skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live.

Wow. Now why was that necessary?

Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want.

For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.
Does the group keep a website/blog/vlog of eveyr meetup?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenshiro

Old-school manga trivia fail! (They were probably making a reference you were missing this whole time.)
I agree with you. However, this is not like something that has "failed" in the sense that this sort of mindset was always prevalent from the Beta of SO. This is just Jeff Atwood's philosophy plain and simple. I don't think it is, as you say, put in place to increase revenue, I think it was sort of "control freak" mindset that Jeff Atwood displayed (love it or hate it). I don't know how much Joel agreed with him on this sort of stuff in the beginning but the inane amount of micromanagement, brow beating questioners, etc was always there. You can go back to the old podcasts and blog posts for that. In the beginning, for a long time, there was push back, I felt like even in the SO blog comments there would be 25% disagreement with this idea, but I think the collective has "gotten out of control" (if you think it is bad thing). I remember long discussions on the podcast about whether some such question was relevant enough to stay on the site.

I always thought Programmers SE was just evidence of this silliness; I saw and still see no reason for it to exist outside of SO. But that's the way it goes.
There was a good write up of the context surrounding this letter in Steven Levy's book, Hackers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer...).

It pissed off seemingly everyone in the community and seemed to be against the spirit of what the hackers were doing at the time (writing and sharing code).

I recall another programmer being irritated by the letter and writing his own basic interpreter and asking $5 for it (which was far less than what Gates was asking).

Book is worth reading for the historical context of computing if you weren't around to see it.

####

Edit [Relevant part of wikipedia page]:

Tiny BASIC: Altair BASIC was an interpreter that translated instructions from the BASIC programming language into assembly instructions that the Altair 8800 could understand. It was developed by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the founders of Micro-soft, specifically for the Altair 8800 and it would fit in 4K of memory. Unlike previous hackers and against the Hacker Ethic, Micro-Soft and MITS felt that people should pay for BASIC just like they paid for any add-on card. Many hackers had in fact put in orders for BASIC, but still had to wait for the order to be shipped. During a show put up by MITS, someone got hold of and copied a paper tape containing Altair BASIC.

The tapes were duplicated and passed around freely before the commercial product was even shipped to customers. Gates and Allen did not appreciate this turn of events since they were actually paid commission for each copy of BASIC that MITS sold. Gates responded by writing an open letter titled “Open Letter to Hobbyists” that considered the sharing of software to be theft. Tiny BASIC was a similar interpreter that would fit in only 2K of memory as it supported a subset of the functionality of Micro-Soft BASIC (which itself was a subset of Dartmouth BASIC).

It was developed by Dick Whipple and John Arnold in Tyler, Texas and distributed freely in PCC magazine. Many more people sent in improvements and programs developed in Tiny BASIC to be published. This eventually led to the creation of Dr. Dobb's Journal edited by Jim Warren that distributed free or very inexpensive software in response to Gates' claims of theft. Tom Pittman was someone else who did not take kindly to Gates' words. He wrote a version of Tiny BASIC for the Motorola 6800 microprocessor.

Although he sold it to AMI for $3,500, he retained the rights to sell it to others and decided to charge only $5 for it. He received many orders and even money from people who had already gotten a copy and simply wanted to pay him for his efforts. Pittman also wrote the essay “Deus Ex Machina” on the AI and hardware hackers and what tied them together. Lee Felsenstein and Bob Marsh banded together to create a fully contained computer for an issue of Popular Electronics that they called SOL that sold for under a thousand dollars.

####
>Two programmers working 20 hours a week, for example, are way less productive than one programmer working 40 hours a week.

That makes assumptions efficiency as it relates to number of hours worked that I'm not sure you can make.

How many of those 40 hours are really spent working?

40 hour work weeks are the result of labor regulations, and the binding of health insurance to full-time employment, not a free market equilibrium.
Sorry, I must disagree. Two people working 20 hours a week are refreshed, not burned out, have time for educationally side projects, etc.

I am in my early 60s and for my whole life I limited my work hours to 32 hours per week, even working for large companies. I had lots of time for educational side projects, exercise, extra time with family and friends, and mediation.

My only regret was not perhaps cutting this to less than 30 hours. I did not work Mondays, and every Tuesday morning I was refreshed and enjoyed my work. Leaving about 20% of my salary on the table was a good trade. Some of my bosses did not like this, but when I worked I gave them 100% effort.
I think the bigger lesson to be learned is that after poorly followed ad hoc standards have made a mess of things, it's hard to come in and clean up later.
>>>It is possible for approximately anybody to cut their expenses to less than 25% of what they are today.

I will strongly agree for consumer purchases by people at or above the median household income in America. Strongly disagree for medical purchases, since if you try to save money you may die.

I'd love to see some numbers or studies to prove your claim as it applies to Americans in poverty. Even some anecdotal math would be fine, using craigslist apartments and bus ticket costs and food costs and medical costs and etc. Poverty line is 23,050 for a family of 4.

November 2012: 20% of American children live in poverty

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/
This is an interesting statement to think about. At first, I nod in agreement. Upon second thought, I realize that it points right at the age-old debate about what makes art "art".

Is good art that which sells, or is good art that which connoisseurs find taste in?

Perhaps the only reasonable response is to admit that there is value in both definitions, and it would be a good thing if the television market allowed for both approaches to flourish.

That said, even if public investors aren't provided viewership numbers, you can sure bet Netflix is paying attention internally. So this is probably just a more private version of the same old ratings game.
Names don't normally survive intact when crossing languages; even more so when crossing multiple languages (original -> Greek -> Latin -> English).

Examples from Wikipedia:

- The Greek name for Alexander is Alexandros (Ἀλέξανδρος).

- The Persian name for Alexander is Iskandar (اسکندر).

- Porus is a similarly Latinized version of the Greek version (Πῶρος) of the Sanskrit name Purushottam (पुरुषोत्तम).
If this model works than it is great for Apple and Google. TV "channels" move to becoming apps and it blows open the door for more than just a "hobby" project in the living room.
I find that processing email with mutt is faster than with outlook or gmail or other solutions.
I assume you speak from personal experience. Allow me to disagree.
Of course it's a hit. Who doesn't like radiohead?
I find very unlikely it doesn't work.

Shonky electronics are possible out of China but 100% not working electronics are rare. It's evolution.

The business would quickly go out of sale, so assuming you're buying from a reputable seller it's unlikely you get a total scam.

So to make a big call like that you really need more proof.
This is a very good tool to track patterns in the community. Realize that each of the top 200 users represent a given demographic. If you see the change over time for each user, you can pinpoint those patterns and adjust to it (if you are selling something to that market). You can also quickly learn how to create your own organic circle of upvoters, so that your company posts hit the front page without needing to email everyone in your network so they can come in and upvote (which is do not approve of and not do). Its good to create your own niche audience inside such a powerful community like this one.
Heat pumps generally beat them all, and you avoid combustion byproducts inside the building envelope.
Well, what do you mean by adequate? I doubt we'll see anything close to a physically accurate (i.e. quantum lattice simulation) representation of a cell, but we already have models that are good enough to guide research before investing on (often costly) trials with actual cells. Furthermore, with things like these, I'm much less interested in creating a human brain than I am in creating something conscious on a human level, if that is even possible. Consciousness does not imply anything to do with accuracy to the human brain.
> Wait, what? In what sense are "property rights" over content a tool exclusively for the powerful?

You misunderstand me. Property rights were once a tool of the powerful. Now they are distributed, for the better. Likewise DRM, except in some limited contexts, is primarily a tool of big companies. It would be better for it to be primarily a tool of the masses.

> In particular, money buys a whole lot of "might" when it comes to software security.

You've made my point. It's just like when firearms were the province of rich people who could afford them. Someone is going to figure out how to sell and market the same tech (polymorphically customized, or with a white box encryption layer) to the masses, who can actually make better use of it than big companies who must oppose whole hacker communities at once.
Grand Idea's from a simple mind
One could argue by their logic that Lilyhammer (the first original Netflix content) was a hit, now that House of Cards is out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilyhammer
Yeah they might, but since when have companies given out every single aspect of their private information just to appease investors?
42Floors Spam
Is 42Floors spamming the HN homepage with hiring ads? I feel like I see a 42Floors job post every couple days.

If so, please stop. If not, I'm sorry.
I disagree with the whole idea that lower quality is such an awful thing. I feel like the entire article is written through a well-educated American lens that doesn't understand why this is so revolutionary.

This has nothing to do with people who are already in universities, it has to do with all the other intelligent people, all around the world who have never had the benefit of a high quality education. And I suppose, the people in America who never had that opportunity either. To deny them that and force them to wait for some sort of 'high quality' education to come their way is ludicrous.

These sites aren't perfect but they will get better and nobody is arguing that they are amazing or that one day they will come to replace the experience of being on campus, but they are a great substitute for people who can't afford that.

Smartphones aren't exactly a replacement for mainframe computers but they're doing a great job at bringing computing to a huge number of people who are using it as a gateway to the web and all that offers. I think that's a good thing.
Yep, that's another one (number of Google searches for 'house of cards').
Yes, you have to agree with the groupthink or you are basically an outcast. That said, I think it is still very useful.

I mean on some level I think it's sort of stupid. The original idea always centered around SO being a blog for programmers that don't really blog; at least that was what was constantly talked about. However, any question or answer that contains any semblance of personality is struck down or edited to an extreme. It's really anal retention run amok. But it's still useful. :)
> but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject?

My theory: that would probably be an article unto itself. A good friend of mine, who's a 7th grade social studies teacher, shares the author's disdain for Khan's handling of history. He cited disjointed events, without any explaination of how they were connected, stating it was very "this happened, then this happened, then later THIS happened probably because of this which happened between this and this..." -- no coherent historical narrative, and ultimately more difficult to understand. It's easier to remember events when you understand their causes and purpose, rather than just their place on a timeline.

After watching Khan's Intro to CS videos, I'm inclined to trust my friend's assessment.

As far as Rhee is concerned: The crux of the argument is, ambition non-educators who try to "fix" education have a tendancy to make it worse. Rhee and the VCs fall into the same category. It's also worth noting Education reform movement has started to turn its sights on higher education as well- We got a taste of that from Bill Gates, which his thoughts on college rankings (Which probably need to be fixed, but not in the way Gates, and reformers, are proposing).
How is Netflix not using something for marketing purposes a problem for us or for FX?

Sure, there's arguments for releasing it, but I don't see any arguments for that "but it's my right to know!" feeling.
According a "friend";

Game of thrones gets downloaded by many tens of thousands in the first 24 hours. Episodes appear about 15 minutes after screening.

House of cards didn't make it to the torrents until 2 days after release and the numbers are nothing like game of thrones. Only half the episodes are available at this time.

As an Australian you could wait for it to be on TV, then it might be shown out of order, at all different (non-scheduled)times and episodes missed and cut.
> Tanks and F16s are a bit too dangerous though :)

But doesn't not having them mock and basically nullify the whole idea behind 2nd Amendment? It is doubtful that the writers wanted people be able to protect themselves against thieves, wild bears or to be able to hunt. I think few can argue against that the reason was exactly what the grandparent mentioned.

"Arms" in that time's words meant pretty much the same qualitative level of force as what the government possessed. So a 100 militia men vs 100 government soldiers would make for an even match. Unless that parity is preserved the Amendment is pointless pretty much.

Arguing that tanks, F16s, satellites, and nukes are too dangerous kind of mocks the original intent of the law. That is why I don't really see a point in that amendment. It is left there for for who like to worship a piece of paper and follow on with the ritual instead of understanding the meaning of it. Now all these "constitutionally protected" guns are probably used most often for drunk family members to shoot each other, or for kids to sneak in their parents gun cabinet and play with them.

That is why I say 2nd Amendment should be either allowed to be fully used according to its spirit (don't see people allowed to own nukes though) or it should be repealed as it is pretty much pointless at the moment.
Why not kick the whole problem down to where it constitutionally belongs: the states. The constitution is gob-smackingly clear on the issue: the federal government is not to restrict the right to keep and bear arms. It's also clear (but denied, depending on the issue in question, by both the right and the left) that the states can do whatever they damned well please in order to maintain what their people feel is a well trained (that is, "well regulated") militia, from tight restrictions on gun ownership, to allowing automatic weapons.

I dunno, maybe Texas should be free to be Texas, and New York can go ahead and be New York.

If the states just left each other alone, The Big Sort would take care of 99% of these issues. Of course, there isn't much money in that...
Well, I think ratings will always be useful—not all new shows are good, and ratings help weed the failures from the successes. I just hope for a future where ratings don't dictate income, as they currently do via advertisements. Netflix doesn't have this problem because they aren't beholden to advertisers. I hope they get The News Hour or something soon, I would watch the fuck out of it.
I'm considering getting back into remote work and/or contracting but it's been some time since I last did so. For exactly the same reasons you're enjoying it now.

Do you have any pointers on finding permanent or contracted remote work? Most of the connections I had fron before have since died out.
For what it's worth, top chess players decline in skill with age, so it matters for at least one mental activity.
>I wonder why my fridge, aircon, and stove aren't "pre heating" the cold water going into my hot water heater?

I asked the CEO of SunFrost (who make super-efficient fridges for solar houses) whether he had examined the possibility of a water-cooled refrigerator. He said that people didn't want to pay a plumber to install and remove their refrigerator, and that the lifetime savings doesn't really pay for the extra time and hardware.
I agree with some parts of your post, such as the challenges of evaluating students in more qualitative disciplines through a virtual medium, and disagree with others, such as the notion that the college experience, if I'm reading this right, is the optimal way to forge an identity, function in society etc. etc.

But I think the edit is the most important point here. I really think community colleges, vocational training, and a focus on helping young people evaluate their ambitions in life should be a goal of our society in the coming years. Too many people clog up universities studying things like business and psychology because they've been told it's "the next step."

I believe most people would be happier and less indebted if they were given a cheaper, and arguably more valuable vocational education, job training, and a career, which would enable them to buy stuff, raise children, and stay out of debt, which is enough for a lot of people to be happy.

Furthermore, I think this would spell the end for a lot of colleges and universities I feel serve no purpose except to employ educators and swindle students. I mean, do we really need UC Merced and Cal State Stanislaus? What do these institutions accomplish? I'm sorry if this is an offensive or glib point, I readily admit I'm a bit inebriated at the moment, but I'm just not sure why we have these "in between" schools. Are these guys better off than the people at the CCs? I just don't think so.
Well, electric ultralights are still largely prototypes (although a quick Googling makes it look like production units may be available soon). They're definitely not quiet though -- electric motors are quieter than gasoline, but at that size they still make noise. I can't speak as to the radar signature of ultralights. An ultralight that could carry a 50kg payload would be at least the size of a small powered hang glider trike, if we assume negligible weight allowance for the control system and a payload capacity equivalent to the weight of an average human pilot.
> I hear this and variants of this argument often but it always seems to be taken completely on faith.

Current college student; I've dropped out of college and returned. So, for me, college has been, is, and will probably continue to be the worth more than just what I am paying for (though I am probably overpaying for those parts). This certainly does not apply to everyone, but I think it does apply to many people.
Do you have any proof that Strong AI would be safe for humans?
How to Figure Out Your Competitors’ Revenues in About 70 Seconds
Down from here (404)
News is not art. Or more accurately, art is not news. Sure, there's value in many things on the spectrum from trashy celebrity gossip to ground-breaking scientific reporting to reality television and music videos and much more - not all of it is news.

In art, wine, whisky, software, many areas it's fine to argue whether quality or popularity is king ($20 blended vs. 30yo single malt, beautiful code vs. news.arc), but not in news. There's good news and there's crappy news, and sadly it seems crappy news is the more popular, but that doesn't mean it's better.

It may generally be a snobby view to take, but I think I'm reasonably unbiased in that I light trashy celebrity gossip and shit entertainment forms as much as anyone.

Side note: Sorkin's The Newsroom tackles the debate of quality vs. ratings when it comes to televised news. It's an absolutely fantastic show (at least it is if, like me, you share the creator's left-leaning politics, I've no idea if people with differing views would necessarily enjoy it as much as I do.)
Why sex could be history
The second amendment may have originally been intended to protect the population from the federal government, but subsequent advances in weapons technology and military tactics have rendered that protection completely ineffective. At the same time, these advances make it possible for even a single person to inflict incredible harm on a population, harm far beyond what the writers of the constitution could have imagined.

The argument therefore is that widespread possession of particularly dangerous weapons by the general population has no benefit and substantial drawbacks.

Nobody is seriously considering banning ownership of rifles, but it's worth discussing how more stringent requirements on training, registration, and storage could reduce the number of deaths by firearm.
> The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not?

If you're in the media journalism industry (as, say, a writer at Vulture), of course you want to know whether it's a hit or not. Ratings numbers are the perfect excuse to write weekly opinion pieces about how Netflix is doomed/thriving to drum up pageviews.
College Athletes: Go on Strike
Also, The Crying Game was a dude, Lost was all a dream, Maggie shot Mr Burns, and games just aren't fun.
>It looks like the modern version of this technology can be useful today.

Low-Tech Magazine has, surprise!, a pro- low-tech bias.
Yeah, I have similar feelings. I have more rep and at the time my usage dipped it was a fairly high number, but far less than people like Jon Skeet. I stopped answering and engaging a few years ago. It just seemed like at some point enough LRH (or JA, if you like) tech was disseminated on the site that even very good participants on SO that dared to have different opinions were relegated to SO's version of RPF or just deemed SPs altogether. :)
Marketing Bits: Understading A/B testing.
PG County has wide variance in income. Further out in the county there are fairly well-off people. But there is a dense population of urban poor near the DC border.
I'd be thrilled if we had a simulation that we trusted so much that we could consider skipping trials on actual cells.
I agree, the Kelly Criterion tells you what size of bet to make. And if the size of the bet you should make is greater than your bankroll (or risk appetite), then logically... you should not make the bet.

And (indeed), this is the exact analogy you're using. If you place bet after bet after bet (ie. doing repeated failed startups), then perhaps you should re-evaluate your bankroll (opportunity cost?) and do something else for a bit.

[I think we're in agreement. I just wouldn't use positive expected value as the argument.]