skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's exactly my point. You can't even remotely earn enough interest on treasuries to offset the destruction in the dollar that is occurring as the Fed generates massive inflation (aka expands the money supply at a record pace). The M2 is expanding at 12%, and the M1 is expanding at 7.5%.

You don't have to take my word for it. The destruction has already occurred, and is getting worse. A 5 minute effort on calculating what your dollar will purchase today versus 10 or 15 years ago, proves that. Except now your treasury paper yields almost nada because the Fed is acting to destroy your 'return' by holding rates artificially low while devaluing the dollars you use every day to do so.

Treasury paper is as dangerous as holding your money in a Cyprus bank. The next decade is going to be a fiscal disaster for the US. The bill is coming due, and not only can the US not afford to repay its debts ever, but it can't afford any real interest on its debt (4% * $20 trillion = bankrupt US Government). This isn't going to happen in decades, it's happening now, which why the Fed can't raise interest rates, can't ever sell off its holdings, can't stop buying 85%+ of all the US Government debt being issued, and can't stop buying mortgages. Worse yet, they're going to increase their purchases again this year.
In one sense, this submission really is politics and I feel bad about
up-voting it, since politics are against the HN site guidelines.

In another sense, this is also about tech, specifically, bitcoin. The
desperate people in Cypress may turn towards alternative currencies as a
way to escape their situation.

I know there are a lot of folks around here who vocally support bitcoin
or other alternative currencies. For me the idea is very interesting,
but the reality makes me nervous. There are one of two possibilities;
either (1) I know bitcoin well enough to never trust it, or (2) I don't
know bitcoin well enough to make an informed decision.

I'm still betting on the latter. ;-)

None the less, there's a lot of negative bitcoin news that never makes
the front page of HN, and I wonder why. The most recent was:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459304

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY

The worst part of the above could the sensationalism, but in my
opinion, it's my inability to verify the veracity of the claims. Are
they just muckraking to (successfully) cause "Fear, Uncertainty, and
Doubt" (FUD)? --Sadly, stuff like this makes us already skeptical and
squeamish folks even more nervous about it.

Market manipulation is a very real problem in all markets, so even if
the above is entirely true, it's merely one instance of graft against
bitcoin, when there are countless instances of corruption in all the
other markets.
Troubleshooting Correctly with Traceroute (PDF)
Scientists identify brain's molecular memory switch
Whenever ability tracking is tried in any multiracial society, it always, and I mean always, results in markedly different outcomes for various racial groups. Is that not, ipso facto, racism?
> how do you safeguard your savings then?

If your savings are legal, and you don't mind paying taxes on them, you have many obvious choices.

If your savings are not legal, or if you want to escape paying taxes, then you have different choices and greater risk.

Finance is about one thing: risk versus reward, and in this case, the tradeoff was very clear. Any non-Cypriots who lost money in Cyprus are not as naïve as they would have us believe.
Schools were forced to stop teaching anything "arts", effectively, by NCLB (which is basically designed to destroy public schooling and give that to private industry).

Many schools would love to get more arts back in their curriculum, but their funding goes away if they don't focus on those damn tests to the exclusion of all else.
I know nothing about plumbing. So when my kitchen sink went haywire, I called a plumber. He installed a new waste disposal for me and, according to the Internet price listings for the exact model he put in, overcharged me by about $250. When I implied I knew what was going on, he explained it was for warranties, which... seemed implausible unless he was getting stiffed himself.

I decided not to take him to task for it, since he was probably giving me the price his company told him to, but it was still irritating and something I'd like to avoid repeating.
"deposit guarantee schemes may be required to contribute to the recapitalization of the firm"

Saying the deposit guarantee scheme may have to contribute means the bank may not have sufficient assets to cover insured deposits and so deposit insurance funds may have to make up the difference. When your house in Staten Island gets razed by Sandy, the insurance company pays up. Similarly, if an insured bank is unable to come up with enough cash to cover insured deposits, the FDIC has to pony up.

The worst case for FDIC insured deposits is you getting a cheque from the FDIC. If JPMorgan Chase goes under with worthless assets and busts the FDIC, you're still in luck since the federal government backstops your deposit insurance, and unlike Cyprus, the U.S. can print dollars.
HR 1312: Geolocation Surveillance Bill
1. Create computer virus
2. Spread computer virus
3. Sue victims for copyright infringement
Joe Armstrong: "The problem that the rest of the world is solving is how to parallelise legacy code."

Donald Knuth: "During the past 50 years, I’ve written well over a thousand programs, many of which have substantial size. I can’t think of even five of those programs that would have been enhanced noticeably by parallelism or multithreading."
Google Analytics’ Real-Time Stats Feature Event Reports, Device Breakdown
>Second, Japanese architecture is interesting, no building is ugly, both the modern ones (like the waterfront building that did not got smashed) and old ones (the traditional-looking houses).

I promise you this is not true. Run-down buildings are to be had like anywhere else, and the country probably has slightly more than its share of ugly post-modern bullshit architecture.

That said, the pretty stuff is really pretty, IMO.
Most of the talk I've heard on Bitcoin is BS. I'm enthusiastic on Bitcoins and their uses, but I don't see it replacing other investments on a large scale soon. I don't even want to see that.

From an investment point of you, all deposits are investments, so putting 700k into some undercapitalized bank is almost as stupid at converting it to BTC...

Only almost as stupid because these banks have historically had less risk than BTC, surprisingly...
Do they mean grouping kids by ability as opposed to grouping them by age, or grouping them by age as usual and then further dividing them into groups by ability?
It's not pretending, they actually are patenting the method rather than the code itself. It's a critical distinction, as code is actually copywritten.

There's a huge difference between design and implementation.
Nice.

How are people doing this? Are they reverse engineering Minecraft or is the server side fairly straightforward?
No the decision has been already made, Laikie is being dissolved, so there won't be any haircut. You will get only Euro 100k

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/details-euimf-bailout-
agreement-cyprus/20130325

"Laiki will be resolved immediately - with full contribution of equity shareholders, bond holders and uninsured depositors - based on a decision by the Central Bank of Cyprus, using the newly adopted Bank Resolution Framework."
My artist life partner had a good laugh when she found out that our male friend is waiting for a handyman to have her painting hanged as if driving nail into a wall was some sort of job for skilled professional.
Is the EU EUR100k guarantee per person and not institution?
The best analysis of what was really going on I've read up to now.
Assuming that is true inflation will still decrease the real value of the goods I purchase providing you with a greater share of the economy year after year. The general idea is that goods will increase at a higher rate than $1/year providing me with more wealth regardless of how rich you become. Unfortunately while a good idea in theory it hasn't really seemed to work in the US. The gap between the rich and the poor increased dramatically and minimum wage workers having trouble surviving.
It's not just the DB test. The JSON test was way slower than Netty, too.
The argument about inflation really depends on what you have to do with the money besides putting it into investments, and what other investment options out there.

It is still consensus that the bond rate + inflation risk is understood much better than any other asset I can think of. I'm talking about the financial term 'risk' here, not the colloquial one that you are using. In financial terms, you can have a loss without any risk and still be happy about the position afterwards...
But Play's trivial JSON test was much slower than Netty's.
I feel exactly the same way. Nothing makes me happier than to hire a skilled tradesman and see the great results when the work done. His work is going to be much better than mine, assuming I could even do it. I don't really understand why any guy would be threatened by this. I think of it as working smarter, not harder.
It's great that your startup is doing well, but hardly any good engineer wants to be an employee any more than you do.
Would you work at a startup where an engineer/founder is your boss just because their business is doing well and THEY are making a profit?

Lets stop this interesting problem bullshit that is repeated over and over. Engineers are not stupid.
Because of the comment thread at the bottom of each function page... people paste in a common error and how to solve it. The docs are good not because they're written better (though in some cases they are) but because of the user contributed content which the python docs lack. I wish the python docs all has a disqus thread at the bottom.
Storify goes VIP with WordPress
You don't like notch, who is one of the nicest and modest people in the world, because of a programming decision he made on his game and his product? You may disagree with a business decision, but saying you dislike someone personally because of it is a bit much.
I debug my css on Chrome and it is a breeze. And with a reset I almost don't need to debug it in IE
Toosell blog | How to wipe your iPhone Memory Clean
They are all dealing with their own problems, it's just that almost every country is dealing with their issues instead of postponing it.

You can picture it as going through therapy or adolescence. And boy what a drama that is...
What's funny is that the FDIC is funded by the banks themselves, the same people who need the bail-outs in the first place. The FDIC insurance fund has about $30 billion, while total US bank deposits are around $5 trillion[1], and outstanding derivatives in the hundreds of trillions with JPMorgan Chase[2] holding $78 trillion worth. Who knows how much of this is toxic?

Working backwards, on your second point, if the FDIC ran out of money, the taxpayer might eventually have to step in, which might not be politically feasible if taxpayers have bail-out fatigue.

"During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress." [3]

On your first point, the full paragraph provides better context, where they are saying they want to use insurance funds to recapitalize the bank and prevent a bust from happening in the first place. Of course, the bank might need more money, leaving the insurance fund empty, and deposit holders at risk.

"34 The U.K. has also given consideration to the recapitalization process in a scenario in which a G-SIFI’s liabilities do not include much debt issuance at the holding company or parent bank level but instead comprise insured retail deposits held in the operating subsidiaries. Under such a scenario, deposit guarantee schemes may be required to contribute to the recapitalization of the firm, as they may do under the Banking Act in the use of other resolution tools. The proposed RRD also permits such an approach because it allows deposit guarantee scheme funds to be used to support the use of resolution tools, including bail-in, provided that the amount contributed does not exceed what the deposit guarantee scheme would have as a claimant in liquidation if it had made a payout to the insured depositors."

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-23/u-s-deposits-post-b...

[2] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/4-wall-st-banks-still...

[3] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/when-you-werent-looki...
Can we get a JS answer to this in the browser? I'm curious if Three.js can match this level of terseness.
Just so we are clear, demanding is not the opposite of being nice.
Cyprus's finance minister said Tuesday that large deposit holders at Cyprus Popular Bank PCL (CPB.CP), the island's second biggest lender, could face losses of as much as 80% on their deposits as the government moves to wind down its operations.

Speaking in a television interview with state broadcaster RIC, Michalis Sarris indicated that it could also take years before those depositors see any of their money returned.

"Realistically, very little will be returned," Mr. Sarris said.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/03/26/cyprus-finance-mi...
> Greek's insolvency impacted Cyprus greatly, because a large portion of the Cyprus population are of Greek descent.

Just to add a little context to this. Cyprus is a divided country, as a result of a conflict in 1973 between Turkish Cypriots (and Turkey) and Greek Cypriots (and Greece). The Greek Cypriots favoured unification with Greece (Enosis) whereas the Turkish minority felt threatened by this (due to various times in which sectarian violence had spread on the Island, and also due to fears of reprisals for anti-greek pogroms in mainland Turkey). The whole thing is really complicated and basically no-one wins.

Fast forward to 2004 and a referendum is held on whether Cyprus should unify. The Turkish north votes yes, the Greek south votes no and Cyprus enters the Euro leaving Northern Cyprus out in the cold.

The people with over 100k Euros that are being affected the most aren't the Russian depositors but older Cypriots who rode the tourist property boom. There was a vote on this and it was turned down, and then the Troika (of the Eurozone countries, ECB and IMF) decided they'd sidestep the whole thing and re-arrange the country's banking system for them.

The amount the troika were looking for was not a great deal of money to the EU or IMF, about €6 billion. This represents less than the amount spent on administration or internal policies in the last budget, and would be less than a fifth of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget. This figure was also arbitrarily decided by the troika not based on what Cyprus could actually afford (given the size of it's collapsing economy) but for political reasons because it's politically unacceptable for Germany to be seen by Germans to provide no strings bailouts to another Greece, and the IMF wanted to restructure Cyprus' banking system.

The big problem is that with this intervention it sets two extremely dangerous precedents. The first is that exiting the Euro (which would've been better for Cyprus) is not an option for bankrupt Eurozone countries. It's not even on the table. The second is that what's happened in Cyprus this week can happen in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg (where the real Russian money is) or Ireland next week or at any point in the future, and as Shenglong said, banks are the major savings depository for most of Europe. If that doesn't scare my American friends then nothing will.
No, they're not.

If I wanted to buy something right now, I wouldn't be reading HN, I'd be browsing Amazon or whatever site sells what I needed to buy.
> it always, and I mean always

It doesn't care what you mean when you don't have the evidence to back it.
A lot of the British deposits were made by the UK MOD in order to pay staff at the two British airbases in Cyprus. Understandably, many of these staff had deposits in local banks.
just wanted to let you know you got hellbanned for some reason.
There hasn't been a lot of evidence for the idea that having no fiscal policy is better than having a bad or moderate one.

Finance can deal with inflation and deflation. Economies can't usually deal well with either, but deflation seems to be worse, and constant value is impossible and probably not better than inflation.

People are more than their bank statements. They breath their money through their life style and even survival. That is why money shouldn't stay still.
Apparently this is based on WebRTC [1]. Which is apparently not affected by the same origin policy. Can anyone explain why WebRTC can't be used for DDOS attacks in the obvious way (a script on a page that can open pages to any IP address could cause every visitor to that page send/receive massive data to an unrelated website, taking the target offline and/or massively inflating their bandwidth bills)?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC
great thing about NodeJS Ruby and Python is their interactive cli , which is just mandatory imho , for testing language features , framework features ,etc ...
The PHP interactive cli is too poor and something really should be done about it. there are a few php-shell out there but they are not up to the task. I hope php core developpers will do something about it.
The farthest I ever went was metal shop in middle school and wood shop 1 in high school...
yep south , fabric , the django console ,etc ...
All you have to do to shoot me down is cite a single instance to the contrary. Just one.
Python docs have no clear indication what kind of parameters function takes, what values it returns and what happens when it fails:

http://docs.python.org/3/library/binascii.html#binascii.b2a_...

http://php.net/bin2hex
Then he should charge money for it.

Of course he would never do that, because the content he added simply wasn't very valuable at all, and he's primarily saying, "Hey, look at what some other guy did! And while you're at it click on my ads!"
Tons of people predict tons of doom in advance... It's not really a smart idea to pick the "correct" doomsayer a decade later...
Totally agree.

I remember writing this:

10 PRINT "LESSNONYMOUS"

20 GOTO 10

Seeing actual things happen was awesome. Now we have 3D games, seeing your name over and over wont enthrall, so being able to mod and extend a basic Minecraft world would be an incredible gateway.

The way to hook people is exactly like you say. Make a small change, see a huge difference. Suddenly ... YOU HAVE THE POWER!!!

10 PRINT "LESSNONYMOUS";

20 GOTO 10
10 PRINT "LESSNONYMOUS";

20 GOTO 10

There was an awful lot happening behind my very first program too. And that was the available level of abstraction. Why start kids coding something so simple when they can mess with something so powerful?
For those who like real torture: developing .Net apps on Raspberry Pi
i play world of warcraft iwant an hack for reset server for reset bosses in the server in 2.4.3
Cypriots had continously higher interest rates on their deposits than other Europeans. The small levy wouldn't even have eaten up these profits which are essentially due to tax havenry and unsound business practices on a country wide scale. No pity there...

Even if the 7% levy was all hard-earned money instead of too high interest rate profits, this would have hardly bankrupted more than a few depositors which were in dire straits already.
Show HN : Recording your YC video? Pitchcademy may help
15 Great Maze Generation article with HTML5 demo
The northern side of Bayview borders the expensive Potrero Hill neighborhood. And the very southern end of Bayview has some new apartment buildings, with a large hill separating them from the ghetto.
Here: https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks/tree/mast...

The tests were run with:

Java OpenJDK 1.7.0_09
Resin 4.0.34
Play 2.1.0
Where was this? I had just the same, and I thought it was connected to the heyday of local loony left in Finland, where I live - the school system of German Democratic Republic (as well as the health system) was all the rage here. Maybe it had some good points too, but the focus on set theory for elementary school kids was just weird. My parents would ask me "What is this stuff, and why?" and I couldn't tell them. Neither did the textbook.
The point isn't to be able to DYI your way through any possible home or auto repair or renovation job. If you want to become a professional and do everything that's an entirely different kettle of fish. But you can certainly become vastly more self-reliant rather easily.

You don't need to fix anything and everything, that's what professionals are for. Being able to know some simple things like how to jump start a car, how to change a battery, how to put a nail in a wall, how to fix your clogged sink, etc. are all super useful day-to-day. And they give you a little bit of grounding to be able to partially understand more complicated stuff that a professional might do when he or she is repairing your car or upgrading your kitchen.
PHP is an awful language because it has tons upon tons of quirks... pretty much like Javascript. Sometimes, I am able to find it amusing that most of the web is built on them.
Seems suspect. Not sure why this type of content is being posted on hacker news. It's a poorly written article not having to do with this site's prerogative..
I "love" clause 6D:

"You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to: use the API on behalf of any third party;"

So in other words, no one can use the API except to get Yelp information about themselves.

What a fucking joke.
I'd really like to see a usability study between Vim experts (10y+ usage) and Sublime Text 2 (1y+ usage) experts on a keyboard+good touchpad combo. We could even do it in theory by counting number of actions and assume the APM in vim to be 10% higher (which is quite optimistic).
TestingBot extends its Selenium cloud to Europe
What problems?

You seem to have a particular worry about administrators deciding the fate of children by thinking they wouldn't challenge them by placing them in the correct track, or that the children would be discriminated against based on their race or social status.

Just a quick FYI: this isn't 1850. There are solutions to problems like these. For one, we can provide aptitude tests. This would allow schools to decide which track is right for a student in an objective way. If a parent disagrees with the placement, they could request a certain placement, too. It's not meant to be segregation, it's meant to serve as teaching to students at a level that's challenging to them, but not unfair. Everyone is NOT created equal, and some excel at different things. To package everyone into the same exact track is ignorant at best, but probably just stupid. In fact, it's unlikely you'd have any student wholly within a single track. It makes more sense for some to take much more advanced courses in a subject that they excel at and in lower tracks for other subjects.

And honors/AP separation is approximately correct. But AP has become even simpler since I was in HS (8 years ago). I looked up the AP exams I took to find that they have been simplified. The AP AB CS exam for instance no longer exists because it was deemed too difficult. I got a perfect score on it, and I ended up getting a math degree because I went to a state school and the CS curriculum was trivial for me. Having later taken Stanford courses and taught myself the curriculum used at MIT, they would've both been good fits. The only reason I didn't pursue either was the cost.
I still don't understand why start-ups are so enamored with just having lots of users. If you have no way to monetize them, those users just end up costing you a lot of money. While there is always the hope of a huge acquisition solving the problem (ala Instagram), it's sort of like spending money on lottery tickets.