skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In principle, I agree with you, but most of the things you list are relatively cheap.

In the United States (I know Jacques isn't American), the majority of the Federal budget is devoted to the military, interest on the national debt, various forms of free/subsidized insurance for the old and poor, and various forms of income support for the poor. The public goods other than national defense you list are very cheap in comparison to these things. Federal fuel taxes exceeded Federal highway spending in 2010 according to http://usgovernmentspending.com.

The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay. Most of the rest of the spending falls in to the category of supporting people who for whatever reason have difficulty supporting themselves.

There's a reasonable debate to be had about how and how much we want to provide support to some people by taxing others, but let's not pretend it's primarily about things like roads and fire departments.
You're right. It's very easy for me to say "Don't pass, don't use a 'white' name." I live in a country with good laws, and quangos intent on upholding those laws, and free legal advice for people who feel they're being discriminated against. And yet it's still a problem.
Functional Patterns in C++
The layman is the long long term goal. This is about slowly pushing down the barriers to entry to increase the net of early adopters, and the more one chips away at these barriers, the closer you are to the whole thing bursting open.
Inspirational Employee Engagement Quotes
...you know, I did a text search for "kickstart" and its one instance had nothing to do with Spanner.
I don't think 419 scammers are necessarily evil people, but if you make your living stealing from people, then I say fair play for people trying to humiliate you for a laugh.
Just like the religious fanatics in the open source software world there seem to be some that want every piece of open source hardware to become some sort of toaster project. The RPi has never even claimed to be OSH, it's just a cheap thing to run OSS on, and there's plenty of educational benefit (in plenty of settings nowhere near schools) to be had from that.
You are smart enough to know the risks of having a significant fraction of your net worth in one asset, so I'll spare you the lecture there.

Tipping point? No, I don't think so. It's progress, and it's good news, but 30 minutes to recharge is still a LONG time compared to the two minutes a petroleum-fueled vehicle takes, and the best of those can go several multiples of the Teslas range between fuelings.
There are definitely scams that certain ethnic groups are involved in (Indian tailor scams? Chinese tea/art scams?), but this has more to do with skill diffusion more than ethnicity; people willing to scam learn it from someone close to them, and it seems 419 scams have achieved critical mass in Nigeria so the diffusion is pretty broad now (couple with an economic situation that makes scamming somewhat desirable).

I've met plenty of Nigerians who are not scammers. Stereotypes melt away quickly when you meet real people, but the survival filters remain in place.
No no no no quit it no just stop no no no no no please just no
Because you can spend the 10 minutes building something more interesting. In all likelyhood it's more than 10 minutes over the lifetime of the tips. For example, if someone wants to change or add one. Or if they work and you want to add another. Why not let someone else make them and spend engineering time on your actual product?
How about diversification?
Best Coursera Professor So Far - Probabilistic Graphical Models
"Log in to use your Facebook account with Nissan Innovation Garage."

I don't exist.
Some thoughts on this:

You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish.

You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like.

The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to the rules will probably throw you in jail or kill you without respecting your choice.

Fear of the above is the only reason that the law works at all.

When the law becomes bad for the population, which it really is under many common ethical principles these days and it is getting worse, we need to have a revolution to reset the badness.

There is no happy solution to adding legislation other than resetting it completely occasionally.

Dying and emigrating just bring their own legal problems.
3 Secrets to the Art of IT Project Estimation
This is one of the reasons I left Medicine for computing...
He is not right that doctors are oblivious to these mechanisms. Most of the things he is talking about are very well known to the doctors, but most of them become obvious only when you start practicing, and (for most) there is no turning back. Most people (unlike me) don't feel very comfortable abandoning 6-10 years of time money and effort investments and switching jobs, and they choose to play the game...
Also a good overview and introduction in the Graun a few days ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industr...
The great Java to Ruby Map, well, Hash
Distributed state machines are all about deciding in what order things happened in. That A happened before B. If you had a clock that everyone agreed on, much of the problems would go away. The problem is that we don't have one that everyone can agree on. Protocols like Paxos allow us to guarantee an order will be agreed, but it can be slow. They seem to be using the clocks with an error bound to perform a first pass ordering to see if a collision is possible at all, or if they can skip a few steps. Caveat: I don't fully understand that part of the paper yet...
I'm obviously biased - so please take everything I state with a grain of salt.

My tipping point is not a "singular moment" or "lightbulb" - but merely the slow agglomeration over the next decade of multiple convergent waves that just happen to put wind in the sails of the only company able to execute on this plan at this point in time.

Diversification is overrated. When crises happen - all correlations go to one - everything goes down simultaneously. Also my returns are cut in half :D.
> But it could be so much better if we really tried.

For anyone interested in alternative ways to improve government, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city

"A charter city is a city in which the governing system is defined by the city's own charter document rather than by state, provincial, regional or national laws."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

"Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation."
This kind of lump sum contracting isn't usually called consulting and is pretty hard to do well unless you have really good chemistry with your client.
Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this.

In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.
Diversification doesn't work. It not only leaves your risk essentially the same in case of catastrophic market failure (see GFC/debt crisis - bonds are safe RIGHT?).

It also cuts your returns in half and brings you down along with everyone else - and gives you a false sense of security - nothing is safe - not even shorting the world (end of the world/counter party/regulatory risks).

As an investor you must think long and hard about the future/companies/investments make very few super high signal, super high impact trades/positions/companies that you know inside and out (financials/GDP winds etc).

I'd rather invest in 20 companies I know inside and out than 500 mediocre ones that I know nothing about. But that's me - most people don't know anything and they SHOULD diversify.

If you don't know anything - the best thing you could do is assume no better than random.
Oral History of Gaming: Game Godfather Sid Meier and the 48-Hour Game
Look at the technology adoption lifecycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Technology-Adoption-Lifecy...

The reason Tesla aimed upmarket first is to sell a somewhat mass-market, high-quality product (Roadster and Model S), when the underlying tech is still somewhat expensive - meaning the early products will be relatively expensive (think of early laptops, iPods, solid state drives, anything really). So you're getting a great product, just not cheap. Other electric car manufacturers try to make cheap, small, slow electric cars that are a joke and no one takes seriously:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REVA

Elon Musk is using rich dentists to finance the R&D of the mass-market, affordable electric car that regular middle class people could buy.

It's a very smart plan, in my opinion. Ensures high-quality products throughout the adoption curve, meaning that investors, future customers and even competitors will take Tesla seriously. Having rival car companies sit up and take notice is great, meaning competition. Look at the rash of MP3 players on the market after the iPod launched - this forces prices down, for both the raw materials and the finished products. We're at a tipping point.
I'm not clear on where they're putting the solar panels. Are they storing the electricity? Can it charge more than one car at once?
One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service.

Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?
Absolutely right - there is no formal contract.

What is being reflected on here is really a 'social contract' - see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
Is there some way I can get back the time I invested in reading that article? I'm honestly not sure why this article has as many up-votes as it does.
Project Management Software - ProjectVision
Based on the video, it looks like it has a Windows 8 UI feel to it.

For my opinion, I think MySpace will not crush Facebook with just a UI change.

Or maybe, with that change, is Facebook still their direct competitor?
That's a pretty big flaw, there's plenty of companies with QR Codes printed on posters etc, only takes one malicious reprint or sticker overlay. I imagine Samsung will probably take fast action on it. Well, hopefully fast action.
There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.
>>Well, how are you going to make the airplanes fly? Battery. Batteries are pretty heavy.

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible"

-Lord Kevin.

Yet we have them today, thanks to a phenomenon in physics called Bernoulli's principle- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" - Albert Einstein.

Why, O why do we think that problems have to, must be and will be solved at the same level and direction of thought the problems were framed in? Besides the whole point of a disruptive technology is that the solutions generally come as a bolt from the blue, completely surprising even the biggest experts in those areas. Directions from which those solutions come from are so radically different paths than originally they would come from. And this has not happened once, twice but many times.

Over confidence in science especially with regards to the negative aspects is not a good direction to begin with.
Recycling our Non-Toxic Battery Packs
It's really not that terrible to stop for 30 minutes after 3 hours of driving.

Depends on the driver I guess. When I'm driving I want to get where I'm going. I stop only for fuel and bathroom breaks (ideally these are combined). If I'm driving more than 8 hours I might stop for a meal. Stopping for 30 minutes ever three hours is not something I'd find acceptable on a long trip.

That said, it does seem that Tesla are getting ever closer to making a practical (if not affordable) commuter electric car (for reasonably short commutes).
another option would be to have a laser receiver and have laser turrets along the motorway blasting energy at them.
Why Advanced Lithium Ion Batteries Won't Be Recycled
Retribution isn't constructive, rehabilitation is. If the authorities were able to enter him into a programme of psychotherapy, perhaps this would have been the better option.

I think the young person who committed the abuse probably could be classed as someone with a (possibly extreme) personality disorder.

Bearing this in mind, turning the other cheek and allowing him to continue unhindered isn't going to be that constructive.

Counselling was mentioned - I really hope the perpetrator receives some; for his sake, and the sake of all those he comes into contact with.
The Scary Smart Are The Scary Rich: Examining Tech's Richest
Now do livejournal.
If I was really bored and feeling malicious, printing QR codes to point to this "exploit" and then pasting them over QR codes on random advertisements in the streets seems like a terrible idea.
Diversification is overrated

Sorry you are just flat out wrong. But if you're OK with it, I'm OK with it.
I'm curious to read the book--I write software used to collect data during phase 2 and 3 clinical trials, so I have some understanding of both how trials are designed as well as what the regulators are looking for in the data. In my experience, there is a strong push for both good data and preserving the "voice of the patient" from many of the scientists who develop the trials (not necessarily the drugs, but the trials on the drugs). Whether pharma follows this advice is a different story.

Another anecdote: in the 15 or so years my employer has been around, we've only seen a handful of NDAs (new drug applications) go through on the hundreds of studies to which we've supplied software.

All that said, despite receiving my paycheck from big pharma, I'm sympathetic to Goldacre's criticisms. As I mentioned, the founders of my employer (both software folks and clinical scientists) have worked to change the way trials are run in order to provide better data. Whether the sponsors properly use this data is another story.
1. Put it under Version control. Preferably GIT, You will need a lot of the tools that git and github provide. A private Github account will do but hosted github is what I'd prefer.

2. Get a Test System that has enough horsepower.

3. Create a deployscript

4. Deploy until it seems to work.

5. Start working with CI and static code analysis. You might get lucky when it comes to copy paste code. Copy-Paste detection and Coding Standards come to mind at first but there are a lot more helpers

6. Automatically create some API Documentation. The worst code cant hide what is inheriting from which class etc. Integrate Generation of Docs into the CI.

7. Create some basic so called "Smoke Tests". I'd prefer some very basic Selenium Tests opening the most important parts of the app. This is straight forward. Run them against the APP with error logging turned on on every E_ALL. This error.log is your scary list.

8. Setup Single Builds and try to integrate with More than one Version of Vtiger, PHP and Mysql. Since you have 150 Customers, chance is great that you have 150 different setups.

Note: You havent changed one line of code yet. Sit down with the customer and discuss all your findings and metrics.

9. Start creating different GIT repos with the above process for all the modules that are added by your customer. Integrate with the build and run the tests until you have the same amount of errors like before. start extending the build To build Against your Mysql, PHP Versions

... I could go on forever .. but basically this will get you up and running.
They have a deal to get some of the interior trim from Mercedes. And Daimler (Mercedes parent company) owns a chunk of Tesla.
This reduces to absurdity pretty quickly, when you start complaining that babies don't sign up for any of the decisions their parents make on their behalf. No shit. Almost everything your parents sign you up for can be undone at an age that's almost universally close to 18 from the perspective of the state.

Compare and contrast that with Islamic or Scientological interpretation of apostacy if you're really looking for a service your parents signed you up for and you can't easily get out of...
Sorry - just a typo, meant profit. It was late.
There groups on Linkedin which are started to find co-founders based out of India. one of them is called : Co-Founder wanted - India and Find Co-Founders. Advise Startups. Work for Equity.
All this is pretty much the same as the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Vic-20, C-64, Archimedes and other successful teaching platforms. Sure, third parties disassembled the ROMs, and there were some schematics, but by and large these systems were closed and incompatible with anything else.

Edit: Which is not to say, I don't think more openness would be a wonderful thing. But it's not necessary for it to be a success in schools.
Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet.

Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.
I think he is saying even a thousand years from now 300 mile daily commute even though possible is not practical on the part of the person traveling.
> Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

Isn't that also true of food?
> What is the difference between a "reasonable, rational" individual and an "unreasonable, irrational" individual?

The degree to which the individual can co-exist with other members of society.
Google did something to cause Apple to do this, as well as Apple already reducing their use of Google, and it's all private. Childish things would include talking in public.
I went from being an EE major at a state school to studying liberal arts at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD (http://sjca.edu). My final destination had no textbooks, no grades, and every seminar or tutorial (aka class) wasn't taught by an instructor, but instead focused around conversation and discussion.

I'm a programmer, small business owner, and recently an author. I credit St. John's with helping build the foundation that I've used in my professional life - namely, the ability to listen well and think through problems, and most importantly, "fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion." This is something that most definitely wasn't a priority while chasing an EE degree.
Was probably meant to be the A350 - which is the Airbus competitor for the 787 Dreamliner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350
AFAIK, there's no post about this, but some tweets trying it:

https://twitter.com/rafifyalda/status/250557735446388736
https://twitter.com/JasonConnery/status/250554346075480064
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/25055172405665382...
Current U.S. energy use is ~ 10 billion kw-h per day.

1 billion kw-h / day more is a nice big tick on that, but I'm not sure it would drive prices a whole lot.
50k might be (in-state tuition)
It wouldn't affect anyone because no one has ever scanned a QR code in an ad
...a civilized human being. There are many ways for that to benefit society.

Could you define "civilized human being", and perhaps explain what some of those ways are?

I.e., explain it to me like I'm 5.
Safari for iPhone ignores viewport settings on .mobi domains
They're not legal on Auckland central streets any more; my favourite pizza place, Sal's, was recently banned from using them to make deliveries.
Side note: if you're ever in orkland, go to sals, they do fantastic pizza.
Ben Goldacre is a legend. Buy this book for your friends for Christmas!
That's the territory of extensions normally, but I haven't seen any Chrome extensions worth keeping yet.
RCN offers 75 Mbps for $90/month. Telia in Sweden offers (in limited markets) 250Mbps fiber for $75/month and 100 Mbps symmetric (more generally) for $60/month. That is, in a city of 50,000 people in Sweden I can get 100/100 Mbps up and down for cheaper than you can in NYC for only 75/10.

So while you can get better connectivity in the city than in the suburbs, the question you should ask is why NYC is worse than many Swedish cities or, say, Singapore, where 100 Mbps is about $50/month.
I've recently been experimenting with this; it can be dangerous for you (read on) but if well managed it can be more flexible for both you and the client.

For a long time I've been playing around with how I charge; a few weeks ago we had a discussion r.e. hourly vs. daily rates (I prefer the former, as it works best for me).

But in the last ~2 months I've been working on ways to charge on a target basis. Or to put it another way; I agree a schedule with my client, and they pay as I reach each milestone.

This takes time almost entirely out of the negotiation.

It has other benefits too; for example it forces the client to work on a formal specification (as an engineer, this is crucial!) for a project.

I have flexibility on how I reach the goals we agree - I might give a deadline estimate (two weeks for milestone 1, a further week for milestone 2). Whether I do the work on a Monday, or part of Weds and Fri, is irrelevant to them. And so I have the flexibility to schedule all of my work as is convenient.

Internally I am figuring out that it requires X hours work for each milestone - but the client never sees this, they just see my quoted figure and the delivery date. But I have found that this way I can up my rates significantly - I suspect because clients are measuring cost in terms of deliverables, rather than hourly or daily rate.

I spent a lot of time working up my rate from £40/hr (three years ago) to £100/hr through various mechanisms. But I have struggled to breach that barrier for a while now. My ultimate aim is £200/hr (which, as a full-stack engineer with years of experience & happy clients, is what I think my time is worth). This new method is currently "testing" at around £120/hr and I am slowly increasing it, without issue so far.

This also helps for existing clients too; if you start working with someone at £40/hr it's hard to build your rate up significantly without putting them off [I lost a very solid client on the jump from £60 - £100]. But if clients don't know your rates, upping them by £10/hr will be much less visible, and they only have to judge whether the total cost is worth the outcome.

So, I think I would be happy in saying - your theory is sound, and seems to be working out for me in practice :)
And then the Telcos will take a year or more to roll it out incrementally around the world as they argue with Samsung over who pays for it.
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exactly what i thought of! except even worse.
It's tax for living. It's bad.