you can capitalise this as an asset, it's not an expense, so there are no downsides to it.

I can recommend a specialist firm like Williams Powell (http://www.williamspowell.com) in the UK.
Here's another gem. Compare:

(0.1 + 0.2) * 10
(1 + 2)
Who wants Net Discrimination in Europe? Net Neutrality in immediate danger
By getting accepted into YC.
Wily investors send out notes from Apple’s shareholder meeting
I filed our name myself for the bare minimum filing fee ($275 now). I think it's useful to put your stake in the ground and it increases the liability for those who violate your trademark. I went the cheap route because I felt if I could get it approved by the USPTO myself, it's a done deal. In the case of patents, how you formulate the claims has a major impact on how defendable your patent will be -- so pays to get some expert eyes.
Working with Graphs in MySQL
All human sub-populations are not equal.

That depends on how big your sub-population is.

If your population is 1, then the difference between two populations, unless they happen to be maternal twins, will be HUGE. Statistically speaking.

But as your population size grows the difference between populations begin to shrink. Statistics again.

The reason for that is simple, humans are among a few species that happen to have very little genetic diversity.

Approximately 80 thousands years ago, something (bad) happened and the totality of humans on earth was reduced to a terrifyingly small number.

We don't know exactly how small but it could have been as little as a few hundred individuals.

And of those only 4 or 5 (I forget) matrilineal lines survive today.

Besides humans, cheetahs are one of the other species that is similarity genetically pure.

Not that genetic purity is a good thing, quite the opposite, it makes us susceptible to extinction by disease.

We could be wiped out by something like a more easily transmissible HIV.

Even a single tribe of chimps has more genetic diversity then all of humanity.

And that's why looking at the genetic difference of human populations is not very insightful.

Take one of the most famous reproductively isolated human sub-populations - the Ashkenazi.

DNA suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women.

As is common in cases of the founder effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect

A few genes that are very rare in a population, can be common in the population resulting from the few founders, if even just one of the founders had the rare genes.

And the Ashkenazi appear to have a much higher incidence of genes responsible for neural diseases but perhaps also increased intelligence.

So what happens if you pull a "Trading Places" trick, but with two babies instead of Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd?

Nothing, remember humans sadly have a very shallow gene pool, so even an Inuit and an Ashkenazi could have more in common genetically with each other then the Ashkenazi with most other Ashkenazi.

And that's why talking about DNA in human populations, is like talking about the gold plating in Monster audio cables.

The people who do, aren't very smart about the subject they're ranting about.
whoah... what?

surely ... but ...

>> (0.1+ 0.2) * 10
3.0000000000000004
>> (0.1 + 0.2 + 0.1) * 10
4

wtf is going on here? Where you would expect 0.3 you just always seem to get 0.3000000000000004 ... but then it "corrects" ... Haunted!
Just a word of warning, since the article doesn't make it clear: Using POST is not an effective defense against CSRF. You need to include some sort of unique token in the form.

(Checking the referrer certainly helps, but will cause problems for anyone who has referrers disabled in browser privacy settings or is behind a proxy that strips referrer headers)
Since I've started using python, the language has had a big impact not only on my code style but also the way I handle problems and find solutions.

The language really teaches you the Zen of python.

$ python

>>> import this
Click thru links
I find Sarah Lacy's views intriguing, and wish to subscribe to her newsletter.
First Solar first tor each US$1/watt manufacturing cost
I liked the cliche explanation. I don't do all that much writing, but I might run some of my homework through this before turning it in.
Spotted: Y Combinator Co-Founder Advert
I just randomly noticed an ad for a Y Combinator co founder on GumTree (uk based classified site)

Really struck me how big Y Combinators brand is getting.

Did not expect to see that!

http://edinburgh.gumtree.com/edinburgh/50/35253950.html
Scariest line of the night:

And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.

Some of us consider dropping out of high school the best decision we ever made, and the right to do so a basic American freedom.
Torchwood « Watch FULL EPISODES Online
1. The URL is actually an invitation link. When someone clicks it and signs up, Sponty sends you a friend request; which you can choose to ignore. Hence, this is a mild obfuscation to make invite links less guessable.

2. Thank you for catching this bug. Will do.
MOTOROLA MOTOZINE ZN5 (UNLOCKED) 
Motorola has launched its new presentation in the world of fashion with its great and slim look. Motorola ZN5, a very terrific handset which attracts you with its grandeur features and latest versions of applications.
News & Information about Hospice Tips
There are different ways that a hospice care facility may care for the food and nutritional needs of a terminally ill patient. Not only is the hospice involved in making the patient more comfortable,
How Hard Could It Be?: Start-up Static
Yeah, this neighbor, Jamis, just parked an automated snow blower in your driveway that just sits there and waits for the snow, and when it does snow, it just goes into action and clears the whole thing, and your side walk, and then also cleans up after itself.

Capistrano is one of the greatest parts of Rails development/deployment. Thanks Jamis for ALL of your hard work. I am sorry I didn't say Thank You sooner.
#7 isn't really a reason not to buy a Kindle - like most of the reasons not to, they're just grievances, and #7 isn't even about the kindle, it's about flight attendants.

(though, "You can’t explain that it’s epaper and uses no current. You just can’t. It’s like explaining heaven to bears." is pretty awesome)
The ideal is to define, project and measure time, cost, scope and risk when trying to achieve a goal, however, there is a cost associated with each measurement (lets call it COM):

results = measurement of scope;
time spent = measurement of time;
cost expended = measurement of cost;
risk observed = measurement of risk

When Cost + COM(results, time, cost, risk) > benefit of goal, you cut back on costs or measurement or lose money.

When (Observed Risk w/ Measurement - Observed Risk w/o Measurement) > COM(results, time, cost, risk), you measure everything. Otherwise you find an optimization of what to measure and what not to.

Something like a lawyer, its expensive to measure absolute results a lot of times, so measuring time makes sense. Similarly, a software contractor working on an ambiguously defined scope is probably best to measure hours, as the expected results may be unclear.

In a large organization, the COM(results,time,cost,risk) is often much less than the prospect of losing sales due to project delays. It increases overhead, but it may be the most rational choice to measure everything. In particular, measuring time is critical, because it can serve as a metric to accurately estimate the perceived risk of the next project.

In the case of a tech startup, Mr. Tenner is probably right on, because measuring results vs project scope is more straightforward in a small team, however, measuring risk, and time is expensive. You take your best guess at risk, keep your costs as low as possible, then measure your results to make sure you are on the right track.
They don't fit in my pockets and if I have a bag I only really care about weight at that point.

Maybe, but I find the eee a lot easier to carry around when I am at conferences. Sometimes you need to move pretty quickly, and the eee makes that easy. A big laptop has to be closed and stowed away in your backpack. The netbook just floats around with you. (It's hard to describe, so try it sometime.)

Many "normal people" tend to have a web browser (word processor etc) and a IM client open at the same time so Netbooks resolution is still a fairly large sacrifice for most normal people.

That's why the non-Windows netbooks go for a GUI that uses virtual desktops (or rather, all the apps are full-screen). This works very well; the notification tray gets your attention when your IM window needs you, but otherwise you just keep the browser maximized.

(This is not how I use my netbook, FWIW, but I am not a "normal person". I do my IM-ing from inside emacs; so I usually have 3 xmonad desktops; emacs, an xterm, and a full-screen web browser.)

Anyway, the reason why people need 1900x1200 on a laptop is because they don't know how to manage windows properly. Learn that, and you can do fine with a 9" screen.
Any ideas on how to solve the mental map-making problem? I've been reading on my computer for a long time. Sometimes the problem shows up, sometimes it doesn't & I still can't tell why.

"1. It’s bad for research. I’m working on a book right now and I wanted to use the Kindle for all of my research. Sadly, this is almost impossible. The book is a physical object - you can move through it, skimming for notes and important points - and there is something in our education that gives us a sense of space inside a book. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but you know how you can pick up a book and show someone what you’re looking for in a few page turns? You know it was halfway through, maybe a third of the way down the page, and it was near another set of words. The Kindle is not conducive to that kind of mental map-making… yet."
Depends if you allow safari==webkit.
Interesting. Can someone post a picture of this?
so ... it turns out that this is just a property of floating point math... weird that I've never seen that before. It behaves the same in Python and MzScheme, so I can't imagine that this is something "keeping people away" from javascript.
Since with engineers you rely on them estimate how long things will take, and the last thing you want to do is keep nagging them to decrease that time, it's easy for engineers in a non-startup company to lose the sense of "urgency" and get complacent with the estimates, adding buffers to make sure they are never late. How would you try to keep ever increasing estimates?
They're no good for texts needing any kind of formatting:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=491664
Nokia N96 16GB Unlocked
Nokia N96 16GB Unlocked GSM phone is perfect for keeping your music, movies, and pictures all in one place. Large flat buttons and the dual-sliding. This 5 Megapixel Camera Phone takes pictures in crystal clear quality.
Mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA are not good ways of determining population bottlenecks, since they are inherited exclusively from the mother and father, respectively.

The "Two individuals from one race are more different than two random people" myth is a pernicious one that needs to die. The short answer is that you need to look at correlations in DNA, especially of regions under selection. Imagine a single human's DNA as a point in 4-billion dimensional space (where each dimension can take on the value A,C,G, or T). If you do a principal component analysis on the DNA of large numbers of people, you will see clusters, and these clusters correspond to geographic ancestry.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v16/n12/abs/ejhg2008210a....

"A major East–West gradient from Russian (Moscow) samples to Spanish samples was identified as the first principal component (PC) of the genetic diversity. The second PC identified a North–South gradient from Norway and Sweden to Romania and Spain."

In picture form, from that paper in case you don't have access to Nature:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/11/another-genetic-map-of-euro...

Now, please tell me again with a straight face that I don't know what I'm "ranting" about, and that DNA in humans is irrelevant.
As it is part of WebKit it on Linux you can play with the inspector using Arora

http://code.google.com/p/arora/wiki/Screenshots
I think tuning little things or finding right combination of things is right on. For example, if you watch Chef Gordon Ramsay's Restuarant Nightmares TV show, he does the same thing. He comes in to a failing restaurant observes how it is run and tries to change Menu, Interior decoration, etc to make it successful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Ramsay
Vancouver HN March Meetup next Tuesday
We invest in more b2b companies than you realize. You just don't hear about them much because b2b companies are quieter. For example, one of the most successful startups we've funded is Clustrix, but the nature of their business is such that if the general public ever knows their name it will be as a Nasdaq listing.
Salesforce Hits $1 Billion Dollars In Annual Revenues
Awesome, an Inc. article inspired by a Hacker News thread. That, to me, is a perfect example of the quality of comments on HN.
Tokyo Cabinet:
http://www.igvita.com/2009/02/13/tokyo-cabinet-beyond-key-va...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tokyocabinet/
I'm not sure where he was going with that one. It has a battery. It has a microprocessor. It is an electronic device and should be turned off along with Nintendo DS the 10 year old in the seat next to him is holding.
The short answer is: give people a reason to unblock images on your messages.
Thats not good. What version of Wordpress are you using? The process should be simple, i.e. after you active the plugin it shows a notice saying "hey enter your API key" at the top of every admin page until you do it.

I just upgraded and testing the process with 2.7.1 (I know 2.7) works and everything is going fine on my end. I think maybe you're using an older version of Wordpress--I'll be glad to support it if there is enough demand.
What about Man-Bear-Pig? Man-Bear-Pig poses a huge threat to this planet. I'm serial, people. I'm totally serial!