skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"an NP-but-non-P problem"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but if you had one of these you would have answered a fairly important question in CS theory. Perhaps you mean to say "NP-complete", but even then I'm not sure the proposition is correct.
Well, now I kind of want you to.
YouTube introduces Capture for easy recording and sharing
Arming classrooms is a direct solution to only the most visible problem. This is like doing the 5 Whys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys), but stopping after the first one. Underlying causes will continue, requiring increasingly drastic counter measures at superficial levels.
This is selling shovels and pick axes during a gold rush. I love it!
Did Google Hire Ray Kurzweil to Produce Skynet?
Is it just me or are Amazon starting to look like 'omni consumer products' these days?

Diversification yes but jumping on every bandwagon...
I agree with you. It's not a clear-cut answer. I'm just hoping that we think more broadly about how to actually minimize harm.

If it were left to school boards, they could do things like require a stringent process to certify particular staff who have access to a cabinet, for example (this could include safety training, a background check, and psychological testing). Unfortunately, we have a zero tolerance position in most school systems (which makes sense for students, obviously). It will probably not even be considered due to existing bias.
Throwing plastic toys into landfill is recycling, it's just not at the pace some require to offset their upper class guilt. Energy, we'll run out of it when we the sun burns out and we've depleted the other nuclear sources, not by taking stored energy from the sun and burning it to produce a gas that is then recombined with energy from the sun to give us fuel again.
bootstrapping! thanks :)
I think good design is important.

But it seems to me that the hardest thing is getting users to use your product or service (especially repeatedly). In a sense, it's more of a behavioral/psychological problem.

Ideas are bad because they don't get users. The best design won't turn a bad idea into a good one.

The thing I find most interesting about these examples is that all of them (I believe) had a dedicated user base -- as well as fast growing one -- in the beginning.

People really wanted to use them from day one.
20 Free Resources To Launch A Startup In Your Dorm Room
Detox Your Clothes
A little ironic coming from the firm that invested in Groupon, inventor of the "Adjusted consolidated segment operating income".
But it seems this might not be the case anymore - if Twitter were launched like that today, would people even bother checking it out?
Artificial intelligence: Can we keep it in the box?
In the US, any transaction >= 10k must be reported. You can pay cash, but you can't pay cash secretly, like you'd want to with stolen money.
You seem to have missed the part where the extreme example is not real life
Actually, I referred to your example as both 'extreme' and 'artificial' in my previous post.
Since the example was constructed to make your point as obvious as possible I was just pointing out that in fact P(B|A) was actually useful even in that example.

Sorry for the delay in responding, I gave up yesterday because there was no option to reply even after a very long time.
The only thing I ask for on Christmas is money to help me buy textbooks, because that's the only thing I really need. That, and maybe some bedsheets.

Even then, I really must point out that this problem is as old as humanity itself. There has never been a single generation of humans that has not attempted to flaunt their wealth in grotesquely pointless ways. The rise of the upper middle class simply creates more people rich enough to do so.
I would argue that, yes, someone who speaks Russian, Chinese and Amhari is more trilingual than someone who speaks Spanish, Portugese and Italian.

Taking myself as an example, I learned French in junior high (between the ages of 12-14), never lived in a French speaking country, and never learned a word of Spanish - and yet, I can read and understand simple Spanish. If I upgraded that to full-spanish, I wouldn't count it as a "whole new language".

(p.s. my mother tongue is neither English, nor is it Latin, Germanic or anything else that might have any remote connection to English, French or Spanish)
Tweets Need A Credibility Rating And This Lie Detector Algorithm Could Help
Really curious whats the point of this software?
If I understood it correctly it consists of a hierarchy of items like:
Projects -> Goals -> Tasks.
That's it? How am I supposed to actually manage a complex project with different requirements coming from different users, bug reports, feature requests, deadlines, timetables, different components of a system, versions and releases and anything remotely related to actually managing projects?
This is like the original ToDo list app in my opinnion...
Certainly, if I was in politics, I'd take your advice. I think it's fair to question where donations go and the decision process, even after the fact. There's always next year.
You see; the amount of surveillance and military resources exponentially exceeds the ones from the countries you are talking about.
Driving is not an enumerated Constitutional right ... and you're not comparing the same things. Generally, you don't need to have a drivers license to own a vehicle, that is, have your name is on the title. You do need one to drive, and strangely enough, of the 42 states with de jure and de facto shall issue concealed carry regimes, all but 3 require a license. Although Arizona is a recent example of dropping that as a requirement, along with Alaska, and Vermont since the founding (the only state not to enact gun control to restrict those pesky freedmen or immigrants).
Does anyone under 30 (or 40, for that matter) read Forbes?
That's awesome. Consider putting a little comparison chart towards the bottom? Thanks for replyin'!
The reference there is that when he wasn't on a case he had a sort-of mini breakdown during which he would use heroin (remember, it was thought to be a beneficial drug in the late 19th century) to calm himself.
I tweeted it, but I think I'll repeat it here: Proud to know and have worked with more than a few folks on Forbes' 30 under 30. Congrats to all of them!
In the USA high-denomination bills haven't necessarily been taken out of circulation, but the Mint hasn't printed new bills larger than $100 since the 1940s. Larger bills were really only used for large business and interbank transactions, and for that purpose they've been obsolete for ages. Certainly in the digital age, but before then even paper checks offered greater convenience and security.

There might be some compression toward the center, but realistically most people only use cash for smaller transactions. $20 is a convenient denomination to get out of ATMs, and of course smaller bills come into play as cashiers make change for your payments. But I seem to remember hearing somewhere that economists now estimate that a majority of the US $50 and $100 bills are either circulating outside the country or circulating within the black and gray markets.
Pray tell, how is Wikipedia revisionist?
Ready, Set, Simulate!
Just because others have come before doesn't negate the fact that someone else may have reached a broader audience through the use of marketing and branding.
As long as environmental externalities of human economic behavior are underpriced, they will continue to happen for reasons that many consider insipid.
More like selling pick axe handles for those selling pick axes during a gold rush. I also love it! :)
Well then what is the magic number when this becomes significant enough to do something about it? Lets say even 1/100 of people who die from tobacco i.e 5k per year or 13 per day in mass shooting. Who wants to wait till then. My point is that dying from tobacco use and mass shootings are not the same. So lets not even compare them. Mass shootings is more of a symptom of something really wrong with the society. It is effin inverted where universal healthcare is debated and challenged all the way to the supreme courts but universal access to assault rifles and guns has bipartisan support.
He makes a point of all of these companies having been ugly at the outset. I don't disagree, they were, however the landscape has changed. In the past, when the world was really still figuring out what the web is, it was okay to be ugly -- because so much of the web actually was ugly. Now, however, there is a lot of beautiful design on the web and people are having higher and higher expectations.

Its a lot about signaling, I think. People want to know that they aren't wasting their time. If a website is ugly and poorly designed, then its easy to think "Whoever made this didn't put a lot of effort into it, and may continue to not put effort into it." In the old days of the web, just being on the web was signal enough that you put a fair amount of effort into your project. Now, we have more sophisticated methods of signaling that our websites are better than others. However, its a bit like clothing and jewelry in that it can be superficial -- just because something is dressed up and pretty on the outside doesn't always mean theres something worthwhile underneath.

Humorously, the Github repo title of my product contains the very words "Humble Beginnings". We're launching this week, right Justin? ;)
That's the danger of pricing your products too low. People who would happily pay $350 or $400 for it can't get it now either.
Exactly. I want teachers to focus on teaching our kids (and some can't even do that... 'nother topic). I would rather have the protection of our kids left to people who are trained and ready for that. One thing is securing entry to the school. It sounds like the CT school had measures in place to keep out the random creep that might wander in but that didn't stop a kid from blasting his way in. Would bullet-proof glass (or some other similar barrier) at his entry point have saved their lives?
REPL doesn't seem to work. Am I missing something? I don't see a "run" button, and Ctrl-Enter doesn't work. Chrome on OS X 10.8.

I agree with the other comments, would be nice to have a sample "hello world" on the front page to set the tone for the website. I always feel like websites like these should have a strong bias towards noobs, because advances users don't need help finding there way around.

It's also missing a prominent download button and "Getting started" link.
> We did all of the web design, etc. so these were free.

That's not entirely true. Opportunity cost is still a huge cost.
You'll notice all the qualifiers in my post- "nice" apartment, "new" car. Any vaguely reputable rental company is going to want a bunch of financial data, that proves you can afford it over the lifetime of the lease. You can't do that with 100 grand in a suitcase.

Any new car is going to be over 10k, which means you need to either report the transaction or get a loan from a bank... who is going to want proof you can pay it off.

Housing is the same thing. So yes, you can use cash- but you're going to have a hell of a time using cash that doesn't have an obvious, legal source.
As a customer, I support this thinking. Most people (at least in USA) are encouraging the race to the bottom by caring only about price, consequences be damned. But I can honestly say, after thinking about it, I can't really see a large number of cases where slightly higher price would be bad. As a merchant, you can take that money, use it to make your next generation of products better, pay a better wage, heck even paying your shareholders and management more would seem like a good use of that money to me (I personally don't object to CEO's getting paid more if they earn it; I object to unconditional golden parachutes, short term thinking, and the wealthiest paying less taxes than the poorest).

Of course, I'm talking here about direct sales, where the margin is pretty thin; I think middle-men are unnecessary, and obscene markup for name brand or just because you can is egregious.
Could it just be lazy journalism?
Massachusetts Fines Morgan Stanley Over Facebook I.P.O.
Both Clayton Cramer and the US Government Accountability Office ("Investigative arm of Congress charged with examining matters relating to the receipt and payment of public funds.") this summer estimated there are outstanding around 8 million licenses to carry concealed.

I can't speak for others, but I can say that almost every time I walk outside I've carrying a M1911 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911_pistol).
I'm pretty sure (but I don't know absolutely) that the fact that she had clearance means, effectively, that the breach of privacy was her transgression, not the government's. It's effectively as though the police have a warrant to search your house - any conversation with a person with clearance is subject to surveillance, and if they screw it up, that's no protection of your privacy.
Oh, I disagree completely. I love the serendipity of this story far more than if it were just a viral stunt on the part of Disney, U Chicago, or anyone else. Something entirely mundane became something extraordinary for everyone to enjoy.

I'm going to call that a win.
If it has non-handwritten text, it will. If it has a banner or button, it will. If the layout contains a rectangle or divider or border, it will. I don't expect to see ads without the previously mentioned items very often.
I am skeptical on these lists, how many tech people are they actually aware of to choose the list, would surprise me if it was chosen from a pool of less than 100 possible people.

Also as I have seen in the past from these lists they use money raised as a metric for achievement/ success.
> But is that the best comparison?

Yes, it is. You have a limited amount of resources -- in this case, tax dollars and political capital.

If you're spending dollars or votes to save lives, you should spend them on the thing which saves the most lives per dollar spent.

> What about comparing it to frequency and impact in other countries?

Another commenter on this article said that this comparison indicates that gun control doesn't really help [1].

To this, I'd add that most countries that have a strong gun control never had the situation of the US: millions of guns already in public circulation; many pro-gun individuals and a powerful political faction; and a very difficult procedure (amending the Constitution) required for changing policy.

These obstacles are pretty much insurmountable right now; you'd be well-advised to spend your political capital on an issue where you have a decent chance of winning.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4934323
It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

I think you're grossly undervaluing that.

Painting by numbers, as goofy as it seems, allows relatively non-skilled people to create approximations of art. For some, that's enough. For others, that taste of making a painting motivates them to want to do more. Just getting people to pick up a paint brush and mess around with some paints can be an amazing trigger.

The social aspect may help people see that, having assembled some basic Arduino thing, they could make it do a few other cool things, and other people like themselves (i.e. non-geeks) have done it, and will show them how.
That is technology-dependent. Mercury-filled-cylinder delay lines took more energy than modern DRAM.
Actually, most hunting is done on public land - typically state or federal. There are private game ranches, but those aren't the standard.
Discharge
A Big 2012
Parents freak when their 14 year old runs into some pervert on the train.

As for mr softie: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=bDXL90KXPHQ&desktop_uri=%...
I can assure you, one of my good friends is on that list, and he is far from being a child of some rich fuck.

Temper your attitude, this is a significant accomplishment for these people. There's no need to be malicious against them for their success.
Completely agree, Arming everyone with bigger and better weapons is not the solution. it is an arms race within the society.
The exact same issues happened with the Nexus 7 launch, and Google pointed fingers for that one too. It just goes to show that they haven't improved their process. It's quite embarrassing to have such a loyal group of consumers begging to give you their money and not be prepared for it on the nth product launch.
And what's wrong with that?

People can't be happy with their accomplishments?
In addition to the problems with supply, there are the problems with the play store and customer service. Behind it all seems to be management that is not taking these problems seriously.

Here's what the managing director Google UK said [1]:

Dan CobleyDec 13, 2012+63: Folks. I am very sorry to hear about your poor experiences. I will look into it and get back to you.﻿

Yes, on December 13 he sounded surprised by the flood of complaints on his G+ post and would 'look into it'.

Two days later all he could come up with was a generic apology and a vague commitment to do better:

Dear all, I know that what you are going through is unacceptable and we are all working through the nights and weekends to resolve this issue. Supplies from the manufacturer are scarce and erratic, and our communication has been flawed.
I can offer an unreserved apology for our service and communication failures in this process.
I am optimistic that we will be able to share some positive news shortly, but I do not want to cause any more disappointment by making a commitment until we are 100% sure we can deliver on it.

I realise that the people who ordered the Nexus 4 so early are among our most committed and loyal users and we are doing all we can to put things right.

I've seen corporates where customers are basically viewed as a nuisance and this is exactly the way they communicate.

[1] https://plus.google.com/113390679691036376988/posts/5GygopdU...
At the risk of offending the rah-rah YC back-patting... the entire Tech section is full of people who run or founded companies. Those all could fall into the Media, Social, or Marketing sections. It just seems like they're piling all the big-named startup dudes in wherever they can.

Shouldn't people blazing trails of real, new technologies get some recognition here? Those who bootstrapped this year's hundredth social-local-mobile app are rarely the ones creating new technologies and platforms that change the way we use technology. And yes, there are exceptions, but lets be honest here. Heaven forbid some academics or open-source maintainers get some attention. They went that route quite a bit before this boom.
For $200!!

(http://www.ebay.com/itm/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Raiders-of-the...)

The seller has sold a few of those, for between $150 and $200. Making thousands of dollars seems like a pretty good business.
That's a valid point. The thing is, our growth in data largely correlates with customer satisfaction. If a customer finds no value but sends us a lot of data, they stop because they are paying for our product. That causes a decrease in data points.

Admittedly, we do use a different metric to determine how "valuable" our product is in a more honest way. We're talking about non-bullshit metrics that highly correlate to growth. Not all valuable products necessarily grow.
No matter who they choose, somebody would disagree with the choice. Whereas you would prefer to see internet / bootstrapped personalities (and I would too!), somebody else would argue that pop acts are a much bigger influence among the general population.
Remember it's an amendment. Which means it can be repealed. We also at one point had an amendment outlawing all liquor and then another that repealed it. The inverse could be done easily with the 2nd.

I'd imagine it's something that won't be out of the question in about 20-40 years. Gun owners are overwhelmingly white, male and older. A demographic that is dying of old age.
Using Trello for Improptu Meetings
World Beatiful Children 2013
No. One of the most promising is NTRU, an asymmetric cryptosystem which isn't broken by quantum computers.

Many key exchange protocols treat the asymmetric operations as black boxes, so you can replace RSA with any other asymmetric cipher.
I'm talking about celebrities, actors, models and musicians. Tastemakers. If you were a heavy texter, you either used Sidekicks or BBM.
DocForge project: 10 web application case studies
Realtime todo web app, based on TodoMVC
Probably because the device wasn't licensed by the FCC to transmit/receive on those frequencies :( http://www.mobilenapps.com/articles/5579/20121214/nexus-4-lt...
Many items in the Bill of Rights are far more nuanced than this absolutist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

For one thing, there are multiple restrictions on freedom of speech. Maybe you think those oughtn't exist, but we're talking about the status quo, not ideal worlds.

This is not to mention the idea that there are multiple ways to adjudicate whether this means "all guns" or "some guns," since there's quite a difference between an assault rifle or handgun and a simple rifle. Then there's the "well-regulated militia" piece.

I'm not advocating for any particular reading. Rather I disagree that the Bill of Rights ought to be the last word in any discussion. I think the Bill of Rights is better suited to a starting point, and the history of the judiciary in this country seems to bear this out in practice.
come on guys. I really need some input on this.
Not once does the author dare to compare homicide rates to other developed countries.

You're almost twice as likely to be killed by a gun because you live in the United States vs. the next developed country (Finland). You're 2.6 times as likely to be killed than the next country, Canada.

Something is very wrong here.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
I don't think the original poster or the article was intended to draw attention to the particular weapons involved in either incident, and I certainly did not. I don't think anything about this post or my comment addressed either side of those debates or their validity, so I don't know what point you're trying to make about that.

To address the point about tact, which does get to the heart of what I was saying, I have to respectfully disagree. This submission was posted with a title beginning "The deadliest school massacre", obviously leading readers to draw a comparison between the value of the lives of those killed in the incident in Bath Township and the incident in Newtown.

All over the internet I have seen an outcry about how the mainstream media is handling the recent incident, treating the numbers as though they are some sort of "high score" to be feared and, at worst, bested. If we are to place these sorts of morals and expectations upon the professionals in that field, should we not also expect the same of ourselves?
I assure you gun control advocates have not forgotten about the second amendment since the opposition will not shut up about it.

Also, all the rights listed in the first ten amendments are limited to the point at which you're infringing on someone else's rights. The threat of death or injury, such as it is, would seem to be a pretty clear reason to limit that right.
> NEWTOWN, Connecticut: People in the rural, hilly areas around Newtown are used to gunfire. [...]

> But in the last couple of years, residents began noticing loud, repeated gunfire, and even explosions [from propane gas tanks used as targets], coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses.

> [...] ''We're growing,'' [Council Ordinance Committee Chairwoman, Mary Ann Jacob] said on Saturday, describing a town where hikers and mountain bikers competed with gun owners for use of trails and forested areas.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/guns-are-why-were-free-8230-peop...