skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>It's written into our Constitution

Of course it is. Other things like free speech etc that are also in the constitution are being run over because it suits the government and Hollywood, yet the right to bear arms has barely been touched, in fact probably expanded. I notice that no-one addressed my point about the NRA influencing gun laws. Also, where is it written in the constitution that ammunition should be available in Supermarkets?

As to your point about being harmful is up for debate:
Antibiotics in the food chain is a major cause of current immunity issues with disease causing agents.

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

Yet the practice has not stopped in the USA despite the evidence. There are so many other examples, I really don't understand why some people here don't get it - the USA legal and political system is probably more influenced by big business than any other Western democracy. If not the worst, then close to it.
You really think regulations stop that from happening now?

Should we stop sterilising surfaces because it only protects you from infection 98% of the time?

Regulations are far from 100% successful, but yes, I do believe they reduce the number of accidents.
How Ruby Method Dispatch Works
The thing is, poor people are still dying of treatable diseases. Many of them by choice (McDonalds, smoking, etc)
The thing is, poor people are still dying of treatable diseases. Many of them by choice (McDonalds, smoking, etc).
I don't think you have to worry about shifts in crowds because when I started visiting kickstarter, I was funding art shows for painters and strange performance art. I still mostly fund small ( < 2000 dollar) art projects regardless of the fact that kickstarter is full of consumer products and iphone accessories.
Ask HN: What is the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem?
I want to know more about JavaScript and what's going in the JavaScript world, but I don't even know what the latest technologies are.

So what technologies are there? What do they do well? What are they lacking? Why has JavaScript become so popular over the last couple of years and what changes can we expect to see going forward? In short, tell about the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem.
Can't vote in the US, obviously.
Very interesting. How much is the setup / running costs for a system like this?
Thanks, I think I get it now. :)
pdf2html, there you go.
Also, on a dollar per dollar basis, the government is vastly more efficient than nearly any charity. The Social Security Administration's overhead was 0.8-1.4% (depending on how you count) last year. Find me a private charity that efficient.

Make a Wish Foundation crows about spending 76% of funds on programs. If the SSA were as efficient as Make a Wish Foundation, it would have an overhead of an additional $185 billion a year (i.e. approximately equal to all federal payroll expenditures).
This example is excellent for cognitive bias!!!

We know that we should only trust double-blind controlled randomised trials. This surgery hadn't had that trial, thus it shouldn't have been trusted, yet it was. And the reasons it was trusted are just biases.
Already posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5667122
> The funny thing is it came to my house yesterday as a single cover sheet plus a CD-ROM full of files, and I literally don't have a way to read a CD-ROM anymore.

This doesn't seem very funny.
If you don't have a way to read a CD-ROM, how do you know that it is "full of files"? Couldn't it be an audio CD?
The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam
> If there was a drug shown to improve self-esteem in children, it would likely become one of the most profitable drugs of all time.

If the drug worked it wouldn't be very popular as children would start dropping out of school to join Y Combinator and the drug would be recalled for having horrible defects.

The baby boomers idea of self-esteem is disgusting.
A few thoughts:

1. If you accept current economic theory, a flat tax actually hurts poor people more because it's regressive. It's regressive because each percentage point of tax means more to the poor person than it does to the rich. 15% of 1M is a lot of money compared to 15% of 30K, but the 30K earner feels that a lot more.

2. The IRS would not be eliminated. There would probably still be a federal entity responsible for managing the tax income at the federal level

3. The IRS would not be eliminated. There are a lot more taxes besides personal income taxes.

4. We basically already have most of what you're really thinking about with adopting a flat tax. The majority of tax information is already given to the IRS by your employer, bankers, etc. Most people don't really need to file a tax return, since they are just writing down numbers they got from forms which the IRS also gets copies of. Eliminating the personal income tax return in these situations has been discussed, but Intuit and some bright lights on the right/republican side of the aisle believe its a terrible idea and are fighting against it.

5. Does this response really have anything to do with people renouncing citizenship to avoid taxes on foreign income? Would replacing a rule heavy progressive taxation system with a simple flat tax really change someone's opinion on having to pay it?
A flat tax hurts everyone besides the super rich, ceteris paribus, if the comparison is a progressive tax (like most countries have).
Except that I literally cannot find two industries that are less comparable in any meaningful way: mass produced commodity goods on one side, complex and neccesarily individual services provided by highly trained and specialized professionals on the other.
Marissa Mayer's moonshot: Yahoo on every device
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/publications/firearmsuicid...

People in their first week of gun ownership kill themselves 57 times more frequently than the general public. That suggests to me that people who are determined to die are buying guns for the express purpose of suicide, and would probably select some other method if it was too difficult to obtain a gun.
FTA: In total, more than 670 U.S. passport holders gave up their citizenship [...]in the first three months of this year

Not understanding how a fact like this even rises to the level of a sentence in a related article, much less the lede. Can someone please explain to me how a tax policy which has a net effect of reducing its tax base by 0.002% (rough guess, assuming I didn't slip a digit) is something worth talking about at all?

I mean, the IRS is going to lose more revenue to people upset with US food choices...
> Such practices are unfortunately "par for the course" nowadays

This is the most extreme faux-1st-person endorsement I've ever seen. It makes schoolFeed look positively reserved.

Even if it were the norm (which, based on the response here, it clearly isn't), something being common doesn't make it the least bit right. That's the worst kind of complacency.
Poetics aside, I have to agree with you about how the poem is a very sad story. My explorations in free verse elsewhere in the thread may be a way to cover up my tears.

My daughter is very bright, but when she was in grade school she'd sometimes have trouble with a homework problem because the textbook didn't explain a concept clearly.

So I'd tell her how I've always found it helpful to read multiple sources on a topic. If one of them doesn't click with the way I think, another one probably will. And just reading multiple references that explain things differently helps reinforce the concepts.

She wanted nothing to do with it! She only wanted to hear about the way "they" explained it - the textbook, the teacher, the school - the right way to do it. Nothing else.

I guess I wish she'd gotten a teacher like the one at the end of that story, early on.
What's your definition of "best"?

There are only two measures of effectiveness.

Per capita costs and life expectancy.

How does Switzerland rate?
Sounds like a caricature of the actual laws.
Poland is where I went to High School. No such a thing as medical history accessible to everyone. Yes, the doctor I went to, will have the paperwork. But she doesn't need to share it with anyone else. Unless someone will ask her specifically for my case. Which won't happen unless I tell someone I went to her for a diagnosis. There is no central "repo" for the paperwork, if you will. You may keep records for your own use, but then of course you wouldn't include stuff like that.

I was 17. Went there with a friend. He was pretending to be depressed. As far as I remember she asked him to go for more evaluation at a hospital. Remember laughing on our way back that he was way too good at it.

Other types of homework we had from this teacher - he taught us History - were also interesting. For example we had to go to Aushwitz Museum and not going was automatic not passing to another class. He claimed "unless you see it you won't understand it". So we had all to go. Whether we liked it or not. Another day there was an anniversary of this event:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek
We had to go and pay respects at the actual site. It was quite moving.

The teacher was ww2 veteran, hardcore anti-communist. How they allowed him to teach history in communistic poland is a mystery to me. He was great. You asked any one of us what our top 3 favorite subjects were and I'm pretty sure most of us would say History.

He did the thing with psychiatrist/psychologist because he was placed by them in mental institution in early 1950s. Many anti-communists were killed or jailed in Poland in 1945-1953. But also many were diagnosed with schizofrenia and forcefully medicated and hospitalized for years. I think that was some type of twisted revenge he was taking on them.

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

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2012/8/19/135066.html
Generalizing folds to types other than lists.
I do the same thing in my IRA. Right now TSLA is the only individual stock I own, and it is a bit less than 10% of my account value. I bought it at $29 per share 9 months ago or so, knowing I might take a bath, but I believed in the company's long term business model then and I still do. I feel that this kind of investing minimizes the risk factor.
Nope. All photos (and screenshots) are added to iPhoto automatically as long as iPhoto is actually running, even if the iPhone is on wifi in a different country, meaning its not just a local sync. Only videos require physical cable.
I've seen Johnny Ive's Aston Martin parked on the street in the Mission, along with more pedestrian 100k M5s, E63 AMGs, 911 Turbos, &c.
It is more that the USA is one of the few countries that taxes on citizenship rather then residency, so this means that if you are living in another country you are still dealing with USA tax laws as well the tax laws of your country of residency.
National Insurance for an employee on £50k would be under £5k, tax just under £10k, the other £5k for National Insurance comes from the employer, not the employee. Total deductions on £50k are under £15k.

Personally (as a British citizen paying British taxes and paying taxes on over £50k) I don't mind it much. I've been to the hospital once in my life (when I was born) and I've only been to a doctor once in my life too (I was 16, given antibiotics) and I would much rather I personally "lose" money on taxation while everyone in the country gets the healthcare they need than an American style system where I save money but there are people that can't get the healthcare they need. I also have private health insurance.

As a private individual that does not make use of national services National Insurance isn't great but as a British citizen it's fantastic. My other tax paying family members feel the same.
Thanks for all your pointers and observations! I will likely be in the market for an HDHP soon and these will give my own search a running start.
And it claims "asdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasd1234" would only take 12 seconds to crack.....
Probably from the cover sheet attached to the CD. It's a safe assumption he hasn't been served with a mix tape.
They were spending their time being shot, primarily by the federal government.
About $1200. There are a ton of companies in HK that will set it up for you (that's all they do).
You mean the one where the Supreme Court of Canada agreed that the delays in the treatment of cancer in combination with a ban on private insurance were violating Canadian citizens' rights?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoulli_v._Quebec_(Attorney_Ge...
I refer to Elon Musk's tweet on April 25:

"Seems to be some stormy weather over in Shortville these days"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/statuses/327446760219889665
Very well done. Looks amazing.
Cosmic ray is not a light ray... It's not talking about rays of sunlight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray
Goodbye, Google (2009)
I assume the email was in HTML where the link's href was pointing to something different than what the text is. Couldn't gmail easily detect this discrepancy and warn the user that this is potentially a phishing attempt?
>If you don't take frequent road trips and have the ability to charge at home, the Model S is indeed very convenient--never have to worry about fuel and hardly ever have to worry about maintenance.

Doesn't the maintenance bit kind of remain to be seen? It seems to me there are two factors working against each other there: the high failure rates in new product categories, and the low failure rates associated with a simpler engine. I don't know that you can say which will win out yet.
It's worth noting that the US has tax agreements with most developed nations, which in theory limits the dual-taxation burden.

In practice, it's allegedly quite a bit of hassle and paperwork and a net expense (regardless of tax agreement).
What I'm trying to get at is that a bank is only as secure as it's regulators say it is. The Government is what insures all depositors money up to $100,000, as well as theoretically stops it from taking too great of risk and losing your capital.

The other purpose a bank serves is to protect your money; A bank at it's most basic level is physical security: steel vaults doors, security deposit boxes, security processes, guards, etc. All ancillary (and highly profitable) services flow up from providing this primary need for it's depositors.

Because BitCoin relies on technology to secure your money, so long as users could find an acceptable level of security to replicate this with "high"-technology, there wouldn't be a need for traditional banks to store your money.
Stripe uses Wells Fargo as an underwriter for the Merchants it on-boards. Wells Fargo did not invest in their earliest rounds but may take an equity stake in later/future rounds.
Also worth noting: during that same period, around 165,000 formerly non-Americans naturalized as U.S. citizens. A 250:1 ratio of people joining to people disaffiliating ain't bad.

Some countries have major problems with an exodus of qualified people and an inability to attract people to the country, but the U.S. is not really in that category. Quite the opposite: there are many qualified, intelligent people wanting to move to the country, but who are currently blocked by immigration law from doing so.
it's $95,100 for 2012, per person. so 190,200 if you're married.
Where do you get the 0.002% figure from? The number of people divided by the population of the US? If so, that's not a meaningful figure - you should be examining the tax they would pay compared to the tax base, which could be many times higher.

The reason this is news is because it's incredibly wealthy and high profile people with a large amount of assets to tax that are giving up their passports.
> I think this has to do with the lack of notable "stuff" nasa has been doing over the past few dozen years because of budget constraints.

No, it has to do with 90% of NASA's current work having no benefit to the day-to-day life of 90% of Americans.

> It certainly wont fix the problem, but finding a reason to dump a few hundred billion dollars into an agency that brings up to 14x economic returns in addition to a boost in national pride is a pretty good investment

Your citation:

> Some early academic and other studies “made very ‘generous’ assumptions about the spinoffs, goods and services produced as a result of NASA’s investments,” G. Scott Hubbard, a consulting professor at Stanford University, said in an e-mail. A study commissioned by Hubbard in the mid-2000s when he was director of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California on the center’s local economic impact found a “more conservative” 2- to 3-to-1 ratio.

So 14x isn't realistic, more like 2-3x. And there's no comparison with other public investments. Obama said the Human Genome Project returned 140x. One study said highway investment returned 52x in the 1950-1991 period [1]. Public preschooling allegedly returns 7x [2]. What about reducing crime, subsidizing college tuition, medical research? All of these things, by the way, are exactly what people mean when they say NASA is a waste and that problems "at home" should be addressed instead. I think these concerns are legitimate and should not be waved off as "not caring about science" (doing so definitely alienates those whose support you're trying get though). We all live on Earth.

Announcing a Mars mission won't bring national pride. Completing it will. The only way that will happen, and I'm certain it will, is a space race against China, once they solidify their currently vague space ambitions [3]. I hate to say it, but it was jingoism which spurred Apollo, and it will be the same with a mission to Mars.

[1] 32% per annum simple interest over 40 years, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/nadiri2.htm

[2] http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/04/obama-administration-budget-m...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_space_program#Mission_...
My friend Bob Sacamano sells Russian hats in Battery park!
So THAT'S what that is!

I can see it, have done for as long as I can remember. That's super neat!

I always thought it was just an error in my eyes themselves not handling light properly
I suspect some of this has to do with the newness and perceived scarcity. Once everyone who can afford a production supercar owns a Tesla, demand will fall back a bit.
You might want to reconsider your number when you file your taxes every year.
Endorsements have lost all meaning whatsoever. 3 people have endorsed me for OS X for some reason even though I don't have it listed in my skills. I've never owned an Apple product in my life except for an iPhone so my skills with OS X are average at best.

My boyfriend's dad, who is not technical whatsoever, endorsed me for git. I'm pretty sure he just saw the word git and thought, "Hehe, she's a git!"

I think the problem too is that LinkedIn offers people the path of least resistance to endorse people. Occasionally I'll see a message at the top of my profile saying, "Endorse X for Y & Z" and a button to approve it. I'm sure more times than not, people just approve endorsements without giving it a second thought.
That sounds likely enough, but do you have a source?

edit: nevermind, it's in 18 U.S.C. § 922 : US Code - Section 922
There are only two measures of effectiveness

In the free market you could argue that 'customer satisfaction' is the only measure of effectiveness you need to consider. Equating customer satisfaction with best solution fails in everything from automobile ratings to elections.
My impression is yes, but employers will use this to get around taxes. Also it will help them imagine they've done something significant to reward their employees when they've done something insignificant.
My password is eyh7E6y1unZdyA3489dE

What are you going to do with it? That's right: nothing.

This webpage does not send the password home (confirmed with Wireshark). Even if you are under a MitM attack, this site would be the LEAST of your worries. This article is mere sensationalism and should probably be renamed "Why HTTP can't be trusted." What's that you say? HTTP open to MitM? Never!
USA taxes citizenship, as well as residency (both physical and legal). As a non-us person, I paid more taxes than my friends did. As a permanent resident, I still have to pay taxes if I leave the US - even though I'm not a citizen.
> There are only two measures of effectiveness. Per capita costs and life expectancy.

Uh, no. Health care is a lot more than keeping people alive.

Cost: More expensive than the European average, quite a bit cheaper than the US.

Life expectancy: second in the world, at 81.81.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

EDIT: And, since it apparently wasn't clear from context, by "best of both worlds", I mean that it manages to get a competitive, consumer oriented system without sacrificing universal coverage and regulation of quality.
Fair enough. Looking forward to it.
> Well, I never agreed that "taxation is a way of extracting labor via the use of force"

You don't have to agree, it's empirically evident. Try not paying your taxes and guys with guns will come get it. Now, maybe these guys with guns are justified -- but that's strictly your opinion.

> Taxation, in my books, is the voluntary (as decided via the democratic process)

By definition, your definition is wrong. Non-democratic governments impose taxes as well.

Why do you define "voluntary" relative to the political landscape? You're telling me slavery never really happened in the US, because it was voluntary labor -- as decided by the "democratic process"? Why do you defend slavery with such fervor?
There are so many Model S's at google we call them "Palo Alto Camrys".
That's a really good point. It happened with me a few times, especially while clicking on some search results pointing to Google Groups. Now I'm wondering if any of those were actually phishing attempts, because it's sometimes really easily to overlook what the real domain of the search result is.
It's not as simple as saying it's a 'low-tax country compared to Australia'. Perhaps in some states, but not all. The tax I pay in California is very comparable to the tax I paid in Australia.

Meanwhile, living in Australia I had to file a US tax return every year, and have the potential to be taxed on things where no tax exists in Australia (inheritance tax, gift tax).
Have you looked at Aaron Greenspan's legal credentials ? He is (or atleast claims) a fellow of Stanford Law School. Has build a site for searching legal articles and in general spent considerable time researching this issue
A picture is worth a thousand words?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/HC-Graph....

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_systems#Cross-country_co...
In this case, I don't think we even reach that question. When Greenspan's business did not obtain the appropriate license, it left the money transmission business, making it hard for me to understand how the remaining money transmission businesses (assuming that they actually are money transmitters) are his competition.
Inter-Lazio 1-3
It should be no surprise that the more government "regulates" and subsidizes health care, the more expensive it gets. And the answer to high costs is always more regulation!

I keep reading more about doctors who are opting out of the medicare system and switching to cash-only services. In the name of providing care to all, the system is breaking down and stratifying. Obamacare is an abomination of payoffs to special interest that will do nothing to reduce health care costs.

Health care must be rationed. It is a finite good. The question is how it gets rationed. Market forces? Private insurance? He who can pay? Whoever the government decides gets it? The bottom line is that the more government decides who gets it, the more expensive it becomes. There's gotta be a happy medium, and my intuition informs me that the happy medium is closer to the free-market side than the mega-regulation side.