skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I suspect there is some kind of mathematical ratio concerning EULAs (in whatever form) that somebody figured out and that is just getting more and more absurd with each year that passes.

The basic idea is that the user wants something (in this case medical treatment, but it could also be music via iTunes) and that's all nice and well - BUT! - one last caveat, we need you to sign this thing here.

Now the ratio kicks in - if your desire for "the thing" is big enough, "the thing you need to sign" just needs to look both terribly unimportant ("yadda yadda, nobody reads this") but at the same time important enough to be understood as necessary ("oh everybody has legalese upfront these days, that's just the way things work, who cares"). Bonus points if the process you're going through happens very often to a lot of people ("everybody just clicks OK and chuckles about it").

Asking anybody to sign 3000 pages of legal statements without giving it too much thought is bonkers, but everybody just assumes "well, they probably can't do anything terrible, because our laws prevent that, right?". So we click through EULAs and sign agreements that are now just nuisances getting inbetween us and our desire for "the thing we want".

The people who make these agreements do them because they are required to have them, by law or circumstance (CYAs). Not having an agreement is not an option. The people who sign the agreements do that because they have already decided that they want "that thing" no matter what. Not having the thing is not an option.

What a profoundly weird situation. Through what I would guess were a couple of outlandish precedents, we now have established a custom that none of the involved parties cares about nor has anything to gain from, really. But we still do it.

It's like two sides playing soundwaves with opposite phases, cancelling eachother out. Everybody assumes that's ok, because it's quiet. But you could just as well simply stop playing the damn sounds.
You could always just do that.
I wouldn't really recommend Hushmail:

http://www.cybercrimereview.com/2012/11/hushmail-provides-un...
Imagining the California Coastline After Sea Level Rise Hits
Wow, Ask and ye shall receive. Thanks for that.

I guess I'd be a pretty big hypocrite if I didn't kick in the $99 now.
While I doubt the policy was anywhere near 3000 pages, this kind of thing is indeed ridiculous. Reading the document means very little in regards to understanding what it says, much less what it means in regards to court doctrine. I also insist on reading the privacy policy at doctors offices. Once, a receptionist gave me a great deal of grief, then finally handed me their only printed copy. It was just one two-sided page, but it was ragged, creased and stained. Classy.

What's less pointless and far more upsetting is the practice of pharmacies instructing customers to sign/check the "I do not wish to have a consultation" area on forms when buying prescription medicine. That has happened to me at a number of pharmacies in NYC. When I ignore their instructions and start signing the area that requests a consultation they sternly tell me I'm signing in the wrong place. Then there's a big sigh when I say I actually want to talk to the pharmacist. Inexcusable and disgusting.
As a programming analogy, you could theoretically: 'refactor' contracts (simplify them) but it would create numerous 'bugs' (loopholes). To fix that you have to apply hard-coded bugfixes because the 'modules/classes' (laws) you are 'importing' (citing) are not open-source (so you can't fix them yourself) and you cannot create more to supplement exising ones in an elegant way.

And that's how we get convoluted contracts.
Say what you will about Apple, but it's pretty clear they pride themselves on shipping things they are proud to put their name on because they only ship it when they feel the details are right.

Apple has had a string of shitty products. It's just that people are too busy talking about their good ones and block out the bad ones, for some reason giving Apple a free pass that they don't give other vendors.

I once got a video ipod. The marketing was "You can watch movies on it!". Yes, if those movies are shorter than 45 minutes in length. It was actually a substandard bit of kit - the video screen was mostly useless, and the windows version of iTunes that I had to load it with was unmitigated shit - and famously so.

I mean what about comparing an animation lag - an annoyance - to the 'death grip' phone that didn't work as a phone?

Apple make nice kit, but the idea that they only do good work needs to die. They are superior designers and astounding marketers, but they're certainly not perfect.
My Mom was I guess sort of a hippie ahead of her time but she used to always rail against anti-bacterial soaps and etc. She used to resist using the dishwasher and anything anti-bacterial, and would say that it was good for your immune system to be exposed to germs once in awhile. The joke in the family was that she just did not want to have to do too much housework, But actually, she may have been on to something.
To quote what a lawyer acquaintance recently mentioned: if I'm an organization and someone signs my contract and then sues me, any vagueness in the contract will come back to fuck _me_ in the ass.
Every year that a work is covered by a copyright is a year that subsequent users cannot build on that work. While incremental protection may provide additional reward to the author, society pays for this reward by being deprived of follow-on use, while the author and his or her heirs accumulate profits.

I think that is a good point no matter the motives for making it. At some point protecting intellectual property "just because" becomes a problem, and not protecting it at all is obviously a problem, too; so where is the sweet spot? Immortal companies like Disney would probably say "50.000 years", but what would be best for humans?

What is fair to creators and their families? On the one hand I'm thinking, if you create something so great that people hundreds of years later still cherish it, why shouldn't your grand grand grand kids have a slice of that pie? On the other I think it's rubbish that one can't legally sample a few chords from songs that are 50 years old, just because some corporation happens to be fussy about it. Maybe the full work should be protected longer, but restrictions on derivative works could gradually soften much sooner?

And should it be the same for all types of copyrighted content? Think documentary footage etc. - while I would argue "fantastic" art isn't something society necessarily is entitled to enjoy as soon, when it comes to other things, the sooner it's up on archive.org the better!
I went through the comics and read the story plot on http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190 but I have to say as a non-native speaker, I don't think I “get it”. Could anyone explain in a few paragraphs what the story tries to tell us? In particular, why is the dialog of the woman in the big castle on the mountain all blurred but still somehow readable?
Technically it's illegal to set commission rates, but 6 percent was the norm. In the Bay Area however, it's the new norm to offer 2.5-2.0% to Selling agents (those bringing buyers to the deal). I'm not sure exactly what the Listing agents put as the commission fee, but I'd imagine they're likely splitting it 50/50.
Also note that Google's geocoder can only be used for results to be displayed on a Google map (mentioned in emptystacks's link, also section 10.1.1 (g): https://developers.google.com/maps/terms)
COMPUTER CHESS
This article "CoffeeScript's Scoping is Madness[1]" and the reddit programming discussion thread[2] convinced me to scratch CoffeeScript off the list of languages to consider. Ain't nobody got time for that.

[1] http://donatstudios.com/CoffeeScript-Madness

[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1j1cw7/coffeesc...
Don't be obtuse. Part of what makes the NSA powerful is its vast data-processing capacity. If it was just a bunch of spooks with shortwave radios and shorthand pads you wouldn't think twice about it.
I have had three people literally stand agape when they've seen me using Swype to message someone quickly. I can't understand why Apple wouldn't allow them in - it's an incredibly high quality product. When I moved to my new Android phone, I was still setting it up when I realised I didn't have it - I had to install Swype before continuing with the setup...
I usually just do not sign without saying anything and have not had a problem returning doctors forms mostly empty (especially no SSN, that's asking for trouble). It's highly likely that no one at the office has any more insight into why the information is being asked than you do. If it's critical they won't leave it to a line on one of many forms.
As an Android user, having to occasionally use iOS devices is a massive exercise in frustration - so much functionality is hidden, with no obvious hints where to look for it.

It's one of the worst user experiences I come across - very few UI's are so actively unfriendly to discoverability
Whoa, trippy. I did it and played a game but now my head feels kind of weird
I've seen that "I do not wish to have a consultation" box countless times, but I've never questioned why it's there. What happens if you request the consultation? My understanding has always been that pharmacies are drug dispensaries with very little to offer in the way of medical consultations, as that's the role of the doctor who prescribed the drugs. I'm not even sure what they would consult with you about.
Haiku Archives: A repository for orphaned BeOS and Haiku applications
Linux Mesa Crowdsourcing
Oh man, I love this!

I especially loved this: "warrior.feel.empty?". Allova sudden my RubyWarrior's getting all existential!
Had a lot of fun with my rusty Ruby on this game. Here's my solution to beat level 3 onwards:

https://gist.github.com/hcarvalhoalves/6096888
Party line votes tend to happen in relation to ideologically symbolic issues which tend not to be the issues that donors care much about.

What's more likely to happen is the representatives will be permitted to vote against their party if the party is assured of a win. So for instance, there's no need to antagonize the conservative-leaning supporters of a Democrat from a swing state by forcing the the rep to vote against his constituents interests. Likewise, if a vote is in the bag, a fair amount of purely symbolic dissent is allowed, which reps can use to placate their most valuable donors and most vocal supporters (even when Congress as a whole is going against them).

The real danger for a rep comes from situations where he sits in a "safe" seat, and refuses to take money or show support for a special-interest with business in front of his committee. As long as the seat has been securely gerrymandered (the definition of a safe seat) then there's no danger that a primary challenge will end up replacing the uncooperative rep with a zealot who will go on to lose the seat to the opposing party in the general election, since the general election has, in effect, already been rigged to ensure that the party that drew the electoral maps always wins.

For what it's worth few donors are aligned with one party or the other. There are exceptions of course (Unions, for instance, tend to fund Democrats exclusively, and the NRA focuses heavily on Republicans). But generally speaking, donors don't give a fig about the rep's personal points of view. The whole idea that they donate to people with whom they already agree is exactly the kind of malarky that reps would like you to believe. In reality, most donors give judiciously on both sides of the aisle, so that no matter who sits on the committees that govern their business, they're assured of access.
I would like it to debug my own code. You are more aware of the artificial nature of the variables you create, so it’s not as world-breaking to inspect their contents.

I saved a `health_change` variable in my code, and decided what to do based on that, but the warrior did the wrong thing. I wanted to see if my variable was being set correctly by printing it each turn, but I couldn’t. My normal tool for understanding what was going on is missing, so I was forced to guess at the bug. I finally got it to work by reversing the order of two terms in my formula for `health_change`, but it was a lot harder to understand what was going on when I could only guess at or simulate the values of the variables.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that! Following you now...
Joseph Bonneau, 2013 NSA award winner, holding a Reddit AMA
I recently switched from an iPhone 5 (after 3 years on an iPhone) to a Nexus 4 and I can't say I've had same experience with lagging. Android has improved to the point where I haven't seen any lag at all.

Most functions, from scrolling and animations to simple things like changing the focus from a text box on the web page to the URL bar of the browser, had noticeable lag.

So I just tried this now and saw no lag.
It's not that I don't believe you, but I'm surprised that the Nexus 4 can demonstrate good UI response but the S4 can't (even with all the junk that Samsung puts on top of Android)

I don't see lag as an issue but I agree that there are lots of UI inconsistencies still in Android that make it not as easy to use as an iPhone.

On the other hand - good god is inter-app sharing/integration so useful and efficient. Apple's kinda dropping the ball on that one.

In my experience, people are drawn to Android don't care much about user experience and instead want larger screens and tons of features

Or maybe they, you know, what to actually make their phone do stuff for them beyond what the manufacturer thought they may require.

There's a lot of good stuff on both sides. Dismissing one side condescendingly like that doesn't move the discussion forward.
I think that, in and of itself, would be a wonderful feature to promote the movement of discourse on a reoccurring subject.

(1)I post something.

(2)We discuss.

(3)After a time(likely a function of the # of stories that get pushed to HN a day), we stop discussion[1].

(4)Someone, after an arbitrary period of time, reposts.

(5)HN automatically moves the older comments over to the newer post[2].

[1]This is not to imply the conversation, has been resolved in any meaningful way, merely that we've elected to move on.

[2]This allows the conversation to grow without much re-treading of the old.
AppleInsider just posted a pretty nice breakdown of the pricing. http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/27/samsung-has-not-de...

Basically, Samsung's number includes its phone, tablet and computer sales (including Chromebook sales, which IIRC have been really high), while Apple's number only the estimated iPhone sales.
Actual pharmacists are very knowledgeable about the drugs that they give out, in some cases more so than the doctors prescribing them (as many doctors will readily tell you). Doctors in hospitals frequently consult the hospital's pharmacists with questions about particular things (like drug interactions).
That wouldn't fly in Boston. I imagine the listing agent is also making 2.5%, giving a total of 5%.
It's much more than saying "repost" politely. Just saying "repost" provides practically nothing to the conversation. It's more of a waste of resources than it is useful. However, providing a link to previous conversation is extremely useful. Especially a conversation with so many comments.
You make good points, but it's worth mentioning that Samsung's logo is the word 'SAMSUNG' - it doesn't lend itself well to tattoos at all, even if you were particularly passionate about them.

Windows has a 'picture' logo and occupies the same rung as samsung in the 'quality vs Apple' pie fight, but there are folks out there with winlogo tattoos. I've seen photos of a few different ones, but my guess would be that there's fewer than there would be for Apple.
I'm pretty sure this was discovered back in December
You may also like this:
http://www.seantcooper.com

The guy who designed/programmed Syndicate is still making games.
So are you saying that in order to comply, the office needs to furnish every patient with a 3000 page binder of privacy practices and that systematic failure to do so should mean over a million dollars in fines? I really hope I'm misunderstanding something because this seems insane.
Wow. Our grocery store pharmacy (Wegmans) frequently requests that I speak to a pharmacist before leaving (resulting in a few "oh, she's had this before w/o issues, I'm good, thanks!"). They're quite happy to do it.
Pharmacists are well-versed on drug interactions and side effects. Although doctors should provide an exhaustive list of side-effects and special instructions, they often don't. Plus, even when they do, the bewildered patient can easily forget. As for the little labels that say "don't drive while using this!" it never hurts for a bit of reinforcement and calling it to their attention.
I'm reminded of Emerson's "Self Reliance." Successful people are always already successful, even if you have never heard of them. Could be this is why they act before other people might think they are ready. Here's a passage that came to my mind (though the whole thing is genius):

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself[.]"

Maybe "greatness" and success are apples and oranges. (It depends if the latter has a purely mercantile meaning, which is boring and temporary, in my own view.) But I'd agree that the truly great innovators -- whether in poetry, programming, painting, music, business -- they don't worry about failure. They may not like it but it doesn't stop them. Greatness may be aided by fortune but it doesn't ask for permission. It may be forgotten or overlooked in its own time. But like Emerson and this author, it's hard to dispute the central tenet: "success" requires action combined with talent, and a deeply held conviction that now is always the right time to act.
6 Links Every Saturday - Postal Service, PetziConnect, Buzzfeed & Barnwell's NFL
The good news is that in two years you can be concerned about moving away from the rock solid accepted standard of flat design towards the next new "trend". Because you know, it works and people are familiar with it and why would anyone want to mess with that.

There was a time that some believed removing the underline from links was nothing but a design led trend and a move in the wrong direction. People figured it out, adjusted, and no site missed a beat.
I have heard that these Privacy policy statements also make the doctor (or his assignee) a 'co-author' of anything that you may write about your experience in their office. This allows them to issue take-downs on bad reviews that end up online.
Pharmacists are good for info on interactions, possible side effects, clarification on when/how to take, what to do if you miss a dose, etc. My family has about two dozen prescriptions all told and they can be very helpful.
I would hope that we can agree that at some point a qualitative and privileged "good enough" metric applies here?

Is it reasonable that a photographer would prefer a cellular phone camera over a focused device? Or a medical imager? Or a security system designer? Or an astronomer? Or an extreme sports enthusiast? The point stands that the technology diverges to meet contextual needs.

Following this reasoning, we can wager on two futures. One where we use less devices and less things. Or one where we use more specific devices that meet contextual needs more acutely.

I comfortably accept the latter. Design exists in a multi-dimensional realm where some design decisions may inherently pull away from others.

Unless someone wants to believe in a car that seats six, goes from zero to sixty in four seconds, has a child carrier area, ravages off-road snow conditions, and offers an upgrade to carry six sheets of plywood.

Bill Buxton's analysis of wooden Inuit coastal maps is fabulous, and I would encourage reading his piece if you can find it.
There's a translation of one word so far: http://translatebeanish.com
Maybe because Go is exciting as a new and accessible language that appears to be both fast and pleasant to use?

I'm looking forward to ditching Python for Go.
The only reason to believe the privacy statement is 3,000 pages long is because the receptionist said it was, and given the rest of her statements there's little reason to believe she knew what she was talking about. She may have just made up a large number to try and scare him off from inquiring further.

I've been given privacy statements from my doctors' offices in the past, and they've never been more than a couple of pages.
The whole song and dance bugs me. It's not practical. What patient is really going to read a 3,000 page document? How long would that even take? How much would a typical patient even understand?

Who benefits here? Lawyers? Insurance companies?

It's like that fine print on TV commercials. No human can read it given the size and the duration on screen, but that company covered their ass by having it there.
Notices of privacy practices for practices are a boilerplate form that shouldn't be more than 10 pages long. Whatever they write is meaningless if it gives them more power than the law does, most places just use the AMA or state agency recommended forms.

The law actually states what needs/should be written.

Here is an example [doc file]: www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/hipaa/privacy-practices.doc‎

That said, places with their own websites need only upload the form and tell patients it is able to be viewed at at whatever link and have the binder accessible in the office for viewing.

Uploading to dropbox/filesharing without a website is not a valid option.
Yes, it's entirely normal in Germany to just walk in and consult a pharmacist about minor problems. They're generally quite friendly and not too busy, even in the middle of Berlin.
That's an opinion, not a fact. If I see a colored rectangle that's offset from the text with a label that indicates action[1], I immediately think its a button. I'm willing to wager a non-trivial amount of consumers do so as well, but this is what things like context and split testing are for.

[1] The trickiness with flat design is when buttons for action are also used as information display. One of the biggest issues with the first iteration of Metro was that you'd have a box that shows your current number of emails -- and you didn't know if that was just a part of your dashboard or also a link to your email that had a nice preview. That's not a failing of flat design, that's a failing of design.
If you buy it and don't like it for whatever reason, I can give you a full refund within the first month. That's easier for me to handle than a separate trial license.
Everyone likes to blame the lawyers, but is the companies and non-company organizations that lobby for complicated laws to be made, and who employ lawyers to sue each other.
a) there's absolutely no reasonable reason for that binder to be 3000 pages.

b) pdf