skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would be interested in knowing whether or not one's likelihood to divorce is correlated with whether or not one's parents were divorced. Do you know what the data say?

edit: I found some data. It looks like a couple is twice as likely to divorce if one of them comes from a divorced family, and three times as likely if both do: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/26714.php
"When you’re on foot just stepping off the bus at a crowded intersection..."

I think you missed the point. It's not an aide to use while you're following the directions (like a TomTom). It's there so you know which way to walk at the start of your journey.
It's been very tough. Unfortunately I have found that the most lucrative projects tend to be those that require lots of ongoing maintenance, or people graduating from a crappy MVP into something that needs richer features.
Granted, but, seriously, Apple has never even feigned search-fu and MS/Bing has a better chance of making search even a competition.

On a side note, and this might titillate you; I am seeing serious cracks in Google's search skills as their other assets lack search or it is rather clunky. Now if Bing just didn't suck so bad, there might even be a challenger.
> No, you're wrong. It's not with the data.

It seems to be both. I tried two locations in the Apple store, and the data for both was incorrect:

* One gave a location about 10-15 miles away (with a pop-up showing details of the correct venue). I checked the correct location, and nothing was marked on the map. (Image: http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg - the proper location is just above the 'd' in Cambridge)

* One was found correctly, but the listed information (phone, website etc.) was mostly incorrect.

* Satellite images are of a much lower resolution than Google Maps in some areas (e.g. my house!)
Two small details that makes this truly fantastic: That it was addressed to the actual building (Rosenwald Hall) that Indiana would have worked (a lesser fanboy would have addressed it to the Oriental Museum) and that it has no ZIP code, since those would not be in use at that time (adopted starting from 1963).

Amazing.
First impressions are killer. Even if they're improving, there is a harsh stigma against Apple Maps now, much like Bing, because it didn't meet user's expectations. So users are being comforted by a familiar and useful tool, Google Maps, which many people can use on their computers (Why is Apple Maps not bundled into OSX? Error reporting could be done much more efficiently and abundantly).

At this point, many people will ditch Apple Maps for Google Maps. And because of this, they will suffer from having less crowdsourced error reporting.

By the time it's as reliable overall as Google Maps, they will need to have a clear advantage for users to switch back. Deep integration with iOS maps might be the key, but lots of apps will now be integrating with the Google SDK because of user preference. Tricky situation.
I would imagine lots of VC's end up feeling this way, because the people they interact with most are amazingly talented and smart startup founders - who are constantly kissing their ass and telling them everything they say is genius.

Don't get me wrong, I do think he is a genius and there is some gold in this article - but also some ridiculous statements.
It happened with Indian media as well: http://imgur.com/a/ZweD5
> The pros and cons can change, some of them, like availability of features, support,... don't.

But they do change. What features are important depends on your application. The amount of support you need, and by who, changes as well.

What I'd love to see is a series of articles that helps walk people through the platform selection process from the perspective of a few sample applications/organizations. I feel that would be really constructive.
That's very cool, well done! Though I actually laughed out loud thinking about the look you'd get from a french waiter if you pulled this out at a brasserie.
Awesome, haven't tried it yet. I'll check it out.
Antemeridian Cutting (new in D3 3.0)
We were limited by Google Authenticator usage, so yes, backups are absolutely awful, but it was the only way we saw fit in case you had to upgrade/lost your phone.

Now our service Authy and it's Tokens are completely different. If you sign-up to Authy.com and use our Tokens, those are:

1. Full 256 bits secret seeds.

2. They are never backed-up.

3. Guaranteed to only exist on 1 phone at any given time.

4. We not only regenerate new tokens for new device, we also allow 1 click remote reset of the device tokens.

5. We have a huge number of improvements over Google Authenticator.

7. Tokens are not 6 but 7 digits long.

This version added support for legacy Authenticator Tokens. The existing Authy tokens like CloudFlare, DNSimple etc are not limited to the Google Authenticator addon.
Who exactly is living in a world free of war?

Gaza? Congo? Yemen? Pakistan? Mali? Columbia?

... I can't be bothered to finish typing the list
> it's refreshing to hear someone who is willing to say what he believes

> echo chamber in the tech community

Do you really believe that the "echo chamber" happens because people lie about their beliefs to fit in? I couldn't disagree more. I'm fairly certain the "echo chamber" happens because we share backgrounds, information sources, and inferential technique, leading us to share conclusions as well. It would be fair to call our community "too homogenous/narrow" but it's equally incorrect and insulting to imply that the majority viewpoint persists through popularity alone.

As for the article, you're correct that his perspectives are "realistic" in that I believe they are shared by many people in the investor class. However, they're completely self-serving and unaligned with the common good. In that sense I see his opinions as roughly morally equivalent to the cries of "redistribute all the wealth to eliminate poverty" that occur in different contexts.

For instance, he predicts that we will "run out of capacity" for our data hungry apps. SO BUILD MORE CAPACITY, DAMMIT. If that means redistributing spectrum, so be it. Match supply with demand. That's what markets are supposed to do. I'm sure investors would love to ride the bubble formed by artificially restricted supply but they do so at the cost of everyone else. It's sickening to see him pretend that he's forwarding a common interest by opposing net neutrality.

Ditto for his comments on the workforce.

None of his other opinions (1,5,6,7,8) seem terribly controversial so I've ignored them.
I've been finding Proxima Nova[1] everywhere this year. I'm not complaining though—I think it's a beautiful, highly readable typeface.

[1] https://typekit.com/fonts/proxima-nova
On the other hand - when you strongly discourage something and decide to make doing it wrong/immoral, you also make it very taboo and stigmatized to talk about, which can be incredibly dangerous.

This is very obvious with illegal drug use and sex, problems related to them (drug addiction and unwanted pregnancies/STDs) are much higher in places where it is strongly discouraged, stigmatized and hard to talk about.

There are a lot of sad stories where people who knew they had a drug problem didn't dare seeking help/talking about it in fear of either the law or negative reactions from the people around them.

Wrong/lack of information about safety is also a huge issue due to making stuff immoral and taboo, millions of people in Africa have died and are currently suffering because of the way extramarital sex and condom use have been (and still are) handled and talked about.

Personally I think complete openness instead of moralization/stigmatization is a much better solution to deal with difficult issues. Granted, I'm a very socially liberal guy, but I think most evidence is pointing to the fact that information and sympathy is leading to more desirable social outcomes than repression and stigmatization.

For example, let's take something extremely controversial as pedophilia. The vast majority of society is of the understandable opinion that being a pedophile is immoral, often downright evil. People unfortunately don't realize how extremely important the different between simply being a pedophile (having sexual thoughts about children) and actually committing such acts are.

I think even something as pedophilia should be freely discussed and that pedophiles should be offered rational stigma-free ways to deal with their sexuality in ways that won't hurt children instead of being treated like scum by society. The way we deal with the issue today is hurting everyone involved - both the pedophiles and children.

A ton of people undoubtedly disagrees with me - and that's understandable from an emotion point of view. However - I've never seen any research or statistics actually indicating that punishing people for their problems (either directly through the law or through stigma) leads more significant positive societal outcomes than helping and sympathizing people with their problems does.
Nope :/

I've had to do it twice now (once for an upgrade and once for a defective-phone replacement) and both times, after restoring from iCloud, Google Authenticator was empty.

It's not a dealbreaker, but it's still a big inconvenience. I had to use recovery passwords in two locations and convince another to disable two-factor auth so that I could reset it.
OMG Facebook Android going native
Best software for document analysis
App.net messaging API now available
My uncle hanged himself after years being an alcoholic, the alcohol destroyed his family and pushed him away from everybody.
Near the end of it all he was acting delusional, lying to his bar friends about how good his life was, just stright up making stuff up, like having a huge barbecue in his non existant farm, or so I heard through my dad.
He killed himself between christmas and new year. His son spent christmas in my house, and I had the idea to go visit him, and days later he killed himself.
For the longest time I blamed myself, I kept thoughts like "maybe if I had gone...", I kept believing that maybe the wanting to go see him was God's way to stop the tragedy from happening. I no longer blame myself, though I do wonder if having gone there would have changed anything.

Anyway, powerful blog post
I'm gently surprised that people write buggy software without discipline when they're dealing with something that can kill many people.
If you use Google Authenticator App this is true. If you use Authy App without backups, this is also true. But if you enable Authy Backups then you will always be able to get your accounts back, no matter what.
Google Starts Reporting False DMCA Takedown Requests
Between this and the gmail release recently I think that some interesting times are ahead for apple. After I told my wife that Google Maps was available in the app store she sent me a text with a screenshot of her phone and the message "I'm pretty much using an Android phone!"

Her mail client is Gmail, she uses Google maps, and she browses with Chrome. If google went all out with a Google Calendar app I bet she'd use their client too.

What does it say for Apple when an iphone user has apps for all of their big use cases provided by a direct competitor?
As others have mentioned maps is an under appreciated 'hard problem.' (kind of like search in that way :-) When its done well it looks pretty straight forward, lay down a tile with your current location, populate it with things from a database that are 'near' that location. Choice of tiles and points of interest based on user preferences. How hard can it be right?

So first there is raw data collection. That is a pretty capital intensive process and its never really 'done' because the world changes a lot, so you need a data collection 'process', sort of like building a really complex software product that you can periodically 'tag' as a release and push out. The capital costs from either on the ground surveying, or aerial imagery. Its not acceptable to put a circle on the map and label it "Tokyo", there are streets and houses and buildings and parks. So the capital intensive part is taking aerial photographs, or satellite imagery, and post processing it into your tile layers. And that just gets you to one level of gross detail, there is so much more than that.

Because of the intensive capital investment folks who get map data understand they have a valuable bit of information. Its one of those things where it would cost big bucks to acquire it so you can sell it to others who want it.

Then there are points of interest, who are all the businesses in downtown? What are their hours? Are the streets one way? paved? gravel? private or public? Are there travel restrictions? All of this data can be gathered by on the ground vehicles but that takes time. (or a lot of money if you do it in parallel) and all that data has to be fused together into something which associates places with data. So think about how you would represent that vector from lat/long pair A to lat/long pair B was one way on weekdays and not on weekends?

One of the things that is really clear is that Google benefits Hugely from having their own in house search capability. That provides a treasure trove of points of interest. But did I mention search is hard? So any good mapping solution ideally has an in house search engine associated with it. Look at MapQuest, one of the originals, it was a search engine getting traction as a mapping application. Look at Microsoft, look at all the data they populate in their maps from Bing.

So there are at least three really really hard problems to solve before you can even worry about the user interface and how to interact with maps, data collection, data fusion, and web search. I'd be surprised if anyone felt they could just 'jump in' from a standing start and build a maps application in less than about 5 years these days.
This makes the most sense to me, but is Google's strategy really that open-ended?
Make some simple HTML components, break out the compiled HTML and CSS for non-developers, and you've got yourself a bootstrap alternative. Please, make it happen.
I run Adblocker Plus from Chrome, but I keep it disabled unless the site in question gets WAY too intrusive. I keep it disabled for at-home content creators, like bloggers or blip.tv channels. People who work hard on something and get no other form of compensation for it SHOULD get add revenue.

Something like Disney.com, though, where there are about a zillion ads for cruises I will never go on, can kiss my taint. Ditto for ads that are loud, distracting videos on the sidebar, or ads that crash my poor little netbook (yes, there have been a few. My laptop is a fragile flower).
Glad to find this -- not interviewing right now, but always keeping up on my skillset.
He's a good writer.
I signed up and this seems pretty cool. FYI: "Mediocre programmer?" is too long for its container and defaults to "Mediocre programm...".

I'm not sure if it's my screen or fonts or something, but I thought you might like to know.
There is really only Grooveshark, all the others are crap since they assume that because you like a few songs by a particular artist then you like similar artists too -- or even other songs by that artist.

The annoying thing about that is that I tend to fall in love with a song either because its message resonates with me or because of the beat.
"Cops use Taser on Uncooperative Woman"
Nearly all of humanity. If you think those are "wars", you should get some perspective. The Battle of Passchendaele alone killed roughly 600,000 men. Compare that to the total number of casualties in every one of the conflicts above.

I'm not trying to minimise things, and I understand that those who face state violence have a rough time of it. But taken as a proportion of humanity as a whole, war is at an all-time low. That is something to celebrate.
I thought he was never going to get to the point. This entire post should be about 1/5th the size.
Rebuilding Facebook for Android
> Having a kid is easier than falling off a log,
> it just takes time.

Wrong, and to say so like that demonstrates both ignorance and a significant lack of sensitivity.
OH GOOD, MongoDB is a general replacement for an RBDMS... serious. fucking. facepalm.

It'd help if MongoDB were actually good or fast at something, or did something you couldn't do with a hashmap and text files, then I might be impressed.
2001, not choosing Osama.

"You" was just manifesting in the most complete way a farce that became apparent to all in 2001.
On the other hand, it looks like they used a modern mailing envelope instead of brown paper as the string would indicate was appropriate.
A lot of readers will probably have some self-reflection after reading this. It might even push some to give their parents a call, or sort out some issues. Even someone with a perfect family will remember that nothing lasts forever. Enjoy your time friends.
Apple doesn't like users changing default applications, it's part of their world-renowned and expert UX. Didn't you know?

The solution is simple and explained here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4914316 - switch to Android.
I don't have an iOS device, but here are my steps to reproduce on Android. Open a map. Turn on airplane mode. Zoom in. See pixels

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
This has a far better explanation of what the engine is about: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20510112

There's also a documentary on the developers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_a21fPkYM
that sucks for windows...
and you can two finger tap to zoom out one level.
Very excited about this. Wordpress hosting for medium and large sites is a major pain point that I've dealt with on multiple occasions. Once a site grows beyond the cheapy hosting plans, there was a huge gap in the mid range before something like VIP became a possibility.

I am interested to see how existing sites migrate over, it looks like only a group of approved themes are allowed. Presumably, those looking to migrate will have to recreate their existing UI experience on one of those pre-approved themes.

The theme issue actually smells like a decent business opportunity for savvy Wordpress theme designers. If someone offers quick turnaround ports of old themes to supported themes, which is almost entirely CSS, I bet they'll get a lot of business as more and more sites want to move over to the Enterprise plan.

Anyone made the jump yet? How was the experience?
From The Makers Of Orchestra Comes Mailbox, An Email Management App
I couldn't tell what this was from the title. Here is the description from visiting the link:

Easily create public links for your email attachments.

Receive files in email. Drag to a public collection. Share a custom URL.
Already there are 2 replies to my post that entirely miss my point, I'll try to restate it more clearly.

First off, note that any individual with a job is denying someone else that specific instance of that job. If the total piano tuning revenue in a city can only support, say, a multiple of 5 times a "decent" wage for a piano tuner then any one of the piano tuners in that town who has a job is keeping the 6th, 7th, 8th, etc. potential piano tuners out of a job. This is true all over the place. And this sort of truth becomes very painfully obvious when automation or technological advancement replaces the need for a worker in a specific job. It's easy to see a robot as replacing a worker. It's easy to see the rise of electric lighting putting candle makers out of business.

However, these are flawed and incomplete ways to look at economic and technological change. What actually happens when a robot does a job, or when a person does a job, or when technology makes an existing industry obsolete is that value is still being added to the economy. Jobs and wealth are not part of some fixed pie that everyone takes a slice out of and then robots can steal someone else's slice, that's not how it works. When someone does a job they add value to the whole and they take compensation. And the value they create is greater than the compensation they receive. Now, sometimes this isn't always the case, but in almost all cases it is, even the half-incompetent teenaged register operator at the local fast food place.

And this is true of robots as well, who can also be viewed as workers in a way. They increase the size of the pie much more than the amount of the pie (wages in the case of workers, maintenance and operating costs in the case of robots) they consume.

The incremental bulk economic impact is almost always positive for every worker with a job, even robots. This is why we shouldn't be concerned about foreigners "stealing our jobs" (or "jerbs" if you like), or about automation "taking away" jobs. The jobs that are available will change but the addition of positive value to the economy benefits everyone.

The trick is making sure the economy and individuals are agile enough to keep people working even as the job makeup of the economy changes.

However, change has always been a constant in the job market not just in the last half century but also throughout the industrial age, back to the medieval period, and even back to the stone age. We're just fooling ourselves if we think that the economy has been anything other than dynamic and ever changing, at any time in our past.

Again, the economy isn't based on a fixed pie of jobs or wealth that falls on us from the sky like manna, jobs and wealth are created by individuals. Not just entrepreneurs but ordinary workers create wealth and add value to the economy, the value of their labor.
Thanks - good post. That said, I don't think Fred Wilson was being unreasonable.

I'm far from an expert but I'd agree that the ad business is a tough one in which to succeed, maybe not when contrasted w/ mobile apps or gaming, but certainly when compared to other web businesses with more distinct revenue streams like enterprise solutions, etc.

Perhaps the founder of a successful advertising-based business such Bleacher Report would disagree, but he has good reason to do so!
You should see this comment about changing your hosts file: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917367
MVC seems pretty good.
I can second the Lamy Safari suggestion. I found the Safari to be extremely reliable: always starts right away (even after weeks of not writing), never leaking (even in planes and or if I shake it), and needing very little pressure to write.

It might not be the smoothest or the prettiest for its price, it's stiff as a nail but its reliability made it an everyday writer for me.
Thanks, I probably should have chosen a smarter title
Barcode co-inventor Norman Joseph Woodland dies aged 91
This is awesome but still only available if you've got Wifi access.
Highest CTR was with Perl developers? Are you sure you advertised on Facebook and not Usenet? ;).
To be clear my comment was meant to be taken as a joke, not meant to be hostile.
At least the author admits that a lot of people know more about this stuff than he does. It's tough to make big assertions when you're relatively naive.
Apple needs to hold cash to finance new production facilities. If they want to suddenly make a new hardware product that requires new factories and a supply chain, Apple will be able to fund that and beat others to the market while exerting control over the supply.
I appreciate the lesson in this post. I suffer from the same kind of 'guilt' myself, most of my freelance income right now comes from tweaking wordpress or javascript for Business Catalyst sites. It's easy to underestimate the value ones' own expertise in an area where that expertise, in the field at large, may not be very sexy or when you're dealing with non-technical clients who balk at paying more per hour than they would someone to cut their lawn, but just want their website to work.

And yet I've been told by other more seasoned pros that I should be charging three times what I am. It's kind of ridiculous how people can shortchange themselves.