skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
EC2 instances are virtualized machines, right? What about differing CPU contention (i.e. steal times) based on the load of other virtual machines on the same box?

I don't think the results would change much, but to be safe, I think you should run this comparison on multiple random ec2 instances, to account for differing external loads.
Infrastructure: Don't Study It, Build It (Agile Style)
I'm aware of problems there. (As the wikipedia article discusses.) It's still the best overview, though. I am tempted to say that a country that can't administer a credible IQ test probably doesn't need to.

Actually, the African countries aren't of serious concern. [1] Rather, the disparities between developing countries' current wealth and predicted wealth based upon current IQ have their uses:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FEMKX&t=my&l=off&...

[1] The "are black people less intelligent?" question is actually pretty trivial, and has very few practical applications.
If there is anybody here who thinks that blacks and Jews are genetically equivilent in intelligence, raise your hands. Please, I beg you.

Ooh, this is getting nasty. A smart guy once told me when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I'm black and even I can figure out how to heed that advice! This is instructive though, so keep doing what you're doing.

Sub-sahara Africa has been near-100 percent black for many millenia.

Most African countries had robust cultures and economies before they were plundered by the European imperialists. For example, as hard as it is for you to believe, the first great libraries (pre-dating even the one in Alexandria) were in Africa. I guess you think that because Native Americans were successfully conquered, subjugated, and impoverished they must not have been very bright either.

There's so much to say, but again you're really doing a great job sinking your own ship. It's hard not to respond to you, but for the sake of my coding, I'm gonna try to keep my finger off the reply button for the rest of the night.

Again, if you want to take this cultural discussion further, do feel free to post a new thread and I'll address it at length tomorrow or so, I promise.
Any idea how they compare when using rails caching? Is there an equivalent in ErlyWeb?

I'd be curious to see the numbers, as the gap could go either way. I'm not sure if rails is worse with threads or worse with rendering or both.
Money can't buy happyness, but happyness does not buy food, houses, vacations or a porsche
I think the main distinction between web and print is that the web expects content to be free. Most free online material on a given subject is garbage or fluff. The average quality of printed information is higher, because of the monetary aspect.

However, there's tons of great information online locked up in databases and newsletters requiring paid subscription. It's just that when people talk about "the web" they're usually referring to all the free crap.
Trivial? You have to define black, you have to define intelligent, and if the answer happens to be an unorderable set, you have to define _less_.

I'm unconvinced that they're measuring generated wealth by IQ, either. Most of the administered tests weren't IQ tests, they were educational tests. They measured the standard deviation of the _nation's_ mean, and then mapped that to an IQ. The correlation thus isn't a direct one between IQ and generated wealth, but rather between educational performance and wealth. More obvious, this one is.
Followup:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aWq9...

Family makes 60k or less? You go for free. Perfect usage of the huge fund.
If you want to avoid discrimination, just start your own company and avoid the whole mess!
Ask YC: Equity for First Developer
I am the first hired developer in a team of 3, we are all equally responsible for the development of the site. I am already working at 63% of market pay and we are developing an equity deal which is open for negotiation at this point. What do you guys consider a fair amount, I'm gunning for 7-10% is that fair for everyone?

P.S. This is a part-time project for me.
Exactly what I'm doing! :D
can you be a bit more specific about your position and the compensation you are already receiving?
It's a part-time project for you or for everyone?
please see the modifications above?
How far along were they before they hired you?
I think he's probably literally psychopathic. I say this as someone reading who's been reading Wikipedia about the subject for about 5 minutes.

My official diagnosis is that he is a Factor 1 psychopath exhibiting symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder for positive effect according to PCL-R Model of psychopathy.

Alex behaviour demonstrates a strong correlation with the known symptoms of psycopathy including: glib and superficial charm, grandiosity, need for stimulation, pathological lying, conning and manipulating, lack of remorse, callousness, poor behavioral controls, impulsivity, irresponsibility, failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions.

I recommend that he eats humble pie three times a day before he gets his just desserts, after all you are what you eat.

I'm off to pop a few jealously tablets.
In general 7-10% for a part-timer sounds quite high.

Almost as significant are the vesting terms which you haven't mentioned anything about.
It sounds nothing like that thread a few months ago where the guys were going to give 2% to a developer. It looks like you're in the right ballpark. You should consider how much you're adding to the company by joining, as explained in the Paul Graham article, the Equity Equation.

I'd figure out different scenarios where your equity goes from 7% to 33%, and maybe even 45% if you're the only technical guy.
Ask YC: Project management
I'd like to ask everyone, since I'm working on a project management app:

1) How does your perfect project management app look like?

and as a bonus

2) What are your grips with basecamp?

Thanks
I think another factor is that people watch TV and play video games not because they "choose" stay within the local maximum, but because their daily jobs have drained most of their energies, that they don't have enough left over to tackle anything ambitious.

Also people's off hours are periodcially scattered, which makes it difficult to focus enough time and energy to create sufficient escape velocity for exiting the vicious cycle.
Most of what is gem-like about Emacs seems to be hidden.
Are you only investing your time? How many hours (a week)? Rather what proportion of time (compared to the others) are you investing?

What are the other guys getting paid.. both interms of stock and salary?
I think the key point is not that the Ivy Leagues have dangerous wealth in and of itself. The problem is that they have wealth at the expense of other, arguably more needy institutions. When Princeton is getting $136 million dollar student dormitories, many other public universities are lacking funds for more basic necessities.
"... There should be no great mystery about Asian achievement. It has to do with hard work and dedication to higher education, and belonging to a culture that stresses professional success. But Flynn makes one more observation. The children of that first successful wave of Asian-Americans really did have I.Q.s that were higher than everyone else's--coming in somewhere around 103. ..."

Only at the summary do you get a hint why this might be. My guess is access to improved nutrition could be one factor.
Yeah, the other article (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_...) was fantastic as well.
In any case, he's not even arguing about intelligence per se. Rather, he's supporting James Flynn's argument that IQ tests are flimsy instruments for measuring intelligence. Flynn's argument is that kids from societies/households which require high abstract cognition (read: modernness) will score better on some of the IQ sub-tests (eg. similarities and abstract taxonomy).

This suggests that kids can be "trained" to score well on IQ tests. There is more than socioeconomic factors at work here, and cultural factors (particularly those that influence cognitive modes of thought) are important. But ultimately, IQ tests are probably a dubious measure of someone's general intelligence anyway.
And many hackers are atheist.
I'd say the self-selection bias would be a big factor. Most of the dumbass and lazy Asians probably stayed at home. Those first generation asian-american kids would likely have had the value of hard work forcefully instilled in them as well.
Damien Katz is starting to get pissed at Erlang
Many are not. In fact, statistics would suggest most, by far, even if you're willing to believe (which i have seen nothing to backup) that "hackers" are more likely.
Weeblies and Xobni featured in Collegian Article
Their story has quickly become Penn State lore of the new millennium: An idea that started out as one student's response to a class project has now developed into a potentially multimillion-dollar company.
For all that didn't recieve a invite from YComb
The Catholic Church seems to do alright.
Merb | A different Ruby framework
That was a primary motive of mine.
and Xobni WE ARE - PENN STATE
Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh Let's Go State!

I'm a current Penn State student and you guys at Xobni and Weebly really are a great inspiration for all of us in Happy Valley. Thanks for blazing the trail for the rest of us. It was great to hear you speak at the I2V conference a few weeks back.
Haha, more like Perez Hilton.
Canadian DMCA Introduction Delayed
Uhm, so what? It's not like he's infallible. His comments on why Java's misunderstood are silly! Judge the man by what he says, not by his past reputation.
Penn State sucks.

(The Pitt fight song was recently rewritten to take out a pause during which "Penn State sucks!" was screamed. It's a one-sided rivalry, because the teams haven't played in a long time. Pitt would be happy to play Penn State again in football, but PSU demands two home games for every one played at Pitt.)

I don't actually hate Penn State, I just think the pseudo-rivalry is hilarious. The best part of football games is when a chant of "Penn State Sucks!" starts for absolutely no reason.
Larry Wall: On programming languages
Define "how much" - some people think in terms of a good salary etc (but then question of security dilutes value) - a lump sum in some liquid form? Or cashflow from a passive income source.

I guess its not just money but the security that it brings.
I think its more then a few years - unless he has a habit of crashing uninsured lear jets into great public buildings.
Or maybe Turtle from Entourage.
Introduction to continuations [pdf]
Heh - lucky you. I am orbiting a supermassive black hole (at least I think that is what it is) 8.5 kilo-parsecs away. At least the fusion reaction is nice and warm.
I would agree with that. A day in to a holiday I am a mess trying to work out what to do first.
the best part about the pitt-pennstate rivalry is that pennstate doesn't really care much about pitt, we care about ohio state, who incidentally also cares mostly about michigan (although OSU probably cares more about us now with our recent history). on the other hand, pitt fans seem to passionately hate pennstate.

we hate pitt about as much as we hate northwestern, which is to say, not very much.
edw519: you nailed it! I now understand why my auto mechanic disdains my mathematics degree.
you're really doing a great job sinking your own ship.

You realize this isn't much of an argument, don't you?

The reason I brought up Jews was because I'm not Jewish and so I consider myself neutral in the matter. I have nothing to gain from whatever inborn virtues jews might have. But the evidence still stands... I also have nothing to gain from whatever inborn virtues the Chinese might have. But the evidence still stands... I'm also not offended by the Parsis or Armenians or Brahmans or any of them, despite their achievements. What does it cost to be honest? People are different, and if we deny it, we make mistakes...

Most African countries had robust cultures and economies before they were plundered by the European imperialists.

It's just a cop-out. Every piece of land in this world (with a few exceptions) has been overrun and plundered and ravaged time and time and time again. People just can't get over those evil European colonists. No one ever complains about the Turks or Tatars or Mongols or Huns or Aztecs or Arabs or a thousand others...all monstrous in their time.
Boredom relieving sites?
Remember RSS-SSE?  The final draft was just released and it's now called FeedSync.
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Good summary. Pitt has largely been irrelevant since their glory days of the early 80s, and even with a marginally decent record under Walt Harris all you need to say is "Big East" to that. What do they have, Notre Dame and WVU?
There's always basketball...
Oh, well I thought in your post where you talked about only Pitt/PSU football that's what we were discussing.

I have no comment about our atrocious basketball team...
women's basketball!! :)
Why Advertise on a Site That is Experiencing the Digg Effect?
We know that websites like Digg.com are making significant amounts of money through selling advertisements on their site, but what about those websites that appear on Digg.com's front page? Here are the pros and cons.
That would certainly seem to justify coach salaries.
True. Penn State demands two home games for every one away game at Pitt because the football (and whatever tiny amount of money they raise from men's/women's basketball, if any at all) revenue pays for the ENTIRE cost of varsity Penn State athletics. They're very proud that none of our tuition is used for athletics. So they argue they need to have so many home games to ensure they continue to fund all of the other sports teams.

Plus Pitt would benefit from the rivalry much more than Penn State would. Pitt would sell out Heinz Field, something I'm not sure they have done other than maybe for a Backyard Brawl, while Penn State sells out over capacity for games against Florida International, as well as every other opponent.
There's absolutely no point discussing this.

Race has bearing on:

- skin color

- whether you're likely to get sickle cell anaemia

- the age your children develop teeth

- the age your children walk

- the size of your penis (if you have a Y chromosome)

- the amount of fast twitch fibres in your muscles

It has no bearing whatsoever the brain. Why? Because of magic. While all of the aforementioned effects of race on physiology links are well known and freely discussed, race cannot have any bearing on anything inside the skull, because the brain is magic.

Anybody that suggests otherwise, or suggests investigating or discussing the effects of race on the brain is a racist and we need to moderate them down.

The only people who would discuss such things are racists with an agenda like James Watson, not scientists like the people that understand how the brain has magical properties.

Brain=magic. You don't even need to read the article. Now lets moderate the racists down!
Why are athletics so important? I think they just help colleges attract money, no real intrinsic value.
Well, not precisely a role model.
moleskine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moleskine
Perfect project management app = pen and sheet of paper or whiteboard with stickers.

Anything computer-based is too boring and not very helpful in real life. Project management is a process, not an app. It should be done by people, not computers, and it requires energy and discipline, not algorithms or bar charts.

Face the reality:
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-9593-0.html?forumID=1&thr...

This may sound crazy but my suggestion for a project management app would be to include some funny or gameplay elements. How about a lottery inside project management app? ("Complete a milestone on time and get a chance to win a case of beer!"). Something to entertain and encourage poor souls who would be forced to use the app.
Until you go to the bank for a loan.

"What's that? Your parents aren't rich? Nor are your friends? All you have in collateral is an old Buick? Next please."
1) Race, genetically, doesn't exist. People who are black basically have one trait in common: black skin. Just think of how "White" covers a range from the Sami people of Scandinavia all the way to the Portuguese or the Persians. And "black" covers everything from Zulus to Pygmies.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1998-10/WUiS-GSRD-071...

This isn't to say that heredity plays no part, or that certain groups of people won't be more likely to have certain traits. Maybe you could say that some tribes in West Africa are such-and-such. But we can't expect our eyes to reveal genetic truths.

2) I think you're missing Gladwell's point. It is not that heredity doesn't affect the brain. It's that IQ testing is far too flawed to yield meaningful results, especially when comparing groups of people tested in different places and at different times.

In the story, they mention how properly normalized IQ tests find that Asians have a lower average IQ than whites. They speculate that Asians' success in academics is due to cultural values and individual efforts -- and if you know any super-achiever Asian students, that was in plain sight all along!
So this is the argument from bias: I perceive the author to have been favorable to one side, therefore I discard all his evidence and argumentation.

Bias itself is not a flaw in an argument. Bias may tell us where to look for flaws in the argument.
At a certain level, everything is hereditary, and at another level, nothing is hereditary.

Take a Norwegian. Put him in a suntanning booth 5 hours a day. His skin will be dark.

Take an African. Never let him see sunlight in his life. His skin will be light.

Take an XX embryo, inject male growth hormones into the womb at the proper time, it will grow a penis.

Take the children of geniuses, have it raised by a Harlow-style "wire mother," and it'll be as dumb as a brick.

The question isn't "nature vs. nurture." It's how much of each is involved. The question about the black-white test gap is not "Are blacks born dumb?" It's "Have we already pushed everyone (black, white, visual learner, auditory learner, whatever) to the outer limits of their innate capacity?" Since the Flynn effect exists, the answer is probably, "No."

On top of that, intelligence is not a one gene, on-off thing. It's a million different things working together better or worse. That's why intelligence is distributed in a Bell curve. Anytime you have a bunch of different factors influencing things at random, a Bell curve develops, since there are more ways to randomly have a bunch of X, a medium amount of Y, but not enough Z than there are to have a bunch of all three. This means we're talking about a wide variety of genes, not just one pair of deformed genes like sickle cell anemia.

On top of all that, IQ tests are designed to measure something called "g" which is supposed to predict general ability, but the whole thing is a statistical chimera. G should be able to tell you how good you are at any other test, plus or minus a small factor of particular competency in the field, plus or minus an even smaller amount of randomness, but it doesn't actually do that. So, IQ tests basically only measure ability to take IQ tests and are vaguely correlated with other, useful abilities in the same way that height is "correlated" with the ability to drive. (Ever see a six year old who could parallel park?) See http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html for a full breakdown on why "g" isn't actually a useful thing to measure.

Anyhow, there's three different problems with linking IQ and race, and none of them have anything to do with the brain being magic.
I have taught in Japan. Their dumbasses say, "hi."

(Seriously, "the Asians = smart" myth doesn't last long if you actually meet normal people in Asia. Normal Asian people are... of normal intelligence! What a shock!)
So what would you do if you had your $2E6?
"1) Race, genetically, doesn't exist."

You are talking about race as if 'black' or 'white' were a race. This is confusing race with skin color. I have not done this and neither should you.

"2. Gladwell's point ..is that IQ testing is far too flawed to yield meaningful results"

I completely agree with Gladwell's point. My post above is satirising this thread and the discussion therein.
If anything, the Chinese should be the dumbest, the Europeans second dumbest, the Africans smartest. Think about it:

For centuries, what did you do if you were a bright kid in China? Get your balls loped off and become a eunuch. Who needs children when you have the Imperial household to run? Even if you didn't become a eunuch, you at least became a Buddhist monk or something if you were smart.

Europe was pretty much the same thing. Smart people became priests and monks, who, while not completely celibate in the real world, still had much lower rates of reproduction.

On the other hand, in Africa, you gotta be smart, or your ass is lion fodder. Are you a lazy daydreamer with no head for thinking? Too bad, because when the drought comes, only smart dudes will be able to provide for their families through alliances and phony witch doctor magic tricks.

----

That a story like this can be so easily constructed is why I never put too much stock in things like evolutionary psychology per se. It's easy to come up with a fable that "explains" why the world is the way it is. Real history and real facts are much harder to piece together.
"There's three different problems with linking IQ and race, and none of them have anything to do with the brain being magic."

Indeed, all of those problems exist. However they can be more or less overcome, especially over time.

- In the first case, as with the Italians immigrating to the US, and their second generation children, per the article.

- Larger sample sizes, and lessening of socioeconomic and cultural differences should help the second case.

- The last could be assisted by better definitions of 'intelligence', or finding another, more specific field to measure.

My point is, however, that despite the improvements that could be made in this field of research, nobody will fund or perform it at least in the US.

Why? Because the brain is magic, and people who discuss physiological differences between races involving brains are racists.
It's like that scene in a movie where the protagonist first gets his psychic powers and he can't help but read people's minds. He looks at the woman in the corner, "...OH YEAH, THEN WE SHOULD GO TO THE..." He grimaces. He looks at the boy walking by, "..SHE'S TOTALLY FINE..." He clutches his head to shut out the voices.

It's just like the movie in real life, except the people are all holding cellphones.
Easier than the other way around, put it that way. We're building an international team with a global mindset, so that flexibility is essential.
Another Bubble?
Follow-up: OGG has now been removed from the HTML5 spec.
So true. The alumni that keep colleges alive are pretty generous after winning seasons.

It's also interesting to me how this trickles down to high schoolers. Tons of kids do athletics in high school because it will get them into college (or maybe the NFL) but for the most part people are no longer into it once they are in college.

Most college freshman I know are pretty much done impressing people with athletics. It might get them laid or something, but it has little value beyond staying healthy, doing teamwork, etc. Not that that's bad, but Goldman Sachs doesn't really hire based on athletics.