skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's quite extreme and overly simplistic...

The danger, as always, is that there is some truth to what you say, but that truth is stretched and blurred in various direction so as to be mostly meaningless.

Almost every high-reward human endeavour, from drug dealing to movie stardom or stock trading, generates large amounts of competition. That's one of the main reasons a free market is a productive way to allocate resources - it places high rewards on things of high value, and allows anyone to compete, so that more people will provide these high-value things, thus driving their price back down. In that way, your suggestion is true.

However, there are three implicit assumptions in your thesis that are very, very shaky.

The first and least harmful is the idea that "being a pawn" is somehow implicitly bad. You haven't established that at all. There is no absolute "bad", so you must be implying that it is worse than something else. I'd be curious as to what that thing is, in your mind. Perhaps, if you dig, you might find that actually, being an entrepreneur (pawn or not) is quite a good deal, better than most others.

The second false premise is that there is some kind of specific group of people who are deciding this, manipulating this system for their benefit. There is no such group. Or rather, there is - this group is all of us. We all benefit from a system which encourages innovation and competition and rewards it. There is no conspiracy to exploit entrepreneurs by somehow making them compete against all odds. Nobody sat down and thought "I wonder if I can get all these useful idiots to start lots of innovative businesses so that... what?"

The third misconception is the idea that entrepreneurs are somehow being manipulated by this system beyond their understanding. If anything, I'd say it's the opposite. Entrepreneurs set out to shape the system around them to provide them with rewards.

The fact that some types of businesses have high failure rates (I still don't really believe those 95% business failure rates... I strongly suspect very shoddy statistics that have a very poor definition of "success") doesn't mean that somehow most entrepreneurs are being suckered into starting business.

I think you need to rethink this idea from the ground up, carefully examining your assumptions as you go along, and maybe talking to some entrepreneurs too. You will, I believe, find it has no substance in reality.
No, there are some very significant differences. First, there isn't any reason there would only be one ratings organization, one insurance company, and one Yelp-for-doctors. You would be able to reject or accept the rating of any person or organization, and so would everyone else.

Second (but related to the first difference), the main problem with a title of nobility is that it grants legal privileges, thereby erecting legal barriers for others. That doesn't happen in this scenario.
I was actually surprised to see this article from Spiegel. I don't read it on a regular basis, but to me they have an excellent brand. It was very disappointing.
You don't need to restrict to demographic cross sections. You can take a set of 30-40 twins (of all demographics) and compare them to a set of N>40 randomly selected twin-like pairs (of all demographics). As long as your twins and twin-like pairs have the same demographic mix, you have an adequate sample.

This sample will average out demographic variation, but the twin-induced correlations are controlled for.

Womb environment can be controlled for by comparing identical to fraternal twins.

It may be the case that most twin studies are performed badly. I'm just pointing out that most of the issues you raise are not a real problem for anyone who understands basic statistics (admittedly, this may exclude most psychologists).
For example I searched for "japan", and expected to find "japan-guide.com". Now I realize the only reason I even know about that site is because it was in my Google results before, so now I grew to consider it the "correct" answer.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/ seems to serve a similar purpose to developers, though - listing apps from within a standard directory. I'd imagine that it's much easier to have a user download an app and drag it to their Apps folder on their Mac than manually finding and installing apps seamlessly on a mobile device.

It seems to me like an App Store for Mac developers would only benefit Apple with their profit from it.
Young yes. exit polls show that The Pirate Party and Green Party gets more votes then any other party in the age group 18-30. Middle-class maybe. Hard to tell really at this point, but from personal experiences I would say it's really a mix. Urban not-so-much. The Pirate Party made a quite even election throughout Sweden's 21 different counties, ranging from 5.5% to 8.0% with a total result of 7.1%. Compared to the centre party ranging from 3.0% to 14.6% with a total result of 5.5%.
Here's a relevant piece from the (incredible) story:

<blockquote>Inland from Vierville about five hundred yards lies the Château de Vaumicel, imposing in its rock-walled massiveness, its hedgerow-bordered fields all entrenched and interconnected with artilleryproof tunnels. To every man but Taylor the target looks prohibitive. Still, they follow him. Fire stops them one hundred yards short of the château. The Germans are behind a hedgerow at mid-distance. Still feeling their way, Taylor's men flatten, open fire with rifles, and toss a few grenades, though the distance seems too great. By sheer chance, one grenade glances off the helmet of a German squatting in a foxhole. He jumps up, shouting: "Kamerad! Kamerad!" Thereupon twenty-four of the enemy walk from behind the hedgerow with their hands in the air. Taylor pares off one of his riflemen to march the prisoners back to the beach. The brief fight costs him three wounded. Within the château, he takes two more prisoners, a German doctor and his first-aid man. Taylor puts them on a "kind of a parole," leaving his three wounded in their keeping while moving his platoon to the first crossroads beyond the château.</blockquote>

The chateau looked untakeable, and perhaps it was. But they tried anyway, got lucky and escaped largely unscathed. Had they not tried, they would never have gotten lucky.
The Repubs have compromised. They only slowed, somewhat, the growth in spending. Do you really think that CA would be better off if spending had grown faster?

If not, then you get to explain how letting the Dems get more of their way would have helped. Be specific. (Surely you're not going to argue that Repubs forced significant new spending or that Repubs forced Dems to spend more money than the revenues.)
Doesn't that fall into the "proving a negative" category? As I do not and will not have kids, how will I have any idea? I seem to remember Hazlitt invoking this re: the cost of the broken window...

My sister has already taken care of my share, so maybe I have the best of both worlds: Someone else's kids to play with, and someone else to send then back to when I have had enough! :)
Yes and no ...

Maybe my resume is written incorrectly now but,a s it stands, a lot of presentation is mixed with the content. That would make it ugly to do things like have only the HTML version include logos of employers or having the plaintext use a completely different formatting.
I think he's trying to say that postmodernism is a critical methodology, rather than a collection of assertions - much as science is a systematic way of developing knowledge, rather than just the sum of its various axioms.

ThomPete, you might find it instructive to consider that the major problem of postmodernism is its' adherents seeming inability to make simple declarative statements. Of course, simple declarative statements are often freighted with unspoken assumptions, and unpacking and analyzing these is a postmodern exercise in itself, particularly that of Jacques Derrida and the deconstructionists.

But where many postmodernsists go wrong is in the attempt to make fully qualified and narrowly specified declarative statements, which end up being almost impossible to read. In their zeal to avoid implying anything or having their intentions misunderstood, postmodernists frequently alienate their audiences with discourse which resembles cultural autism. This creates the impression that post-modernists are actually in love with the comforting certainties of modernism, but have seen the negative results of too much certitude: they would still like to establish definitive truths, but have decided to do so very very carefully.

I am not against post modernism, which I believe has many interesting things to say and provides useful tools with which to understand the world and our place in it. However, a critical framework that is so woolly and inconsistent as to be useless for practical communication of ideas does no service to the truths it was designed to express.
The Swedish word for integrity (integritet) can be used in two senses: the property of having a consistent value system or a right to privacy. tjogin most likely intended the latter meaning.

I'm curious about the distinction between Big Brother and large-scale logging/filtering/monitoring in electronic systems without court orders by the government. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "Big Brother"?

Whether you think the result is "the greatest thing to happen in European politics in a long time" clearly depends on your political views. It could be seen as an indication that a number of people make at least some effort to stand up for civil liberties (an issue I hear some consider more than "important"). Also, "long time" is not particularly well defined.. ;) I'm just guessing here of course, joel_feather didn't say much about why he thought this was such a great thing.
AIUI East Asian means Chinese

Perhaps you should say Han instead of Chinese? In context it looks like you mean to exclude Uighurs, Manchus, and other non-Han ethnic groups.
I'd like to just use this service to seach all three. Wish there was a simple way to set this up in Firefox.
Actually, my team and I could use some help on the systems software and hardware side. If you're interested, I'd love to introduce myself via a brief call or something -- we're working in the real-time relevancy space. Let me know: paul@philtro.com
Just recently looked at the website you mentioned (fidelityasap.com) because a neighbor's house is being auctioned and I wanted to know what was going on with it.

I'm curious, LPS seems to have a lock on the foreclosure/auction market. Are they the only ones, though? Are there other websites that list properties like this?

Speaking of ghetto neighborhoods, according to fidelityasap.com, Oakland has 700+ properties being auctioned.
Really, was this unexpected?

This can be summarized as "New search engine gets spike as people try it out of curiosity" -- I'd be surprised if there wasn't a temporary jump in users around launch time.
Status message via their main web address:

At approx 7pm GMT VASERV HyperVM was hacked and it appears that all nodes have some level of damage. We are currently working on the situation and will be putting updates here.

Currently we have no ETA on this

23:18 GMT. We are going to bring the support desk back online shortly so we can start getting a track of where customers are.

Per DC

LA FSCKVPS - People are onsite working on the system

WireSix Atlanta - People are working onsite

TMS - Expecting someone onsite within 1 hour

UK - We have 4 people onsite and gauging status

Overall it looks like /boot on the nodes has been removed. Some nodes are definitly missing /vz data and others have it intact. We will be going node by node to get things going ASAP.

Our HyperVM db's are intact so this means we can link everyone to their VPS

23:56 GMT: We now have a rolling action plain in place for all nodes and are starting checks/restores. Please note we are expecting at least 24-48 hours to get things even remotly stable

00:32 GMT: We have so far done some test rebuilds on 5 boxes and results look semi promsing for the root VPS data (/vz). /etc/ was removed meaning config files need rebuilding however this is easy enough to do from HyperVM database. As it stands we will NOT be giving public access to HyperVM for the forseable future. We may/may not still use it internally via some very strong firewall controls. For rebuilds etc we will be asking people to do support tickets etc
>> going back to the original statement of "Examples include credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility."

Yes, let's. One of the claims was that there were credential requirements for many different occupations. (Licensing for other things is a separate claim.) I've listed a couple of examples and we're nowhere near many.

I'm perfectly willing to agree that state imposed licensing is widespread, but that's a separate claim. I note that licensing is largely independent of public supported schools.
I’m really kinda surprised that the German Green party also supports that. I always thought of them as being less, ahem, “extreme”.

But it is really, at least somehow, true. (See http://www.gruene.de/einzelansicht/artikel/das-netz-waehlt-g... – only German) Well, partly, at least. One of their candidates is in favor of a culture flat rate. Their website makes it pretty hard to identify if this is actually the official party line. (And he just so made it into the parliament, the German Greens got 14 seats, he is their 12th candidate.)

Kinda embarrassing to discover something like that after I have actually voted for them. But I would guess that this is by no means a mainstream view inside the Green party and parties.
This is related to something I often say: The US is more liberal than Europe.

Much of Europe feels relatively rigid, in the sense that there are ancient attitudes, customs, social structures, and institutions that would seem out of place in the US.

You might say Europe is to the left of the US, but then we'd be talking about something else.
That book sounds interesting, I had a look at the website. Has anyone else read it? I want to know if it's worthwhile (well-thought-out, researched, etc), or just another guy on the 'net with some opinions.

Anyway, I agree with posters above - entrepeneurs are somewhere between very important and essential to economic growth. They're not pawns though, as that implies they are unwilling stooges being manipulated by higher powers.
> No, I'm asking what her statement is a metaphor for.

I don't believe I could say without either more context, or without just making up one of my own.

I was simply pointing out that to try and take the quote literally would be absurd.

> No, just that her quote isn't saying anything worthwhile about gender and culture in science.

I myself am not convinced that it does (note my use of "might" in the first reply here!) -- again, it was a completely context-free excerpt. But as a whole, it (or other writing of a similar nature), certainly could be saying something interesting, yet you deny the very possibility.

I'm not interested in inventing meaning from a short quote and putting my words into the author's mouth, and I do not have the time to go read the originals. So: you will get no satisfaction from me when it comes to a summary of the original unexcerpted work.

Suffice to say that I believe there are many interesting things to be said about gender and science, from the obvious statistics, anecdotes and trends, to the less obvious -- such as the historical, cultural, and linguistic parallels between science and authoritarian patriarchy, for example.

A side note: I myself have never claimed to be speaking metaphorically, nor used an obvious metaphor, so your sarcastic exchange (haven't I asked you to spare me it?) is rather off the mark.
Christian Videos Network - Solo puedo imaginarme
European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal effect.
For those without Facebook:

10. Ask them what languages they know. You can tell the programmer by the way he names numerous langauges but forgets to include 'English'.

9. Whenever they write the phrase "go to" in normal email, they make it one word. (Example: New hires should goto the Black Swan room for orientation.) And then they consider restructuring the flow of the whole email so they don't have to use goto.

8. When they introduce their son as JSON and their daughter as Ruby.

7. When they end a random sentence with a semi-colon;

6. If they laugh at the classic "there are 10 types of people who understand binary; those who do, and those who don't" shirt, they are... :-)

5. If they follow conditional logic in the real life, too. For example, check out this "joke":

A woman asks her husband, a programmer, to go shopping: - Dear, please, go to the nearby grocery store to buy some bread. Also, if they have eggs, buy 6. - O.K., hun. Twenty minutes later the husband comes back bringing 6 loaves of bread. His wife is flabbergasted: - Dear, why on earth did you buy 6 loaves of bread? - They had eggs.

4. They complain that Google doesn't have regular expressions support.

3. They use slashed zero to distinguish the digit 0 from the letter O.

2. They use nested parentheses in normal writing (at least I do (sometimes)).

1. You ask them "do you want A or B" and they answer "yes".

and the number 0 way to tell if a person is a programmer is:

0. They number lists starting with 0.
uh it's interesting b/c only one search engine ranks wikipedia first!
Agree with swombat's carefully worded response. Would like to add a couple of points.

Entrepreneurs volunteer and are not forced to be "pawns". They are the inventors. People in general are content with the status quo, entrepreneurs on the hand are "unreasonable", they see better ways of doing things. It is through this process of optimisation that society has progressed.

Trying anything new and/or different is inherently risky and thus there is the ever present chance of failure. But failing to fail is worse, it means that you haven't tried hard enough.

Probably the most mistaken concept of entrepreneurship is that they do it for money. That is what bankers and VC's do. They don't have any vision of their own, instead they fund the visions of others. Entrepreneurs do things to OPTIMISE, the money is merely the consequence of getting it right, in other words, people are prepared to pay money for the convenience, benefit, VALUE of the entrepreneurs' innovation.

Columbus wasn't told by his Queen to discover another route to India, he asked for money to embark on discovering a new route to India and failed ... he discovered a new land instead, created an avenue for trade. That is the typical failure of entrepreneurs, they dream big and fail by achieving something greater.

Anyone who sets out to be an entrepreneur solely to make money has failed before he has even started.
Is it just me or does Google seem rather quiet about Bing?

It seems that they don't see it as a threat at all.
You can think of an "entrepreneur" as someone who has chosen to take higher risk for the potential of a greater reward. People should of course be free to choose a lower risk pursuit, but the potential reward is also lower.

You're saying many entrepreneurs fail and that this sucks. But your post kind of assumes that who is an entrepreneur is predetermined. Instead, as I said, people should be free to choose the amount of risk they're willing to take, and yes, many of the people who choose to take big risks will fail. That's how it's supposed to work.

Also, obviously each person doesn't have to make this choice once for their entire life. They can fail and try something else.
the degree to which IQ correlates with the traits that we find desirable and are measuring for is a valid debate, but I don't think the debate gains anything by having people who don't understand things like standard distributions and standard deviation participate.

It's easy to spot. They mention mean IQ's without bothering with the bare minimum needed to make that information useful (standard deviation). Even people in business math learn that mean without a SD is fairly worthless, but even more so when you're trying to compare two means. I refuse to listen to people who refuse to meet the bare minimum requirements of proper scientific reasoning.

The reverse is easy to spot too, an honest analysis will simply show you the model they are using and explicitly state what assumptions are built into that particular model. an honest debate can follow.
That's interesting. I doubt the Pirate Party would get much play in rural Britain; the Eurosceptics of UKIP (common-or-garden get-off-my-lawn types) are cleaning up there.

(And the bloody fascists have got at least one MEP. Probably two. sigh.)
I tried to talk to you, but it turns out you consistently mean something different from what you say. For once, I'd like you to clearly and literally state, just once, what you're on about instead of going in circles.

In particular, the onus is on you to clearly define what "legal egalitarianism" means, why college degrees violate that principle, and why we should care. That's an honest discussion. Trying to cleverly redefine terms like "nobility" isn't.
What would you expect them to say? Anything they say simply draws attention to a competitor.
What do you guys think about it?

I think your theory is without merit.

Most entrepreneurs fail because they take on an endeavor they are not cut out for.

Additionally, it is not like the government randomly selects people and tells them they must go try to start a business.

Generally speaking, entrepreneurial types go into the battle knowing that the odds are stacked against them, but for whatever reason, they feel this is a better approach than a more "safe" career working for another organization.

Even in the tech startup world, there really is no "recruitment" of entrepreneurs, VCs typically reject meetings rather than go out and try to drum up business.
Uhm... where better data is the exact same source as they used before?
But that's not a package manager. Think macports with a pretty UI and servers in Cupertino. And yes, apple would surely be happy with the sales commissions and tightening developer control.
I'd expect this to take the form of a stand-alone App Store app. I'm quite sure that Apple will do this eventually. It has done wonders for the iPhone, but they might hold off until the iPhone App Store excitement shows signs of dying down.
Easiest way to double your money: fold it in half and put it in your pocket. I guarantee no losses.
YooHoo - Friends, Family, Work
The key is "speaking the language" of science, not actually _doing_ science.

Neo-creationists use scientific terms and talk about scientific theories, but do not advance any scientific theories or apply those terms to their own thinking. The creationist standpoint is and always has been that a literal interpretation of particular English translations of the Bible is unquestionably factually accurate, and that anything which contradicts that interpretation is to be attacked by any means available.

The only difference is that now they talk about things "irreducible complexities" (which aren't) and "the lack of transitional forms" (which isn't) as a scientific-sounding cover.
Yahoo seems to be rising incredibly fast. Its greater than 50% now.
This is really not desirable content on HN, even on a slow news Sunday.

Not only it's locked behind a facebook login wall (though thanks to zkarcher for posting the contents), but it's basically a list of lame jokes.

Try digg instead.
You say "anecdote", I say case study. The author of the blog you linked to clearly has an axe to grind.

Larger twin studies have incorporated Structural Equation Modeling since the 80's. The number of such studies and the amount of data is substantial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_studies#Criticism