skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ayn Rand's philosophy is widely criticized for being contradictory. This seems pretty accurate to me.

But I don't think modern readers of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, et al., are listening to her as a preacher, to apply her ideas to the entirety of their lives, but rather as inspiration for their own philosophy. That is, after all, one reason to read literature that challenges your opinions.

That's why I read and appreciate Rand. It's not because the American Libertarian movement made her a mascot.

Take her introduction to The Fountainhead that she wrote in 1968, years after it was published and became successful:

> It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in
one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity
differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run
down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it.
Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that
maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality,
of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be
betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the
dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential.
There are very few guideposts to find. The Fountainhead is one of them.
This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Fountainhead's lasting appeal: it is a confirmation of
the spirit of youth, proclaiming man's glory, showing how much is possible.

By posting this I hope to defend Rand in the sense of helping people realize she does more then what the modern political landscape has created for her. I was certainly inspired by her approach to self, as I imagine countless others have been.
Just wanted to say I really admire you for having the courage to come out and say this publicly (even though it was anonymously).

The world needs more people like you. We all do things we regret later in life. I have great respect for the fact that you've reflected on your involvement in this, come to regret it, and have now chosen to speak out about it.

I think this particular case actually deserves a HN story in itself.
Okay, I'm anti-Rand as much as anyone, but why wouldn't she receive SS benefits and Medicare? She paid into it! The logic in that statement is circular: "SS/Medicare is not stealing but Ayn Rand stole the fruits of others' labor by collecting SS/Medicare." Doesn't work.
Question for those in the know: have there been any advances on DLP in galois fields generated by primitive polynomials?
It's not 11 yet.
This answer is right on spot, short and clear. It's the best answer. I'll add that by critical mass we use the analogy of a nuclear reaction fuel where a self sustained chain reaction can take place.
This is the exact same kind of shit that got thrown at every person ever who successfully challenged a rusty status quo, especially when job security was at risk. Quoting the original piece in Washington Post:

We have great respect for the stated goal of Khan Academy — “A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” Yet, we have some serious concerns about the quality of the instruction providing this education. Indeed, if either of us were supervising Khan’s instruction, we would point to some concrete and important gaps in his practice.

The key is "if we were supervising". That's the real problem. That someone is making something huge happen, and they are not playing a role in it. Guess what - nobody is stopping this guy or anyone else from producing a few hundred of educational videos with great content and making it available for free. However, some way or another, the people who are capable of a stunt like that are much fewer than those who can hate things on the Internet.
I'm not saying many liberals, strikers and black people weren't armed and prepared to fight where it favoured them.

I'm saying they were, and people got oppressed in a far more direct, blatant and universal manner than anything that is likely to emerge from PRISM or the present US government's policy goals. Citizen-owned firearms might have been handy in the odd skirmish, but they didn't cause legislators or law enforcement to back down. Black people sat in the back of the bus and grudgingly accepted there wasn't much they could do about their neighbour getting lynched. Strikes were bust in a blaze of gunfire and millions of other members of the trade union movement went to work as normal the next day. Even as determined a revolutionary as John Brown failed where the Union military succeeded a year later.

Concern that the oppressed could potentially gain access to firearms neither dissuaded administrations from enacting oppressive laws nor accelerated the pace of their removal.

Why would it be different next time round?
I don't think I've ever read such a patronising dismissal of objectivism.

>It's a beautiful story for a person caught between childhood and adulthood

I could say the same thing about every religion, I doubt it would get a warm response.
Strangely enough, opinion works as criticism. We're all just stating opinions here, including you. Get over yourself.
Dianne Feinstein chairs the Intelligence Committee and is complicit with all of these shenanigans. She's worse.

It's not clear how to beat the Dem machine in California (I'm a disgruntled liberal).
When you attack capitalism by attacking Ayn Rand, you are attacking a terrible straw man.

You'll notice that people rarely start by attacking the works of von Mises or Hayek or Rothbard, because those guys were actual serious academics who knew what they were talking about.

Much easier to poke holes in the eccentric philosophy of one novelist.
Dear Open letter writer,

I am a parent of a 10 year old who likes Maths; my choices in fostering and encouraging this trait were to (A) enroll her in a really expense private school, (b) enroll ins Kumon (its a canadian after school private tutoring type of service) (c) private tutors -- which I can't afford. Please note that her teachers have shown no inclination to help advance her learning beyond the curriculum.

Sal and KhanAcademy make it easy for me to help her with learning above her grade level. I do the lessons with her -- last week we were working on advanced probability problems and the lectures were invaluable to me as well as my child. Sal and KA augment my capability and help me become an effective tutor to my child.
Regards
Ack! Looks like overclever compression in a domain where it's not always desired, let alone required.

I spent half a decade on document imaging in the early to mid '90s, a fair amount close to this level (had a coworker who loved bit level stuff for the truly evil problems like this), and I can see how it happened ... given sufficiently careless developers.
Which is tacked onto JS callbacks and not engrained into every IO operation like it is with Dart.
Tokyo Tower Gigapixel Panorama
The Optical flow sensor is not his, it is:
https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/modules/px4flow

I say this, because the 3Drobotics/DIYdrones guy doesn't go out of his way to make these distinctions.

These swiss guys have 3Drobotics/DIYdrones place the parts & sell their board because these guys have very aggressive marketing & a pick & place bot. This allows them to focus on the actual engineering.

3Drobotics/DIYdrones have a fork of the Swiss guys code with a generic interface plastered over the top. They are moving to this hardware, because "their" own hardware is out of date & no longer competitive with the current generation of STM32 hardware everyone now uses. They have a couple of employees who are capable of making this eventually approximate the original design.
It does concern me actually, RamNode is operating elsewhere if I recall correctly. And there is a great smaller VPS provider operating in italy called prometheus (I think).

I would host here in Chile, but we don't have VPS providers here.
I don't think so. It's not true that the set of good companies only includes those that would be good with only a couple hundred users. There exist a lot of companies that need lots of users to be good. That need network effects.
The problem with the article is about 50% due to its tone ("from hell's heart I stab at thee!!!") and 50% due to its lack of the very obvious, constructive criticism. By that I mean if the guy had simply laid out his case, pointed out that this wasn't a new observation, and then suggested KA set up better feedback mechanisms for responding to this sort of thing his criticism would have been just right.

Based on the criticisms from a year ago, the author seems to have a very strong negative view of what KA is doing, but he doesn't appear to be making videos of his own and putting them on Youtube. Not even to illustrate a correct treatment of the topics which he believes Khan is handling badly. Useless negativity.
1984 Day - Rallying Against Surveillance
>courage to come clean and admit his wrongdoing.

... years later, with a throwaway account.
>First, thanks for coming clean. You're a human being who's made a really bad decision.

See my first line?

>When faced with a choice between the moral rectitude and the livelihood of your family, it's very difficult to choose the former.

"But I was a coward and I didn't want to lose my job, didn't want to fight a legal battle, and, like I said, it was just China spying on it's people, which everyone knew they do anyway."

Look, you can be as upset as you want with me for my attitude with this person, but don't make up stories about how hard his life is to justify this type of spineless behavior by others.

We should all work harder to avoid making the decisions that result in harm to others. I encourage those around me to learn from the mistakes of others and not make choices that cause harm.

(edits for clarity in quotations)
I think it would help, because it would make it a lot harder for others to associate them with spies or something without getting ridiculed.

I'm also hoping the next US president commits to giving Manning (and Snowden depending on the situation then) pardon. If I was a civil libertarian running for president, and I'd want to show real proof that I'm committed to a much more transparent government, and the roll back of the surveillance state - I'd start with that promise, and use it in my campaign, and say my first task as a president would be to pardon Manning.
John Galt never made it past adolescence. He ultimately used his talents to make the world suffer, all along possessing the wherewithal to make the world a better place. But HE didn't think THEY deserved it. I shudder to think people wanted a John Galt admirer for U.S. Vice President (and were supporting him for that very reason).
Is there somewhere I can read where PG officially says that? Because the last account I had got marked dead and I don't think I did anything other than post a non-popular opinion. That comment got something like negative 18. A day or 2 later, [dead]. Maybe it was just a coincidence since, after all, there are plenty of dead-accounts that when I look through their activity-history nothing jumps out at me as a punishable HN-offense.
Trolls on the internet cause the best minds not to work on important problems? That can't be right. It's almost a self-contradiction.
He's saying they got the topic wrong; that when you teach decimals, the meat of the topic is the rules that apply when you have different numbers of digits after the decimal point. His language is imprecise (the video might be useful for something besides teaching decimal math), but the gist is clear.
Any estimates as of how many people still use bzr in 2013, in the age of Git?
I can't quite see the reason why you would lossily compress something when your machine's purpose is to duplicate things.

Anyone got a reasonable reason for doing this?
Despite what your comment says, it is not actually the case that people build cat picture apps because they'd be criticized for trying to build something more meaningful.
Live stream a protest against video surveillance?
MPAA Recruits ‘Internet Analyst’ to Spy on Social Networks and Forums
You can do this this with contractors as well. It's not optimal because law and tax are skewed against the contractor, but it's still ok, when you account for the % of successful startups.
"So many people who claim, or seem to have taken inspiration from Rand would, in fact, be "bad guys" in Atlas Shrugged."

Case in point: Rand hated Libertarians.[1]

Some typical examples from the article:

- She called Libertarianism "a mockery of philosophy and ideology"

- She accused Libertarians of "slinging slogans and trying to ride on two bandwagons"

Later, she accuses them of entertaining "amateur political notions" and "rushing into politics in order to get publicity".

She says that Libertarians

- are based on "half-baked ideas, and in part on borrowed ideas".

- "spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas".

- "are perhaps the worst political group today, because they can do the most harm to capitalism, by making it disreputable."

- would "like to have an amoral political program"

[1] - http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=113321
I think that's fantastic, and I wish you all the very best. I think it's wonderful and amazing in equal parts when a parent takes the time to work with their child to reach their full potential. You are to be applauded - all too often I've had to deal with children who had amazing potential go completely unrealized.

But please, please take care with some of the Khan material. This letter highlights one specific place where the method of instruction can lead to major misunderstandings down the line. Undoing misconceptions can be incredibly time-consuming, and ultimately border on impossible. I just hope upon hope that over time the material is improved so it matches their ideals, and continues to enable parents like you.
Truly surprising. I would never have imagined this to be in the domain of possible problems one would expect to encounter scanning or photocopying a document.

It is like taking a picture of my wife with a digital camera and her face being replaced with that of some other person.
He's (at least) implicitly saying that KhanAcademy sucks. I didn't really read it too too carefully, but that's the sense I get from it. He seems to be pissed about an error that Sal made, and is jumping to conclusions saying that KhanAcademy sucks. To make that claim, you'd have say what it means to suck, and why KhanAcademy does so (DH6).
Nope, there's nowhere you can read that directly says that, but it is true nonetheless.
"Coming up with their own proprietary technologies" - Considering Dart is completely OSS and is being developed in the open and has a goal to standardize the language after its release, by "proprietary" I'm assuming you mean it was actually realized and physically developed by engineers and sponsored by a Company?

Just how do you think software gets made?
I doubt the point was attacking capitalism.

Capitalism and socialism are not mutually exclusive in a society.
We all get hungry, but we buy food from farmers on the market. We all need shelter, but we're buy our rent our homes. We all need clothing, but we clothing manufacturers are for profit.

There are a variety of good arguments for socialized health care, but "we all get sick" is not among them.

This article is banal in the extreme, and I'm not sure why it's on the front page.
If she were a senator from Rhode Island, I'd recommend this. But the population of California is 38 Million.

The population per congressman averages 700,000

Not to mention that, horrifyingly, she's not up for election until 2018, while congressman are elected every 2 years.

But yes, her repeated use of the word "Homeland" is disturbing.
PyCon 2014 - Lightning Talks
No, a Category k a b such that k a b is isomorphic to a -> k () b.

A Haskell Category is again more specific than a general category though!

http://web.jaguarpaw.co.uk/~tom/blog/posts/2012-09-02-what-i...
That's quite possible. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/face_replace/

I can imagine someone turning the technique into a novel form of image compression, maybe for surveillance databases or something.
The same award that was given to the person who's actively prosecuting them? Why would they want their name next to that piece of shit?
The article has been updated with the probable cause for this error.
Cheaper components, maybe? (If it lets them get by with less memory for example.)
As someone who has dabbled in art (taking art classes with people who are much better than me), what I get from the article is more an exhortation for people to act more like artists.

The best definition of an artist I've personally heard is that the job of the artist is to make people feel something.

To do something that causes people to feel something. To take risks. To be part of something larger than themselves. Good or bad. Good art challenges you. Bad art bores you. But you can't affect everyone.

As we all know - being a professional artist is very difficult since it is very competitive (and sometimes more about self-marketing than most self-professed artists care to admit). And, for an adult who wants to be an artist later in life - the stakes are so so much higher - peer approval (and rejection) come into play. What would get you on the refrigerator at single-digit ages is irrelevant. Adults have a higher snob level - of what truly is art - usually it has to be good. So many friends of mine - I can't draw etc. (but it really is more that they don't want to struggle)

Maybe, they can be an "artist" in their career. What the author was hinting at. To take more risks, more challenging projects.

Sometimes the "career" they are in is not the right outlet. I've worked with or known many programmers at companies that just do it for a day job (e.g. litmus test - do they program for fun?) - and that is ok - their main focus is their family. But almost always - there is a project/a hobby of varying scope. For example, building your own house, a non-profit to promote ethnic dance, or running a Toastmasters chapter. Or even a hedge funder playing clarinet in the band pit for a friend's little off-off-off-off-off Broadway production (who got more out of that little musical play than earning money ever would).

It comes down to looking at your life as not just what you do - but what you really like to do. And trying to get the two tracks to converge.

Thank you for your response. Being an artist isn't black and white. I wish I could be a better artist or even singer - but really - I am happy with just getting better - without external expectations.
The article is vague as to whether the accused had any direct connection to any content; it names him as a "facilitator" and alleges a few search queries that are in no way illegal. For all we know, the FBI may consider one a "facilitator" for the mere act of operating a TOR exit node.
I admit, I'm not sure what the argument is exactly. Nature is chaotic, therefore socialism?

I cannot speak for Randians or Objectivists, but an advocate of a private property society does not have a problem with insurance. Insurance is a perfectly legitimate good that can be provided in markets. It's the whole pay-us-or-go-to-prison monopoly thing that doesn't sit well.

Further, many rich business people are rich precisely because of government privilege, including protections of so-called intellectual property. You'd be hard pressed to name a successful person in modern times who hasn't made or at least maintained his riches because of some special privilege.
It's unlikely to happen, but it's not actually impossible. However the Peace Prize is not particularly meaningful.
Cached copy, which is missing the updated content: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.d...
Hands on with Bootstrap 3 - A landing page
I'm reminded of Brezhnev's niece Luba, who was beaten when she was pregnant by the KGB, to the point of inducing miscarriage. It seemed as much a signal to Brezhnev as to Luba that even he couldn't protect her.
>You cannot state either (1) or (2).

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that evidence is lacking? Because that was my whole point.

>It seems you're trying to believe the latter

I'm not trying to believe anything. That would be a mortal sin. I am saying that we don't have evidence to rule out either 1 or 2, and both seem about equally plausible. It would certainly be convenient for 2 to be true, since it would give us a pretty easy option for deterring child abuse (high quality simulated CP). That's why I think it's important that we find answers those questions.

If 1 is true, I want to believe 1. If 2 is true, I want to believe 2.
Check Out This Crazy, Beautiful Australian Redesign Of Twitter
If you're looking for more desktop-style layouts, I'd recommend checking out AlloyUI (http://alloyui.com/), which builds on top of YUI3. They've been doing a lot of great work there.

On emerging standards, we're definitely taking a look at those, we have a few Gallery modules (our user-contributed modules, which can be approved to be placed on the Yahoo! CDN) that do act as polyfills for several of the new emerging standard elements.

I don't remember offhand if we have some for XBL or Shadow DOM yet, but I definitely know that we had a module for X-Tag [1] a while back. I'll definitely check it out, and get back to you on the rest.

[1]: http://www.x-tags.org/
How to Unit test Node.js, using Mocks and Stubs
>The system is what it is, the golden rule applies, and to change the system, it would take prolonged civil war. I'd that what you want?

I want people to wake up and realize that this is absolutely farcical. We still live in a democracy, and we still have the power to stop this behavior by 'the system'. It took generations of stupidity to get here and it will take generations to get us out, but, cynical as I am, I don't think all is lost.

It takes waking up and walking out of jobs that do this sort of work. It takes jury nullification [1]. It takes thoughtful decisions by graduating seniors looking for work. It takes political education and civil protest and HARD WORK, but it doesn't require violence between the states.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Do you feel the same about housing projects, food banks, soup kitchens, food stamps, battered women's shelters, etc.?
I think I must be the only person ever who read Atlas Shrugged and thought it was a very entertaining book, but didn't either love it or hate it because of the politics.

Is there anyone else out there who just loves the book like I do without applying the politics in real life?
Tremendous answer. Seems frequently overlooked that a product should work great for the first 100 as well as it does the first million.
Plenty of non-functional programming languages have permitted processing of large amounts of data for decades.