skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The bottom line is that situations like these are rare.

The article is quite specifically about a rare, incredibly egregious example, and indeed many of the protagonists of the story are countless other medical professionals who wanted this dealt with. I'm not sure what your opposition is about, as you seem to be refuting a position that no one actually holds.

It is absolutely outrageous that this was not dealt with earlier, and that is what the story is about. Texas is hardly alone -- here in Ontario it is well known that the same thing happens: grossly incompetent practitioners are protected by a system that other practitioners do not defend and do not want.
I think you need to watch Bret Victor's talk at DBX.

http://vimeo.com/71278954
Put a fork in "big data"
The title should probably be "Don't just build things, make things a little more convenient for people". Yplan is your example. Really? That is tremendously disappointing.

Is it possible that we can aspire to create better things than that? Can we bring food and shelter to those who don't have it? Can we bring counseling to the those who need it? Can we support and create real face to face local community? In other words can we take our gifts and the tremendous leverage that software and technology provides and actually help people? Can we fly in the face the current economic incentives and actually help people?

Otherwise we are just creating things that may be popular/successful in the the short term but die in the long term because they have no "real" value. And we as producers suffer under the truth denying myth that we are doing something of value when we actually know that we are just trying to cash in on a tiny worthless market wrinkle. We might as well be playing the stock market.
This guy gets it. Liberalizing zoning rules and restrictions would go a long way to alleviating this problem. For some reason liberals are against liberalization in this day and age.
The Bay Bridge is gradually disappearing from Google Maps
There's no choice in the matter. Do you realise trademark holders have to vigorously defend their marks in order for them to remain protected? Failure to do so jeopardises protection.

Disclaimer: IANAL
You're not characterizing the debate correctly. The argument has primarily been over whether pressures in society and in industry have been unfavorable to women. Those who don't think this is the case sometimes argue, "Perhaps the fault is within women themselves".

If that were the case, then we would indeed expect fewer women in tech. Just as if we eliminated gender from Olympic sports, there would be very few women at all competing, and pretty much none on the medal stands (except in sports that are mostly female only).

But that is not the case with computing. You have women among the elite of their male peers and not just elite, but pioneers. And they did this during a time, mind you, when women's equality was much, much less of a belief than it is now.
Well if you can't eat you have about 30 days. If you can't breathe you have about 2 minutes.

Starving people is an ancient tactic, repugnant as it may be.
I am the founder of Flowtab, and my goal in writing this story was to share what we learned and accomplished instead of letting it rot for eternity in Dropbox. Thus, we opensourced everything from our pitchdeck to source code on Flowtab.com.

Kyle Hill and I are already back at it. Together, we launched www.homehero.org a marketplace for senior caregivers, let me know your feedback!

- Mike Townsend
No. What if a well meaning highly followed person tweeted the landing page? What if your blog post was the link widely shared, it'd depend on your writing skills. If you could guarantee 10k hits from HN, 100k from Reddit front page, and 1m from 4chan which would you value the most in terms of getting paying customers? This test is a good example of how numbers fail you.
You're not alone. Here's an early variant of such a policy. SEMCO, a Brazilian company run by Ricardo Semler, has since 1980s had the policy where people could set their own salaries.

Some excerpts off his book on 37signals: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-sem...

His book: http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workpl...
Skype specifically refuted that rumor after it came out. That being said, based on everything that has come out in Snowden's documents and other reporting, I now believe all Skype communications are compromised.
Create a new language, VNCscript, which has a single keyword, 'start'. Implement a VNC client in a single line of code :)
The amazing thing for me is that everyone is paid the same. This works when you're small but does it scale? HR = senior engineer = college hire = sales = receptionist?

I also love these experiments. If they prove my intuition wrong then I have learned something. I hope they give an update in a few years.
This encrypts via encfs, so not sure what the advantage is over just using encfs on top of Dropbox (or any ol' provider)?
There are various movements in photography. You still need to use some techniques while doing some photographies but usually for straight photography, it ends when you press the shutter.

But I suppose that Henri Cartier-Bresson expressed it in a better way:

"Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time. We play with subjects that disappear; and when they’re gone, it’s impossible to bring them back to life. We can’t alter our subject afterward.... Writers can reflect before they put words on paper.... As photographers, we don’t have the luxury of this reflective time....We can’t redo our shoot once we’re back at the hotel. Our job consists of observing reality with help of our camera (which serves as a kind of sketchbook), of fixing reality in a moment, but not manipulating it, neither during the shoot nor in the darkroom later on. These types of manipulation are always noticed by anyone with a good eye." Henri Cartier-Bresson - "American Photo", September/October 1997, page: 76
To protect yourself from being inconvenienced by a Christian, you advocate state creation and control of culture, like most "progressives" you are actually an outrageous totalitarian.
The populations of Chicago, SF and Seattle are 2.7 million, 800,000 and 620,000 respectively. Provo's is 115,000 while Orem's is 95,000. It seems weird to compare the shopping and food options of some of the larger cities in the United States with Provo. Size-wise, it makes more sense to compare to something like Boulder.
They have, just on a category-by-category basis. Many of the sharing economy companies are included.

http://cdixon.org/2012/11/23/some-problems-are-so-hard-they-...
Google has been suing for years. One of the few companies who has consistently gone to court for users privacy.
Mind if I rearrange your enlightened comment?

If you are into discriminating against people for their sexual orientation, that is actually completely within the bounds of the law in Utah (if that's what you're into).

I definitely wouldn't recommend going to Provo or Orem... where there are many polygamists.

Keep in mind that, until relatively recently, homosexuality was as socially taboo, if not more so, than polygamy. Now, I won't weigh in on whether it's fair to group the two; perhaps it's not. But before you publicly castigate a community for their views on a particular sexual orientation, you should refrain from committing the same offense.
It's great to say that (and it may be technically correct), but it's a generalization of cashflow > revenue at startups. If you're established and have a buffer, it's safe to optimize for revenue. Early on, you optimize for cashflow.

If I were a 22 year old with 120k in college debt, I'd probably prioritize building a cash hoard. Plus, there are actually investments in operational stuff which will give you a higher return than even compounded 401k gains, and making those early might make sense. e.g. spending $500 to learn a key technology, living in a place which exposes you to the cofounders of your first startup or your future spouse, etc.

401k > college loan repayments above the minimum, probably generally true -- loan repayments are risk free, but it would depend a lot on the rate. If it's a 9% college loan, and you're in a 22% marginal tax bracket, and can get 3% return on your money, yeah. If you financed your college education on credit cards, ...
You're welcome to show me (I'm from Missouri) where anyone has seriously suggested strychnine or other "official" poisons are foods.

Which is very different from e.g. pointing out that while strychnine has an human LD50 of 1-2 mg/kg, "In low dosages, strychnine can act as a stimulant and has been used by athletes to enhance their performance." followed by a couple of Olympic examples in 1904 and 1992 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine).
Thank you for going the open source route! There are so many cases where a company goes under and something of value is lost because the original developers couldn't maintain it.

For example, I would have loved to have seen a community-maintained version of Glitch [1] take over after the game died out, but Tiny Speck refused to open up the source code because they believed it would be too complicated for anyone but themselves to run—a justification which has never made sense to me.

And if nothing else, it gives a deep peek into how a production system is run, something I'm always grateful for.

[1] http://www.glitch.com/
One of the things I really like about HTML5, actually, is that it recognizes that real-world HTML is not perfect... and then specifies exactly how parsers should deal with imperfections.
ReactOS: Rebuilding Microsoft Windows from the ground up, fully open-source
When a Spouse Puts on Google Glass
What is the cost to make Smartphone in USA? $4
Does anybody really think of Uber as "ride sharing"? I think of it as "app that calls you a black car cheaper and faster than if you went through a car service".

Some of these like Lyft or RelayRide are truly car sharing - peer to peer facilitating hitchhiking by unlicensed "cab drivers" for tips.

But still, the "economy" part is more in evidence than the "sharing" part. Obviously, people expect to be paid for doing services, even if it's an informal and off-the-books part of their income.
With 50,000 bars/nightclubs in the US, and witnessing the success of other mobile payments companies (Levelup, Kuapay, and Starbucks app) it seemed inevitable especially considering the poor ordering experience in many establishments.

Mike T
I'm familiar with Vivint's history. They are in the midst of an attempted transition towards becoming a tech company, partially to escape the terrible reputation they developed when they were APX.
Thanks, it would have been a complete waste if we didn't publish this...
And that doesn't happen elsewhere?
For TV Shows I've long used tvrage to keep track of things: http://www.tvrage.com/mytvrage.php?page=myschedule (that's the link to the schedule, of course it wont work unless you're logged in and set up shows to go there, but yeah). I don't see google's tv reminder feature being that useful but for movies.. that'd be nice. See a trailer in the movies, pop out my phone and set up a quick reminder so I know to look for it in the future.. yeah.
who otherwise wouldn't bother to learn

This is worded, I think, a little bit pejoratively -- no one learns the entirety of the systems that they deal with (whether Windows, Linux, Solaris, mySQL, nodejs, HTML5, angularjs, etc. The universe of stuff to know is endless), but instead even the most diligent practitioners get a working knowledge and often don't realize the things they don't know. As a quick example, I've done projects with seeming SQL Server experts, for instance, who had no idea what ownership chaining is, and you can find exactly these sorts of fundamental knowledge gaps in virtually any technology.

These certifications make you step back and look at a breadth of information that you don't normally have to, but upon gaining that knowledge you now know the tools available to you.

And yes certifications can be abused by some, some people have photographic memories

The danger of taking certificates too seriously is that it creates a strong economic motivation for people to simply do what is necessary to get the certificate, with little interest in the practical ramifications or value of the things that they learned. This was absolutely endemic with MS certs with countless boot camps, etc, where you just pound in questions and answers for a week and then do the test. Boom, certificate achieved, now forget all of that abstract stuff you just learned.

I am absolutely and completely against such boot camps for that reason: If you aren't practically incorporating the things you learned day to day, it simply will not stick.

I would never hire someone or assume competency because they had these certificates. However if I interviewed someone who seemed competent, with good references and a solid track record, it would be a bonus if they had it, simply because it is decorations on success, and does not define success.
I think this is the first time I've laughed out loud when reading a HN comment. I have a suspicion that you're right.
Maybe they had more pressing concerns? Perhaps they believe their time is better spent improving their product (providing more value) rather than automatically removing spaces in a credit card form? Maybe the OP was the first to find it particularly vexing / frustrating?

All of these things are tradeoffs. Especially in small, young organizations... it's not reasonable or realistic to polish every single thing. In fact, not focusing on this particular element probably aligns with pg's #1 "hardest lesson for startups to learn": http://paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

EDIT: In this case... it's talking about FastCompany, so "startup" probably doesn't apply. But most journalism companies are really hurting right now, so allocating resources is still probably problematic. The shady customer service is the more damning thing.
I've not heard this before, from what I've seen and read feminism has been partly about the exploitation of women's labor, an exploitation that has occurred for a long, long time. That women's labor isn't paid for or is underpaid is a long standing issue.
I agree, and thank you.
"Wounded" does not necessarily mean "out of action permanently". My grandfather was wounded November 19, 1943 and was back in action before the new year.

The focus of modern warfare is destroying capability for making war -- which usually includes wounding or killing enemy troops, but also destroying equipment, engaging in misdirection to get enemy troops to commit to the wrong place, etc. It's much more sophisticated than you make it sound.
Yeah everyone's seen that talk. Any technology can look cool for 5 minutes. He really neglects to observe that all of the ideas he presented were thoroughly explored during their time -- and repeatedly in the decades since. The conclusion continues to be that such systems are inferior to our current ways. That may be because nobody has pushed hard enough, but it's not because those systems, as implemented, were good enough if only someone would just pay attention.
I just don't think the US military realized the consequences of Agent Orange on the population when they came up with that terrible, terrible plan. Nobody is denying that Vietnam was a clusterfuck, but I believe Hanlon's razor applies.
And no tortoise carapace either!

Otherwise, did you put the code on github?
I could make a case for this in terms of hiring and retention alone. In software development, turnover is really expensive. I could also argue that higher employee engagement yields better products and better customer experiences; I think a major reason startups do so well is that in the early days everybody cares a lot.

But it's important to remember that software is a human enterprise. You can do human things because that's the highest-ROI choice. But you can also do them because it's the right thing, or just the thing that's right for the people involved. Or heck, just because it's fun.

Maximizing shareholder value is popular business dogma, but personally I don't think it's a great way to run companies [1], and it's a terrible way to run one's life.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/22/how-mode...
Bruce Schneider had a short comment linking to an article of FEDs targeting companies that expose the polygraph sham. The comments are worth reading:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/feds_target_po...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/16/199590/seeing-threats-...
In a more Silicon Vally context I think it would be more appropriate to do it to Mark Zuckerbergs house instead. Out of his 3 billion I'm sure it would be a drop in the bucket to help get those people on their feet.
A lot of the comments here claim that the deal breaker here is the culture. This could come off as glib, but is Silicon Valley really in any position to be complaining about another culture being too homogeneous, or too exclusive of "different" demographics (e.g., I dunno, women)? Don't make me laugh.

This is particularly disappointing because there are much better reasons to justify your decisions to not found your startup in Utah. Let's start with the fact that the investment scene, and in particular, the angel scene, is completely and utterly toxic.

I won't go into specifics, because badmouthing people on the Internet is mean, but most of funding (especially angel funding) in Utah is structured as a competition, where startups compete for money. The result is that there is no camaraderie between companies in the way that there is in, say, NYC or the bay area. People are friendly, but there is not really any knowledge ventilation because the angels cultivate this atmosphere of competition. The result is a divisive and poisonous atmosphere that is antithetical (IMHO) to hacker culture. In my experience, this lack of sharing knowledge makes it quite hard to build things. You're extremely unlikely to find a successful coworking space here, for example.

So ultimately, the talent pool here is deep, but until this cultural problem is fixed, Utah will always be a distant 11th to other venues.

EDIT: and before we all jump on the hate train, I'm an avowed atheist who left Mormonism. I don't like the culture here either, but let's not forget that Sili Valley needs to pull its head out of its ass on a pretty regular basis too.

EDIT 2: and for reference, I graduated in CS from the University of Utah this year (2013). So my experiences are pretty fresh.
This amused me:

"That is to say, use data-mining techniques to not rummage through everything."

Data mining basically /is/ rummaging through everything.
I do! So before Flowtab I built ZingCheckout, a web Point of Sale (now used by Tesla Motors). I learned a ton about POS distribution, it was a big part of our growth strategy. However, a POS reseller really can't justify the cost in selling only Flowtab (like you could with a POS) because it was an ancillary product and couldn't yield the high upfront sales $ from bar owners.

Mike Townsend
Most places have more than one developer title. See e.g. the Fog Creek link.
Doing an ESOP as a startup would be weird. You'd be buying common stock (?) at the valuation for cash (?), which would really complicate things. If you were a seed stage company, $20k in common stock could actually be >99% of the company (!!!). It might be a cute way to let someone buy $1.00 or so in stock inside his 401k (0.1%?) and then $19999 worth of S&P500. If it's post-A or post-B it would be a lot more sane, but still $20k might be a lot. If I were an engineer with 0.1% of a company hired at a midway-between-A-and-B company, and I could get $20k in free money, I might put $5k into buying extra company stock if that got me 0.3%, particularly since it would let me sell it and use the gains to invest tax-deferred for the next ~40 years.

There is an utterly batshit insane thing called a "Rollover As Business Startups" where you roll your own 401k over into a 401k in your newly-formed business which then buys its own stock and use that to capitalize your business. This basically lets you 1) use your 401k as capital when you can't raise (useful for franchises and traditional small businesses) 2) tax advantages. The IRS hates it, although it's fundamentally legal; they go after it on nitpicking detail compliance, which people often screw up. It's about $50-100k in 401k balance before it makes sense to do, since plan costs are about $10k to set up. I thought you could do it with Roth 401k, but it appears you may not be able to (if that could be done, it would be amazing.)

(IANAL/IANATL/IANATA)
A lot of how this is received may depend on the role you have in the group. You state you are new to the project; were you brought in as a junior novice? Or as a seasoned professional? If the former, then you might consider presenting these ideas as suggestions rather than as a critique.

I think, though, that either way, this is a lot to digest all at once. Breaking this apart into separate communications might be easier to grasp.

Generally, it sounds like your team needs some sort of coding / development standards. Until a behavior has been established as "correct" or "incorrect", it's all a matter of opinion.
The great thing is that it enables writers to prototype their work. So now, people can have screening parties and do crowdfunding for movies. I think this is great from that perspective.
Basic Go rule: when googling, always use "golang".
Potti's claim was that he could predict which chemotherapy drugs would be most effective on a particular patient. The test patients were still getting good anti-cancer drugs. He wasn't giving them random drugs that had nothing to do with fighting cancer.

The most likely effect of the fake data on the test patients would be that their treatment was merely as effective as that of patients in the control group. It is very unlikely his methods produced worse outcomes--if they did, he would not have needed to fake anything! He could have published his methods as a way to identify drugs that would be ineffective for a particular patient, which would be about as big a breakthrough as what he was claiming.
If you would like to see salary numbers, there are a ton of them on the web. Personally, I thought the numbers were the least interesting part of this.
Its a great way to start building something. But what if I don't want my idea to be out. What if i want to keep my idea safe till i build a beta version of it. Please suggest something.
I would have thought this would be common sense by now - don't submit to a polygraph ever - it cannot help you, only hurt you. And don't submit to any kind of interrogation without a talking to a lawyer first. Relevant video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
>One of your previous comments...

Proving nothing. How do you know whether or not I can afford a Porsche? The ghettos are full of kids who know how much a high-end Lamborghini costs.

As it happens, I could afford to buy a Porsche if that was the sort of thing I wanted. Because in the decades since college I lived within my means and strove to make my skills more attractive to people who might want to hire me.

One thing I didn't do was fetishize poverty. All you have to do to be poor is refrain from doing anything. In the US nobody of average intelligence needs to be poor.

>Fox news and Rush Limbaugh will guide your moral compass.

I don't watch broadcast television or listen to commercial radio, so I'm not exactly sure what's on Fox or what Limbaugh is saying. But to the extent they support things like self-discipline, thrift, and hard work (you can find definitions for those words with Google) I agree with them.