skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You will have to research the law yourself, but there is a limit to how many people can invest in a business before you cross a line into "selling securities" and have to formally be a real corporation with stock. Not that you can't do it, you just want to be aware of this and do it correctly. I think the Nolo books on incorporation should have the information.
What about embarrassing problems with already-known fixes? Or easily-diagnosed but hard-to-cure embarrassing problems?

I can't imagine a patient would benefit from the world finding out they had syphilis.
Not exactly a new trick, nor did he beat 9 of them.
I was talking to the CIO of the County so I'd hope that's not the case. Though sadly I'm not confident enough to say that for sure.
Julian Fellowes on Persistence, Getting Started, and Logical Consequences
Not too many. If they don't I just use Dapper, and then Yahoo Pipes if needed.

Amazing "hack" about Yahoo Pipes... they block usage based on an IP accessing a pipe. Yet, you can make that pipe access the "singleton" version of itself many times. So let's say you want to pull up Delicious tags of 10,000 URLs (something I did to generate very nice marketing data), you could access Delicious yourself 10,000 times (and get blocked very soon) or you can access a pipe (which accesses Delicious) 10,000 times... or you can access a pipe 100 times, each time sending it 100 URLs, and that pipe will just loop through and do it (Yahoo will count 1 access against you rather than 100). Since there are loads of pipes servers, and it's a semi-trusted source (in this case very trusted, since Yahoo owns Delicious), not all the Yahoo pipes servers will get blocked by Delicious. Actually, at the rate I was pinging them, some of them did actually get blocked :)

Another interesting experiment: Make a Dapper App which contacts Yahoo Pipes for an RSS. Make that Yahoo Pipe access the same Dapper App. Fun!
That stinks. It bothers me that this is the way the world works.
"So my advice is, demos are key"

Exactly correct. If you don't have any, you're likely not as skilled as you think.
Ideologues seek confirmation. Pragmatists seek falsification.
To go into a bit more detail of this likely pipe dream...

One approach could be to have a group of site moderators who make it their mission to, as Paul said, keep their identities as small as possible and simply judge the logic and biases of peoples arguments.

Perhaps their vote is what locks in a statement to be taken as true or false and then everyone has to then play by the rule of accepting their judgment on the matter for future debates.

In a similar way that scientific research builds on the work that was done before it to make progress, standing on the shoulders of giants type stuff, the conversation could be mapped to show these towers of progress grow as people logically move from "if A is true then B must be true..." and so on.

Perhaps the debate branches at points of contention and goes off down different paths.

The idea being that anyone can join in and quickly get up to speed as to where the conversation is up to by looking at the map of statements that have been dealt with so far.

If someone wants to reopen the debate around some statement and attack the foundation of one of these towers and bring it crashing down then they can.

Of course an enormous element of this will be based on the subjective judgment of the moderators. It can't be entirely based on pure logic but if it is useful and leads to new and interesting things then who cares...

Even if it succeeded in removing a lot of the crap around a debate and focus precisely on the points that people differ on so they can be attacked directly I think that would be a useful thing.

My idea for making this somewhat enjoyable and stand a chance of people participating in it would be to make it game like in some way.

Anyway, its all pretty out there stuff I know, but I'll no doubt continue to think about anyway...
I think your employer is making the right call.

First, assigning a confidential number is a step in the right direction, but it isn't secure; simple traffic analysis (for instance, via a database flaw) will correlate IDs to recent activity, or to a specific visit (say by a tailed car).

Second, any number of other vulnerabilities anywhere on the Internet could coerce a browser to give up the unique IDs assigned to your site, as would any physical compromise of a user's computer, however brief (like, 5 seconds with a malicious USB stick).

Third, your employer would face almost unlimited liability in the event of a mass compromise; they've probably insured themselves against HIPAA violations, but compromise of stigmatizing mental health information is easy to tie to material harm --- far more so than a credit card number, which can at least be revoked.

Using SSL and firewalls doesn't mitigate the core problem, which is that any false step with the application that serves this information cost cost them tens of millions of dollars.

This is a rare instance where I see a draconian regulation actually working to the benefit of consumers.
> This is such a ridiculously brilliant essay.

Um.. I think that's going a bit far. Interesting take on well known fact that people who identify heavily with something aren't very rational about being challenged on it, but "ridiculously brilliant", I think not.
why? You have the files, which is pretty much the best API you could want, isn't it?
Identity as a person is much more widely present than identity in terms of religion, programming language, economic stance, nationalism or culture,
Imagine someone makes a critical statement about your personal character, The way we respond to it is obviously different from a generic statement. Whether or not, one tries to look at the statement as it is, there is usually also a powerful psychological response which is triggered and this will too often also be the basis for action. As one forms various identities, conversations about these new topics will lead to the same response.

The interesting question is how is this 'minimizing of identity' to be done? One idea i've heard is the following, Usually this psychological response happens in the background, the unconscious so to speak, Instead one can be try to be aware of it, not just abstractly but live. Watching a reflexive response and its influence on action at the same time as it happens.
are people much more religious than when you were a kid?

Yes. It was very noticeable when I went back to Pittsburgh recently. When I was a kid, people went to church, but it didn't spill over into everyday life. They did it more as a matter of form. Now people's conversation is filled with religious references. Someone who 30 years ago would have said "we have two children" now says "we've been blessed with two children."
Interesting take on well known fact that people who identify heavily with something aren't very rational about being challenged on it

A few others on the same topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Fut...

http://www.google.com/search?q=eysenck+psychology+of+politic...
That would be true if most employers (or procurement departments) were enlightened. Most, in fact, aren't.
Wonder what pg thinks of the article. There are some clear parallels with his "Disconnecting distraction" (although that was more prescriptive and didn't indict technology as...directly). Plus the author mentions the "noprocrast" option on HN.
It only uses the mouse now.
If you like Pipes you should play with YQL (http://developer.yahoo.com/yql) it's much more like an API than Pipes given it's SQL-likeness.

While it's actually my job to promote stuff for Y! YQL is one of my all time favourite things we have done and it really very much worth taking a look at. Especially given we just released "open tables" so now you can map any service to it, not just RSS, XML, CSV, etc feeds

Disclaimer: I work for the Yahoo! Developer Network
The problem with your logic is that it invalidates every security measure. The reality is this: If the client’s browser or the server’s infrastructure is compromised than there’s no security measure that will prevent a system from being compromised. Think about it. Login info has to get in somehow and if someone has unlimited access to either the system that enters that data or the system that authenticates it how would you possible prevent a security breach?

So the end result of your concerns is that there’s just no way to share medical information.
I am finding more and more technical books available as PDFs and that is pushing me towards getting an ebook reader. When I am using a book for reference I want to be able to see it and my screen at the same time (not the book on my screen).

Interestingly, I think that if I buy an ebook reader I will read more for leisure as well.

From where I sit, the EVDO on the Kindle is appealing (esp since I hear it has some RSS capabilities). However, the PDF support seems frustrating.

Hopefully the original Kindle will see a drastic price drop (even if only on ebay). That way I can see if I like it without spending so much money. (We must be in a recession if I am scrimping on new tech toys.)
Chinese new year parade san francisco 2009
Not Everyone Is Cheering as Wi-Fi Takes to the Air
Have you tried oDesk or Elance type of venues? There are also Rent-a-coder type sites as well. Good Luck! Send me your resume in case I hear of anything.
I really wish gmail had an API!
Basically, make it look like something people want, not spam.
I am with the school that the JVM will become primarily a host for other languages and that Java (the language) will move towards legacy status in the next few years.

Clojure, Scala, Groovy, JRuby, JPython etc all are moving in interesting directions and Java is too mired in backwards compatibility and politics to do anything truly interesting.

Java the language is very much closer to legacy then it is to innovation for sure.
What is common in religion and politics - the possibility to blame someone else for your own condition. And, as you said, everyone is an expert!
Ask HN: iPhone app development on Windows via Apple Remote Desktop on a mac mini?
Would such a setup support OpenGL? Can you just connect the two computers by ethernet?
So, three responses:

First, yes, there's no secure way to share medical information. We should recognize that, and by doing so, I think you'll see my argument about your employer being right is pretty strong.

Second, my argument isn't the slippery slope you're making it out to be. In fact, there are likely scenarios in which an application flaw exposes your database, and likely scenarios in which XSRF/XSS flaws will coerce users into exposing medical information. My argument does not depend on some hypothetical killer zero-day bug.

Finally, I'm not advocating a world in which we don't provide access to medical information. I'm just saying, there's no way to do it casually. Any project that does it is going to need a steering committee, and special insurance.
Google analytics, it'd be really nice to have access to all that data.
On Reddit chromatic (who worked at O'Reilly) said: I don't see the connection between O'Reilly's opinion or business strategy or whatever and the viability of a technology.

Their technology-specific sites aren't getting maintained. O'Reilly's Ruby site is long dead, its Java site is nearly defunct, and only XML.com has much in the way of new information.
"I think the reason [..] is that other people’s opinions, unlike most topics, have a material impact on our lives."

Not because they have an impact, but because they had an impact. It's an adaptation. Quoting from overcomingbias:

"People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed. Being on the right side of the argument could let you kill your hated rival!"
Damn StumbleUpon, Quit Lagging Me
Well, it's impressive to me that JS appreciates the impact that environment (including commons time/space) can have on productivity. The flexibility to accommodate varied programmer work styles - likewise.

I could only wish that the Times articles had included personal comments from the staff about how they experience. I have to be a little concerned that office-design can run the same risk as software-design... when it springs solely from the resident boy-genius and we don't get feedback from the end users.
It is astounding how little this liberal face of Islam is known outside of the Indian subcontinent and possibly the educated populace of Iran.
My mistake. I changed it to "a biblical literalist."
> maybe they can fix it!

Millions of newbie programmers have this exact thought. This is why you see countless forum posts with chunks of code and a note like "Something's wrong, can you guys fix it?"

No programmer with experience is going to waste their time. Similarly, no doctor is going to waste time doing pro bono work to fix your medical problems.
If GDP was down 3.6%, then Walmart is now growing by 26.1%
It's slightly more relevant to talk about this in the context of Perl and its history with O'Reilly.

Perl and O'Reilly grew up together...Programming Perl was consistently a top ten seller for O'Reilly for many years, and O'Reilly was a major sponsor of almost every big Perl event. They've never quite grabbed onto any other language so thoroughly as they did with Perl. So, I can't say I'm surprised--I think O'Reilly has changed their focus pretty dramatically in the past five years, or so, and they are a much "softer" tech publisher, responding to market demands and dealing with the fact that the most technical people more and more do not go to printed books. So, the hardcore topics are somewhat less of a focus at O'Reilly.
in very simple words selfish thoughts are the cause of a suffering (the third of the Four Noble Truths), so, all the benefits of a small identity is just an effect.
So basically by your own admission your opinion has no consequence. Because your initial point was that my suggestion wasn’t secure. That’s fair. But then you went to "there’s no secure solution but the data will be put out there anyway". So if the solution is destined to be insecure what’s wrong with my insecure solution?

Or I guess more to the point: what would you do? You’re an intelligent person who knows the issues so give me a solution. Because saying "lets form a committee" isn’t an answer it’s an evasion. It’s what people say when they don’t want to be bothered with coming up with a solution.
Oh please. If somebody is a "fellow traveler" of Nazism, he would be permanently banned from public life.
> Lim started using computers at age 2 and is fluent in six programming languages.

Only six languages by 9, yeesh -- by that time I was already fluent in 35. Kids these days are just barely getting by.
How to Understand a Trillion-Dollar Deficit
Also, this is not a Bollywood song. It is a poem by a 17th/18th century Punjabi Sufi Muslim poet Bulleh Shah performed here by a Punjabi Sikh called "Rabbi" with scenes from Hindu majority India in the background and English subtitles.

So many identities :)
Did the founder of the antivax movement fake autism-vaccine link?
He started with "Why do political and religious discussions suck?" and ended up with a recipe to make oneself smarter.

I wonder how many tens of millions of people have wondered that exact thing and ended up with "Well, some topics are just inherently controversial"?
Academic Application Suites like Blackboard and the University IT system - but that's mostly for allowing better interoperability between organizations on campus.

My wireless telephone service provider. I would especially like to be able to query and download my voicemails.

Better ODB (On-Board Diagnostics) API. Every new car should include a webserver and either an ethernet or wireless NIC (and an easy way for the owner to explicitly enable/disable it).

Actually, every high end household item should have an API (which I suppose is what Java was initially going to do).
Advertising copy gets tested since decades. Read "Scientific Advertising" by Hopkins from the 1920s.
Watching it now. It seems like a breakage that the video didn't get voted higher!
If you want to test location and accelerometer events you will need to use an actual device. Also, the simulator does not place constraints on memory and processor usage so you will need to test on a physical device to make sure that you are not going to go over memory and crash or make an app that is so slow it's not usable.
They do. It's called IMAP
Truveo Video Search
For whatever reason, I'm a little fearful of flying, so wifi will be a more than welcome distraction/time waster. On the other, I do see the point about losing the one last place where you're truly free out of contact. I see this change as being inevitable though. We corporate types will adapt, just like when the blackberry came along and took away our nights and weekends.
not all identities are chosen by the individual for the self in the way that this essay assumes. some identities are forced upon specific individuals or groups. is it reasonable to ask those whose identities have been selected for them through accidents of history/birth to keep their identities small? it is ultimately reflexive of reality to ignore these identities? in a democratic society that is struggling to maintain meaningful civic engagement in many sectors, do we really want to reduce conflict over charged political and religious issues? why not have it out verbally over and over? paul graham might be beyond such conversations about politics and religion, but maybe others need to have them.
- mark h.
Kartofel - a game of skill and logic.
I find people on forums are usually amazingly helpful and giving of time.
I started this last week. Good domain, 5 years: $50

Reasonably powerful VPS, per month: $20

The rest is pretty much brain-sweat at this point.
Sorry, it just wasn't really particularly insightful. Buddhists have been teaching detachment for thousands of years, slow and methodical destruction of the ego until you become totally an observer, purely aware.

You are not your car, you are not your job, you are not your religion, etc, etc, this is not anything new, and while it is wise, it's certainly not some stunningly brilliant new idea from Paul.

I'm not knocking Paul either, I very much like his writing, some of his essays are fantastic, but c'mon, this isn't that great. The word fanboy'ism springs to mind.
also, there are a number of disciplines and interdisciplines devoted to identity studies (identity politics, african american studies, women studies, queer studies, whiteness, etc.). whether you come from a background to have read them or whether or not you have been conditioned to respect them, they have spent a lot of time thinking about these issues (30-40ish years as a recognized part of academy) and have a lot of smart things to say if this question truly interests you.
There are to many words to explain that every attempt to escape from so-called reality will cause a big problem, and digital illusions produces the same effect.It seems like the problem is in choosing wrong direction. One probably should spent ones resources (ones time at first) to discover beauties of this world. Illusions are very limited because of limits of ones mind.
BTW, The Matrix movie was released almost 10 years ago. =)
Wouldn't others go at the same time because they realize it's not crowded, hence making it crowded. Catch-22.
I think we're arguing two different issues.

You're arguing that it should be possible to make medical information (including mental health information) available to patients over the Internet. I agree.

I'm arguing that, confronted with your specific proposal to put that information onto the Internet, your employer made the right call. The considerations you came up with to defend patient privacy aren't convincing; your suggestion, which I concede is probably abbreviated, is insufficient for an application which handles credit card information, let alone irrevocable patient mental health information.
Incorporate.

Seriously :) You basically detailed one of the primary reasons why folks incorporate. Not quite following your analysis of how that is "putting the cart ahead of the house"...
The missing iPhone app - Is this possible?
If you're aiming to make tea, then that might be the goal, yes.
You are highly unlikely to find your own bugs; teams that have invested millions of dollars in training and process (for instance, requiring detailed internal code reviews before signing off on code to ship, and passing static analysis systems) still have gameovers shown to them during third party pen tests.
So now you can't afford an iPhone or a KVM? You're cutting way too many corners here.
Another similar story is about John Lasseter (one of the founding members of Pixar, who is also responsible for drawing the BSD daemon) was fired from Disney after trying to introduce 3D technology into their animation pipeline.

He never gave up and after a brief stint at Lucasfilm went onto founding Pixar with Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs.

Disney ended up purchasing Pixar in 2006 for about $7.4 billion
this is a discussion of identity politics. it's old hat. seriously, the hat is in its forties. there are entire disciplines in academia devoted to questions about the function of identity in contemporary american society. that said, it's well-written and provocative. what is actually smart here is not the old-ass idea, it is the application of that idea to a question/problem that regular readers of the internet forums commonly have. for that, this is commendable. i never would have thought i would have found a discussion of identity here and i am impressed by this community's genuine interest.
But one programmer will fix his problem and share the solution with the rest of the world.
Transmitting data over the internet to private clients is not secure under any circumstances according to HIPAA (so they said, I don’t agree).

Kaiser Permanente must not be worried about it, since I can see all my blood test results, appointments, correspondence with my doctor, prescriptions, etc when I log into members.kp.org.
Why are we humans always obsessed with figuring out how another living or non-living being can be leveraged for our benefit only. Why can't we just give them their space and live in 'mutual harmony' without expecting a favor. It is remarkable to provide crows with a way to get food.

But why do we have to train them to clean garbage? Can we know if they would really want to do it? Would that define their life, their purpose of existence? Are we just aiming at a crooked adoption of "survival of the fittest (read fit == helpful for human existence)"?

Imagine what would have happened if animals were as evil as humans.
The data shows that they work well together.

Areca Palm is good for the day, while Mother-in-law’s Tongue works during the night. Money Plant helps remove toxins like Formaldehyde (from carpets and furniture) from indoor air.
In my first company, I didn't give equity agreements to my employees... IMO, it's one of the stupidest things I have ever done because we lost the trust with the employees and ended up losing productivity. If the founders are educated, they will protect the best interest of the company using vesting clauses and legal firms. My guess is that the people are either inexperienced at running a company or they have something up their sleeves for having you sign an NDA without a vesting agreement.
No. For example, my cafeteria is always crowded from 12-12:30. It's always not crowded earlier or later.
The essay reminded me of the blog "Overcoming Bias," the whole point of which I believe is that by removing these minor biases that we pick up as part of ourselves we can become more rational, smarter people.