skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your comment got me curious about Smeed's law, the Wikipedia article is pretty interesting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smeeds_law).

Smeed himself took his law as expressing a truth about group psychology: people would take advantage of improvements in automobiles or infrastructure to drive ever more recklessly in the interests of speed until deaths rose to a socially unacceptable level, at which point safety would become more important and recklessness less tolerated.
There are two flaws in this article.

For simplicity, let’s call them .box, .box-rounded, .box-rounded, .box-wide, .box-rounded-wide, and so forth. You can see that several of these would be required to cover all the possible box styles. And what's worse, each of them includes a lot of duplicate code.

There is no reason to repeat the basic box css in this situation. Just do .a, .b, .c { basic box css here }

I'd never actually use a class name like .box-rounded-wide, and I hope you wouldn't, either. It just makes for a good example.

If this is a real-world situation it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a real-world example. (If it isn't, there's no reason to talk about it)
Couldn't agree more, I have noticed that the singularity concept has created a great opportunity to write articles.

Take a robotics/biotech idea in development as a single data point, explain a future world where our lives have improved vastly and throw in some Bladerunner pictures.

Real-life scifi == nerd porn.

And I for one - enjoy reading it.
Yeah that was one of those quotes that someone else had sent to me and I remembered it when I read the OP. I did a search but couldn't come up with any sources.

But the other part of the quote is this:
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It’s the tenacity and courage to continue that counts." And that seems to come up quite a bit as being attributed to Churchill.
Libraries versus Frameworks
Well, that varies by state, I think. Wisconsin had specific exemptions for cars over a certain age, or cars that would cost too much to bring in line. You just had to get an estimate from your auto shop demonstrating that compliance would exceed a certain amount, and you'd be waived.
Cute Pocket-Sized Robot Could Change Urban Warfare
This is another thing that is nice about languages with simple syntax (like Lisp and Smalltalk) -- language features and libraries can "look" exactly the same. I think this is one of the big mental barriers to entry for users of other languages.

It happens in C++, too, which has an extremely complex syntax. C programmers are used to thinking of operators like + and - as language features because their meaning is defined by the language and can't be changed by programmers. C++ operating overloading continues to be extremely controversial because people who are used to C get angry that + and - can "unexpectedly" have meanings other than the meanings defined in the C language.

I know that's a special case, nothing like the general mutability of Lisp syntax, but I just wanted to point out that the differences pro (superior freedom/expressivity) and con (fear of confusion) happen whenever one language is slightly more programmable than another, not when a language has simpler syntax. (Of course, any sane person designing a programmable language would prefer minimal syntax.)
".. however, just by virtue of being in the US/Canada/Western Europe etc. you have already "won life's lottery"."

That is true. But you can also "win life's lottery" if you are born in a middle/upper class in a developing country.
Great comment. I have posted it at my blog.

Actually, I do deal with publishers quite a bit, as well as music labels and broadcasters. It is not that they are not dedicated to their work. Unfortunately, the economics of the Web works against these cost structures. It might not happen to books yet but with new reading devices and new marketplaces coming up, I think changes will come.

As to my comment on new genres of books being created, this argument is not unique. Every new medium will create a new form of media that suits its characteristics. Online video created 1 minute clips. Mobile created mobile books (in Japan currently).
I would pay for a similar product, especially if it's saving me money.
It's pretty wild that you could discount personal responsibility to the favor of things like "proper manners" at a 3 star and Acne medication.

I'm tempted to put responsibility at #1 for everyone who wasn't born with some obvious disadvantage (living in a 3rd world slum or having a serious disability.)
I only meant for inserting one bill, so N is the number of bills you have already. Using a binary search on a sorted list, either to find a specific denomination you want or to find the correct spot for a new bill, is O(log(N)).
I'm sure Ms. Roach would not agree with your dismissal of her work as "trivial". This is a bright example of stating your own value judgment as an absolute fact.
They can take a phone number too; I give them nnn-555-1212. It's always registered and you get the discount. I use this on vacation - "What's the area code here?" "808..?" "My number is 808-555-1212". Bingo.

But yeah, it's a hack.
Agree with you about the syntax. Three years ago at LtU we tried to coax technical justifications out of Microsoft's Erik Meijer and got no answers whatsoever: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1253#comment-13824
Brilliant article and well documented. I have always believed that nature always has answers to very complex human queries and you brought this out well in comparing organisation structures with animals that thrive in the jungle and wilderness!! ... i like!
I find that you can use 'Google Scholar' to download most papers that are on IEEE
This is one of my favorite "people doing amazingly trivial stuff" examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31tLFhnpa4

But, who am I to judge what makes someone who isn't me tick?
Print Version:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
If you're interested in tiling window managers, take a look at dwm or wmii. Their basic interface is essentially the same (xmonad was based on dwm, IIRC), but written in C.

wmii has a lot of extra extensibility involving a plan9-inspired networked file system interface (libixp) and pipes, and you can script it in any language you want.

While I'm not discouraging you from investigating Haskell (it's not really my style, but it's a very interesting language), there are probably better uses for it.
At my company we use it to test a .NET web app written in C# and using the ExtJS framework. It's a very useful tool.
I forgot what article I read it in, but there was something a while back about this. It justified the higher costs by describing the extra costs of the stores in these areas. Apparently, many of these stores have higher theft rates and need for security, which drives up prices.
Guilty as charged ...
Believe me, the poor in the US don't get "handouts." To get foodstamps or other welfare, the poor usually have to work ridiculous hours. And the money you get from being on welfare just isn't enough.

I'd rather see more legislation to ensure that people get paid enough money to survive a normal life than more handouts that just make them more dependent on the government.
Rich people pay more taxes if you have a flat tax rate too.

How do you know how much progressiveness you need to counteract the vague phenomenon you describe? How can you be sure a mere proportionate increase wouldn't be enough to do it? Or even less?
If you post something along the lines of "first!" or general fanboism, you're more than likely going to get a number of downvotes. That's how it's always been here, and that's the whole point of the entire fucking karma system. It's intended to instigate, hopefully, meaningful discussions, or at least something that reflects a thoughtful presence.
Unfortunately this is not the origin of the modern European mathematics. The math was tightly related to the field of mathematical physics until early 20 century. And the cause of split of physics and mathematics is Bourbaki's movement for pure math, which unfortunately leading the movement of pedagogical "new math" later that make all school children hating math.

The job of old mathematicians is not only to prove theorem, but also to design tools to solve physics problems.

V.I. Arnold was trying to bring this back together again. It is the same as we design algorithms for real world problems.
> His books on differential equations and classical mechanics are simply the best.

I'm partial to his Topological Methods in Hydrodynamics myself.

In case you're a "school child" interested in mathematics, the lecture he mentioned, The Abel theorem in problems, was just recently translated into english by Sujit Nair.

http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~nair/abel.pdf
Which is what the article says....
Building a house for under $5000
Ask HN: New car or used?
The engine just blew up on my old Beamer. ($4K seemed like such a good deal at the time!, its was a beautiful car with 160K) After another $4K in repairs and a blown headgasket...not such a good deal after all...

What's the most economical replacement car?
A) Brand new Japanese car which I'll take great care of for the next 20 years.
B) The same car for a few thousand less with a few thousand miles on it.
C) Similar car for dirt cheap with a whole lot of miles on it?

I'm not concerned about style or comfort, just trying to figure out what's the best deal economically.
Ask HN: Recommendations for a good immigration lawyer in the Bay Area?
I've used SearchYC and read the Ask YC archives quite extensively, but I haven't run across many actual recommendations.

I'm exploring/trying to understand my options for working in the US. As a Canadian citizen, the easiest option by far would be a TN1 visa, but where's the fun in that ;) I want to explore startup or freelance avenues for working in the Bay Area.

I have a couple of possible tools available - an existing semi-established Canadian corporation, and US residents who have my absolute trust (up for starting a company together, etc.)

At the very least, I would want a good lawyer who fully understands and can clearly explain the options available to me. Ideally, I could find someone who has successfully found creative solutions in the past, and whose first answer won't be "you can't do that" (I guess the lawyer equivalent of a hacker). It's hard to find that on Google, and I have a lot of respect for this community's recommendations.

If you've successfully used an immigration lawyer in either the Bay Area or Toronto, I would really appreciate your recommendations. Thanks.

(posting this as anon to avoid any possible legal or employer ramifications of seeking this advice - you never know.)
Yikes! My bad. I was typing that in a sort of stream of consciousness. I'll try to format better from now on.
Your link should have an apostrophe - Smeed's, not Smeeds.
Oh I'm not suggesting they do, far from it. I wanted to temper my comment though because the situation in Canada is much different. I think we do a pretty good job up here of making sure most people don't fall through the cracks. Most of our poor are addicted to something, or native (let's not go there). It's easier to break the cycle in this country, although that isn't saying that it is easy.

Life is a lot rougher in the US if you're poor, and I realize that.
Everyone can improve. It's the least-skilled people who are most eager to improve, because someone with plenty of friends doesn't as keenly regret not "clicking" with another person and is less likely to blame himself for it, but nobody has perfect people skills. To pull numbers out of thin air, I think 75% of the people in any large city would be unable to make small talk with 75% of the people in the city they live in. (That includes children, teenagers, older people, homemakers, day laborers, everybody.) If they felt inclined to broaden their ability to schmooze, these tips would help.

I like your Tip 0. Sometimes the other person seems to be intentionally hanging you out to dry, but they're really thinking, "Gosh, at least this guy is trying to make conversation. I'm just standing here like an idiot, not helping at all."
I've had more than the usual number of opportunities to trot out this quote lately:

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - H.L. Mencken
I'm not sure there's a lot of weight in the author's argument. The crux of his argument is that you'll eventually need to learn how the framework does what it does. Of course you'll eventually need to do that, but if you didn't have the framework, you'd have to learn all that just to get your app off the ground. It's a premature optimization to not use a framework. The key is to use a well designed framework that makes sense and doesn't get in your way once you have to start digging through its internals.

I do agree on one point though, for small apps that you want to get going quickly, webpy is awesome.
In fairness to the other side, that sounds like a problem with Jacob Carter and his assumptions than with "the system." We can't really blame them for that, can we? I'm sure they WANT him to use they card, just as for any other class of people (so the retailer can use that information for advertising, move the goods they desire to, etc).
Agreed. Eventually means "not now".

That's the whole point.
The author would've sounded less ridiculous if he'd picked some other language than C++ to represent the minimalist language mindset. But it would've been harder for him because most actual minimalist languages have lambda and can eat LINQ for lunch in the same manner as Smalltalk.

Steele and Sussman's lambda papers thirty years ago showed that full lexical closures could be efficiently implemented. Thirty fucking years, folks. That's more than I've been alive. Lexical closures are not some kind of fucking novelty. There's no fucking excuse for omitting lambda from any language developed today, except if ya got paternalism issues and would also slash developers' tires so they don't crash their car.
a 1 to 3 year old car is typically your best deal, as the first few years are where the greatest depreciation in value happens.

too much older and you start to risk quality.
I keep thinking of how V.I. Arnold managed to teach group theory to Moscow schoolchildren in the 1960s. I also wonder why Landau & Lipschitz are such wonderful books. There's something special in the Russian way of teaching Math / Physics, I guess.
Use a realtor. They can go through listings for you to find what you are looking for. Make sure you get a buyers agent to represent you (it generally costs nothing or maybe 1%, depending on how the deal is structured with the listing agent).

The other benefit is when it comes time to negotiate. A good buyers agent can help guide you (but recognize that in the end you're on your own). The other big benefit is that they are a proxy for you. You won't talk directly with the sellers or sellers agent when negotiating. This has the benefit of them not knowing how excited you are about a particular property, and prevents them from getting a good "feel" for exactly what you can afford.

Also, just as an FYI, if you look at foreclosure properties (which are tempting in this market) be aware of all the fine print. These generally take a longer period of time to close and are much riskier overall. If I were buying another property in this market (I'm 1/2 looking)... Find a good buyers agent, get pre-qualified, know your limits and tell the buyers agent that if they happen to "hear" (all realtors in a market talk to each other) of a listing where the sellers are on the verge of foreclosure and would take a quick deal at a big discount that you would be interested...
I was trying to make a distinction between a belief in God vs having trust in him. Belief is what Americans have in spades. Trust? not so much. I cannot think of ONE nation-state that has trust in a higher power; perhaps maybe Bhutan, whose largely agricultural economy has been powered by chanting and prayer (as it has never developed enough to shift trust to man and his efforts.)

Appeals to "God" in the official American symbolisms and language are both throw-backs to history, which should be removed, and hypocrisy, as the system is run by Man, wholesale.

Maybe you take offense to my opinion, and you're the one who shouldn't be offended and/or take his thin skin elsewhere? It's sometimes healthier to detach yourself from the subject of a discussion, if you identify with it, at least long enough to understand the other :-)
Is there a positive health story from switching from soda to other caffeine sources? Unsweetened tea and black coffee seem like potential wins, assuming constant dosage, but what about lattes and more frou frou coffee/tea drinks?
I agree with you on premature optimization. However, once you've learned how the internals work, using that framework doesn't save you much time in the future.

For instance, once you know how databases work, an ORM won't save you that much time -- it'll just shield from the internals, which are what I find interesting.
I think, the way it was phrased, Physics "is" every science. That is, every other science can be expressed purely in terms of (lots and lots and lots of very, very tedious) physics, similar to the way that every computer program can be expressed in terms of the simplest possible Turing machine. To put it in that perspective, mathematics must serve empirical investigation into reality.
>> "It's a premature optimization to not use a framework."

If you're in it for the long haul, using a framework may well be a false economy - wasted effort.

The other point is that not using a framework can give you an advantage over your competition. It depends on what is important to your success.
> Therefore, we should grab any opportunity to show them that they are wrong.

Why?
Do you think you can change someone's faith through science? Good luck with that.

Personally I don't understand the conflict ... how is evolution a threat to God's existence? I mean, there's no mention in the bible that He created the world in seven earth days, or how He did it.
No. On sober thought I can't even understand what it would mean for world lines to merge. Sorry.
Love the idea of living off the grid. But things like using a "Compost toilet" scare me.
I've never like the Multiple Worlds interpretation -- each bifurcation splits the entire universe and there are a stupendous number of bifurcations every nanosecond, resulting in a ridiculous number of universes made of energy and matter (which is also energy).

So... where does all that extra energy come from?
Thanks for the wonderful URL. Yes, I am a "school child" indeed, albeit a bit older (i.e., I am a grad student ;-)
I'm tempted to say "fuck you and your ignorance" because, honestly, that's a pretty offensive thing to say. My own escape from poverty had nothing to do with personally responsibility, but had everything to do with winning the genetic IQ lottery and being in the right place at the right time.

It's true what they say about walking a mile in their shoes. You really have no idea what it's like.
Most YC startups use Chris Wright:

http://www.thewrightlawfirm.com/WrightLaw/Default.aspx

He seems really good.
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Ok, but using the previous version of the language to demonstrate your point is much less interesting. Additionally, there is the issue of clarity: when I read "C#" I tend to assume that means the language as it exists today, not some previous version.
Point #3 is really important for anyone considering or starting grad school.
I think it's pretty cool that he had a go at this, but how does he know that it's actually structurally sound?

I'm not sure how things are in Wales, but here in Missouri, you have to be concerned about things like high winds, earthquakes, etc, not to mention how your house fares if a fire starts. I'm guessing hay bale insulation isn't too fire retardant.

Most houses around here are built to stock plans, and the loads on the floors/roof have been calculated by a professional. I'd be a bit weary of hanging out in that place in storm. (Note: I know nothing of likelihood of thunderstorms in Wales. People built houses like this for hundreds of years in England so it's not that harebrained).

It would make one heck of shed/club house though!
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I truly hope the irony of this situation doesn't escape anyone here.
The fact that this entire post is now dominated by a discussion of what makes a good comment (and thus being equally harmful to this post as a single "useless" comment itself) should point to a perhaps failed strategy.
Used, obviously.

But you should buy from an individual rather than a dealer. You pay a very large markup from a dealer on used cars, and most have a vested interest in keeping the price of used cars as high as possible (because they want to sell you a new car even more than a used car). The dealer also knows better than you when they have a good used car...it's been through their shop, so they know. If it's a "good deal" at a car dealer, then you're almost certainly getting a car that's going to have problems in the future.

Also note that standalone used car dealers are often merely dumping grounds for the cars that new car dealers don't consider worth putting on their lot. So, even though a dealer that only deals in used cars wants to sell you a used car and has no interest in you buying a new car, he also generally only has steady access to the cars that new car dealers take on trade-in but don't want to sell on the lot. (There are also bankruptcy and repossession auctions, auctions of distressed vehicles from out of state that are auctioned as scrap and then re-titled as clean through various loopholes in the law, and a few trade-ins from people buying a used car from that dealer and upgrading. But used car dealers are almost universally selling the absolute worst cars available, and at significant markup.)

Buying from an honest individual, knowing the blue book price, and having a trusted mechanic go over the car before making a decision, is the best way to insure you get a good deal on a good car. Watch for signs that you're dealing with a hobbyist used car salesman. There are many folks that operate small-scale buy-sell operations from their home, having one or two cars for sale at any given time, mostly purchased through the same shady channels as used car dealers.

There are probably exceptions to the always buy used rule. Finding a used sports car that is actually going to last is difficult. Most folks don't know how to care for a performance car, and will drive the hell out of it for a year or two, and then pass it on when it starts getting troublesome. BMWs fall into this category a lot of times. When I bought a 350Z a few years back, I bought new, because the few used ones I could find were already (just a year after they hit the market) pretty abused and had problems.

But I'm not even certain that was a wise choice...if I'd waited another year, I might have found more options to buy used. Regardless, the vast majority of cars don't fall into this category, and the more boring the car, the better deal you can get on it used. My folks bought a two or three year old Camry with 30k miles for very little, like maybe eight grand, a few years back.
But they don't fall for those schemes because they are stupid. They fall because that is the only way they know. Quoting Alan Key."Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." So don't feel that you are way smarter than poor people. We just had a better context to make smarter decisions.
Edit: grammar.
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