skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Behaviors that are baffling to outsiders are almost certainly adaptive within the context. Tribalism and clannism seem insane to us -- but family and local ties are likely far more trustworthy than anything related to the government, law or "Afghan society".

Obviously that sets up a pretty bad loop.

I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.

Notice that neither of these really depend on the productivity of the population. So the powers-that-be don't need stability to keep the goods flowing. If their economy depended on large industrial plant and skilled workers then blowing stuff up and killing people would be expensive and the society wouldn't tolerate it. But who sits in office or who harvests the poppy hasn't much to do with the goods flow. And so the gains on wrestling over the spoils are higher than those on increasing the society's overall production. That means tribal co-operation "pays" a lot better than "national" co-operation. And that co-operation is far more trustworthy.

Unfortunately this traps them in a loop where 1) the weak and just are screwed and 2) they cannot possibly build a real economy.

It's just a theory, but it does seem to explain a lot. (And it's a vast oversimplification, just a very simple political / economic model to postulate how tribalism could be adaptive. Even if that model is roughly accurate, the actual operation has to be vastly more complicated.)

(As an aside: People in the United States just have no idea what a miracle this place is, how carefully its society and government was constructed, and how easily that construction could be undermined. We take a lot for granted here, but this place didn't just happen.)
Another one is "wavedashing" in Smash Melee. Not really a bug, but certainly strange behavior that became vital in competitive play.
Yes, yes, lovely, and what happened to crime during that time ?
What API do you want? Automated submissions of posts is not a good idea, so that leaves data scraping.

If you're looking to extract data from HN, use HNSearch. http://www.hnsearch.com/

There's no reason to scrape data from HN itself.
Italian tax police raid Facebook offices
I've thought about designing a community with script hacking in mind (a simple initial layout with an api) and then letting users be able to script it themselves through their accounts. If it could even be done safely and sanely, everyone could have the features they wanted by writing their own.

In lieu of that of course there's always greasemonkey.
The thermodynamics are straightforward. The amount of calories you eat is a known quantity, the amount you expend is a function of a number of variables.

Perhaps something along the lines of:
calories_in(food) => calories_out(activity_level, gender, age, weight, body_fat_percentage, protein, carbohydrates, fat, genetics)

I think the complicated part is altering your environment and/or yourself so that you, on average, don't eat more calories than you expend. That is, to fix the feedback loop to make calories_in equal to calories_out at your desired weight.

It's not the simplest of problems, for instance, two people can do the exact same activities and eat the same amount of food and gain different amounts of weight.

Ideally, people would simply stop being hungry when they had eaten enough food, but if that was true, there would be far less fat people. So what actually seems to be the problem is that the biological system that controls hunger is often miscalibrated. I believe that diets attempt to fix that, to make people feel the 'correct' amount of hunger.

For instance, if sugar caused people to become hungry, or to eat more calories than they otherwise would, or to burn less calories than they normally would, you could create a diet that contained no sugar. The average person, if they followed the diet, would hopefully have a more appropriate hunger level at any given time.
Samsung’s Chromebook is Nowhere to Be Found
Now I might get stuck reading the author's blog all day: http://aurellem.org/

The Cortex project they having going is stellar and there are some great examples of Clojure-java interop.
Based on this concept, I've created a base-100 number system that encodes each digit into a single simple syllable which is designed so that they can be strung into unambiguous sequences. So if your mental phonological loop can hold 10 fast syllables, you can hold the equivalent of 20 decimal digits in this system.

The system is logically arranged so it's pretty easy to memorize, and since it's base 100, the conversion to and from decimal is simple. The next step after is to memorize the addition and multiplication tables using them, which are of course much larger than in base 10. Once those become second nature, it should be possible to do mental arithmetic more quickly and with more mental registers to work with for larger numbers. I'm not nearly to that point yet, but it's a fun experiment.

If people are interested, I can toss what I have up on github and write up a detailed explanation of the system. So far, I have a few little HTML5 drills for learning to convert, and an Anki deck for the addition tables.
Apple on the verge of a 'death cross'? Analysts warn shares may slip another 20%
I'd say it would really depend on your level of education. When learning any tooling, you spend more time in the documentation at the beginning and need to refer to it less and less as you gain experience. The next steps are specific to the field you are working in, whether it be LOB, embedded, distributed, data processing etc. For LOB apps I found it invaluable to review design patterns (because all tooling/frameworks use them) and object-oriented design principles. Development is more than just programming. Programming is the method of writing software and should become an asset in your arsenal, just like project management or problem solving skills. Unfortunately a lot of educational material doesn't go into the realm of proper architected software and instead just focuses on programming. Take a look at domain driven design (ddd), distributed domain driven design design (dddd), command-query responsibility segregation and different types of logical layering such as n-tier, client/server,semi-connected apps or onion layering too.

On a final note, write a lot of programs - even if they are only a couple of hundred lines of code. Productivity really kicks in after you've become comfortable not reinventing the wheel all the time - everyone should invest time into working this out of their systems.
But what happens when people put big numbers in my Fibonacci calculator?
Crowdsourcing Is Booming In Asia
This is my simple human computation experiment for an end of the year project in machine learning. It would help a lot if you all could take a look! (until you get bored) Thanks!
This essay should be required reading for anyone who thinks science is or should be the only legitimate way of understanding the world.

For more information, I strongly recommend:

"Naturalism and the Human Condition: Against scientism" by Frederick A. Olafson

and

"Scientism" by Tom Sorell
Both worlds (business / personal) merge anyway. So a Unified Inbox makes sense eventually. The key is to be in a position to set up individual filters that put you in command and control scenario across communication platforms and devices.
It would seem that this approach gives all the advantages of async with none of the drawbacks involved with writing callbacks. If someone added a type annotation extension to the language and parser, this would be a killer combination for large code bases. Lua is also a good match for "The Good Parts" of Javascript, so it should be possible to have all the code in one language.
This is the best article I've read on dieting:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/08/27/th...

IMO, if you eat fewer calories than you expend, you'll lose weight. BUT I do think that you can eat more calories than you expend and still lose weight. Likewise, the amount of weight one loses/gains eating the same number of calories and expending the same number is variable based on the actual person and food.

That is to say some people/diets are more calorie efficient (which in our day and age is generally not a good thing). Additionally, some foods/behaviors are probably more likely to make people want to eat more/less.

We can't cheat thermodynamics, but there are other some things we can do to make us eat less and be less efficient.
Does it need to appeal to non-programmers?
Well, none of these methods is sufficient to destroy the Arduino, you will just destroy the ($2.50) AVR.

I would certainly recommend using the UNO or earlier revision with the socketed AVR.

Then you can have a couple of spare ATmega328's for backup.
This is kind of true. In my freshman year, I didn't even use calculator for my calculus class. However, for highly abstract math, I don't think I have an advantage.
Great way to do marketing. It's not only interesting and engaging, but also actually useful regardless of whether or not you buy their product.
A much more elegant scheme for protecting privacy.
There are a lot of motivations for discovering ways to synthetically produce meat. Cheaper and easier to make, higher yield, better nutrition, better taste, consistent quality, etc. I don't think the ethical considerations are the driving force.
"Minecraft Style" blocked in most countries by copyright claim
Point taken; I was thinking of it as a Chinese company because of their high-profile plants in China but it is actually Taiwanese.
You reasonably ask, "What's the big deal about an act of charity being 'selfless'?"

It comes from certain specific ancient theologies which adopt philosophical positions of endorsing anonymous giving.

In christian theology, for example, there is the principle "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing". Back in those days some almsgivers would carry a bell and ring it as they gave out money to the poor, calling attention to themselves. It's possibly the bell ringing practice originated in wanting to let the poor know that alms were available, but christian texts clearly indicate that it had become a way of calling attention to oneself for their charity works. To this end, some persons donated in order to receive admiration from others, not out of compassion for the less fortunate. It was thus mentioned "they have already received their reward". This was contrasted to anonymous giving and a future reward in heaven as an alternative. But note still the person is doing it in expectation of receiving a reward, and not out of a sense of compassion.

Unfortunately, in the modern times, these principles are not normally brought up by others that share one's religion, but rather as a debate tactic to make others look bad and put down those who are trying to make a difference, regardless of any faith issues.

This principle is often brought up, as we see here, in order to pass judgment against those who give charity. Those who pass this judgment sit in self-righteous judgment of others rather than "minding their own business" as these judeo-christian writings also implore. Thus those making such pronouncements are picking and choosing that which makes them happy. The judgers judge because it makes them feel good about themselves, not because they are members of the same church as Larry Page (who is actually atheist, according to various sources) or others who are merely concerned with them having the right motivation in alignment with their communal belief system. The judgers have received their reward - a smug feeling of superiority over others who work to help the less fortunate.
> "Silicon Valley is set in the high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success."

This could work.
The BitTalk Media Meltdown
The mapping part (IP/netblock --> email) might not be illegal in the USA, but I'm pretty sure that sending users unsolicited emails after visiting a website is.
It makes me very happy to hear that there are parts of the world where my anecdotal experiences are not representative of the real statistics.

Note, I expressed that among technologically inclined ethivegs there was universal acceptance of the idea among those that I introduced it to, meaning that their hearts and minds still work...they just aren't hackers or engineers that see a problem and then try to fix it using whatever technology possible, extant or not :D.

RE luddites: there is a vast number of luddite ethivegs that reject any technology that they didn't create themselves - including metal, medicines, making paper, and etc. It can be a brutal life and I imagine it is only possible in some areas of the world. They also acknowledge that they only survive due to law enforcement protecting them with armaments that they do not allow themselves to use. The real crazies do all that and then refuse to use domesticated animals! Fruitarianism, eat your heart out :D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism
The Grey Period
What's the downside of starting it in 49 other states?
This is bullshit. The first example with memorizing the numbers doesn't work with Japanese - "hachi, ni, yon, roku, shichi, go, ichi" isn't faster than "eight, two, four, six, seven, five, one", but the Japanese are no different from the Chinese when it comes to their math prowess.

I don't understand why it's so hard for Americans to admit that Asian success in areas like math is simply because they work harder at it. In Asian cultures, there's a belief that your success is dependent on how hard you work, not your innate "intelligence". In America, if a child does well in school, he gets told over and over that he's smart, while a child who doesn't do well is told he's stupid. In Asia, if a child does well, he's told that he did a good job studying hard, while those who don't do well are told to try harder.
I appreciate the effort. I think you would do well to work down Joel's reading list.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navlinks/fog0000000262.html

I'd like you to think about the TDD article harder -- testing isn't easy, and asserts aren't substitutes for good tests. Just because an ORM solves SQL injection doesn't mean it has protected you against bad data. And how do you have confidence that pending changes don't regress prod? Asserts are great for bailing at runtime (which nobody actually wants in practice), but they haven't yet found use at predicting which builds will fail. For that you need sample inputs, and these sample inputs are the basis of every test :)

Also, coordinating multiple processes/threads/drones/ect is easy when the mutex is reliable and transactionally safe. Often neither is true, especially for systems that scale to tens of millions of users and have their data partitioned or in volatile containers. What patterns should developers consider?
Even though they sell them as Toshiba monitors they ship you Chilin brand model ST-HB561X. Here is a PDF of the specs:
www.chilinsolutions.com/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=51570 according to the rep they are the same.

It may also be worth noting that these operate at 50 Hz (I didn't see it int he specs above). Which is fine for me for pretty much anything. I mention this because 10 years ago or so I was using an IBM T220 with a refresh rate of 24 Hz with a similar resolution and it was brutal. Though I honestly never am bothered by the 50 hz refresh and only notice it if I am trying to push some game to max settings.
I hope you can appreciate that this is a little too public of a forum for discussing current operational details of our operation over there. I can say that we are still engaged and intend to stay that way. Hoever, with Mehrab's assassination everything has changed. On a personal note, his death is one of the hardest blows of my life.

The group was founded by Dr. Dave Warner. He was hired by to go over there and help start several schools* in the area. While over there he ended up finding the Taj Mahal, taking over the lease one it and founding the Synergy Strike Force. SSF grew into much more then just schools and has been involved in many different humanitarian projects. We are all just freelancers trying to dodge the bureaucracy that get's in everyone else's way and make a difference for the people over there.

* The schools have nothing to do with cups of tea in case anyone is curious about that.
For those curious: http://www.leadlander.com/web_analytics.asp
Sheryl Sandberg sells 946K shares for $26.2M gain
"Such devices, which are already in use in 96 percent of 2013 model year cars, record various types of data that can be accessed in multiple ways."

Whoa. 96% of new cars already have black boxes? Did not know that...

Wait til people get convicted of crimes based on the data in their black boxes. "OJ, your car shows it was used between 8pm and 10pm, and you were not home sleeping as you said you were..."
> The problem with a lot of error handling is that it moves beyond that realm and mixes with the logic of the system.

What is the motivation for this? What are the perceived pains that programmers are trying to cure which are not, "cases where you can't tell whether an operation will succeed or not before trying it?"
They should get Ashton Kutcher involved in this, he's one of the few actors who has actual real-life involvement in Silicon Valley (he's already doing the SJ biopic).
Revenues and profits are a trailing indicator not a leading indicator. They reflect what the company has done in the past, not what is happening in the future. My point is that measurements have changed from one offs to lifetime value. (That is not to dismiss Microsoft's two decades of impressive financial performance.)

Note that Apple's ARPU number includes COGS for the hardware which Google doesn't incur (Samsung et al do).
One thing that always bugged me about $30 arduino is that it is mostly nothing else than $2.50 AVR
http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot.aspx

I saw this advertised the other day...
I've seen this argument come up from time to time in blogs and newspapers, but I don't buy it.

While I agree that this may allow for Asian students to do basic arithmetic slightly faster at a younger age, learning concepts such as a geometry, linear algebra or calculus do not depend on my ability to count.
I must step away from the computer for a while. My email is above and I will be happy to continue discussing as much as I can here when I return in a few hours. I appreciate people's feedback thoughts on this.
Weight equals calories in minus calories out. This ridiculously flawed concept is why people get fat.

It seems plausible. It's how our bank account works. Sounds like science. But is wrong. And easy to debunk:

Have you ever sat on a toilet?
You regret having kids? Damn that's rough.
Twitter Aims to Release Photo Filters in Time for the Holidays
I challenge the author to load himself on steak and saturated fats and no carbs and come race me 100 miles on a road bike.

I burn in excess of 4000 Calories on a 80 mile bike ride. That's a kilogram of rice on a single ride. And honestly I find it incredibly hard to eat enough just to satisfy the energy requirements of racing. Not eating carbs and attempting an endurance race event is just suicidal and guaranteed way to abandon and not finish at all let alone place well.

Eating large proportion of your energy from meat is also a good way to kill racing performance, let alone if all your energy is from meat.

But even for sedentary lifestyle, no complex carbs at all is sure way to make yourself feel completely miserable. On the other hand living on saturated fat and protein is a sure way to give yourself a coronary disease.
Oh god, let's have this discussion again.
It depends on what your goals are, too.

To get down to a 'normal' weight where you look slender but kind of doughy you can probably just cut calories. If you want to be muscular, lean then it's not so simple.
tl;dr: mean is $34,455 per year before taxes

Would be more interesting to see the median. The mean is diluted by a few super successful so the median should look even worse.
In Private Manning Case, Jailers Become the Accused
>At the end of the day, everything boils down to "eat fewer calories than you expend".

Sure, if you stop eating you will lose some weight, but, you can die of starvation while obese. In animal studies, that Taubes cites in one of his books, it is possible to reduce calories and the animals won't lose weight and it is also possible to add a lot of extra calories and not become obese.

Calories have something to do with it because they are one part of the equation. Calories in does equal calories out. Calories In = Calories Stored + Calories Expended. But, the mistake is in thinking that the law of thermodynamics means that the type of calories in doesn't impact the ratio of calories stored/expended -- the variables are not independent. The content of the food you eat impacts: your hunger, your energy level, fat storage rates, and your metabolic rate, all of which mean that attempting to cut or add calories may not have the expected impact depending on what the food is.
It's funny that you bring that up. A few months ago, there was a show called "20 Under 20," which was a two-day special that followed the Thiel Fellowship application process. I literally waited 2 months to watch the show, and it was amazing. Students (all under 20) were put together to accomplish a wide array of interesting tasks. They got to talk with each other and build a mini-network within their group. They were put to the stage to give speeches in front of some of the Valley's top people (entrepreneurs, investors, etc.). In the end, a handful were chosen to receive $100,000 to follow their dreams, but they had to drop out of school if they took the offer.

Thanks for the link, though! I really appreciate this fellowship!
The thermodynamics are straightforward but the mechanisms for energy expenditure aren't.

The body is a dynamic system. It responds to the stresses placed on it and adapts. Remove calorie inputs from the system and it tries to compensate by reducing the calorie expenditure.

Low-carb diets work because they control insulin levels. If you can control/avoid the insulin spikes that regulate the absorption/storage of blood glucose, you can modulate your adipose tissue creation/consumption.

Weightlifters/bodybuilders have known this for a long time. If you're looking for answers and evidence, take a good look at the population that's been experimenting and learning how to effectively build muscle mass and avoid excessive body fat.
Interesting, but probably too late to do the author any good. Aren't CPU miners basically worthless at this point?
Defining A Growth Hacker: Debunking Common Myths About Growth Hacking
Let's be frank here:

Now I am Christian, but also being an evolutionist, even I can see the truth here:

North Asians are better at math than Europeans due to greater than two thousand years of Christian dysgenics.
This is an option that allows tracking clicks on the links. I believe it was turned off by default when I signed up.

http://i.imgur.com/MqMBS.png
I'm really glad to see a Cloudflare post at the top of Hacker News, I've been following them and they have lots of interesting things to say. I switched from Amazon Cloudfront to Cloudflare two months ago and can't be happier. My hosting bill was reduced a 95% and my website speed decreased only a 13%, a figure my weekend project can afford to make it profitable.
In a world with the three body problem and godel, humility should be the defining characteristic of the intelligent.

Should.
Athough Mike Judge's projects haven't always been a commercial success, everything he's been involved in has been damn entertaining. I'm really excited to see how this turns out.