skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> the top 10% earners pay 70% of federal taxes

What percentage should they pay? What percentage would be fair? We can't say without specifying the income distribution. If the top 10% earned 95% of the income, then paying only 70% of taxes would be criminally low. This statistic says more about the income distribution than about the tax schedule.

> Most of the money controlled by the rich in fact is being put to work in companies

What data lead you to that conclusion? I see the opposite. Corporate cash holdings as a percentage of assets are way up: the money is just sitting there. The "invention" of crazy investment vehicles like CDO-squareds shows there's too much money chasing not enough legitimate investment opportunities.

> cut government spending until outflow meets intake (and then go a few hundred billion farther, so that debts can be paid). Among other things, this might have a positive effect on business optimism, and we would experience an uptick in hiring for start-ups and established companies alike.

"Cutting government spending" means the government buys less stuff from private firms and individuals. Firms generally do not increase their workforce in response to reduced sales.
Okay, I tried this out, and am fairly unimpressed so far:

- The installer has dependencies that are not required by the package (e.g. mtools)

- Any errors during installation are not reported or handled; the installer just hangs unless you are watching terminal output

- Once you get it installed, the first-run wizard has the same unwillingness to report or handle errors

- The Keepod Cloud setup fails without explanation, and trying to navigate back to its beginning caused the machine to reboot

At that point, I gave up trying to set anything up and looked around; it looks similar to Peppermint OS from a user's point of view, but works less well at this point. It's pretty, if you like that, and it looks like you can do with it anything you can do with plain Ubuntu --- as long as it works. I think it's encrypting data, so that's nice, but I can't be induced to care based on its "multi-facetious technology". I didn't know what they meant by that before, but after trying it, I do.
But such a system only has the purpose of having people killed for money. There wouldn't be any other ideas discussed, except maybe haggling over whether to use a gun or a knife or maybe anthrax if the price is right.

An assassination program like this more or less defies the concept of 'ideas based on merit.'
> I'm not sure why people with a libertarian bent have to keep bringing guns into arguments.

Because if someone chooses to not obey, they will eventually face a gun which they did not bring.
You can price something for any amount. Whether it sells at all or in vast quantities is another matter :)
It's worth noting that it's illegal to insult the king in Thailand. Should Congress pass a law in the US that makes insulting a government official a crime, would you "not worry" about criminals anymore?
Did you reach out to them about increasing it?
I recommend you interview cjd of https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns, which is powering http://projectmeshnet.org/
That's what I need! Awesome!! @lepture, may change the project domain?
Paypal India is f*ucked up. Unusually high charges and bad customer service is common.

Try to look for alternatives.
As a father and graduate student let me tell you that we use libraries A LOT. There is no way I would buy the amount of kids books (or e-books) that we go through in a month in lieu of a library.

As for the grad student part, I use the library largely as a research tool, which means utilizing materials that were pre-e-reader as well as the research staff.

Safe to say that there is much much more to libraries than checking out the latest books.
davedx,

You comment is still basically unresponsive. Are we supposed to uncritically read everything we find on the web? Being critical is not the same as being negative, even if it's a feel good article.
I built a web app to do something like this for myself. Now slowly rolling it out to users other than myself.

https://jots.me

It's not as visual as the Seinfeld calendar but it works great for what I use it for. I use it to record what I've done for work, my side projects, exercise logs, etc. I even use it to roughly track expenses.

It keeps me motivated to keep adding entries for my projects, so I guess that helps with procrastination. At the least it gets me to do something daily so it can be recorded.
>I'm about to give up on London and move to San Francisco

It seems to me, having lived in both, that they have very similar problems. Both London and SF have a significant wealth gap.

Property is even worse in SF: prices are generally speaking more expensive (mainly due to far less supply than London), and average rent is higher.

What I'm getting at is if you agree with the op-ed and want to give up on London why would you choose a city which has a very similar set of problems?
I think that the main reason for this is that even thought the numbers are comparable in absolute terms, the market has grown in the mean time and the same number does not seem as impressive anymore.
He said county, not state.
Banksy is probably here because he's sort of a mystery, it seems that no one knows his true identity even after like 20 years.

Most of his work is illegally painted or pasted onto public walls and he hasn't been caught yet.

This "installment" is ironic because his art was sold on the cheap as if it were knock offs, like basically everything else sold on NY streets.

His style isn't entirely original but if it seems tired it's probably from seeing his imitators. Searching ebay for Banksy and excluding his books turns up 100,000 results, all of which appear to be ripoffs, bootlegs and tag spam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_nkw=banksy
I collect street art as my hobby and Banksy originals are much, much higher than low 5 figures for an original. Usually it's that amount of money for a print edition run of 150/200.

That said it is a supply/demand game and these aren't as intricate or interesting as his other pieces.
A Bridge Between Western Science and Eastern Faith
I had the exact same experience with Codecademy.

I've found that any type of motivation/gamification methods that are tied to time don't work for me at all.
He's talking about counties, not state. Within California difference by county can be a full percentage point http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi
Technique lets doctors monitor vitals with cell phone camera
So how did the European states affected by this support Google, the entrepreneur, in the beginning?
Yes, and all you have to do is be a genius! See also: Step 3.
The stalemate between teachers vs. administrators vs. students vs. tools/funds is nearly impossible to beat. The lack of tech-literacy (at the most basic level) among teachers is astounding, and the only thing more astounding is the real entrenched/entitled reticence to learn anything new (or that new = bothersome/bad). The overwhelming majority of MS and HS students are far more tech-literate than their teachers, and use that knowledge to learn/research/communicate/create more efficiently and pragmatically than the systems advocated by schools. Worst of all, most teachers don't seem to be bothered by the glaring lack of their own tech literacy/learning/implementation, at all?

When your teachers can't use email, upload content, or use grading software/excel, there's a problem. When teachers can't figure out how to use iPads, get youtube videos to work, or explain a single practical application of math, science, or engineering at the most basic level, in 2013... there's a real crisis.

This is one of the major reasons I just left my job, after 8 years in public education. Upon telling my principal I was leaving to pursue programming, she laughed at the impossibility ("That is for like... computer people? There's no way you could learn that!? What are you even going to do with that anyway?").

I start an engineering fellowship in the spring, and already can work in Python and HTML/CSS. It wasn't that hard to learn, I did it in 3 months. I could've taught it to MS students, easily. I also could've used a program like Chalktips in the classroom or as homework, to encourage graphic design aesthetics while students gained fluency with new/unfamiliar software and [web]searches (I think this is a critical skill), and still accomplish my overall teaching goal for that unit. However, my principal would've been unhappy with the results, purely because they were computer generated (and that's not "real" work). So Chalktips, in that way, would've been doomed from the start.

I don't really know what to say to education startups... the ideas may be fantastic, but the implementation is almost impossible.

FWIW, it looked like a solid platform. If I was still in education, I'd have advocated for it (even if only to be shot down by my superiors and peanut-gallery parents).
Unless they sold it to somebody else. And they even avoid showing which pieces were bought, for the most part.
Why a Systems Performance Book?
Actually, movie theater popcorn's 'secret ingredient' is really coconut oil. Saturated fat, yum
This strikes me as one of those (many) pieces where TechCrunch (and the Silicon Valley elite) are too far removed to make an accurate assessment. Like colonial explorers, amazed by the "crude" methods of the peoples they encounter.

Libraries are one of few effective public resources that function to address class inequalities in our society. It's not just about access to information, but also a community guide for everything from how to vote, apply to jobs, and file a tax return. They provide entertainment by lending DVDs and CDs (think Netflix for those who can't afford $9/month), as well as books and magazines. They also provide free gathering space for tutoring, job training, and community building.

For millions in America, an iPad or eBook reader is equivalent to two weeks pay or more. For them, the end of libraries would be another sign that they're being abandoned and continue to erode the pretense that an "American Dream" exists for everyone.
You have accomplished far more by writing a note that becomes popular on HN than by reading all the HN submits for the last X months. To the extent that being an entrepreneur is a for profit endeavor, you've wisely set up a dragon-- that is, the guilt that we don't read enough, to slay for just recognition. Nicely done.
Linksys is owned by Cisco, who are well-known for their incredible spinelessness and ability to give into the US Government's requests. Their backdoors are intentional.
Surely the libertarian model amounts to something more productive than "the state will shoot you if you aren't ready to shoot them first?"
I'm from Alabama...this might explain it :)
> When, later on in life, the subject of mathematics comes up, most people wave their hands and say, "Oh no, I don't want to hear about this, I was so bad at math."

I've noticed this happening a lot. It is interesting that nobody says that about the other two Rs: reading and writing. Have you ever heard anyone say "I don't like books and reading in general"?

As far as I can tell this is the reasoning used by most "math haters"

Kids who are smart are good at math
I was not good at math
Therefore I am not smart

Because of this reasoning, "math haters" start to feel bad about themselves and thus prefer to avoid this subject of conversation. I guess we could call this a math complex.

The first fault with this reasoning is the premise---there are plenty of smart kids who are simply not drawn to math, especially since math is often presented as memorization and not understanding. So whether you liked math in high school or not has almost no bearing on how good you are at math. Chill.

The other fault with the reasoning is that of time-invariance. Math was "tough" for me when I was 8 years old, so it will still be tough for me even though I am an adult now. It takes some level of humbleness to go back to learning something that "kids should know," but it is totally worth doing. Whether you are a coder, an english major, or a designer, learning a bit of math will give you a lot of extra power to do whatever you do already, and other stuff. For example, learning math will suddenly make half a million more wikipedia pages accessible to you (all the ones with lots of equation blocks). That is a lot of knowledge, and knowledge is power...

<plug>What if there was a high school math textbook written for adults? A textbook with no BS, which gets directly to the power part right away. What if learning high school math opened the door for you to learn differential calculus (lim,ƒ'(x),max), and integral calculus (∫ƒdx,∑a_i) in the same sitting. Then knowing calculus, you would be able to pick up mechanics (F=ma, a(t)=x''(t), p=mv, ∑Ei=∑Ef, Acos(ωt+ϕ)) quite easily too. All of this in just 383 pages that you can read four weeks if properly caffeinated!</plug>
What you do is you issue bonds in your high-tax market to raise capital, and to pay interest/principal on those bonds, you slowly bring in the funds from your low-rate piggy-bank country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-google-bonds-id...
Elephants Understand Pointing Better Than Chimps
based on the old "calendar about nothing" site that eventually became Github's streak feature. I built http://nothingcalendar.com/ to track working on one of my goals every day. Haven't worked on it for years, but still works well for tracking simple streaks.
The excuses are at their funniest when the issue is at its most indefensible, such as the proposals to end the carried interest exemption, or the accelerated depreciation of corporate jets.
The point is he was selling his own work as if they were cheap knockoffs, this certainly was not capitalizing on his fame. If he wanted to auction his art at a much higher price he could have. I think this is more like a performance art, think of the selling "knockoffs" that are actually originals and worth far more than $60 as a performance.
Biologist blogger silenced after revealing publisher's sexist response
That video was hilarious.
Example, as there is no screenshot:
http://jsfiddle.net/nPavb/
if openoffice...

It does not work that way since neither Apple nor Google can beat Microsoft Office with big budgets. Beyond talking about the technical aspects of Office what also matters is the marketing/sales machine. For example, I was present in negotiations between Microsoft and big (non US) state agencies, and you know what? The Microsoft guy was surely at more than 6 degress in the Microsoft organizational chart to Bill Gates but he could negotiate as if he was Bill Gates, he had that freedom.

The agency was pushing open source and the guy said something like: the Office $ XXX price does not work for you? What about $ 5 per license?
I have had little to no issues with quality of playback in Chrome. However, like your sibling comment suggested - it does lack keyboard shortcuts.
No response as of yet.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/25/pardon-edward...
I wonder why somebody promotes this person out of the blue and becomes an HN material? Yes it is an anniversary but why not do it while he was vertical last year or the previous year. I gather from the comments that his achievements are controversial as well. That is why I asked this question.
And you are correct. I do not disagree with you.
A better title perhaps: "Banksy - Central Park"
Qualcomm's brain-inspired chip: Good phone, good robot
>The property taxes cited are fascinating. $3k per year on a 20 million dollar home??? As they say, there's your problem right there.

It's very misleading, or downright wrong. Firstly, you'll pay tax on the sale (stamp duty), of 7%. There used to be a loophole for corporations, but that's now been closed (if you buy as a corporation you'll pay 15%). So already you've paid $1.4 million in tax.

You then pay council tax, which isn't property tax, but a tax for basic services such as waste disposal, etc, that your local authority provides.

It normally isn't very helpful to 'pick and choose' taxes when comparing them to the US, partly because the UK taxes some things very differently. For example, a sales tax in the US of 20% would be political suicide, but yet that's effectively what happens in the UK with VAT.
Is the Brain Really Necessary?
I'm amazed that there is no demo or screenshot for something so clearly awesome.
>If OpenOffice (etc) ever had comparable staffing (quantity and variety, not even questioning quality) that MSOffice has had for 15-20 years, I'd expect more comparable results.

Isn't that sort of the point, at least from their perspective?
It's very welcoming to the large ones that have lobbyists.
The Microsoft Hardware division in general makes a lot of good stuff. Microsoft makes some of my favorite mice & keyboards, and the Xbox has been an impressive business venture- only one generation to go from brand-new to top-dog.

Windows Media Center was quite good, although it has been allowed to wither on the vine somewhat as market research apparently found it just wasn't used much

Internet Explorer has of course picked up a lot of slack quite quickly. Has not surpassed open source, but they have done a pretty good job with it in recent times. Yes, it's still behind, but they started from behind. They are much less behind now.
Here is the project's home page with examples: http://lab.lepture.com/github-cards/
>>> I know this sucks. Libraries have been an invaluable part of human history, propagating our culture and knowledge over centuries.

Public Libraries also provide free/subsidized access to that culture and knowledge, which the current digital distribution channels that MG discusses do not.

The internet provides free access to a lot of information as well, but a lot of high quality information is being moved behind paywalls or proprietary distribution channels. The fact that accessing a lot of this information requires a paid for broadband connection and +$100 device also serves as a barrier for access.

So if we want to talk about the role libraries play, and what potential channels are going to replace them, we need to keep this in mind as well. It's easy to talk from a position of relative wealth about how you no longer need libraries, but they serve more people than jus the wealthy.
Ericsson Advertizes Bitcoin, Without Mentioning Bitcoin
It's in the repo description: http://lab.lepture.com/github-cards/
NSA please go.
My carpooling website for primarily RIT students.
> 6. I think that the FBI’s recent takedown of Silk Road, a black market whose primary currency was Bitcoin, was an inflection point. That the price of Bitcoin bounced back so quickly means that it’s being used for more than just illicit activity.

That's one interpretation, but there are lots of other reasons that may have occurred. Speculators can do lots of curious things, as can those who might benefit from perpetuating the idea that Bitcoin is stable.
What's the difference between a card and a widget [1]?

http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/blog/a-beautiful-jquery-git...
The Joy Of Being Detained By U.S. Customs and Border Protection
You aren't forbidden from using your iPhone. You are forbidden from using any cell phone. Why do apple fanbois find it necessary to make sure we know they have an apple product? They can never just say "my computer" or "my phone". Bleh.
For what it's worth (probably nothing :P), I find Office a horrible piece of software that I avoid like the plague. I think the interfaces of apps like Word, Excel is too crowded (too much buttons, options) and rather use more limited alternatives, even if they're a bit crappy (looking at you, Google Docs). With regards to PowerPoint, I think Apple's Keynote is a much better designed and usable app for presentations.
Guys please take a look and let me know what you think.
This is just flatly untrue here, and arguable on other networks. I get tired of the idea that each single individual is owed direct say in the features and behaviors of networks on the Internet. I think it's the same sentiment that makes users trash apps that are crashing ONLY for them, even when the owners of said apps reach out to explain the problem.
Which is the point of pearjuice's post about the logic not being too thin. Also duplicating same verification logic on both client and server does not make the server thinner, it only makes the client fatter.
Oh, but the effects would be wide-ranging: if an idea has enough of a likelihood of angering people past some threshold (either lots of people, or a few rich ones), then it will only be reasonable to air that idea under strong pseudonymity.

Participating in this marketplace would be somewhat like voting, except it would have a tangible effect.
I implied no such dichotomy. If there were such a dichotomy though, it would be no great shame to "waste" money regardless.
I'm a Dvorak user; I think the article is statistically correct but misses the broader point.

- The most important part of the Dvorak keyboard is that the most frequent English letters are on the home row with the vowels pushed to the left. This means that you're less likely to move your fingers from the home row and more likely to switch between hands for each letter. Thats the theory of why Dvorak is faster and more comfortable. It's a little crazy that E isn't on the Qwerty home row.

- It was much harder to switch to a new layout than I expected. It took about a month of typing with Dvorak every day and destroyed my ability to type on a qwerty keyboard. For a period during this transition I couldn't really type well on either keyboard, not fun, and not easy to explain to my boss why I couldn't fucking type. Interestingly I can still type fine on my iphone qwerty keyboard, so it is apparently a separate process in my brain.

- I think the article is similar to saying "there's no statistical proof that using the metric system is faster". Using the metric system is the kind of thing that makes sense intuitively, but if you took 100 scientists using imperial measurements and retrained them to use the metric system, it would be hard to conclusively prove that it is _BETTER_.

- To extrapolate a little bit, there I think there is a broader point here that statistics are usually used to make an argument, often deceptively. It is incredibly hard to create a clean sample in the real world, and even then its difficult to really extract meaning from those numbers. Remember, the average person has less than 2 legs.

- My personal feeling is that Dvorak is a LOT more comfortable and I type maybe 10% faster with it, though I can't really back that up. Maybe its just the fact I learned it second, or maybe I'm just fooling myself, who knows. But I spend like 10 hours a day typing, so if I type 10% faster over my lifetime then I've... turned a profit? Maybe I'll spend those extra days at the end of my life doing a better study about how much faster sailors can type on Dvorak.

Even if you don't use Dvorak, I HIGHLY recommend switching your Escape and Caps-lock keys, especially if you use Vim. Think about how much more you use Escape than Caps-lock. I use something called PCKeyboard Hack to configure that feature and Dvorak on OS X. On Windows, theres something called Auto Hotkey.
What do you mean the new gentrification? Creatives have always been a step in the march of gentrification, roughly approximated as "poor => creatives => wealthy"
Worse, Lavabit does get clear text emails when they are received. They encrypted them later. The amount of time later is legally irrelevant because they are now in possession of the data and can be made to hand it over.