skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This sounds interesting. Looks like these guys will just come out to your house and drop off a $1745 700-pound battery rated at 60 amps at 12 volts (720 watts) for 20 hours, and pick up your previous battery at no charge. They apparently will last up to 7 years even in forklift service. The main drawback seems to be that the forklift batteries are not maintenance-free.

Is that your take on it?
Indeed, brevity is the soul of wit.
| More specifically they worship the state.

That's arguable. I don't think that many people 'on the ground' in China actually worship the state. On the other hand, many people in Muslim theocracies actually worship Allah, even if they don't agree with every aspect of the government.

The government didn't replace religion, but they do control it. There's an PRC sanctioned sect of Christianity. Buddhist monks in Tibet need to be registered Communist party members.

| it's questionable how much of that style
| of Communism still exists in China

It's questionable how much Marxism actually existed from the beginning. I don't think that Marx envisioned famines starving the poor in his "worker's paradise."
You'll run out of founders long before you run out of money.
Programming Rails in Visual Studio IDE
There may be a lot of misconceptions on the poor and class divide in India. I would like to answer some of them by posting some numbers and providing context.

Who are the 'poor' in India?

The poor in India, according to the Planning Commission, are people who live on 32 Indian Rupees/59cents per day.

How many people are poor in India?

The Planning Commission of India reports that there are 29.8% of the population who are 'poor' [0,1]. This roughly equates to 360 Million people who live below the poverty line.

Are the numbers for poor accurate?

May be, may be not. Some believe these numbers could be as high as 77% specially considering the inflation rate and other factors.

Is it possible to live on 59 cents per day?

No but that's not even the main problem. Here is a comment from Jean Dréze, an economist and former member of the National Advisory Council India [2],

“What is really shocking is not that the official poverty line is abysmally low, but that even with that abysmal
benchmark, so many people are below it.The belated discovery that it is impossible to have a dignified
life on the official poverty line draws our attention to the appalling living conditions of the Indian poor.” Taking a
position diametrically opposed to Mr. Bhalla and Mr. Panagariya, Mr. Drèze argues, “The message about the terrifying
nature of 'hidden poverty’ in India has been somewhat lost in the din of the recent debate.”

Even with such a low price point the number of poor in India are staggering.

Is there a class divide in India (in particular Delhi) and possess a sense of entitlement?

Yes. I would recommend reading on how the elite tried to stifle Delhi's first Bus Rapid Transit system by filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Delhi HC [3]. Here is the reason from the petitioner's (a car owner in Delhi) on why he decided to file the petition

"Car owners are the creators of wealth. Do you realise that they get exhausted sitting in their cars due to traffic
jams and they reach office completely tired? It affects their efficiency. Do you want them to perform less?" asks the
main petitioner BB Sharan.You cannot keep a commander-in-chief waiting in traffic while his army is waiting for his
orders. How does it matter if a peon reaches office five minute before time?"

This is the attitude of the "rich" in India. The society doesn't matter as long as their work gets done.

[0] http://planningcommission.nic.in/news/press_pov1903.pdf

[1] http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/rep_pov.pdf

[2] http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/what-does-indias-p...

[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19572583
Show HN: A toolkit for CSS3-based industrial monitoring components.
On my part, did not mean a dig on military doctors, rather that if one is not good enough to attend a public medical school and instead attend the expensive lower tier private schools one has the option of going to medical school and serve as a military doctor for four years instead. Sorry for the confusion.
Mostly fair points... you don't deserve to get downvoted so heavily. As one of the probably few people here who has spent significant time living in China (first trip: 2001, last trip: less than a month ago, total time: 7-8 years), and has also lived in various parts of the west (Australia, UK, US), I agree with you that the west isn't much better.

For more discussion on why this absolutely is the case, see (1) the Cypherpunks interviews at http://assange.rt.com/ (2) the longer-form Cypherpunks book at http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/ (3) Bruce Schneier's recent essay at http://www.schneier.com/essay-420.html (which actually evidences some of the same) (4) Applebaum's 29C3 keynote at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl5OQz0Ko8c (5) Echelon as best we knew it through the eyes of multiple intelligence agencies 12 years ago: http://cryptome.org/echelon-ep-fin.htm (6) ... if you get this far, you will find more sources on your own.
"The solution of course is higher taxation or philanthropy."

I don't see the "of course." Using that argument, it sounds like I shouldn't hire a carpenter to work on my house but should instead pay more taxes so that the carpenter can work on improving the public buildings, and only use my own skills and time to improve my house.

I shouldn't ever hire a mechanic to fix my car but rather I should always pay more taxes in order to fund the mass transit system.

I shouldn't ever hire a gardener but should rather let the existing garden in my yard fall into disrepair - or learn the skills myself - in preference for a neighborhood garden.

"You should not be paying someone (x N) to work at a much lower hourly wage than you simply because you have accumulated more wealth."

I never held that position, and I don't know how you inferred that that I had that assumption in mind.

There is some boundary on where it's better for myself and/or the community that I do something myself, and better sometimes for others with more time and/or better skills to do it. My argument is that one of the reasons that people don't hire domestic help is because of moral qualms. Sometimes those qualms are unfounded, and in that case, an educational campaign to change attitudes may be an appropriate means to mollify those qualms and improve wealth creation across a community.

In your words, they are doing something less efficiently than they could, and need a reminder backed by a good argument for why they should hire someone else to handle those jobs.

"simply because you have accumulated more wealth"

That is part of a different argument. The mathematics I outlined are based on differential income, not wealth accumulation. That is, had I spent every penny of income or contributed it through taxes, such that I had less wealth accumulation than my gardener, it would still make economic sense for me to hire a gardener instead of tending to the garden myself. As you said, your goal is 'wealth creation across a community'. The scenarios I described are not incompatible with that goal. I can outline others if you wish.

Also, at that time my work was very bursty. I would sometimes visit a client site for a month or two, then not work for a few months. Her work was relatively constant, so she could maintain my garden while I was away. Even if I maintained the garden myself, I don't think it would be morally or economically objectionable to hire someone for that case. It can be even be worthwhile to hire someone on a continual basis, in order to ensure availability during odd times.
Can a student/tourist visit your Chicago company (37signals et al)?
Hey guys,<p>I am visting the US, Chicago to be specific, this coming week as part of a program. I am about to graduate and I would love it if I can get to visit some startups or companies in the area. I am fan of several of them such as Braintree and 37signals, so I would appreciate any directions leading me to similar places.<p>Thanks!
While parts of this are straight forward, I find it amusing that switching from Postgres on Heroku to MySQL is glossed over as such a trivial step. Why not just stay on Postgres when you move to your own server?
This. Becoming a GP in the US by any route other than the military is going to put you way behind just about any of your undergrad classmates with a marketable degree if you consider lost opportunity.

There's also something else to consider. 7-13 years is a long time, and lots of things in your life will change. You may not be able to or want to practice medicine (I know one of each), but that debt isn't going anywhere.
In OSX 10.8 you can just hold Cmd (or is it option?) for a few seconds to get dictation for any text input system-wide.

For TTS the say command has all voices available.
Thanks, I was confused when tmux didn't act as gnu screen did when I first tried to use it for pair programming.
I might buy the Economist this week to read the rest of this report (it seems this was only the introduction).

As someone who has spent a decade or so in China, I believe that practically speaking the most obvious measure of control to anyone on the ground inside of the country (and one that is not mentioned in the article) is bandwidth limitation.

Quite simply, international links are huge lossy choke-points that make international services so painful to use that you may as well clone one inside the country... which will be more readily legally threatened and manipulated by the state. Combined with purposefully weak intellectual property law, this in and of itself is a masterful extension of soft power by the party.

(PS. The map of internet penetration statistics looks to me to be largely bullshit. Internet penetration for urbanites is far greater than 100%, with the average urban family having at least one internet-connected cellphone each, more than one tablet device, etc. In smaller areas, people tend to use internet cafes more often, which hides true penetration statistics.)
It is unclear to me why you think a criticism of a bill at introduction should outweigh praise of the same bill at adoption. Do you understand how legislation is made? Have you heard of political process? Here is a refresher: someone proposes a bill, people debate it, changes are made and incorporated into the bill. This cycle repeats a few times (usually 3). Then a final vote is held. If the yeas overwhelm the nays, the bill passes. Otherwise, the bill fails.

After going through this process, C-11 (which was absolutely NOT a carbon copy of anything in its final form) passed. Michael Geist then wrote the piece I linked explaining why there were a lot of great provisions in bill C-11.

You sound like a teenager who has just learned to rebel against his parents' political views. The nickname "Harper & Goon Co." is not part of a reasonable discussion of Canadian politics. Your points don't make any sense.
Double tap 'fn'.
I think this is a fascinating argument and makes sense. However, Is the EEI really someone we trust with a report like this? It seems - given their position - they have a lot to gain and little downside in trying to scare what are essentially politicians into helping protect them. Perhaps that's why the media ignored this report to begin with?
Well sure, but you could back that up with data[1]. With the innovation index the data apparently disputes your gut feeling. So which do you trust?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices
Don't listen to these guys.

Your post is a good reminder of what the basics are and their importance. Every day there are thousands of people trying to figure out how to take their next step. If even one of them is helped or encouraged by your post then mission accomplished.

Personally I'm familiar with this topic and still found your post entertaining and interesting.
Correct. Many of us who were in CA during the brown out dot com boom years became addicted to that site and understood the cycles.
It is, but Evo-Psych methodology leaves a lot to be desired.
There are some people commenting on this topic saying that SV millionaires are not upper class. That sounds ridiculous in India :)

Part of the issue is that lots of people talk about the USA being a "classless society". Some of them even believe it. More than most nations, America loves the idea that a person can arrive as a poor immigrant or be born the child of poor immigrants, apply uncommon drive and intelligence, and create a business that makes him extremely rich. (Whether that is the rule or the rare exception is another question.)
The voice is terrible, though.
Hi, thanks. Also, it seems fruits help a lot. Fruit juices are great, and along similar lines, soups too.
Jamaica - 2x3 (http://cryptogasm.com/webcams/index.php?q=country%3AJAM&...)
The peak time in CA in summer is 2 - 5pm. It's driven by office AC. After 5pm many offices up the temperature a few degrees for overnight effectively dropping demand. It can peak again after 7pm due to home AC and washer/dryer/dishwasher but that 2 - 5pm in the height of summer is always the peak.
github's. You have to click to search code on the left, but then it is the first result. https://github.com/search?q=desolee&ref=cmdform&type...
At first read of your comment, I thought you were referring to analog as the user to hellban, not throwawayG9 (who, by the way, is a 60 day old account).
In my opinion, throwawayG9 did contribute something very valuable to this discussion, which is pointing out the irrationality of how we view sex in the first place. The ad hominon attackk against this position that refuses to acknoledge the possibility that we might view sex irrationally, and says that anyone who thinks so must be a bad member of society seems far less productive to a conversation.
I sort of like it, but then I'm verbose to begin with. With tools like this, I think it's better to fold in the supposedly-offending comment as opposed to just making it disappear. Without the threading cues, some pages may become hard to read.
And don't forget f.lux :)
http://stereopsis.com/flux/
How to think like an engineer
Code the Infra
Assuming GR == Google Reader:

I really like http://theoldreader.com/

Only thing that makes me wary is that it's free. But at least they're taking donations. But I sincerely hope that they find a viable business model soon.
Of course - you've got to be a True Believer to get that kind of leadership position, and he would have of course taught that to his son. These people actually believe that having any non-monthly expense able to be financed is a good thing, as it is then more "affordable", where affordable means not requiring any sort of planning or saving for the future. Of course this really just causes prices to shoot up, with positive feedback if the good can serve as collateral, which exacerbates the problem causing more people to finance. Essentially they are working to erode the utility of money itself, and revert us back to a social reputation based system where your stature in life depends on your creditworthiness and obedience to your job (stability required to make all those continuing monthly payments).
Somewhat related, isn't it a sensible idea for Google to allow reusing deleted accounts after "a reasonable" period? I can imagine good handles are becoming increasingly rare.

On the other hand, I realize the 3.0 version of the web may end up doing away with handles and URLs for all practical purposes...
"refuses to acknoledge the possibility that we might view sex irrationally"

Yes, I think it's wrong to have sex with children. And to be 'proud' of wanting to.
A couple advantages to medicine are that you can keep working consistently until retirement age, and you can essentially work anywhere in the country for a the same salary. A GP may "only" make $150K in Westchester but they can also make $150K in rural Maine.
I'm not sure I understand your point.

It seems inconsistent with walrasian pure and perfect competition, where profits tend to zero and the optimal outcomes are achieved.

Eliminating the inefficiencies, ie profit in pure and perfect competition, is the way the system works - non null profits attract new businesses. That's basic economics, with very special edge cases (ex - natural monopolices)

I'm not sure exactly why or how economy as a whole would do better with more inefficiencies at each point, and money moving more as you suggest.

Are you referring to the equation of the velocity of money (MV=PQ) ?

It says nothing about how desirable the outcome is (ex: broken window fallacy)
I'm more interested in picking up a really big one for a few hundred used. If it can't do a full 8 hour shift anymore but can only do 6 hours it's nearly useless to place that really uses it. But for my purposes an 80% capacity battery is still plenty good.

You are correct that they require maintenance. Thankfully that involves topping off water levels periodically. http://www.giantbatteryco.com/gbweb/ProperBatteryCare.html

They might not deliver quite as happily to a residence as to a business as the battery would likely be located in a less-than-warehouse type location. But it's definitely worth a try!
There's a difference between talented programming and good engineering, and _why is almost a perfect example of that. Engineering is more about discipline and maintainability than cleverness and artistic expression.
I put this up weeks ago.... zero interest. Perhaps the timing of the posting was poor.... ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5293519

Anyway, glad these folks are getting some well deserved attention now.
Kinect 2.0 and Playstation 4 Eye Paranoia
Very very few people drop out or fail out of medical schools. Whether the huge debt load is the reason is another issue.
Gabriel Weinbergs Duckduckgo
Yeah...

Seems they're from Russia, so no native English speaker. Neither am I, and when I've first seen the site's name I've looked it up, found one of its possible meanings (backpackers' hostel) and liked the link to a vagrant.
Ah, my mistake, my apologies. I thought the author was using a different metric.
"If he does, evidence found can not be used against you. Your neighbor on the other hand, can. He can also take that evidence to the police and they can use it in that case. Now, he may also be charged with a crime, but that evidence can be used against you."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule#Limitations_o...

Hrm, interesting.
Mathematical equations representing (approximate) solutions to physics problems are patentable, then? Let's turn the clocks back to 1900 and figure out where we'd be technologically if every such "invention" had a 20-year period of exclusivity.
Growing convinced might have killed it. If you're passionate about something, you might have found a way to beat Google... Not saying you did badly or anything; I never heard of the engine (before my time probably). I just mean to say it's a pity you grew convinced that Google was unbeatable.
My Gmail address gets all this same sort of stuff, except I use it actively, and have to filter it out constantly.

I even wrote a blog post about it and have to send out the following canned response at least once a day:

--

Hi there,

You've reached the wrong email address. Please double-check and try again!

You may also want to read the following:
http://blog.jasonhanley.com/2008/10/will-real-jhanley-please...
Let's Stop Treating the Constitution Like the Da Vinci Code
Movies In Color: Stills from films and their corresponding color palettes
Interesting, Nuuton currently covers all of that. But I haven't launched the ALPHA due to my incomplete understanding of the problem (and a minor funding problem (working on that at the moment))

1. It is more vertical. Allows for deep search with filters.
2. Ditto. It uses hashtags, forward slashes and bangs. All with a different functionality.
3. I'm up to my neck in machine learning to improve this.
4. It allows for you to search your own posts. Yes, you can post to Nuuton. No, its not a social network.
5. It allows tagging with hashtags. Say #pizza #recipe.

Plus its available as an API.
So those scam artists, have some friends at high places to put pressure on Apple?

I hope Apple doesn't give up that easily. It's not that the dumb ministers (as dumb politicians come) understand what kind of bullshit they're protecting.
If it was 9m revenue from viagra spam, would they do the same thing - probably.

I honestly don't get why some politician would care. Don't they have other things to worry about? It's weird that they feel like they should take this on. It's not that the economy in EU (and by proxy, France) fucked up and requires attention.

If your business relies on Apple allowing you to charge people money - to spam other people (through push notifications) then my friend, you probably failed your MBA classes... or did really well, honestly I don't know.
Things Successful People Do On Twitter
Bad news: if she's a US citizen then at age 6 she already owes about $215,000. As a US citizen she will pay taxes. She'll start out by paying for part of your debt (and your parent's debt.) Then, she'll pay for her own debt.

I've apologized to my daughter (now 24 years old) for the burden. It's unconscionable but it's the will of the majority so I have no choice.
someone make an open-source search engine,

That already exists in a sense. You could start with a bunch of ASF projects... Nutch, Solr/Lucene, ManifoldCF, Droids, Hadoop, OpenNLP, Tika, Mahout, UIMA, etc. and build a reasonably good search engine. The problem isn't writing search code; it's scaling the darn thing up to "Internet Scale" and other things that get ya. Can you imagine how much hardware and how much bandwidth it takes to continually crawl the web, download, parse and index pages on the scale of a Google?

The other problems are things like preventing spammers from gaming the system, etc. Whether or not a search engine where all the algorithms were public would be easier to "game" is, I suppose, an open question. I think most of us intuitively feel that it would be, but maybe not.
I gave you my list of US innovators, lets see your list.
Hmm... I read the title of this more as, "How to Land a Job at a Startup (and stay living in the middle of nowhere by working remotely)" rather than, "How to Land a Job at a Startup (and then move to Boston)"

Anyway, I agree it's pretty generic 'blanket' advice - for me, a 32 yr old. Pretty wise words for a college grad, though, whose audience is probably more his underclassmen than me.
Android 4.1, and above, has offline voice recognition. I'm not sure about the current state of Android support for Raspberry PI, but you wouldn't have to reinvent anything.
"Just mind-boggling that despite an alleged rape with photo evidence, they wouldn't arrest anyone for distribution of child pornography because they couldn't prove who took the picture. If no one wanted to fess up to it, either let the phone owner take the fall or make them all responsible."

Primary school is not law.
Yes, but then most of those Chrome web apps are!

Extensions however add extra functionalities other than a web page! I never understood all those fancy names and screenshots for the Chrome Web Apps when in the end they are just bookmarks with a big pretty icon!
It downloads and installs something, but then clicking on it just send me to the Spotify homepage.

Not the experience I was expecting, Spotify.
Do you know everything?
Shoot me an email, I might be able to help with an internship.
I find this meme interesting.

It seems to me A. Roger Ekirch (a historian) used confusing text to create a medical theory then popularised it.

There is little to no one else saying it's true but somehow it's being spread as fact.

Equally it's interesting no one is refuting it. It's a popular theory I've heard a lot of people mention. If it is hogwash why is the medial community not jumping in and saying there is no evidence of this?