skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your chimpanzee murder examlpe seems at variance3 with your first comment above: I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it. That seems quite morally corrupt. Animals kill other animals for what appear to be rationalizable reasons, food, competition, self-preservation.

Obviously this is only a casual conversation, but you argue that unknowns in animal communication may obscure a greater moral sensibility (than that of humans), then provide an example of apparent immorality, which seems to refute your original contention. You make interesting points throughout, but they don't seem very coherent. Can you back up and clarify your thesis a little?
Oh, I absolutely agree with the usefulness of InQuickER!

My argument was only with the idea of using surcharges to deal with overcrowding. The reason that ERs are chronically overcrowded is not (generally speaking) because of people getting ill on trips, being in car accidents, or having ear-infected kids. The reason that ERs are overcrowded is the large number of people for whom ERs serve as primary care facilities.

As you (correctly) pointed out, these people probably wouldn't be using InQuickER-like services anyway, so they're not relevant to the question of whether scheduling systems are helpful or not. I think that scheduling systems lke InQuickER definitely could be helpful to patients that use them, and maybe to the ERs themselves... but also that, depending on the specifics of a given ER's catchment area, they won't have much impact on overall crowded-ness, since that's largely due to a segment of the population that won't be using the scheduling system anyway.

Now, if one could find a way to make these people more likely to use the scheduling system, you might see more of an effect.

Of course, I could be completely wrong- IANDNAIHEOHQE (I am not a doctor nor am I a health economist or healthcare quality expert), and when it comes to health care quality interventions (which is what InQuickER basically is) it is not at all uncommon for things to behave in a counter-intuitive manner. That's why solid evaluation of system outcomes is so important. Hopefully the participating hospitals are keeping a close eye on their utilization statistics... for their sake, I hope that the InQuickER people are insisting on it- being able to show a significant change in in-ER waiting time due to their system would be the single best marketing tool that they could possibly hope for.

Adding to the list of things that I could be completely wrong about, my sense of who InQuickER's users are could be dead wrong. Tyler, what are your user demographics like? Do they mirror those of the hospitals that are using the system?
Sometimes you see danger but its magnitude doesn't hit you until someone else points it out. I was 26-27, I had my vaccines done, I had some cash and I am African by birth, so none of these "problems" that Western expats were facing could touch me, it is my third-world and I will be fine!

Yyyyyeah, nice try. My new girlfriend with a woman's common-sense was quick to point out to me the danger I was in. I had dabbled in business with the locals and I might have taken a side in a neighborhood civil-war that was going back for decades. It would have taken a $20 bribe from someone to pin some contraband on me and send me off to Hanoi Hilton for good.

etc, etc.
shoot me if it doesnt work out.
I waited about the same in Canada, in the second-worst hospital in the province for ER wait times.

So... what was that with the socialized medicine bashing?
The whole thing reminds me of that old joke when you encrypt/cypher/code the beast, but the user will still put it on sticknote on his monitor.
Youtube starts testing HTML5  tag
Exercise:

I have scoliosis and I've tried everything for sore back and neck. Nothing has worked as well as the 5 Rites every morning before breakfast. I think #3 has helped me the most, but who knows. I'll leave the secret with the ancients. I do these every day.

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

In addition to that, the usual:

- get my heart rate into the training zone (140 to 170 BPM) for 30-40 minutes 3 to 6 times per week (jogging, stairs)

- heavyhands

- shovelglove http://www.shovelglove.com/

- chin-ups, pushups, dips

- Hindu squats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuyAdr4RKsY
Do 500 of these every day and you'll be in the best shape of your life

That's it. I don't spend much money, but I do something every day.

Eating:

This is more (un)common sense that anything else. My 2 favorites:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020121horne/02...

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Revolutionary-Formula-Sustain...
You are correct. See my comment above yours.
Works perfectly for me in Safari, but not in Firefox 3 -- Real FullScreen is not yet supported or allowed I guess
> It's always mystified me why the valley is so bland, given the amount of money available. I wonder if the valley literally attracts blandness. I've had Indian engineers recommend Amber India to me, which is sweetened de-spiced Indian cuisine, about as authentic as "American" Chinese food.

Strange. I have had Amber recommended to me by people visiting from India, first and second-generation Indian-Americans, English ex-pats from London (whose home town has the best Indian restaurants in the world) and by just about every guidebook, rating service, and newspaper review that has covered them. The outlier here is you.
You the man sivers!
Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read
Actually very few animal species kill for fun, you pretty much mention the only two other than humans. Chimps are the one species outside of humans known to kill their own kind for sheer cruelty; they'll attack opponents to the brink of death and then leave them to suffer, usually dying days or weeks later from their injuries.

Orcas do appear to play with their food for amusement, usually it's their last catch. However, the catch seems to be donated to the youngest member who is learning the beaching techniques and the behavior is not usually seen in Orcas that don't beach, which either gives them different social and cultural mores between the two distinct groups of Orcas (nomadic and sedentary) or it serves a purpose in training the young to hunt.

The domestic cat frequently behaves in the same way as a lion or tiger cub that hasn't been taught to hunt. When any cat is taught to hunt by its mother (big or small) it's obvious that they don't play with their food. Mature fully trained Orca's seemingly play with their food, however mature fully trained cats never play with their food. All domestic cat's 'play' behaviors with its prey, are exclusively hunting tactics.

I don't exactly see how humans being the only animal killing for sport is moot, it's not wholly accurate but it's damn near so. As these are all mammals it means the behavior is exhibited on a roughly 1:1300 of species that kill for fun and species that don't.

For all the species that apparently present morality to have evolved it on their own is highly unlikely. This means that it has a biological underpinning, which means potentially every mammal on the planet could exhibit some form of morality. Which then means only 4 species (currently only 2 confirmed) out of roughly 5400 have the ability to disregard morality.
The only things I really miss from the UK (I moved to California when I was 27) are my family, and the health care.
I can't imagine using this Bespin thing. Looks completely counter productive. Might as well just use GUI tools in conjunction with a plain ole' CLI. (best tool for whatever particular job you're doing -- the way most people use CLIs these days I suspect)

I am quite found of the fish shell as a slightly more modern approach to command lines. Having tab completion on apt-get for example is a huge time saver for me since I can't seem to remember exact package names to save my lives.
I have had socialized health-care in all three of the countries I've lived in and dealt with the american solution a few times while traveling. Honestly wait times were about the same across the board. Socialized or not E.R. rooms are rarely able to cope with busy times.

Socialized health care usually only means worse service for the very rich. For everyone else it's a great thing.
Computer science is to programming as physics is to engineering. The way SOME programmers constantly put down computer science, especially academic computer science, is a sign of the anti-professionalism in the field. (I decided I better emphasize some programmers since they actually seem to be a very vocal minority.)
If you want to apply your quantitative skills to a more active outdoor environment, you could consider some type of structural or civil engineering.
Search engineer stories
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Very interesting article - and we can see the effects of this sort of land ownership historically, particularly with regards to American multi-national agriculture giants.

From what I know of the situation, the effects of these massive land buy-outs are rarely positive. Yes, it generates employment locally, but it creates a trade deficit for the host country like you would not believe, and drives everyone into poverty in the long run. Not to mention that many of these countries are starving, and instead of using the land to grow food crops and feed the people, they're exporting bananas and pineapples, and re-importing staple foods that they're not growing themselves at high prices.

This behaviour has led to revolutions in the past - and we know that the ousting of the socialist Salvadore Allende in Chile (by the CIA, no less) was fueled largely due to American corporate objections over nationalization of farmlands. And then he was replaced by Pinochet - a story we would be better off not repeating.

Whatever the benefits of this sort of deal, I'm fairly certain the farmers at on the fields are not seeing it. Massive land buy-outs like these benefit only the gilded upper classes of these poor countries.
You'll find a lot of reviews and plan comparisons at http://www.broadbandreports.com/search
Never waited more than 10 minutes in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany or UK (and lived on all those countries for a while), had to wait 4.5 hours on San Francisco just few months ago.
why back in my day we had 200 baud modems and we were happy with that, not this fancy shmancy advanced megalobits nonsense with your "streaming video" and your "bit torrents"

kids these days have it too good.
Yes, but the coach of a mediocre NBA or NFL team has a lot more to lose than just the game. Take big risks and end up losing 15 football games, and your career as a coach might be over. Play the regular style and lose 15 games, and you have a "young team".
Winning Putnams by the dozen a la cpercival.

(He's placed like 3 or 4 times.)
Want An HTC Magic From Google I/O? Try eBay.
The fact of the matter is that humans tend to get all of our information through language, either written or verbal. We extend this expectation to other animals, that any intelligent animal must have a complex verbal language.

However, we frequently underestimate the audible range. You mentioned elephants ULF calls, which are known to travel between herds. However likely low in information.

Yet man's best friend (dog's) communicate almost exclusively through body language and scent. One of my friend's dogs barks viciously at anyone, to the point strangers are scared of it. However, take one step towards it after it backs and it runs away. People mistakenly take the bark as aggression, when it's really fear. Essentially the dog is able to lie to us.
Run IE8/IE7/IE6, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera from the web
Bonfires and product development: a parable
Reductio ad absurdum.

Without endorsing either of the two opinions, your analogies are invalid because they are examples of the above logical fallacy. You cannot compare using something in a manner that violates a person's right to not be maimed or killed with something that does not voilate the highest universal human rights.
This is a Firefox extension that launches virtual browser instances so you don't have to have a native install. Windows only I'm afraid.
I think games will be a big step in that direction.
Some people do reset the password when requested via a web form though, that's what I was replying to. For my own projects I do what you suggested.
My neck doesn't hurt either, I've been at it for over 20 years. Maybe your ergonomics are wrong.

The bigger issue is that you aren't excited by what you are doing, so ... STOP IT! life's too short to be doing something you hate. I've gone back to university to get a PhD, I'm using my brain heaps and interacting with some very smart people. It's not for everyone, but if you are looking for a mental challenge, even a year long course in something that you are intrigued by might recharge your batteries.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=546303
If my personal opinion counts for anything: I think Slava is a first-rate compiler hacker working on a pet language. Somebody should snag him ASAP and put him in charge of something more useful; dunno, a tight compiler for an embedded ARM platform for mobiles or something.

The world didn't need "the best forth-dialect" which he created, and still doesn't. It just needs another standards compliant C compiler. Nvidia or Intel should put an end to his fun-mongering and suit that boy up for a nice Lead FOO Architect position :-)
There is no intrinsic value. There is no unchanging market value. There is only the market value now, and the market value it used to have, and for that matter the definition of "market" isn't terribly obvious either, though the only ones that matter are "people I can actually sell the thing to" and "the average of the market for some purpose or other".

This is the way it is. Complaining about it doesn't change anything. Market value may be nebulous, but it's the least nebulous meaningful definition of "value" there is for commerce.

(This is why I can't even be a "goldbug". The idea that gold has intrinsic value is patently absurd, because there is no such thing as "intrinsic value". And once you are reduced to arguing that "Well, historically it's been a good investment" it is simply one commodity amoungst many and the argument is over, because now gold isn't special.)
someone else's content ..."

I seem to be missing something here ... How is what they're doing any different from what any other search engine does? Do you disapprove of the search engines making money too?
The systems that GNU resembles were poorly licensed. How do you figure that without GNU, we would have had a better replacement in their stead (what precedents do you have for your view?)
Web application penetration testing VS vulnerability assessment
Right, the typical consumer can crank out exactly which relevant industry standards their car's internals adhere to.

When consumers say they care about the internals of their cars, what they actually care about are things like power, fuel efficiency, torque, whatever. They have nothing more than a superficial understanding of how the actual mechanics of the vehicle translate into these qualities. Talking about V8 engines, etc, is, for the typical consumer, nothing more than marketing.

HTML5 could certainly be a marketing device (5? That's one more than 4, it must be better!), especially if you showed end users cool things that web sites can do with HTML5 that they can't do with 4.
VC Tim Draper on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Thanks!

> But SRP is totally irrelevant in a browser context, because any technique you can use to safely deliver SRP code to the browser can be used just as easily to safely exchange passwords directly. SRP will be relevant when browsers bake it in.

If you read the conclusion, this is why I ripped out the SRP stuff :-) Can't wait for TLS-SRP to hit the browsers.
You have inspired me to create a Hacker News meetup group:

http://www.meetup.com/Hacker-News-NOVA-DC/

Get on board if you live in the DC metro area.
If I use Django on AppEngine, do I get automatic scalability through the Django database ORM?
33: SuperCollider

er, what?
It probably gives the judge the option in a civil case. Or in criminal case it defiantly would get my vote on a jury.

If nothing else it (and actually paying for the software) would probably mitigate the resulting punishment.
I quit my job last October to try some writing (which unfortunately isn't going well) and some studying. I, too, am running short of funds, but got hired for a low level position at the local Walmart, which more than meets my bills, and gives me plenty of time to think about what I want.
Calling all Hacker News readers in the NOVA/DC metro area
Well, good luck. I'm rooting for you because your service would be amazing. You're dealing with the most fucked up, slow-moving, ass-backward industry in the history of capitalism though, so it's going to be a really tough battle.
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In addition to making emergency treatment more efficient, you're also providing valuable decision support to people in some of the most stressful moments of their lives.

Anyone who is scared enough or in enough pain to be considering an ER visit is about as far from a 'rational actor' as possible. Helping them make good decisions not only smooths out the system, it also gives people essential help when they need it most.

Nice job. :)
'Get a Girlfriend' isn't as easy as it sounds for everyone. I'd say get a dog to start with. I got a dog last September and I can't imagine getting rid of him now.

It just makes life more worth living. You wake up in the morning a bit happier because your dog is smiling and wagging his tail for you to go make him food. And it gets you outside more because he has to be walked 3+ times a day which helps give you a break from work.

Edit: My dog was laying in the sun and got too warm so he walked right in front of me and just flopped over. [pic] http://ul.mikeyur.com/public/sk/photo-20090527-184014.png
Just read a great string of comments by HN readers in the DC area. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=629040) This inspired me to create a Hacker News group on Meetup.com.

Join if you live in the area, and come on out for beers.

http://www.meetup.com/Hacker-News-NOVA-DC
It was posted not too long ago. Probably will respond later 9:
They are reductio ad absurdum -- but that isn't a logical fallacy, it's a valid logical form (http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/reductio.htm). By showing that the logical consequence of an argument is absurd, you show that it's flawed.

Either way: the poster I was replying to made no reference to human rights, or the ultimate reasons behind the laws. He simply said he wouldn't hold with laws that limited what he could do with items he had purchased. And this is a nonsense position: many laws limit what we can do with possessions, for a multitude of reasons. Look at the example of the printing press -- it has nothing to do with maiming or killing.

The post's getting a lot of downvotes, so is pretty unpopular, but it's not a fallacy, and certainly wasn't intended as trolling. There are arguments against adhering to copyright and licenses. That they're limitations on "something you purchased" isn't one of them.
You don't pay tax on gifts only winnings.

In the US giving someone that does not work for you up to ~12k/year is tax free, but the person giving the gift needs to pay tax on gifts larger than that. With some paperwork there is a lifetime exception up to 1 million but it comes out of the estate tax exemption.

So, if Bill Gates gave his child 1 billion Bill would need to pay ~400 million to the IRS. However, there is an exception for anyone you are married to, and I think educational / heath care gifts are also excluded.

PS: I don't know if it counts as a "prize" or a "gift" if you hand it out to everyone that shows up, but I just wanted to make the difference clear.
A List Apart just posted an article on burnout: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/burnout/

[edit: dupe sorry.] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626616
I took care of my landlord's dog for a month while she was out of town, and on top of everything you've said, I found that it made me a much more effective person.

When you gotta walk the dog, you have to walk the dog - no ifs and buts around it, and it got me a lot more focused on what I should be doing instead of dicking around the internet all day, too lazy to do something productive.
Nice! just replied to your email as well :-)
>Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind.

The qualifier "most" kind of sinks your battleship on this one. I don't disagree with what you said, per se, but with its implications.

Let's say an animal's intelligence is not different in kind to ours if its intelligence is at least (1-alpha)I, where I is standard human intelligence and for some low alpha. But what about animals of at least (1-alpha)^2 * I intelligence? By this definition, they would be different in kind to us, but not different in kind to a creature not different in kind to us (one with exactly (1-alpha)I intelligence).

The point I'm trying to get at here is that while our intelligence seems different in kind to that of a dog, there might be a reasonably smooth intelligence slope via a number of other species. So I think it might be questionable to assume that our intelligence is qualitatively different.

That said, I do think there are certain emergent phenomena that occur only at higher intelligence. Which, I suppose, could be what you meant in the first place.
I think that's where we disagree. I haven't come across any normal folk who even remotely cares about HTML version or javascript library, etc. I have however come across many people from various backgrounds talking about how different cars perform.

edit: ultimately we'll probably need some numbers to back our claims. I've got way too many bugs to fix to do any significant digging. But I'm open to counterexamples if you can find some numbers.
This would be a neat way to input a password
Even more remarkable, its generator was powered by a highly-efficient Stirling external-combustion engine.

It is worth noting, however, that this isn't a "hybrid" in the same way as the Prius or Insight. The drive train is much simpler and only connects the electric motor to the wheels.
Quote by Frank Zappa on College
> When one thinks about important problems facing the United States, ... it is difficult to not come up with the laundry list that every talking head seemingly has on the tip of their tongue: jobs, education, health care, national security, poverty.

"Difficult"??? I find it very easy.

How about: torture, warrantless searches & wiretapping, indefinite detention without charge or trial, militarization of police forces, excessive government secrecy, police-state-style borders & airport security, politicians being considered above the law, etc., etc.

Next question: Why are all the "talking heads" ignoring all this stuff?
I just joined. DC is getting some momentum-- there is a great PHP community here and there were decent number of start-ups at the AWS Start-up event today. A lot of the DC tech business is federal government or contractor-related and not as visible as the consumer start-ups out west.