skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Several points in no particular order why I think this may be a "good" article (i.e., it's good storytelling), but I'm still critical of this article.

While writing this reply, I skimmed a couple of food startup companies on Wikipedia. It looks like these guys tried to do a SoBe (started 1996 bought by Pepsi in 2000; they year they started their company) and failed. I'd be very interested in an account of the SoBE story.

1. No reasoning in the article about why they thought this drink would sell.

2. First expenses are to buy two Land Rovers? AFAIK, these are not the cheapest SUVs. And this is literally like in a recent bad movie I watched ("Role Models").

3. On the same lines, they got an RV and two salespeople to drive around nationwide in an RV handing out samples? Was this drink even available nationwide? I've never seen it. Why were they spreading themselves so thin?

4. No mention in the article about how they got things done on the cheap. Which is a staple of all startup stories. Looks like they splurged on everything.

5. I had to read the BevNet link somebody posted to this article to find out that this drink costs much more than sodas because it uses real juice. It costs $1 to make and sells for $1.29. Is there a tiny probability that this could have contributed to the failure of the drink?

6. I mean this thing costs in the range of Red Bull and Starbucks but they market it as a competitior to Pepsi and Coke?

7. As I kept reading the article, I noticed how everything was being blamed on everybody else other than Bill. Bill did no wrong, and others let him down. I did not see enough evidence to convince me that this was the case.

8. Though billed as wife's story, this article is equally about Bill. So I have a problem that Bill is written up from the point of view of an adoring wife.

9. The BevNet thread shows that there are some people who are very angry with Bill. Btw "Wayne" (he doesn't get the courtesy of his real name being using, I think he's Mike Gilbert from the bevnet thread) has a book out to put his side of the story. This article sounds like an attempt to rehabilitate Bill's reputation.

10. Notice how they heavily criticize LKCM for "attempting" to bankrupt the company. But I'm supposed to find nothing suspicious about Bill proposing a deal with a new investor which would give the new guys 51% of the company (meaning management control with ability to replace Bill etc).

11. In short, at the end of the article, I was completely unsurprised at the total failure of the company. There is only one lesson to learned from this story for me: if hire a Bill, you'll fail. But I already knew that.
I've personally seen it happen twice. A company that has a reasonably well developed product is short on cash. Some "white knight" appears with a big investment, but the deal drags out, the company is forced into bankruptcy, and the so-called savior acquires it for a fraction of the original investment amount. Seeing this same scenario here makes me think it must be a common predatory tactic. Lesson is, if you've got a good product but are short on cash, be very wary of big investors.
How about "Effect of decriminalizing drugs in Portugal - stats included"?

Don't take my comment personally. The title Time gave the article is misleading too especially since they later on quote someone who calls it decriminalization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
It could be a chemical imbalance, have you looked into adderall for ADHD? I know it sounds weird, and nobody wants to think of themselves as having any type of disorder as if their a defective piece of software, but seriously talk to a doctor and be sure.
It is misinformed to say that you shouldn't eat pork, yes. But I don't blame the misinformed ones, as you seem to imply. I'm just thinking of solutions to help people grasp the situation better. Being afraid is - currently - somewhat an overreaction if you don't live in Mexico City. Not eating pork is probably healthy, but completely misinformed if used to ward of the pig flu.

You have a point though, when you say the article focuses on one side. Maybe there are very informed tweets and maybe people are corrected if they say something stupid.
Eat the frogs: http://www.amazon.com/That-Frog-Great-Ways-Procrastinating/d...

Full of practical advice. In the same vein, it's good to read all e-mails / blogs after lunch. Keeping IM, Twitter off till that also helps.

In a nutshell, the mind, like money, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master! Hope this helps.
Exceptions that prove the rule, because of historical migration and trade patterns that link those areas. Identical recurrent mutations in the human genome are rare.

Do you believe that if you took a mitochondrial DNA sample from an Indian, a Chinese person, a person of European descent, and an African living in America that a researcher would not be able to tell the difference?
I'll investigate that.

The favicon is uploaded.
I am procrastinating doing necessary work by means of discussion but I'll try to get the last word in anyway. Since I'm new to the thread.

By violating underlying principles I do NOT believe that some kind of ultimate catastrophe will ensue. This is an optimization problem and I simply believe there are natural asymptotes. My view of the future is one in which we define "abnormal deviation" down to the point where we're all just homogenized drones. In my darkest days I don't see mankind evolving into some kind of space-faring, trans-human supermen. I see mankind turning into large lumps of homogeneous sacks of fluid mindlessly plugged into a vast brain-masturbatory internet. It's the long, slow, slide to stagnation. I'm not concerned with the end of the world: I'm concerned with the end of chaotic, creative expansion. Without underlying principles that's where we're headed. Private property and the ensuing rights to do things that might annoy my neighbors if they lived 5 feet away is the cause of all kinds of goodness.

"because principles do not in and of themselves supply a valuation"

I think they can. I think you right to speak is greater than my desire not to be annoyed by you -- unless I have no way to get away from you, in which case my right of self-ownership trumps your right to speak. Principles give us all kinds of relative valuations. Our entire system of western justice is based on the idea that principles have relative merit to one another.

"An extreme example is something like trying to build an apartment complex over an indian burial ground; it's a pure battle of aesthetics that can't be won by reason alone."

Once again we're having the pragmatic versus principles discussion. I say I shouldn't have to justify actions if they are based on principle. Do I have to justify my freedom of speech every time I post on the internet? Of course not. It's a given. Likewise many uses of private property were a given 50 years ago but are not any more. Pragmatically those who make good political arguments in a decayed democracy win more rights than others. Practically decayed democracies do not optimally support their citizens or grow and change adequately to adapt to new circumstances. The more I have to argue to get the same freedoms I had 50 years ago, the more time and energy I am spending just to have the same potential people had naturally before. It's a good observation on your part. It's just incomplete.

Thanks for the thread. Now back to work!
Haha what a slip, how did no one catch that already?
Yeah, I am rambly today, my apologies.

My thesis is basically this:

- the urban experience is going to be the normal human experience (if not already, in the future)

- in the urban environment, it's natural to accept general restrictions on behavior, b/c without such restrictions your freedom-of-action becomes more constrained

- the politics are reversed from the underlying assumptions of heartland americans and folk political theorists: instead of restrictions on action being tragic necessities to deal with a handful of extreme edge cases (like dumping 1 ton of arsenic), restrictions on action become the necessary prerequisite of freedom (they provide the personal space that allows those actions)

- the consequence of this is that restriction and regulation will be seen as sensible and normal on the part of the majority

- this actually matters, because whatever private property you think you have you ultimately have on account of societal consensus; to see this in action, consider what happens when two societies intersect...property rights recognized within one are not always recognized within the other (the native americans, the kulaks, the barbarians in rome, etc.)

- or, shorter: private property rights are the bedrock of modern societies, but their exact contours -- what they permit and deny -- are not fixed, and are always ultimately a political issue

- once things are a political issue, whether or not you're thought of ass an ass starts to matter, as political issues are matters of public taste

That's pretty much it, not sure we disagree much.
The embarrassment of American broadband
I don't think having an opinion should preclude anyone from producing these kind of reports or reduce their persuasiveness. Personally I'd prefer to read a report from an organisation, such as the CATO institute whose political opinions are well known to me, than an "independent" government commission. At least then I know where they stand.
Oh, if you switch Javascript off, only your first selection from 1 -> 10 is accepted. Well, that is the way it should work, but I'll test that.
I agree with you. I don't want to keep discussing what is and what is not entitled to be labeled as porn, though. On the other hand, we have the word "nudity" which is more specific than the word "porn". The full Lena image qualifies as nudity for sure. Moreover, there can be porn without nudity. Whatever...
Are you as well doubting Amnesty International findings simply because they are anti-torture? What is wrong with people having convictions and spending money to find facts that support these convictions?

I find the trend towards quick character assassination (rather than looking at the facts) quite annoying. We see it in climate debate, for example, way too often.
Exactly, I know where they stand -- so I know to take whatever their findings with a grain of salt. What's that old adage about stats again?
I agree that it's a light-hearted blog post. And I would appreciate if you kept your opinions on what I should and should not do to yourself. Thank you.
Not worthwhile news. The US declared public emergencies for everything, throughout the year. It's more like a preparation for a potential emergency than like a real "emergency declaration".

Flagged.
I didn't read that before...brilliant!

I would add one more category of procrastination: doing something when the time is right. It's an idea I borrowed from "Zen and the Art of Archery" where the author was struggling with how to know the right moment to shoot so that his arrow will have the right trajectory. His instructor told him that "it" will shoot when the time is right (what I've written doesn't do justice to the lesson I learned in this simple example - so I highly recommend reading this ~96 page book).

Many might translate this behavior to doing it whenever I feel like doing it (or procrastinating), but most of these downtimes are spent thinking or designing in my head what needs to be done. It would seem that "it" has a life of its own in my mind and perhaps at the right moment, I am compelled by something do get "it" done. I must say that this is merely a model (that works well for me) about transforming procrastination from a negative to a positive.

I suppose my answer to the original posting would be that if I feel like I'm "type-C" procrastinating, then this can be remedied by thinking about the more important tasks that need to be done. Usually when the thought gets translated into action, the results are much better than if I forced myself to take action without properly preparing myself mentally.
Wolfram Alpha doesn't compete with Google, it competes with Wikipedia.

I expect students who use and quote Alpha as their source of information won't get the same scorn than the ones who quote Wikipedia.

It will be an interesting battle: crowdsourcing vs. proof.
I don't mind a _handful_ of non-tech articles.

I'm more interested in the comments: what do smart tech people think about this or that? Then I add my own comment, and the smart bit gets cleared. Ah well.

In any case, I assume the point-based algorithm is sufficient for moderating which articles should reach the front page.... Just my two cents' worth.
I think programmers forget that external behavior isn't the only factor in whether two things are similar. Human behavior is determined by internal state of the actor (i.e. intention, context and frame of mind) and then external behavior.

I hope you'll agree that even if there are outward similarities between dolls and action figures, most boys and girls make a distinction between the two (which is a learned behavior). If you swap a child's dolls for action figures, or visa-versa, you don't get identical behavior. There is a cognitive distinction.
Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white.

Another reply has already shown the error of thinking that the sickle cell trait is confined to populations identified as "white." It is not. What is your proposed definition of races on biological grounds, and what is your citation for a scientific consensus on that?

See

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-Debate/dp/...

for citations to recent primary research literature backing up the statement that "race" as now construed in society has very little medical usefulness. The author is a neurobiologist.
When you flag something, would you please just flag it without also commenting that you are?

Edit: I retracted this below.
We've really had enough marijuana threads already. And past experience has shown that they lead to no useful discussion whatsoever.
I am a fan of the Open Flash Chart 2 project:
http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart-2/

As the name implies, they are flash charts, what except JSON data. There is a wonderful Python lib that makes it very easy to use OFC in a Pythonic way:
http://btbytes.github.com/pyofc2/
Using your reasoning, wouldn't it also make sense for non-racists (of any race) to vote for the minority candidate not because he/she is better but rather to combat the racism of the majority?
Enlightenment Therapy
I agree that race is a social construct to some degree. For example, in America a person is considered "black" if he has one parent of African ancestry and one parent of European ancestry. However, I am not sure that the idea that "race is biologically meaningless" is defensible. I hope it is. But I wonder what we tell ourselves if the evidence says that it's not.

I know you can tell where a person's ancestors recently came from based on their DNA, and that there are certainly distinct genetic lineages in the human population.

I am open to reading more literature and articles on the subject. I am merely stating that according to the extent of my current knowledge, the idea that "race is meaningless" is suspect.
You should use the <label> element so that you can select the option by clicking the text.
Paul,

I've thought about it long and hard, and I feel that mentioning that I flagged this article serves a purpose. If you can make flags visible another way, I'm happy to stop mentioning that I flagged something.
The trick with incorporation is not the formation of the company as seen by the secretary of state's office. As a previous poster pointed out, that's a standard form with nothing that will make or break your startup.

What matters initially is the founder agreement structure. Later on, the terms of the first round of funding.

YC and TheFunded.com already put out there terms for funding and terms for founders. I believe with license to use on your own startup.
How does that make any sense? I get not just writing "flagged!", but if someone has something to say about a story, they should say it. That comment contributed.
Would you please send me an email, or add your email address to your profile so I can send you one?
False. Possession is illegal in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a signatory to international treaties which it would have to back out of to formally legalize certain drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands#...
A fairly good chunk of Napolinato's time in the press conference was about how this announcement wasn't a big deal, was standard operating procedure. Among other things, she said, they had to declare the emergency to:

* Enable certain testing protocols in young children

* Free up agency staff to work on the problem

* Release funding for medication and vaccine
Even the greatest hackers need to be painters when they want to get laid :)
For many, that's not an option. My work requires Internet access.
Fair point, and perhaps poorly worded on my behalf.

You may disagree with me, but I think there is some political, social-economical, geo-political or even local-government topics that effect everyone. Or rather, there is at least one topic that effects every single person, whether they think it or not.

That was more what I was getting at.
The CIA in Somalia, 1993
Exceptions that prove the rule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=sicklecelldisease
My reasoning was descriptive, not prescriptive.
True; I apologize. This comment is not the type that merely complains an article shouldn't be on HN.
It's a contradiction. You're commenting on something that you claim to want killed. It's a variant of feeding the trolls. It also fills up the /newcomments page with zombie conversations.
I sent you an email at pg@yc...

My email is daniel at tenner dot org.
If you're doubting your compiler for the most basic things, you may want to get a new compiler.
Not sure, depends upon the specific case -- probably correct in a wide, stochastic sense.

Immaterial, though. I was merely refuting your incorrect statement in the GP.
An Unschooling Manifesto
Comment Is King
I'm sure it's not a disorder. As I said, I manage to get a lot done if I just start doing it. The only problem I'm having is overcoming the "inertia".
Microsoft Sales Decline 6% from a Year Ago
GoGaRuCo is the Golden Gate Ruby Conference, not GoRuCo, which is the Gotham Ruby Conference.

People are not claiming that this presentation is representative of all presentations in the Ruby community. This presentation and the reaction afterward is being taken as INDICATIVE of a problem that is neither recognized nor addressed.
Have you considered that she could have shared her "secret of longevity" with her. Again, teasing out environment and heredity is hard.
- Set lots of deadlines. Weekly, daily, hourly, even minutely.

- Plan out your daily deadlines the day before and stick with it.

- Do NOT extend a deadline. If you go over a deadline, stop the activity and move on to the next one on the schedule. This will condition you to prioritize more effectively next time. (e.g. Knowing that you only have two hours to code something really boost up your code productivity.)
Can't stress this enough. Much easier target to click than a tiny box.
Design Patterns In Ruby, Explained II
Actually, we're doing a lot better now than we used to be, as IQ scores seem to be increasing over time.

As much as any such observation may have been measured correctly, it doesn't logically follow that intelligence itself is increasing, because of a variety of factors. The link you posted provides some of them.
Why NPR is Thriving (They’re Not Afraid of Digital Media)
Python's lists are just as good for recursion as Scheme's cons cells - the data structure doesn't really matter. That was my nitpicky point.

I agree that Python's emphasis on beginner-friendliness was the smart choice and led, ironically, to its current dominance in numerical computation.
They have recently come out with an updated edition (2008). It still covers a lot of the same ground but has been updated with current research in neuroscience. I would also say this isn't a book that you read once, but rather is something to refer to/re-read again and again as you are working through your procrastination.
Performance comparison: key/value stores for language model counts
Wrong. The most rural and white states in the country voted more for Obama than Kerry. Look at Montana, the Dakotas, Vermont, etc.

The people of Appalachia voted for McCain for the same reason blacks voted so heavily for Obama. He is one of their own in a way that Kerry was not. McCain is beligerent two fisted Scots Irish. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/mccain-scots-irish-champi...
The whole .pdf: http://images.forbes.com/media/2009/04/24/jobs-deposition.pd...
"I agree that people shouldn't be treated differently in civil society based on their race, and who doesn't? But they should certainly be treated differently based on their race by their doctors."

Maybe they should be treated differently based on their specific disease-related alleles rather than a blunt instrument like race.
I found this post pretty passionate and moving. I'm biased in that any writing about rethinking education is something I'm going to be pretty rah-rah about :D, but it's still a good read in that it's based both on his personal experience, and rigorous theory.

The book he's reviewing kind of suggests that schools deliberately have the effect of making students "small," which I don't necessarily agree with (I think many people in traditional formal education have pretty decent intentions, and at worst mostly get apathetic about their model). But still, I think it could only help the dialogue to have a book go "too far," in terms of describing the effects of the current state of education.
It looks like you have incorrect permissions set for the favicon. /favicon.ico returns a 403 error for me.
Why do you have such a large space dedicated to categories when most don't have any surveys in them (yet)? It'd be more useful if there were either less categories or a count beside each category link displaying the number of surveys within each given category.
How False Rumors can Cost Lives
I had the same problem, a bunch of ideas without focusing on any particular one of them. I think you have to sit down and analyse:

1) The market for the idea

2) Feasibility

I wouldn't advise against reading, the more knowledge you acquire should result in a more sound understanding of the current situation around you.
I second this recommendation. If you want to see it in action (though with PHP), check out piwik.org (the open source (Google-esque) analytics program.
Good idea. We should do something like this. I can't do it, though. Jessica is the one who does all this stuff. Maybe she'll post something. But if she does it won't be soon, because she is busy now getting this summer's startups set up.
Are your "peers" in academia worse than your boss in industry?
Your boss at least wants you to succeed. Your peers not so much unless your research serves their agenda.

Although academia promises freedom, this freedom is often taken away by your peers (e.g., by not funding your research, accepting your papers, etc.).
If your and your spouse's ancestors are from Africa or the Mediterranean basin (as people corrected me above), there is a greater chance that your offspring will have certain diseases. If you meet the above criteria and your child has certain disease symptoms, you might want to spend resources to diagnose certain diseases that you wouldn't check for if your ancestors were, say, Chinese. Are you saying that we should throw out this information instead, out of principle? Should we start screening Chinese people for sickle cell?
Thanks to the editor who changed the headline
I'm running Rails... I had to move it from the root directory to ./public/images and it seems to work now.
Active Passive Load Balancer Configuration for Nginx
Population variability and imperfect interfaces make that unlikely.