skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A number of years ago a friend gave me a coffee mug that read: "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?".

I eventually threw it away. Every time I saw it I was reminded of the huge chasm between ideas and their realization. Sure, if you knew you could not fail you'd do anything. "What would you do if you were Superman?. Same thing. Things are different in the real world.

So, how would LA/SFO change if we had Star Trek transporters?

Not sure. My guess is, not much. SFO real estate is about living in SFO. Just like Santa Monica real estate is about living there. The same being true about Beverly Hills or Hollywood.

The HUGE problem something like the Hyperloop has to deal with are the stations. You can't declare that you are going to have one every ten miles. The real world doesn't work that way. If I have to drive an hour to get to downtown Los Angeles (a place I personally avoid as much as possible) it is nearly a deal-breaker for me. Not interested. I'd rather get on a plane in Burbank.

The nature of Los Angeles is that the talented people you are referring to don't all live within biking distance of a Hyperloop station. Los Angeles talent is seriously dispersed all over the place. I know people who would be interested in working at SpaceX yet don't pursue it because it would take them two hours to get there in real-world traffic and they can't move because their kids go to good schools where they live.

Ultimately, I think that anyone who wants to work in SFO needs to move there or to a surrounding city.

I insist that cargo is where high speed rail belongs in our country. I don't see it happening for passenger transport.
Avoid Being Your Tool
Rather odd thing to say. How it works is explained in the second paragraph after the intro :

"So how does it work? Simple refraction of sunlight, explains Moser, as he fills an empty two-litre plastic bottle."

I agree that it does involve poking a hole through the ceiling, but the thing's simplicity belies its utility and what may seem "obvious" after the fact doesn't make it any less significant an invention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
Obama’s “reform” panel to be led by Clapper, who denied spying to Congress
HEVC(H.265) + UHDTV(4K) – What Does It Mean for IPTV?
Looks like this might be the least of BitCoin's government problems. Check out this appropriations bill currently before congress; http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-report/113th-congress... Search for BitCoin in the text and you get the following gem...

"Money laundering.--The Committee understands that Bitcoins
and other forms of peer-to-peer digital currency are a
potential means for criminal, terrorist or other illegal
organizations and individuals to illegally launder and transfer
money. News reports indicate that Bitcoins may have been used
to help finance the flight and activity of fugitives. The
Committee directs the FBI, in consultation with the Department
and other Federal partners, to provide a briefing no later 120
days after the enactment of this Act on the nature and scale of
the risk posed by such ersatz currency, both in financing
illegal enterprises and in undermining financial institutions.
The briefing should describe the FBI efforts in the context of
a coordinated Federal response to this challenge, and identify
staffing and other resources devoted to this effort."

Talk about a prejudiced statement. Time to call your congress person.
> But it's still not a substitute for a light bulb unless it works in the dark.

Of course it isn't, but it solves 50% of the problem.
It's almost always the result of password guessing. The code injection happens after they get in and isn't really relevant to the attack.
I'd agree... A phased approach is probably best but it'd be a long one.
It's a very small space, with no apparent facility to handle not just #1 and #2, but severe gastric distress. The other passengers then get to look forward to up to 25 minutes in that closed space. There's no stewardess, no way to stop the vehicle. An "emergency evacuation module" shouldn't take much room.
I agree. In some ways, tools like Macaw do promote laziness. You could compare it to the slicing tool in Photoshop that web designers used to use in the late 90s.

However, both design and frontend development are becoming more specialized roles--especially for large web applications. A designer may be proficient in CSS/HTML but it may not be her forte. She may spend most of her time in design software creating wireframes and mockups and a smaller amount of time actually producing CSS/HTML. Furthermore, some large web applications are so complex (in terms of javascript and ajax) that production HTML/CSS is only written by frontend developers.

Therefore, a tool like Macaw is brilliant for a designer who wants to quickly produce actual working prototypes to show interaction, responsiveness, and animations to developers. Simply delivering static screens to developers is not enough anymore.

And, I'm not sure that designing all in the browser is the best approach, especially if you're working on a complex web application. Designing in some design software allows you to brainstorm and iterate through many different design ideas before settling on something.

Furthermore, Macaw doesn't take away your job of writing CSS code. You still have to organize DOM elements and set class names.

PS Macaw didn't pay me to write this. I just think their product is very compelling for rapid prototyping.
They discuss this in the paper. In the event of a medical emergency the pod will proceed to the destination as normal, and paramedics can be waiting at the end. In the absolute worst case you are looking at ~30 minutes before you can get to medical attention. That's not obviously worse than the time it would take a plane to descend from cruising altitude to the nearest airport, land, and taxi to a gate.
Wow. I think that's pretty much the answer. Thanks.
That's precisely what happens, and ultimately it's because there are other interests at play. I cannot divulge any more information.
If you're not opposed to using JS in your prompt (it runs fast, promise!) check out impromptu [0]. I've been using it for a few months now and it's amazing.

[0]: https://github.com/impromptu/impromptu
Hyperloop not patented
It's a great idea. I would love to see it happen, or even do it myself. Unfortunately, I don't have a strong voice or any equipment. So, even if I do it, it'd be more like an amateur thing. I don't know if that will be ok and people will want to listen to it or not :/
These bottles refract light thus illuminating a larger area. A skylight primarily lights the area underneath. Also, these bottles are less likely to break in a storm.
Binary blobs embedded in hardware are acceptable from a free software standpoint. As long as they can't be remotely updated.
I'd go the github pages route. It's free and you can get a little branding boost and easy linkage by using username.github.io
The images would be pretty boring if the tubes weren't transparent.

I suppose they could cut holes in them in the image, but that's just like showing them as transparent.
I think you're misreading the emphasis there. GNUstep is driven by an interest in objective-c/cocoa, not in making yet another cross platform framework.
Thanks, I was wondering where all the white people in the pictures came from.
Just write what down?
I've invested in a number of MS technologies only to have them discontinued or changed in a way that broke my code. This has happened a number of times. On the other hand, my OpenGL, C and Java code still all works.

There's a lot of reason to not use MS technologies even if you do like MS.
You can also use free placement, i.e. not restricted to either rows or columns.
Show HN: a slightly smart dotfiles installer
I don't know if I'll go quite that far; I'm not going to put on objc blinders to the point where I'm unwilling to see what other platforms do well.

But man, seeing objc and comparing it with its peers across multiple decades... In a world where most people were doing C++ and doing it badly[1], or doing Java and doing it badly, it was very eye-opening to see this tiny little runtime that adds objects to C and doesn't do a bad job of it.

[1] and I'm talking the pre-STL, pre-C++11 at that.
I suspect it has changed considerably, especially with the change from full interpreter to VM in Ruby 1.9.

Garbage collection has changed from regular mark-and-sweep to lazy sweep to using bitmap marking.
Organs-on-Chips technology
Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man ... (2012)
A logical outcome of the combination of private companies owning the railways and the government's willingness to build a lot of road capacity for passenger use.
"Smart" in the sense that:

* it keeps itself current by simply running `dots`

* it installs / uninstalls vim plugins from git

* it cleans up after itself with `dots remove`

"Slightly" in the sense that it doesn't require a lot of external dependencies like other ruby gems, homebrew, etc. to bootstrap.

Feedback + suggestions welcome!
They actually -are- a substitute for the lightbulb they would otherwise have to be using during the daytime. It's just not a substitute for the lightbulb at night.
the investors in the business world.

few investors would touch this. It doesn't fit into any investment category that's approved.

There are infrastructure funds but they're looking for sleepy assets. Stuff like toll roads and ports that have an established operating history and are supposed to be low risk.

This is a whole different animal. It's almost infrastructure VC. I don't see how this fits in any part of the institutional world. That leaves wealthy individuals and I don't think there'd be a lot of interest there. They're looking at Berkshire and steady growth vs. an investment in speculative infrastructure. I could see $10M investments but I think it'd be hard to get people to put a big chuck of their net worth into it, which is what you need (i.e. you need a couple people putting in $1-2B). Furthermore, historically public transportation hasn't been very profitable. Realistically you probably need the state to build it.
Almost all civilized countries have public healthcare and they managed just fine without (ab)using data from intelligence services.
Even in the US we already have Medicare and Medicate for large parts of the population and have seen no indication of any involvement of NSA/CIA/FBI. The idea is absurd.
SEEKING FREELANCERS / LONG TERM PARTNERS - REMOTE ONLY -

KICKASS CODE POET PROGRAMMER NEEDED - API MASHUPS, SAAS, WEB APPS, WEB SCRAPING, ETC.

NOTE: I'm not in love with any of the tech I mention below, so if you're interested but don't see your preferred development tool listed, please still get in touch!

Let's create code poetry :) If you are a creative, personable developer ANYWHERE in the world who wants to be a part of some cool, challenging projects, please get in touch.

I like modular, agile development where we prepare clear specs together to get MVPs to market. Let's target unique market niches and experiment with novel monetization and promotion strategies together.

Let's talk about a few of the projects I have in mind and the technology we can use.

First, project-wise, here are some things I am pursuing:

(1) Niche price comparison sites
(2) Unique web directory sites
(3) SaaS web applications

If selected, the first project you'll be working on is in the price comparison niche, specifically related to textbooks. Here's a GORGEOUS example: www.slugbooks.com.

When it comes to technology, you are the expert, but here is what I have in mind:

(1) Extensive use of APIs (datafeed, aggregator, etc.) to obtain real-time data and communicate or coordinate with other APIs (and utilizing programmer speak like REST, XML, JSON, etc.)

(2) Some specific APIs are already in mind, but one will be the Amazon API to utilize their product catalog data for some projects

(3) Leaning towards LAMP (PHP/MySQL), PHP frameworks like CodeIgnitor and others, and maybe utilizing WordPress at times to leverage their plugin catalog, obtain themes/frameworks to jumpstart visuals, and take advantage of better out of the box SEO structure

(4) Utilizing databases as well as API data to create auto-scaling sites where new pages are created automatically and marked up for SEO and user functionality, as well as maintaining site stability and user value creation

(5) SUPER IMPORTANT: Looking to utilize preexisting codebases (e.g., GitHub) whenever possible, as well as themes/plugins, art assets, purchasable solutions, or other ways to jumpstart development by spending a small one-time or monthly fee to save hundreds of hours of work.

In other words, no need to own a Pinto when we can rent a Porsche, right? ;) You may be familiar with ThemeForest, commerical WordPress themes (WooThemes, Genesis, Etc.), WPMUDEV, Twitter Bootstrap, and the numerous other sites out there that we can tap for resources.

In closing, if you have a familiarity or interest with any of the above, let's talk. Thanks for your time :)

CONTACT: fevllc AT gmail DOT com
My counter-argument to voice-driven coding has been primarily around the input bandwidth and the fact that you must work from home with that kind of setup.

I guess the presenter conducted the "faster than the keyboard" test under very controlled circumstances (e.g. only working on his own code, so one doesn't have to deal with non-english-word variables/functions).

I don't mean to be a hater, because that was an _amazing_ demo, but I don't believe it's the holy grail the title implies it is.
...which oppresses female sexuality.

Saying it's the fault of religion doesn't help solve anything. It's individuals who decide to interpret the Bible in ways that harm women, just like other individuals can consider themselves Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish, and still support women's right to birth control.
My understanding is this:

It's a filesystem that stores it's data in a temporary packet. So when you ping a server to see if it's up, it sends back the data you sent so you can verify it's okay. It's implemented as a filesystem using FUSE (which allows for all kinds of user space filesystems) so the OS just uses it like a disk or network storage and so on. I believe it works by spamming out pings with the data in them, and when they come back just send them out again.
I have this bit of magic in mine to map return codes to some semblance of a string version of them:

LED=$(perl -le "\$!+=${LE};print \$!" 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown error")

It's not perfect but I haven't found a more reliable way to map exit status' to something like the right meaning.
That was a fun talk to watch. Someone should try something similar using some kind of brainwave detecting glass gear to make it possible to code by simply thinking. That'd be awesome.
Try typing backquote followed by another character. I believe mapping alt+key in the browser might be difficult.

It's 0-origin indexing.
Elon Musk reveals hyperloop design: 800 miles per hour between SF and LA
> CA HSR replaces/upgrades two metropolitan rail systems (Caltrain/Metrolink) in addition to connecting SF (as opposed to Oakland!) and LA, requires no R&D, is supposed to handle significantly greater ridership, has detailed cost estimates which include things like take into account electrification costs (because it does get cloudy), support facilities (because there is maintenance of these cars), administrative buildings (because someone has to run the system), bypassing/rebuilding overpasses (which are all over I-5) that are in the way and grading land.

Not to mention their estimates actually include going into downtown SF and LA, unlike Musk's $6B figure.
I don't think so. Heroku is a PaaS (Platform as a Service). You can connect with SSH but everything is mostly set-up for you already but I don't have Heroku so I'm not sure. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is just a remote computer typically with a bare Linux installation, and you build up from there and install what you need, Ruby, Node, PHP... Check https://www.digitalocean.com/, they're pretty popular.
How unfortunate that no physical recording of this meeting exists. At any rate, "For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that paper literature is absolutely non-existent" is a superb representation of the difficulty Westerners have in comprehending "the reconciliation of the Super-personal Man" and the associated experiences. (Before psychedelics, anyway.)
seems like it essentially keeps data stored by catching data from ICMP (ping) packets, rewrapping them in another ping packet and shoving them back on the network.

Think of it kind of like network RAM, the data isn't stored anywhere persay and if either host fails to bounce back the payload the data is lost since it wasn't stored on any single machine and only kept alive in limbo.
In the cavity between the two tubes and the solar panels, there might be space for a freight transport tube?
EasyDNS DDOS in progress
Exactly. Pointing out that problematic elements exist in a piece of media does not mean that piece can't be enjoyed! Just that one should be aware of those elements and understand why they are problematic.
Good article, until I realized he was setting-up to make an argument for software and hardware engineers unionizing. I did enjoy the first part though.

To be clear, I am not one to say that unions are not necessary. I think they most definitely are in a number of industries. I am also not saying that union membership is evil in any way. A good deal of union workers are nice hard working people who are only after stability and a decent wage in their lives. Nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that our unions have become monsters that have gobbled-up massive amounts of resources to the point of bankrupting companies and cities and making every US taxpayer liable for the benefits they have extracted. Union leadership AND the industry or government representatives they sit down to negotiate with are the evil in the system.

And, yet again, I am not sure I can even place the blame on union representatives. What's their job? To extract as many benefits as possible from the employers to the benefit of the membership. They do, and have done, that very well.

So maybe it is a case of a set of systems that have taken an optimization almost to the highest possible level and, as a result, caused a paradox of sorts: At the limit, making things better for members ends-up making things worst because they can cause irreparable damage not just to the company or entity they work for but the the entire "ecosystem" (the town, city or country) that supports them.

In other words, the optimization kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Unions need to learn to be better citizens and to truly understand and partner with businesses. Then, and only then, everyone wins.
Researchers optically levitate a glowing, nanoscale diamond (w/ Video)
Maybe like a new 'physical internet' where it really is a series of tubes.
No, it's like saying he's a proponent of a healthy diet and eats a couple of hearty Big Macs with extra large fries and extra large cola five times a day. You can claim it is exactly what healthy diet means, but keep at it for couple of years and your look will certainly make it laughable. Exactly like Californian budget looks - both on state and local levels - makes claims of fighting waste laughable.

>>> Of course he's with the government employees unions, he has to live with them every day.

Having to work with them and being in bed with them is not the same thing. Though many politicians fail to see the difference, it is a known problem.
Thanks very much for the acknowledgement. Your project looks like a lot of fun - very cool use of audio. And of course Lisp rocks. Another audio-based project is the Apple Disk Server - loading games directly to the Apple via cassette port:
http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/readme.html
Nobody can force opensource code maintainers to build anything. More importantly, nobody can force all exchanges to run any particular code; exchanges can exist in any political jurisdiction.
I wonder if we should also be voice coding in a language drastically different then for example, C++? Maybe a language more syntactically friendly for voice?
I have the same issue with the 60-80% - trying to convince others of the deep evil that can (and when there's a bad quarter probably will) be done.

I generally let people know how absolutely permanent this stuff really is... More permanent than a tattoo. The information people put on facebook will, like it or not, outlive your grand kids.
As oakwhiz pointed out, this is conceptually similar to delay-line memory [1]. At least it doesn't require 100○ F mercury.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad

In 1905, they built 128 miles of railroad connecting the Florida keys. Since then, engineering has advanced significantly. Overland is still easier than overseas.
The projects lead's website mentions that 10.5 API completeness is already close. Here is the reference: http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2013/06/gnustep-mythbusting....

He certainly doesn't quantify this on either his blog, nor on the kickstarter campaign though.
White objects are not perfectly reflective and whiteness is not so much a function of reflecting them well, but reflecting them relatively uniformly in the visual range. Not every white object reflects UV.

Black plastic lasts longer because 1) the UV is absorbed by the pigment, not the polymer and 2) the pigment limits UV penetration to the surface.

Here is a good doc on UV weathering of plastics and materials (such as carbon black) to absorb UV.
http://www.cabot-corp.com/wcm/download/en-us/sb/UV%20WEATHER...
XIAOMI MI phone:
4.7 IPS, 312 ppi glorilla second gen screen, 1.5GHz MT6589T CPU, 1GB Ram, 4GB storage, support at most 32G TF card, 8mega pixel camera, 1.3 mega pixel front camera, 2000mAh battery, Android 4.2.2 MIUI V5 Os

And guess what? Sold only 799RMB at China which is about 135 dollars.

For simplicity, if I cut every feature listed half, and just assuming the price drops to half too, say 70 dollars. Compare to FFOS phone, which one will user pick?

This calculation surely is wrong. But my point is, the hardware is really cheap today, which makes the sweetest point of FFOS phone - the price - not that sweet.
Nobody hoards large sums of cash. Cash is deposited into a bank, and the bank loans it out to someone who spends it. That's how banks make money, and why they are able to pay you interest on your deposit.
I'm familiar with the distinction that Ericsson made.

The chess study is based on people who deliberately practiced.

It still didn't matter. Some people are simply better at chess.

Seriously proposing that all humans everywhere have perfectly identical potential in all possible tasks is nonsensical. That is the strongest form of Ericsson's hypothesis. If you weaken the hypothesis -- eg. "some people take less time" -- then why only publish the exact 10,000 average and fail to show variances in the original study?

And if there is variance in time-to-expertise ... what exactly does the "training is required, but the time needed varies based on talent" finding tell us over ... training is required, but the time varies based on talent?

Because that's already kinda known.
Can you name any new major civil engineering project in the US in the last fifty years?

Boston's Big Dig (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_big_dig)?
Thank you so much. I was just thinking of reading the pdf on my phone before going to sleep, so this comes in perfect. :)
...except that anyone can set up a tumbling service in any political jurisdiction. It is not practically possible for the US to shut them down; the best they could do is try to police domestic users of tumbling services, which is a much harder problem.
Amazing, but the cubical farm is noisy enough as it is.
> you must work from home with that kind of setup.

Or, you have a private office with a door that closes.
Using the Google Drive application on iPad you can edit spreadsheets.

Is the author saying that Google test documents with tables aren't displayed?
I haven't tried that.