skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have almost hit several emergency vehicles during the day due to my car's sound dampening and my car stereo (which doesn't have to be loud to block out sirens). At night, this has never happened because I have never not seen the seizure-inducing lights. My sample size may be less than a hundred, but you're making an assumption that piercing sirens at night are the most effective way to alert the public of an emergency. And for those blind pedestrians, low-frequency (or even lower decibel) sirens are more than sufficient.

I live on the 9th floor of a condo building that unfortunately has single-pane windows. If I don't have an extremely loud fan blowing, I will be woken up by everything from emergency vehicles to motorcyclists. I realize this comes with the territory of living in a city, but if cosmopolitan cities like Geneva can incorporate effective noise pollution laws* then there's room to improve.

* http://www.cagi.ch/en/logement/bruit-de-voisinage.php
For whose benefit? Speaking generally [1], as a patient in the U.S., I no longer believe it is for my (i.e. the patient's) benefit.

This is the result of both reporting on the health care landscape that I've digested as well as repeated personal experience.

The U.S. system is, at scale, profit-driven. Profit in general serves a purpose; however, in the U.S., it has superseded that of providing effective health care.

In other words, in the U.S., it has become solely about short-term, private profit. Public good and longer term, societal benefit have been relegated to imagery.

--

1. meaning not as someone having the specific condition under consideration
Only on reading this thread have I learned that I am a very heavy sleeper. I've always taken for granted that low level noise is easy to sleep through. Now I feel:

1. Bad that I've caused as much noise as I have at some times.

2. Very sorry for those of you that have to deal with easily disturbed sleep.
Quiz for Lisp fans.
If I say apple, orange, banana

it is

(apple (orange (banana)))

or

(((apple) orange) banana)

or

(banana (orange (apple)))

or

(((banana) orange) apple)

?

Winner gets a lot of fruit.
I didn't know about BeOS booting process, but I stumbled upon good old demos[1] recently, I remember how I was amazed back in the days. I'm still amazed, more than before. Sad.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVydyC8ZGQ
The Tech of Planetary Annihilation - ChronoCam
Nice! Might be good to teach some co-workers some SQL stuff rather than drawing on white-boards and drafting up SAS jobs.
Fashionable dog clothes low price
Considering the probability that people reported to law enforcement agencies will be killed as a result, and the probability that innocent bystanders will be killed, it may not be all that bad of a choice. The reality is that drug enforcement in America is done by soldiers who have an economic incentive to conduct raids (and almost no punishment for attacking the wrong house or killing the wrong person, or any person for that matter).

I doubt that DPR was weighing these issues if indeed he tried to get someone killed. More likely it was simple self-preservation.
Think of FirefoxOS as a MVP - it created partnerships and an actual device, and proved there was a market in several countries underserved by current smartphones.

The article is about the very first iteration on top of this. I disagree that this is bad in terms of marketing - it would be the equivalent of trying to sell a MVP to a huge enterprise company before getting any users/traction/market validation - except in this case it'd be putting a phone in the hands of consumers who are used to more advanced features and a more mature ecosystem.
Is there any x86 instruction set that supports quadruple precision floating point numbers? If not, why not? Is it not useful enough?
There's lots of online diagramming software out there, and there is nothing I can see that sets this apart other than the fact it seems to have a Facebook clone built in, which if I had to list all the features I want in an online diagramming tool, would only fail to be last on the list because it wouldn't be on the list at all.

If it has any advantages as a diagramming tool, it isn't doing a good job of selling them.
Memory technology keeps improving as well, and will have improved by late-2014/2015. Regardless, even if an eight-core chip would be starved for memory running eternal AVX-512 instructions, the advantage would be power and heat savings with a single core running a limited set of computations as quickly and efficiently as possible, doing the most with the least. As the power profile of chips gets smaller and smaller, that would be the biggest advantage.
I think that the idea of intelligence as a single number is similarly flawed as comparing cars just by speed.
The Chess Hustler
Ah, I could have written it in a weekend....

/s
Lerch!

We still use Awesom-o and Butters every day
Exactly, and it's amazing. POC is there. I don't think there's anything terrifying about it.
It is easy to imagine circumstances in which this is obviously true. Imagining isn't even necessary, if you allow your mind to wander to events and circumstances in history, though many people seem to find references to history to be distasteful...

Once we accept that there are indeed circumstances where the harm of killing somebody is outweighed by the harm of reporting a community to law enforcement, the question becomes "Is this situation one of them."

The war on drugs is extremely problematic for a multitude of reasons; are these reasons relevant in this case?
This happens all the time. It's easy to make decisions if you now all the variables post factum. Sometimes you make decisions without all the knowledge.

For people analyzing the lessons learned it's easy...
I think AVX is for scientific computing where there are a variety of algorithms that can't justify specific offloads like video encoding.
The 7 types of people who never succeed at work
100% agreed, and I'm in a similar position. I often mention to people that XMPP is one of the few places where I think XML is actually the right tool for the job, and is actually being used properly.

This is rather in contrast to those infamous "enterprise" frameworks, APIs and protocols that standards committees shoe-horned XML into as a way to put another tick in another box, that we have all grown to hate. Long may the rebellion continue!
I can actually comment on this which is rare. Now this isn't directly from the horses mouth I do work with the auto-industry but not directly in 'info-tainment systems'.

They are not going 'Open Source' any time soon, a few automakers may. And most developers would prefer it honestly. But currently Ford's System is build on Top of WindowsCE running on a PowerPC chip (which is basically custom for Ford I believe (thus the microsoft sync), I don't work in CE a lot so I don't know a ton about it).

Originally the 'Sync' system was going to not only handle info-tainment oriented stuff but car diagnostic information such as Valve timing and engine firing. The problem was the scope of the project was to large, and caused way to much CPU load, I believe its roughly a 600Mhz PPC chip, very under powered for the task at hand, not to mention windowsCE is a <sarcasm> LOVELY </sarcasm> development environment to work in (I know this first hand, different dependencies for a debug-able, and non-debug-able binary just make my heart sing with joy).

The problem they faced was that info-tainment system errors would cause it to short restart, or hang... just general stupidity due to first gen software problems. But when your also running your knock sensor on a different thread of your 'info-tainment' CPU, things get 'real' very very fast. How bad? Well when the computer when buggy the motor would default into 'prevent knock mode' and suddenly every single cylinder started firing 5+ degrees into the down stroke to prevent engine knock even if timing was correct3-4 degree's prior was proper timing. So they moved engine control away to a different tried and true processor.

Now whats left is this really buggy thing that limps along H/A'ing media, and giving you some car starts since its still technically on the CAN bus (which industrial busses are completely open source, you can thank people from the 1970's-80's for that, not out of 'creating a community' but so you can figure out what's being sent with a 19200baud scope, and an ASCII look up chart). So its 'buggy' but the WinCE on PPC was partially sponsored by Microsoft, who gets free advertising for keeping WindowsCE alive for Ford.

There are rumblings in GM to move to a Linux plate form because the developers are practically on strike over stuff like this, but GM moves very very slowly, and is more bureaucratic then the US government a times, so don't expect this to become a 'thing' in a time-span less then 10-15 years, because that's about how fast 'new' things get integrated into cars around the Big 3.

I'm rooting for you guys on the second floor.
that's ideally why we have education, yes, and 10-20 years ago I would have applauded your efforts.

However, this has become severely distorted as countries have gone on a major [insert perjorative anatomy] measuring contest to create PhDs, and have pumped effort and money into increasing STEM for its own sake.

IF indeed that is true (I may be being overly cynical), then the "reason why we have education" has shifted from "so people can stand on the shoulders of prior giants" to "because it makes our country look good". How does that affect your analysis?
There is a Hacker News bug tracker here: https://github.com/HackerNews/HN
I gather you haven't read A Modest Proposal. The overall argument of the flogging proposal has the same structure, with less satire and more spelling things out.

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
but you are replying to US citizens living abroad. I am pretty sure they are not exempt from paying taxes just because they do not live in the US.
That check is actually recommended by the RFC, but using the --noarp switch should disable it.
Then perhaps VimWiki https://code.google.com/p/vimwiki/
So, what you are saying is that nobody else, but you, should ever have access to your private key, right? I'm pretty sure that's PKI 101, which I think was Karunamon's point; and, I'm pretty sure the solution to your proposed 'weakness' in this system is not technical.
Why Android's search bar is dumb
I think this is not exactly about anonymity and the title is a little bit misleading. The title should be "Hiding secret activities is hard", as anonymity also applies to cases where you have nothing to hide.
10 to 12 sounds excessive. Sometimes I sleep 14+ hours a day. It's usually because of another problem, and oversleeping often drives a depressive state. Going a day without sleep, or getting 3 hours, usually makes me very hyper.

You should consider doing some research or consulting with a doctor.
I love computational research more than most, seeing as I'm a scientist and a coder. However, I feel the need to weigh in with a counterpoint on this. I've spent the last eight years measuring a system that was well described by both theory and computational experiments. It was exactly one of those systems where the results could not be measured experimentally and simulation was the only path forward.

We then built an instrument which could measure the results experimentally. Since this system was so well described by simulation and theory, we used it as a calibration sample before doing real science. Except the results didn't match the computations at all.

I spent years tracking down problems in the instrument (some of which were real) before finally setting in on the fact that the theory and calculations were simply wrong. Just as you're always experimentally limited in what you can measure, you're resource constrained in what you can calculate. Sometimes, you need to drop down another physics abstraction level before you can get the right answer. However, experiments don't care about your abstraction level and get it right every time.

Performing physical experiments is a waste of time and money if you can just simulate the results. However, you don't know if you can simulate it until you've performed the experiment. Every scientist I've known has, at least once, run a simulation and later found that it wasn't even close to the experimental results. Sometimes it's a leaky abstraction in the simulation (e.g. Ignoring the anti-reflective coating on a mirror). Sometimes it's a leaky abstraction in the experiment (e.g. ignoring the pH differences between H2O and D2O). Sometimes it's new physics, but not very often. Sometimes it's exactly like you predicted. Until you leave the keyboard and enter the lab, you won't know.
Using Music to Close the Academic Gap
The key is that Apple changes the output format that they accept, not the input format that developers work with.
To clarify my remarks, I don't really have a problem with a profit motive... my argument is more that you could make money from (1) coming up with better treatments and selling them or (2) extracting poorly allocated resources from the government. We need fewer health care projects that are the latter.
OTOH, I know of tech startups growing like crazy without a blog, or public facing website. Content is great and all, but its not a magic bullet.

Off-topic: The design of that blog. and the landing page feels weird. Doesn't really flow very well, and is hard to read.
Because it's an internet start-up you're allowed to break the law?

Well yes, that's what they're saying. "Internet is different" is the very principle Amazon invoked to not collect sales tax for years. (I'm not saying I agree.)
Books Don't Want to Be Free: How publishing escaped the fate of other culture
Show HN: BandHub - The Internet Recording Studio
Is the premise here that nobody should ever put themselves into situations where they cannot rely on law enforcement and the justice systems to resolve disputes and incidents?

Shipping companies semi-frequently seem to find themselves in situations where the wake up and think "Oh shoot, I need to hire some mercenaries." It takes some work to get into that sort of situation, but does that imply that they shouldn't have gotten themselves into that pickle?
I agree, especially when the touchscreen replaces physical controls. I really like that in my current car I can adjust fan speed, temperature, stereo volume, etc all without needing to take my eyes off the road, but if I bought a new car with those controls moved to the touchscreen that would no longer be possible.

Also, most touchscreens are not that well suited for use in cars. The interface is slow is usually slow, clunky, and modal, the screen is hard to read in certain light and/or blinding at night, animations are often distracting, the touch sensor is resistive and ignores input if you don't push firmly enough/hold your finger long enough, etc.

It's disappointing that touchscreen interfaces are aggressively being pushed downmarket, to the point where it's very difficult to find a decent car without one nowadays.
I'd agree with this sentiment except the mistake is a very fundamental, very flawed one: reusing the same ID. And it was made right at the beginning, when energy is highest. It's not like he made long mistakes over the years leading to an eventual arrest. He allegedly started off by posting with the same ID as his physical person.
My view is that if an interviewer dings me for saying "I don't know", that's a sign I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
Never heard that in Yorkshire. Possibly a more localised thing?
One argument is to stop efforts to disfranchise voters. If voting is mandatory things like photo ID law in US won't fly (or at least would be much less effective). It also affect who politicians pander to. These days common strategy is to pander to radicals because it's easier to get them to vote. That would disappear if everybody has to vote.
You would then need to sift out all the international tourist visits that are Schengen-area residents visiting other Schengen area countries. I suspect this would have an enormous impact on Europe's numbers.
"...our understanding of the laws of physics is advanced enough nowadays to describe almost perfectly everything we observe in everyday life." -- nope.

(sorry for the sheepish comment but this thinking is dangerous; look into some of the current problems in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology)
Dateutils - tools for fiddling with dates and times at the CLI
I sincerely don't understand what you're saying. Can you clarify?

Also, I feel like maybe I wasn't clear. You are considered Jewish by even the strictest standards if you (1) converted or (2) can trace matrilineal descent from ancient Israel or (3) can trace matrilineal descent from a convert.

What I'm saying is that when Jewish men showed up in Southern and Western Europe, they seemingly got hitched to a lot of local women. How do we know the majority of those women didn't convert?
In fact, in this case, the password that they are cracking are already hashed. They don't get better at all.
It would be much better just to end the war on (some) drugs.

Then put additional time on the sentence which is specifically rehabilitation time - time in which the offender is reintroduced into society, slowly and given more and more freedom.

Make it possible for those who do especially well to be officially designated reformed felons - they get some of their rights back, but they also get to not tick the felony box on job applications.

I don't give a hoot about poverty - if that was an issue 100 years ago almost everybody would have been a criminal - teach 'em personal responsibility and how you can better yourself and the benefits of helping others.
I know there's a lot of research in the effects of sleep deprivation on health, but the study referenced in the article had only 7 participants, segmented into two groups. Doesn't that seem like a really small sample size?
Used this a long time ago it is a great tool for figuring out a SQL query.
You seem overly concerned with adding your political feelings to the concept of anonymity. One definition of anonymity is "lacking individuality, unique character, or distinction," which is what spies attempt to do when they practice tradecraft. This article is about how difficult it was to do that.

While I do think the title lacks specificity to the topic, I don't think it's incorrect or misleading.
The Great Ones
Startups: Getting Drunk off Our Own Kegerators
If the room I'm sleeping in catches fire and collapses, no legal arrangement with the landlord is going to save me.

Since you mention it, I suspect that an "official" hotel room has to be built and maintained to a much higher standard than someone's house or apartment. Width of exits, sprinkler systems, etc.
You should divide by (linux - unix).
Before I say goodbye to my editor, here are a few features that are critical, but sadly are missing:

- Debug break points. Yes, I can't live without a debugger.
- Follow a signature to its implementation/declaration, usually by clicking on it.
- Auto completion. I refuse to work without this.
- Refactor tools, I've loved these tools since the 90's.
- Code generation like getters/setters.
...
I really hate this.

My MBA gets to sleep again before I can type my login password, so I have to press something (usually arrow) to keep it awake till UI responds. If I type the password before UI responds, then there is a good chance that the first characters are lost.

I should probably reinstall the system or do some clean up, but it is still an UI/UX issue.
This can even happen in a tech company. More often than not, this is an issue with managers who are non-techie. They're not sure what automation will do, and since they don't know what's going on when processes are automated, they're reluctant to try. #3 can plague any company. It happened at Apple as well, in supply chain, far away from product engineering.

You know how every product on the Apple Online Store has details on how long it'll take to be delivered to you? E.g. 2 Business Days, 1-2 Weeks, Within 24 Hours. These quotes are manually changed. That's right. Every product on every Apple Online Store (e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong, China, US etc) has their own quote, and these need to be changed manually by someone.

I remember I hated the manual work and made several automation scripts that'll just do everything for me. The managers wanted to have nothing to do with it. "What if the script screws up?". That was their biggest concern. We all know that programs are more consistent than human being so that's nothing to be worried over.

I was only able to convince the managers that automation is an improvement after having everyone in the department using the script without their permission.

I suspect their reluctance was also due to some degree of "if it's not broken, don't fix it".
Human brain is stupid - fit to the wrong environment. I was thinking the other day:
Babies are afraid of strangers, any new people, especially if those are a little scary. But that makes no sense in modern countries - nobody ever threatens this child, and if on off-change somebody does, he'll try to be as "friendly" as possible when doing so. Children scares make no sense! Adult anxiety makes no sense either!
"how confidently can you say that there's no other instance of something like this slipping in? "

Well, you have compilers that displays you warnings about it. If you don't catch the error you have static analyzers, if not you have Valgrind and other memory tools(linux have some jewels here), and if not you have your own parsing code for automatic checking of anything suspicious like becoming superuser.

So is not that disturbing as this example is something that even gcc with Waring=all catch. LLVM is better in this respect.
Hmmm. For hard disks, a call to fsync could be sufficient instead of the sleeps, no?
Ding!

(No relation to Ken Thompson, if that's what you were thinking.)
Having a productive day using habits | theAdmin
I find DPR to be a fascinating case study. Anarcho-libertarians often reject the use of force, except maybe in self-defense, on principle. But use of force is a fundamental interaction between organisms. It's one of the first modes of interactions young children come to understand. It's unrealistic to take it off the table. No matter how "civilized" you are, it's always lurking there as the most basic solution to conflicts. So here you have DPR, this smart, "civilized" guy. But when he's backed into a corner, he lashes out with violence just like any other animal would. In this case he didn't even have any reason to fear for his own life. He lashed out with violence to protect his material interests, just like an animal defending its kill.
I think the most important thing Firefox OS can do, even if it's not a financial success, is to bring Mozilla – and in extension everyone who cares about openness – to the discussion table. This can, if played right, become a very effective tactic at standardizing things on the phone/device platform.

It's a fact that the web is playing a more important part on phones, and no-one has quite yet been able to figure out how to integrate it well in a native environment. Rethinking the phone environment with the browser sandbox as a toolkit is a very interesting, but also bold approach.

So whether Firefox OS takes off or not is really of secondary interest to me. I'm just happy that people who care about curating and caring for the web are making their voices heard.
A friend of mine wrote this. If you have any questions I can try to get him on here.