skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Share HN: Some schleps in academia that might be fixable with software
I'm a junior professor in math at a large state school. I was just talking with a colleague about how much thankless schlep work our junior administrators (i.e. the assistant chair) have to do.

Here is one example. We run ~75 classes a term, and we have to schedule who is going to teach what, where, and when. This is subject to all kinds of constaints: space limitations; remedial classes get assigned to grad students; Professor So-and-So hates mornings; Professor Whosit hates the evenings; and so on endlessly.

Currently our assistant chair handles this by having everyone fill out a form, and with an Excel spreadsheet. It is a huge chore, a complete pain in the ass, and totally thankless (that person assigned to teach College Algebra at 8:00 will still remember it five years later...)

It occurs to me that this is a problem that might be solved with good software. And that this is only representative of the kind of problems academics face. Get the attention of the assistant chair in any academic department (other than perhaps at rich private schools) and he or she will tell you about all sorts of obnoxious work which he/she doesn't see any way around gutting out the tedious way.

It seems that there's a potential market for software, and a potential for a startup here. (Unless someone is already in this space -- but I've never heard of anyone using such software.)

Your market would be individual academic departments (not entire universities), and you could probably sell good software for a couple hundred bucks a year. You would need to keep in mind that departments don't trust university administrators to do these kinds of things for them, which is why you see professors doing it.

Just an idea that occurred to me.
you confuse open source with extensible/flexibility/maintainability.

Its open source if you have access to the source, not because you can grok the code.

The internals of V8 ought to be undocumented, if it not intended to be an api that other systems interfaces with. Api behaviour should be documented, and i assume that's what the V8 team does - but the internal IR, for example, is private and its behaviour should not be relied up on, or do so at your own risk.
New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/technology/facebook-leads-...
Thank you. I was a bit confused by that myself. Why say you're not eating when you've just changed what you're eating? Shock value maybe? Helping to make the whole expedition feel more important?
Thanks for all the info, so Matt says Google is not considering G+ as ranking factor, I don' believe this. All social media engagement have a correlation with rankings. I think now a days correlation value of Google+ is increased(this is why they index everything ASAP).

Guys Need help:

We recently faced a situation where we replaced the Facebook like button with Share button from our internet marketing blog(company site/blog).

Still I personally feel ‘Like’ was getting more engagement than share button, what will you advice for me. Implementing both Like & Share button is a good idea? I believe since our site only deals with particular industry i.e. Internet Marketing, less people will be sharing the blogs. We feel Facebook share is much valuable than Like, but we are confused here.

Please advice.
Give me a million dollars and I will ship you a box full of randomly chosen words. You can see if they evaporate. That's a cloud, right?
Gear for the Lifehacker
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The main difference for me between Soylent and the other options on the market is the specific goals of the products. There are a variety of other options, but as you said, the majority aren't intended as replacements for your entire diet (those ones also tend to beat Soylent on flavor only by being chock full of sugar). There are a few that are complete diet replacements, mostly used for medical purposes, but the fact that they're designed for patients who can't eat means that there is a lot of room for improvement given Soylent's different target market. To be more concise, Soylent is specifically designed to be used as I intend to use it, and none of the other products are.

That said, I don't intend to replace all of my meals. Eating is often more for social reasons than it is for nutritive ones, and in some cases I'll still be happy to eat conventional food for that reason. I expect to replace most of my meals, but I don't plan to swear off conventional food entirely. Maybe once or twice a week I'll have lunch or dinner with friends.
Has anyone considered the cultural implications of something like this? Meals, to me, are not just about eating — they offer a valuable break in the day to interact with people. I'm not sure that'll be the same if we're all eating grey goo. (Just stick a needle in me then…) The meal can often be a source of conversation — at least, if it isn't the same thing, every day. I'm thinking co-workers, and going to lunch: will soylent-users decline invites for lunch, because they have their grey goo? (They could potentially bring it with them, but wasn't the whole point to be lazy?)

I also, on occasion, find cooking to be a good way to de-stress. I get to make something that nobody else will ever care about. (My SO just loves that I made something, so in a sense, I'm fulfilling the soylent's "too lazy to cook" … but my way is tastier.) I get to snack (I regularly sample the (safe!) raw ingredients, the partially cooked meal…). I get time to just think to myself. Eating the same thing every day would be depressing. Mouse said it well:

> Dozer: It's a single cell protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs.

> Mouse: It doesn't have everything the body needs.

(I'm also of the mindset that cooking isn't hard. Boiling water can make a lot of things, requires little oversight, and is dead simple. And oh so much tastier. That said, I know someone who would sign up for something like this…)
Yeah, but so what? I mean, consider how much that honestly could have amounted to. 100 calories, distributed across 10 grams of nutrients per shake?

He still drank a shake, and at no point does he claim to have reformulated the mix by adding to it, or deliberately attempting to chemically alter it, or switch to different products.

Anyway, human nutrition must be capable of tolerating human error and envionmental hazards. It's not like this is some kind of a high-powered pharmaceutical. If anything, there should be room for that kind of error, because an inability to tolerate mistakes would actually be worse when it comes to food. You really don't want a casual fumble to cascade into some unforgivable and horrific, punishing mistake. You want to have some flexibility for spills, or maybe drinking an extra shake here and there, if you skipped dinner and breakfast one friday night/saturday morning.

If this behavior actually did introduce augmented outcomes, then consider this an important caveat of the product. This means it's sensitive to specific mixing habits, and is prone to user error. This would be an important detail to shake out during trials.

If the powder settles oddly during shipping, or mixes unevenly, and demands thorough mechanized blending, those are important instructions to communicate explicitly. Otherwise, if a bag lasts two weeks, and all the fine particles of vitamin powder settles at the bottom, leaving the fiber at the top, and you don't mix and shake the bag, it might take you a week to reach the bottom of the bag, and you'll inadvertantly be overdosing yourself with fiber one week and vitamins the next, when you try to finish off the bag.
Agreed. Also, ONC has endorsed Direct Trust which has an accreditation process which will likely consolidate providers into HISPs, which will make easy targets for same coercion you speak of.

But a slightly altered system where private keys are not consolidated might be a huge improvement.
Is Connectivity A Human Right?
Yep, I use them pretty often now. What I would like to do is create a library for this. Features would include:

1. Choosing arbitrary time estimate to use as a target.

2. Providing distractions for if the estimate is much too low (show a secondary progress bar or spinner, maybe even misdirect so the primary bar can backtrack without the user noticing)

3. Calibration based on real results. A simple way would be to use linear regression to map the input guesses to real world results. Then the resulting equation should be easily available to plug into a persistence library or LocalStorage, so that you continue to get accurate results moving forward.
Wow. I recall Ning. So many "social networks" on Ning lasted what, an hour? And to think, my boss was secretly orgasiming at the notion of the company bundling private social networks on the cheap through Ning. D'oh.
While that's true, I don't think it's what the parent meant. Colloquially, when we say to boil water we don't mean until the vessel is dry, just until a roiling boil is reached (this is typically how we cook pasta).
I start hating on this scrolling design stuff. Specially with bright pink.
Ugh, no. I want every UI control to look the same, everywhere. The scrollbars are not effectively a part of your document. That's not the case for a browser, or an office app, or anything that displays scrolling content. They're a property of the container, not the document.
He's referring to visaking (his username is green, meaning new)
None of your three solutions are healthy, generally speaking. There are a few meal replacement products that are reasonable, but most of them are full of sugar and don't provide many nutrients, because they expect you to only replace one meal. Fast food and hot dog stands are exactly the kind of food that Soylent is a good replacement for.
facebook is literally an infinite well of data. I don't see how we could eradicate it without a truly terrible abuse of power coming to light from within the company.
It's because non-Anglo-Americans lack the intelligence and talent to be able to obtain and maintain regular employment in their field. It's no accident that the most successful companies, e.g. Apple, are American and that those doing the grunt work are 'international.'
I'm sensing a new trend: short videos in the backgrounds. Other similar site with the same trend https://letshum.com/
tl;dr: Zuckerberg says "Screw net neutrality, I've got dibs on billions of people for my walled garden."

> Twitter ... has struck its own deals ... in more than 100 countries to offer some free Twitter access; ... it bundled free Facebook access with some of its Asha feature phones.; Globe Telecom, has used free Twitter, Facebook or Google access

> "if you can afford a phone, I think it would be really good for you to have access to the Internet."

Yet... it seems like they're equating Twitter, Facebook and Google to "The Internet".

> Cut the cost of providing mobile Internet services to 1 percent of its current level within five to 10 years by improving the efficiency of Internet networks and mobile phone software.

Now how that metric is measured, I'd like to know. In countries with $10 a month plans, does that mean a 10 cent a month plan instead? Somehow I don't think so. Or do they mean to say by that that Google, Twitter and Facebook will be quota-free?

> Facebook is already working on techniques to reduce the average amount of data used by its Android mobile app from the current 12 megabytes a day to 1 megabyte without users noticing.

That seems like more of an incentive on carriers to make Facebook quota free as much as anything else... I mean what good is that if you aren't going to:

> tackle some thorny infrastructure issues that are huge barriers in the developing world, particularly the long-distance transmission of data to far-flung places.

So, this is no Loon. What is this then?

> “We’re focused on it more because we think it’s something good for the world,” he said, “rather than something that is going to be really amazing for our profits.”

Being the founder of a publicly traded company that had a big IPO, I'm sure the emphasis is on "really amazing for our profits". Having access to Facebook, even at the detriment of other services, being something good for the world apparently is now uncontroversial enough that even the NY Times doesn't report critically.

This is how net neutrality dies, people. This is how the World Wide Web disappears into a rapidly diminishing sea of walled gardens. This is, unlike Loon, really more about ensuring that the next billions of people on the web never consider net neutrality as natural thing.
Facebook looking into ways to improve their userbase?
Jokes apart, this is a great initiative.
Is connectivity a human right?
Why wait for soylent?

Bag of flaxmeal,
Bananas
,Oats
,Yogurt

Mixed Nuts, Raisins, Power bar

Blend & drink the first four, munch on the nuts & raisins during the day, have the occasional power bar, take a multivitamin and toss in a nice diverse meal once a week to catch anything else and... profit?
No, it's more like if you were forced to have sex three times a day every single day, and most of those times it was with someone you weren't attracted to. Every time I eat fast food or takeout because I'm either too tired from work to cook or don't have enough time to, I feel terrible, I spend too much money, and I damage my body. If I can replace that experience with something reasonably healthful, affordable, and fast, that's a huge win for me. Yes, home-cooked healthful meals are fantastic, and I enjoy cooking and eating them. But be honest, how many people do you know that eat home-cooked healthful meals for every one of their meals? How about for even half of their meals? Some people have that privilege, but I'm not one of them. Soylent is a fantastic alternative.
Don't.

Instead, grandfather existing subscriptions. Let them stay on the same price. They will appreciate it and they will be less likely to cancel their subscriptions in the future. Only change the price for new subscribers.
Correction:
"Facebook lead initiative to bring Facebook to everyone."
Nice job missing the forest but spotting a few trees. I see some promising initial signs given the short duration of the trial.

Imagine if there was a new drug that gave the mental benefits the guy reported after two weeks of use and saved you money too. It would be front page news.

The guy doesn't claim to be a medical expert, he just did his best to report the results of a bunch of miscellaneous tests that were suggested to him.

With a drug for which if you took 40x the daily dose you might die, or a drug that might cause significant harmful side effects at normal dose, you need careful studies to prove a benefit and quantify risks. With a dietary change, the risks are orders of magnitude lower. I'd be surprised if the average American wouldn't improve their nutritional status doing this for a while, with an existing diet likely low in magnesium, copper, zinc, vitamin c and d and probably more.

The need for careful studies is greatly reduced for a food product like this one. People can try it, report how they feel. If other think is worth trying, they can see exactly how it works for them by giving it a try. That is the power of self experimentation.
Does Code.org Have the Right Message?
It falls short because the amount was inconsequential according to the report.
This, this, this!

If you give a person / family just enough money to live off of, in exchange for their promise not to productively contribute and achieve (with the pride, joy, and happiness that can go with that) ... you have effectively turned them into slaves.

A permanent welfare mentality = mental slavery. And tell me: are the people who are being "helped" happy, in the end? Do they live in peace? Travel their neighborhoods, talk to them in person, and you'll see the answer yourself. Yet sadly, they're convinced if they can vote for a little more money, and vote to take it away from certain others, then they'll be happy.

The system does little to truly help them. That's why it's disgusting.
German government warns Windows 8 is a security risk
FWIW this is an analysis of the rhetoric, not the science. As such, I think it's pretty accurate. It's like noting that with Rush Limbaugh advertising you get appeals to what he personally does or enjoys using, whereas on NPR advertising you get vague references to strange sounding companies....

you don't need to know about dietary supplements or supply chain management to understand the rhetorical distinctions.
Spin up an instance using Debian then run the script.

Done.
This Soylent thing is literally the SV techie equivalent of those "This School Teacher(tm) found one weird trick to [BLANK]... [BLANKERS] hate her!" advertisements that we all like to make fun of.

Why do those ads use "school teachers"? Because it is relatable to the target audience and sufficiently anti-authoritarian that they don't question the credentials.
As someone who has lots of restaurant experience, this is interesting to me but there's lots of concerns. First are the actual tablets themselves.

Paper is cheap and reliable; a restaurant dropping a lot of money on a number of tablets is going to be a tough pill to swallow for many. In a tiny looking place like Bumble, not a big deal. But what about a sixty seat restaurant -- do you need one for every table? How many extras do you need to keep on hand? Does it stay on the table the whole night (which would make sense)? Do you have to spray them all with that new hydrophobic stuff to keep them clean and working? Do they all need otterboxes to survive the fall from the table? Are they going to be completely locked down so there's no incentive to steal the tablets?

I see the color coded table thing. When are servers going to be looking at this, is there a "server station" tablet, too? This also means that the expo in the kitchen is going to have to be trained and be running this device. Will there be a screen in the kitchen, paper dupes for the line cooks?

How much time do customers have to change their order.. is there some final check or something before it becomes an official "order?" Do the customers have to worry about seat numbers; how does this not turn into a food auction?

While I hope this would let service staff be even MORE knowledgeable about the menus (as they have less work to do), I hope it doesn't make them lazier ("I'm just a glorified food runner now").

Concerns aside, it's very cool to be able to update things in real time and I always think reading specials is preferable to hearing the speech from the server.

edit: Okay well I was quick to post and did the further reading which answers some, but not all of these questions. I still think it's an interesting idea that will have a niche for sure (there's plenty of wine lists on tablets and the like), but the execution will play a major part in the success, I think. Also, even if Buttersystems is the best freaking thing since sliced bread, getting restaurants to train and use it effectively is the real tricky part of this, I think.
It is just my computer... or are they not using any CSS styling?
Show HN: My company's new virtual assistant SaaS product
Buy a crate of MREs.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Rich originally made two other JVM/lisp hybrids, one was running java code inside CL, the other was CL on the JVM. [1]

Clojure originally targeted the JVM and CLR, but AFAIK, one of the main motivators was always to run on a major platform.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jfli/
Facebook isn't giving me useful implementations of my data. It's holding relationships hostage.

It being the de facto source for internet services for large populations is only going to make things worse.
It's important to understand that privacy, like security, isn't an all or nothing proposition.

Instead, they're both questions of degrees of inconvenience and degrees of difficulty.
You stopped too late. The whole post is a farce. Take the title When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks. I've actually done this. I mean, stopped eating aside from water for weeks, and it's really no big deal. The body is designed for that kind of privation. He's just some yuppie going for page views without a discernible reason, unless he's marketing for blah-blah-blah health tonic.
> Soylent aside, im amazed at how terrible his traditional normal days meal is?

I wasn't able to take the post too seriously after that since Soylent, as simples as it is, apparently is still better than his previous diet.
Accompanying blog post here:
http://yongfook.com/startup-confessions-i-m-in-love-with-my-...

This isn't a faux-MVP, the product is live and being tested out now :) Would love any feedback about the idea and if you have an uncontrollable desire to be one of the beta testers shoot me a mail with "HN" in the subject to yongfook@beatrixapp.com! cheers
The only BTC I know is bit-test-and-compliment. I have yet to use it, maybe once.

BTS and BTR are shorter instructions for AND and OR in certain cases. A person who has written a compiler is in a different league.
Looks like it's more about making the internet more accessible to people without it.
Every one of us. Everywhere. C̶o̶n̶n̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶[Monitored].
It's on the page.
> We have thousands of years of history of humans doing well on whole foods, and zero evidence that the human body can do as well on artificial foods.

We had thousands of years of history of humans doing well on earth, and zero evidence that the human body could survive in space. How do you find out without testing?
“Dr Jekyll” apps hiding their dark side
Startup Fuel: Mary Lemmer
Current Chrome browser feature list.
You prefer your car headlights off at night. I prefer them on.
Completely preference, right?

You missed my point. Just invoking the word "preference" is a weak argument. You need something more like an actual argument. With evidence and logic.
I have researched this a lot because my mom suffers from schizoaffective depression and has been medicated for my whole life. I would strongly recommend dealing with a good therapist. I am not anti-medicine in general, but the pill-pushing side of psychriatry is very primitive and not really helpful.

Basically all of the medicines work by tweaking how your neurons react to various neurotransmitters, either at transmission or reception. The problem is, these don't target, their effect is throughout the entire neurosystem.

One of the best sources of information I have seen it Sapolsky's lectures on YouTube, he is a professor at Stanford. He does a really good job explaining what is actually going on inside the body, although it can be difficult to read further without a solid grasp of biochemistry. I did pretty well in organic chemistry in college, and got A's in it, but never took actual classes in biochemistry, only read books in my spare time on that, and I have had some difficulty sometimes.

Basically what I am trying to say is be careful, psych meds can really ruin your life if they aren't perfectly balanced, and it it almost impossible to get them perfectly balanced even if you have the best psychriatrists in the world, and you probably won't have the best. Unless your condition is already crippling, don't touch them. But by all means consider going to a therapist.
This comment[1] that I made elsewhere in the thread probably works as a quick summary of my reasoning. Again, happy to answer any questions.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248003
OT: Often I read HN comments before reading the article, it helps to filter the BS off.
How The NRA Built A Massive Secret Database Of Gun Owners
Very cool stuff. I wanted to start learning Lua. Is there any way to see your code?
Great initiative, but it doesn't actually say what they're doing towards it.