skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Investigators have been known to be unduly influenced by pretty much any kind of evidence imaginable and then all further evidence is construed to support the original assumption/assertion.

A different way of phrasing this is that investigators have been known to incorrectly apply even standard tools that they've been explicitly trained in.

> I need a more concrete difference or divider to promote other methods above statistics.

If by "promote" you mean that we should try to increase the statistical literacy of lawyers, police, judges, and the general public, than hells yeah. But encouraging armchair statisticians to try to determine causality and guilt from badly-collected observational data that's analyzed by financially-invested parties...? In the highest stakes setting we have? Really?
I can vouch for this. It's well designed, and had immediate effect on our dog.

Is the trial period still one week? (You should put that information near the download button).
It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat!

Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat.

Excellent refutation of Taubes hypothesis:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese.

The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption.

They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem.

The problems are:

1. High caloric density.
2. *Vanishing* caloric density-- foods that prevent satiation.
3. Addictive flavors and sensations that cause cravings.

Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. All Ludwig's experiments suggest (as reported by Taubes, with lazy citation[1]) is that obese people who have just lost 10-15% of their weight tend to have a higher daily metabolism without conscious addition of physical exercise on a low-carb diet, compared to a low-fat diet or a low-GI diet. This in turn suggests it might be easier to maintain calorie balance on a low-carb diet than a low-fat diet (for formerly obese people who have just dieted to lose 10-15% of their body weight).

postcript:

I would also add that lifestyle changes are a factor as well as diet. Addictive foods are more dangerous to someone who has a snacking/forager mentality than someone who plans and eats fixed meals every day.

[1] This appears to be the study referenced in the NY Times article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
Beat brain decline... learn for life.
Torvalds being a meanie is dragging down the entire industry? That seems like quite the leap. Where are all of these people with patches that they have been holding on to for fear of the wrath of Torvalds, and why haven't they banded together and just ignored him?

Unlike bullies in corporations, this guy is incredibly easy to just ignore; the only reason people don't ignore him is because despite being a meanie, he still commands respect. If he didn't, he wouldn't be in the picture.
Isn't 17% roughly 20%? Or rather, isn't 17% roughly a fifth?
Speaking of speed reading, the current layout of HN is not optimal for reading. Main content width is way too long which makes of long sentences. Font size is too small - so you're forced to zoom in.

Perhaps PG could think about improving readability of the site.
Strangely enough it was my last Microsoft experience. First contact was extremely professional and the interviewers themselves, from low-level to the GM were mannered and collegial. Just a lot of really good conversations about a lot of topics. No weird topping via puzzles, etc. I ended up taking another position which allowed me to work from home, but left with a positive view of Microsoft. For me, I never thought that could happen without brain surgery.
The Shocking Savagery of America’s Early History
The same could be said about home mortgages. The increased availability in loans has exploded housing costs. ...and we've seen where that went.

The problem in all of these is the promise of a must-have little more if only repayment can be extended and others can be persuaded to contribute. What were luxuries become perceived as necessities. (And yes, I've said "no" to hospital tests, mortgage offers, and tuition financial aid.)
Statistically means it's just an inductive argument for guilt, but so is being caught on camera. So I suspect that you just don't mean to use statistical at all.

The fact is there's no hard line between good and bad evidence, though I sincerely hope Bayesian equations are never the deciding factor in court cases. Math is great, but "probably guilty" just isn't good enough unless it's incredibly probable. As in, 99% probability seems to be a near certainty, but 75%? 75% is still a strong induction, but that's a 1/4 chance you're convicting an innocent person. So where do you draw the line?

Also remember that Bayesian Probability is still susceptible to bias extremely easy just by determination of how to define the variables. If I were looking to convince a jury, it would be fairly easy to tweak the variables and have a large degree of control over the resulting probability while appearing unbiased (because of Math!). So in this sense, I think that bayesian probability is pseudomathematics. Nobody's questioning the math, but the conclusions are not purely derived from math.
"There is [sic] a lot of verbs in FP, but they don't do anything"

This is both misleading and false. Functions, by their very nature, "do something."

Perhaps you're referring to the immutability of data in a functional language? If so, say so.

"We don't manipulate the syntax tree, but it doesn't mean it isn't there."

A statement so ambiguous as to be meaningless. All compiled languages have a "syntax tree" lurking in the background. It just so happens that Lisp and its variants let you manipulate that tree directly, rather than writing in code that gets converted to that tree at compile time.

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that in Haskell, you often don't control the order in which code is executed, unlike in an imperative language where you have explicit control?

"...just saying that functions belong to the bucket of mathematical objects. As are integers. And sets."

Nope. The quote you use has it right. The names of functions are variables, whose value is looked up like any variable. This lets you pass functions as arguments to other functions, or use functions as the return value for other functions. Functions are most definitely not just like integers in a functional language.
No, it shouldn't stop the regulation of "junk food", but some parents will say, "Why are you telling me I cannot feed my family this?", and food companies will obviously complain as well.

In my opinion (as a casual observer), the regulation of "junk food" will be nearly impossible.

Edit: Fixed typo.
or "How I learnt I love horsemeat".
Animated: 30 years of music sales
Oscars 2013: Inocente is first Kickstarter-backed film to win prize
There are two schools of thought in regards to China -- that of a resurgent dragon, the other of a "benign China." Even after the Mandiant report, the latter aren't convinced. They won't change their minds until they are targeted (almost a certainty) -- I'm fine with that.
Chrome OS Coming to Tablets with Floating Menus & Touch Sensitive Housing
If anybody is deaf, how can he read?
Interesting. And Jevons himself was a pretty interesting guy, from a hacker's point of view: he built the "Logic Piano", a mechanical calculating device for Boolean logic statements, which effectively generated truth tables:

http://www.rutherfordjournal.org/article010103.html

http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/thinkers/Jevons.h...

The actual machine is largely regarded as pretty much useless (as his contemporary Venn pointed out - see the second link), but it does make him possibly the first person to appreciate the combination of Boolean logic and calculating devices...
Yes! The once-a-day meal plan (warrior diet). That's what I'm currently doing and my fitness gains have shot through the roof. I love binging on homemade fat-free pizza and cookies after my workout and being able to feel my abs on top of my bloated, satisfied stomach. Then I can go write software for 9 hours and not eat. It's truly remarkable really. I feel bad for those guys who are still driving themselves crazy eating 10 small meals a day. The body is more efficient than we give it credit for.
I read this last week when it was posted the first time (or maybe linked to on Twitter by pg). It reminded me of the details we heard about the cigarette manufacturers in the 80s and 90s. The junk food makers are operating in much the same manner.
No, it's very different. Men often times are taken seriously just because they are men. The odd thing about it however is that if you are a man, then this is not immediately obvious, because you have always been treated this way and have taken it for granted. But ask any woman in a tech field and they will give you lots of data points about how their male counterparts are always praised by their peers and superiors for minor accomplishments whereas women are either not given much credit or the stuff they do are ignored completely.

I was getting lunch with a female coworker/friend last week and we ended up talking about this very topic. We work for a software company and she's in sales. She recounted that back when she first started, other salespeople treated her like crap and blamed her for things that weren't her fault. Even when she exceeded her daily or weekly goals, she didn't receive any praise. Whereas the male salespeople who started around the same time as her were getting rewarded for performing half as well. It was only after she dominated the quarterly metrics over and over that people started to pay her any attention. Nowadays she's very highly regarded, but had to work extra hard to get that.
Sexism In Tech: We’re Not Making It Up
Why not? With config as data, you need an extra parsing step. More moving parts, more maintenance, and the same end result.
> So when working remote (as in from home) and your project manager calls you for something urgent at 10am but you are still sleeping/doing stuff with the kids etc

Worth noting that working from home does not mean you work any different hours from anyone else. In fact, your point is more of an argument FOR telecommuting than against it. At any given time that you're not "at work", it's far faster to switch to being "at work" for a telecommuter than for someone that has to head to the office to do so.
Fuck Failing Fast
It's probably better if the federal level of government sets standards and it's up to the states to implement them.

Vermont, for example, is already ahead of the curve here.
Forget the press, Mexico City air is filthy
Why in the world is IKEA making meatballs?
Reading Hacker News using Mutt or other e-mail client
You can use this script:

https://github.com/elathan/hutt

for fetching Hacker News and reading them using your favorite command-line e-mail client. Enjoy. :)
Take a chicken. Roast it, with vegetables. Include some lightly steamed vegetables. Have some kind of gravy. If you really want it have some kind of honey glazing for the carrots.

That's a reasonably healthy meal.

Take the same chicken. Take as much meat off it as you can, and sell that as chicken breast etc. Mechanically recover other bits of meat from the carcass. Shape it into a tiny mouthsize bite, with salt and spices and fat and filler. Then cover it in a breadcrumb coating. Deep fry it. (That crumb coating soaks up the oils.) Serve it with a sugary-sauce. You now have something which is much cheaper than the roast chicken; it's much easier to eat; it's weirdly tasty; but it's also weirdly not satisfying.

And the reason this is done is not to create the best tasting food possible (the motivation behind Michelin starred chefs) but to cuts costs while getting people to buy more. They don't care about the pleasure you get - they only want your money.
He may be right but that doesn't mean he doesn't sound like some 14 year old douchebag on his XBOX.
You're definition of socialism is a little funny. There's a big difference between socialized medicine as a single-payer system where the government has an incentive to keep costs low and a somewhat-centralized and somewhat-regulated system "socialized" system where the government has no such incentive.
As always, happy to answer any questions!
23 People That Lived to 100 Share Their Secret to Longevity
To be fair, that parsing step is still here-- it's just being parsed into Javascript.
I have this sort of problem all the time, and I wonder if it is due to a Problem. For example, if I become aware of my blinking (like if someone does the "manual blinking" trick on me ... ... damn it), then I become anxious and uncomfortable until I can be sufficiently distracted from thinking about it.

Another one is eye contact; I generally don't have a problem making eye contact during conversation, but if I start thinking about it, I become aware that I can only look at one eye at a time and, I get a similar feeling of anxiety and discomfort. I can't decide whether to focus on one eye, switch between them (and at what rate?), or stare past the person, "magic eye" style so they look like a triclops.
I agree that the space is crowded. And there are other issues raising the barrier to entry: user fatigue and national/supra-national legislation (like the EU anti-cookie thing etc.) which may dampen your enthusiasm in case you thought about creating yet another social thinggy.

Even on the almighty social network I can not just feel (that I could since a long time) but also see people complaining.

No latter than today I opened FB just to see one post by a friend and lots of comments about the lack of privacy on FB and why FB "knew too much" about individuals.

It's also quite amazing: that friend (and several of those who answered) hardly post anything anymore there. And the consensus was pretty much: "I'm not posting anything nor commenting on anything on FB, except when it's to bitch about FB's policies and use of our data".

Non-techies friends btw.

I'd say the problem for mainstream users is that some apps are too targeted: it may be both effective (and the most cost effective way to advertize and reach your audience), it's also creepy to many users. There are some users who realize that any site they open, anything they 'like', any video they watch is used to target them more and more. As a result they're not liking stuff anymore, not opening their mouth, not opening friends' links, etc.
Hacking Hubot with Hubot
I agree focus is the most important thing but I love having something like a half-dozen projects going on at any time. I can easily procrastinate on not doing one of them when I don't feel like by doing another, and six times slower they all move forward whereas maybe if I had just one it would be six times faster split between my project and idle browsing the web.
Let's not forget that this is how Twitter got started, too. (Though they used SMS instead of email.)
Just because something is free by no means makes it beyond reproach.
>Meta-analysis of effect of saturated fat intake on cardiovascular disease: overadjustment obscures true associations
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long

I find it hard to take that site seriously when they call fish oil a "brain booster" next to a great big affiliate link to buy fish oil supplements on Amazon [1]. Also they don't seem to have a page about trans fats at all. Are they pushing an agenda through cherry picking and deliberate omission of contrary information? I don't have the time or energy to investigate. (Note: I'm not trying to defend Taubes here, as far as I can tell he is a hack).

[1] http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/
"Servers are for chumps". Well, using EC2 still counts as using servers.
I've been waiting for that for a long time ._.
And my answer to that would be, "I'm not telling you you can't let your children eat junk food at home, any more than I'm telling you you can't let your children smoke at home. I'm just saying I don't want your children doing either of those things at school, because I don't want other children to have to deal with a social environment where those things are regarded as normal behavior."
I don't understand this sentiment. The only reason my time is being "wasted" is because I choose to click the link because I have traditionally enjoyed these sorts of controversies. You are under no obligation to participate if you don't find it enjoyable.
As good of an idea as reducing transfusions is, I can't help but think that this is the wrong way to do it.

> He said his focus was intensified by the knowledge that if a patient died for lack of blood, a second life might hang in the balance — the wait-listed patient who would otherwise have received the organ.

Doctors should not be adrenaline junkies playing with other peoples' lives, especially those who aren't even their patient. This looks like a pretty clear breach of the ethics I expect from doctors.
Over the past week or so I've seen a lot of food and diet related articles make the front page, and in the comments everyone is going on about how great their favorite diet is and how the science proves that it is the most effective way to lose weight. None of these people show any evidence however that their weight loss came from anything other than calories out > calories in. It's refreshing to see at least a few people like yourself who believe otherwise.
Cloud Based Auto Dialer and Hosted IVR
Not surprising comming from a workaholic who sleeps 4 hours a night and thinks a woman should have a baby and get back to work the same week.
>People want to blame others for their problems. Whether it's junk food

Sure, personal responsibility and all. That doesn't imply that a drug-pusher/dealer isn't an asshole.
"If a hiring process weeds out some qualified candidates, it doesn't mean it's broken. Whether or not it's broken is determined by whether the company finds a suitable candidate, how long it takes and how expensive it is."

Absolutely. But changing terms and conditions after a person has been employed is different, and, in the UK at least, may be illegal. I suspect it is the change for existing employees that surprised people.
If you learn one lesson from The Great Recession, it should be that nefarious conspiracy is not necessary for horrific outcomes. You just need the correct arrangement a lot of self-focused, insufficiently thoughtful people trying to push a graph up and to the right.

If you talk to a chef who makes a tasty dish, they understand a lot about their influence on people's health, and the ones I know feel responsible for it. A human's evolved moral mechanisms work in that context.

But if you look at the property bubble and the related financial engineering, every individual had plausible deniability. They were just following orders/incentives/the market. They had no direct moral connection to the outcome of their actions, and by and large refused to think hard enough that they could see one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

The same applies to the modern epidemic of diabetes and obesity. The human cost of that is incredible, and we will be dealing with it for decades, possibly generations.

Many processed foods are engineered, and they are addictive. The way they are created, marketed, and evaluated isn't materially different that how tobacco products were made and sold. The only real difference is how society's attitude to those products has shifted.
There is a great need for greater amounts of private funding in scientific research, but I'm worried that this format could contribute to sensationalism and rushed/biased results.
Have you never been in an IKEA before? They serve traditional sweedish food in a cafeteria at every single location. Furniture shopping can be arduous work. IKEA recognizes this and sates your hunger with cheap eats. It's part of the experience. I imagine people with full stomachs tend to buy more, too.
Why Entrepreneurs Hate (Most) MBAs
The Moneyball Approach to Content Marketing
The first question is - how much money do you have to work with? Bitcoin mining, ebay reselling etc require a certain minimum amount of money to start playing.
For NetHack, these "several annoying aspects" are probably the essence of what makes it different than most 'roguelikes' and makes it good as a separate direction/niche of gameplay.
Again there's a distinction between a chemical analysis perspective and a practical nutritional perspective. Freshly squeezed orange juice contains sugar to be sure, but in practice very few people guzzle the stuff to the point of destroying their health, whereas lots of people do precisely that with Coke.
Yes, and I am currently working on a mongoDB backend. So newest devel is in the mongoDB branch. (Last updated Feb 13.2013)
I think that the demand for Open Source FPGA tools is a real thing, but it is a very old problem now. The bitstream format hasn't been exposed since the xilinx xc6200 in the 90's, which has led to it being commonly used in FPGA compiler research. There have been efforts to reverse engineer the bitstream format, a notable paper on the subject is called "from the bitstream to the netlist:"
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1344729

This paper will explain how to reverse engineer the xilinx bitstream by examining the xdl intermediary format. the source code from this project is here (not updated since 2008):
http://code.google.com/p/debit/source/list

I think that in addition to open source tools, FPGAs will need cloud-hosted simulation, synthesis and place-and-route tools that can handle scaling up to designs with many millions of logic gates. Even in a well-partitioned design, a small change to the logic takes forever to recompile to FPGA.
Research indicates its may not be a placebo, eg: "Gluten Causes Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Subjects Without Celiac Disease: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial" (The American Journal of Gastroenterology 106, 508-514 (March 2011))

A potential contributing factor for the recent rise might the use of drugs such as be Accutane/Isotretinoin. 2 million US people have taken Accutane since 1982, and recently it has been linked to intestinal/bowel issues (including increased sensitivity to gluten).
"There is something seriously FUBAR with the design..."
I call shenanigans.

I would like you to point out another reality simulator where you can dynamically resize the simulation. Can you ask SimCity "hey, generate me a few extra acres of The World around my periphery"? Or chop it back off again?

A fixed-size simulation is the norm. Anything else is fairly exceptional (and even Minecraft has caveats). What's different here is that you get to choose the size of the simulation in a very customizable manner.
Are contributions tax-deductible?
I kinda think that if you can't come up with at least one side project easily, then maybe you shouldn't really have side projects. They should be something that inspires you, so I don't really understand people who pick side projects based on other people's suggestions or on what they think may sell. That's like not picking your trade based on what you enjoy.