skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hobby pilot here. This is one of my pet topics. A "flying car" is like "land-running sailboat" - a "flying car" wouldn't be anything like a car, but would serve the same purposes. Journalists always make this mistake.

Möller's approach won't work because their design uses too much energy. We need a design that combines the great fuel efficiency of a good airplane with the VTOL capability of a helicopter. This could be done.

Some of the remaining issues which make this difficult are, in short:

Mechanical reliability (you can't just pull over if the engine fails)
Existing regulation (airspaces are organized manually, rigidly and labor-intensively)
Liability (one lawsuit after a crash and a new company is history)
Investment (aviation is really expensive and no one wants to touch it)
Weather (the plane must work in clouds and darkness)
Training (landing a plane is a little harder than driving a car)

I think the wheather issue cannot be budged in the forseeable future - sometimes it's just not safe to fly. So these hypothetical machines can't replace cars.

In my opinion, most of the problems in this field are related to the US political climate for aviation. Due to airline disasters, all of aviation is kept to a really strict safety standard, and any failure can and will be sued to oblivion privately. The problems that these "flying car" companies are actually shared by every company that tries to make progress in aviation. If you do anything that doesn't use 1960s technology, you have mountains of certification and bureaucracy before you. For this reason, most of the really cool planes are certified as experimental designs, and you have to assemble them yourself.

The existing air traffic control system employs thousands of people and is very resistant to change. It is very labor- and training-intensive, both on the part of the controller and the pilot. But the part of it that doesn't involve airliners could be automated if it wasn't for the culture of excessive safety.

I actually wrote a comprehensive article about this last summer, but I'm really self-conscious and didn't publish it. Pehaps I should.
94 Pages? I'll sum it up for you here:

Rounding error happens. It's worse if you do add/subtract a very big number and a very small number.

Rounding error increases as you do more operations.

Depending on your platform, you may need to accomodate NaN's and positive/negative infinity.
$100K is enough money not for 5 years - but for a LIFETIME in many parts of the world. So, start with places like India, much of Asia, Latin America, etc. Just go across them. Take however long you want. Learn some langauges. Do Europe on $20 a day. Bring a Macbook, keep up to date. Then make your way back to Silicon Valley.

Travel at this stage of your life will pay off the rest of your lifetime. You will cherish such experiences forever, as they will regularly inform your actions.
"Nothing important that wasn't an obvious downfall has happened since then."

I don't know, I had thought that sending human beings to the moon was a step forward.

"Edwardian Science and technology was the last time we actually had real progress in science and technology."

Again, I had thought nanotechnology and computing theory and hundreds of branches of medicine and myriad other fields had been conceived of and advanced in the time since the Edwardian era. But you seem to know best, Lupole Boucher.

"Social welfare programs like the Large Hadron Collider are brobdinagian, billion dollar avoidances of the Basic Question."

This irritates me. Using obscure wording and speaking intentionally over your audience is a tactic used when you're frightened of your arguments (or lack of) being torn apart or exposed. (He didn't even spell "brobdingnagian" correctly, the prick.)

I suppose there is some value to having read that, I can now use it as a cautionary tale and steer my life firmly away from the direction his seems to have taken.
moved from germany to new zealand some years ago - have a small company now and love my life again - think i'll stay :-)
I’m officially a member of the DZone team
I'm not sure I'd call C++ verbose...at least, not in the same way Java is.

Java takes a lot of characters to express an idea. C++ (usually) requires you to take a big idea and break into smaller parts than Java might (because Java has large libraries).
Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did.

To quote one of my professors: "scientific greatness requires three things: some intelligence, hard work and some luck".

If Einstein hadn't invented the theory of relativity, someone else would have. The relevant equations had already been around for years, waiting for a proper physical interpretation: the time was ripe for it.

There probably were a number of authors as prolific and proficient as Shakespeare, that have nevertheless vanished in obscurity, because Shakespeare just happened to get and keep the attention.

From not being succesful you can never conclude you have not been working hard enough: someone else may have gotten lucky.
Me to, knowing a little scheme definitely helped, watching all the SICP lectures last summer also helped(If you don't have time for the book, the videos are a good way to cheat).
And of course Clairvoyance:

You are able to collect real time information in Google Reader, Delicious and Netvibes.

You can even add semantics and see all the links of a subject in one page.

That's the input.
As output you can copy and paste snippets, ideas from the aggregated articles into a separate application, blog post, wiki, mindmapper.

And that's all. It's far from providing you clairvoyance to your subject of interests -- business.

Create your personal news agency! All inputs and your outputs in one application.

. Aggregate news using existing tools (GReader).

. Add filters / semantics based on source, content, category using cascading tags and meta-tags

. Add one-paragraph summaries / distilled knowledge to your semantic tags, subject of interests

. Visualize your subjects as trends, predictions, overviews, know-how

. Monetize the final output
There is a term, Anglosphere, which encompasses UK, USA, Canada, NZ, Australia. It's useful to recognize the Anglosphere as a distinct subset of The West - not least because Russia is effectively Western now.
Because Israel is a pretty young country most people living here are <= 2nd generation immigrants.
I'm a 4th generation immigrant. 5 generations ago my family immigrated from Russia and created at least a couple of cities, which still exist today.
I was born in Dublin, Ireland and moved to Canada when I was 6, and I'm a Canadian citizen. So I guess that makes my answer 0. However I've since lived and/or worked in Pakistan, Spain, the UK and the US. Add to that that my grandmother was actually American, and "reverse-immigrated" back to Ireland, and the word "immigrant" doesn't quite capture it.
I think it was the FT who calculated that GBP 7M was the sum you needed to never need to work again (i.e. at whatever age you are now). That would buy you a nice house and provide enough of an income that you could do anything you reasonably wanted to do without eating into the capital.
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If you consider that you are going to die and don't need 7M in the bank when you do, you could do it with a lot less.
New light on the pirate bay story ?
Bad CEO's: Keep the share holders happy

Good CEO's: Keep the customers happy
If I may say so, you fail to see the forest for the trees. Windows and Mac are both in the same boat. They decide what is good for the user, they are closed source, and then you have to write software to do trivial stuff.

I prefer GNU/Linux, it allows me to change what I need to.
The notion of profit depends entirely on what you're trying to achieve.

In this case, perhaps it's political power without the tedium of going to the polls... EU style.
Interestingly, that's the 3rd variant of the phrase i've heard in as many days. Perhaps those using it should be obligated to rephrase it ;)
Would it sound terribly old-fashioned to suggest that before taking amphetamines to help study, one ought to figure out what the (non-medical) obstacles are to effective studying, and remove those?

I think that if somebody were in a position to take the author's advice of "take a pill, and then study for 4 uninterrupted hours, keeping your attention keenly focused on the task at hand", they'd do (almost) as well skipping the pill.
My point is that to me, and perhaps to many who don't live in the USA, the entire question feels USA-centric. There's a significant difference between being a first generation Bulgaria->Sweden immigrant and being a first generation Germany->Netherlands immigrant. It's just fundamentally different, and I think a poll like this demonstrates a non-understanding of that.

The thinking in the USA seems to be that either you're an immigrant or you're not, with no distinction between the variation of cultures. To a western European this kind of thinking seems very parochial.

The very idea of asking this kind of question makes it seems USA-centric, because the USA has such a strong self-identification as the land of opportunity for immigrants. The discussions about H1-B visas indicates the schizoid nature of that identity.

I've heard it said that the difference between Britain and the USA is that the British think 100 miles is a long way, while Americans think 100 years is a long time.

Again, all of this is my impression, but you did ask.
Yeah, the figure was calculated such that you could be any age and still live the rest of your life on it. Obviously you could retire at 65 on a lot less.
So from what I understand, TPB will sell their domain name but keep all the torrents by moving it to this 'new' tracker.
I use Fedora Core on my laptop and desktop pcs, and use a windows box with terminals to Fedora Core servers at work.

I've been thinking of getting a macbook lately - I've never used OSX and have heard good things (I also love the look of them).

I'm torn between my tried and true Fedora/ Thinkpad (I'll upgrade my existing one) combo and a shiny new macbook.

Are there any converts here? Did you miss the package manager? Do you find the paid upgrades not worth it compared to the 6 monthly Linux distro revisions?

I have a bad feeling I'll miss the convenience of yum install [package].
I think I'm just more impatient. "More meritocratic" is probably true, but imho, it's a long way from ideal.
This hilarious German saying from Judith (in the article's comments) deserved to be reposted here:

“Karohemd und Samenstau - der Mann studiert Maschinenbau.”
“Checkered shirt and lack of sex - the man is studying engineering.”

(The German rhymes nicely - say this in your best Bruno accent).
Maybe we're just programmed by evolutionary forces to work? Perhaps doing something creative releases endorphins (or something) that causes us to be addicted.
I was wondering where I'd seen this before - It was picked up on planet.gnome.org. :)
Mac OS X from the developer's perspective is basically Linux done right.

That's an often-cited overgeneralization.

I'm a developer and OSX is not Linux done right for me. In my book the OSX window management is ridiculously clumsy and gives me nowhere near the speed/control that I have under ion3. For example: The latter gives me tabs on every frame, that means I can rapidly tab through any windows I have attached there, without moving my eyes. It also lets me setup multiple parallel mini-IDEs without thinking, because everything stays in place and never overlaps - unless I explicitly move it or make it so. People often get dizzy watching me because my workflow involves a lot of muscle memory; I know which sequence of keystrokes gets me where, hence my edit/compile/test roundtrips are quite a bit faster than what I've seen on eclipse or OSX jockeys - who commonly have to fall back to the cable-rat for any sequence that deviates from what their IDE anticipates (e.g. to juggle a few config files along the line).

For bragging rights, my sequence to setup a new "mini-IDE" with a 50/50 horizontal split (browser window full width on top) and a 50/50 vertical split in the bottom frame (two terminal windows each in left/right):

* F9, Enter (new desktop)
* Alt+s (split horizontal)
* Alt+Down (move to bottom frame)
* Alt+d (split vertical)
* F1, F1 (launch two xterms, left)
* Alt+right (move to right frame)
* F1, F1 (launch two xterms, right)
* Alt+up (move to top frame)
* F5 (launch browser)

That sequence takes me under 5 seconds, zero thinking and ofcourse I have the freedom to create any layout appropiate for the task at hand, with just a few keystrokes.

These sequences are my bread & butter (have 7 virtual desktops open for various tasks right now). I can not imagine going back to an old-fashioned mouse-driven window manager ever again.

So, show me functionality like that on OSX, then we can start talking about the other areas where OSX falls short for me.
4th generation American... but I'm living abroad :)
Picked 5 or more, since infinity is most definitely more than 5.
Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu
Easy Web Spidering in Ruby with Anemone
While I voted you up for interesting insights into another mindset, just one inaccuracy: 'You click "Accept" once, then never see it again.' - actually, it happens with every iTunes update. Even if you read the license the first time (and I don't), how many more times are you going to read it? So Apple can put in the license whatver they want?

Also I don't like your tone when you say "But most Mac users don't find it outrageous to pay developers for their time. "

It really isn't about that. I just don't want to tie myself to proprietary software. And something like apt is fundamentally impossible with proprietary software, unless you go the App store route (let Apple control everything).

Whenever I install a proprietary application that I have downloaded from some website I googled for, I feel as if my Computer has become unclean and untrustworthy.

Basically, the second half of your post is just nonsense ("Apple never fucks up etc."), but as I said, the first part was OK.
I immigrated to the U.S. in my teens. Just moved to Australia 20 days ago :-P

I think I am done "immigrating" in the classic now. Now I am just another yank living abroad :-)
Cherry, The Mobile Operator That Doesn’t Care Whether You’re On Wi-Fi Or Not
Given two similar people that follow the same study good advice, but one takes coffee (or some other stimulant), the person taking the stimulant will do better.

That the author suggests good study habits doesn't mean people shouldn't take them.

Given the risk of addiction, it is probably especially important to recommend good usage habits.
http://www.jvoegele.com/software/langcomp.html
Look, if you're gonna waste your brains on chemicals, do it right: MDMA, a pair of reeboks, and a bottle of wate give life a rhythm section!

Besides, when did the geeks become pill-popers?
States Plot New Path to Tax Online Retailers
I have noticed on youtube there is always someone commenting that this is from the time when they made real music, not like the crap they make today.

This is regardless of whether the music is 5 or 50 years old.
How would that work, though? So to counterfeit money, one could just take two people and make them sell air to each other?

Or is it because the virtual currency becomes real currency as soon as there is an exchange rate? Then it depends on the economics of the virtual world (there isn't always an infinite supply of virtual money).
Two generations removed from my family's country of origin (France) and now an immigrant again (Japan) - not sure if it's permanent though.
They track monthly actives. The total account numbers are much higher.
You're not in college, are you?

There's serious demand for "study aids". It's really not a surprise. If you're statistically going to score higher than your peers by taking a pill, that's not too far off from hacking. Code optimization for the brain.
I can attest to what you're saying. I've taken adderall with a prescription for years. I would be very interested to know what the retention rate is for knowledge gained while taking amphetamines vs stone cold sober. I feel like I have a much better command of the material when I use both methods. It's like an automatic mode of reinforcement. For instance, it helps to imagine each chinese character is some sort of animal, so you remember how to draw it by thinking of a duck with horns, and so on. Adderall, Ritalin, etc. force you to perceive the things you're studying in a different way, and add to your ability to retain them. The mixture of the two methods can take you a lot further than one or the other in my experience.

However, as I commented below, I am skeptical as to how concrete the amphetamine driven associations persist 3-6 months down the line.
My immediate family has migrated thrice in the last 15 years and it is not over yet. As long as I can remember, we always had plans to move somewhere else. I plan to end it when I reach the northern part of the Western Hemisphere (hopefully excluding Western Africa and South/Central Americas :)).
using -> ignoring

obligated -> doomed

rephrase -> repeat

huh?
True. There is a lot of irony to making it difficult for motivated immigrants to work in the US. When I started a company in the US by partnering with an American - which was the only way I could legally work for my company, despite it being perfectly legal for a foreigner to incorporate in the US - we ended up providing salaried jobs and benefits for 4 Americans, along with part-time wages for 20 or 30 more people. And this company is a lightly-funded, lean, 2y old biz.

Imagine what allowing, say, 10k foreigners in to start companies would do to the long-term health of the country?

http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html
Opinion piece in the Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/SA-Aiy...
Absolutely, you can never get bored exploring, especially if you have a good friend to explore with.
Why wouldn't there be a reason to invest under a gold system? Why not the standard reason: a bigger return on investment?

In a well devised economic system you would do well if you saved and have the potential to do better if you invest. In our system you are forced to make risky investments or face the gradual loss of your wealth to inflation.
Hookers and Blow...
I'm a 17-year-old student that, at the age of 5, immigrated from the People's Republic of China to the United States (originally settling in the suburbs of west Philadelphia (not born, but raised) then New Jersey and lastly Massachusetts.)

I'm also an entrepreneur (on my 8th) and extremely thankful for the opportunities that the US presents (makes everything on http://markbao.com possible.) Entrepreneurship in China probably isn't as bad as, say, North Korea, but definitely appreciate all the opportunities here. Reading that article, it's definitely true.

Though I can't say that other places don't have the same opportunities, since I have no prior experience elsewhere.
Hope and Peril After an Escape From the Cubicle
This is insane. I agree that manners and sexual behavior have taken a dive in the past 80 years, and I had to laugh at this:

It's because the Edwardians were everything the hippies were not; they were civilized, productive, refined, creative people who made beautiful things. If we are ever to progress as a society; that is the direction we must go on. It's not going to be towards more sexual freedom; that has been an unmitigated disaster for everyone but those who cater to the consumer fetishes which "sexual freedom" has brought about.

We need to separate the good from the bad. Good cultural changes: reduction in racism, higher degree of equality for women, increased tolerance (and eventual legality in most places) for same-sex couplings. Bad cultural changes: materialism, promiscuity, two-income trap, terrible art, and a degeneration in sexual tastes in both genders.

The challenge of the 2010-20s, on a cultural front, will be how to rebuild society (after the Great Recession, which has only just started, and will destroy enough of our culture to leave an usable and welcome void) in order to keep the cultural progress of 1965-2015 while discarding the negatives.

"High civilization" is not over. It's currently in pain, with a decline in morality and a large portion of the economy dedicated toward swindles (private health insurance, subprime mortgages). But this is a period of only local decline, and the best times are ahead.
We Rent Movies, So Why Not College Textbooks?
As long as the methodology behind the data collection is given as well, I think this is a huge step forward for journalism.

Some stories require hundreds of hours of research which is then distilled into 1000 words and a bar chart, what a shame.

thanks.
If you start looking at Twitter like a utility, relying on tooling makes a lot more sense.
> That's approx. 45 things that I culled from the photos I've taken in the last month alone.

Awesome list.

My favorite feature of iPhone software is if you are in the camera roll looking at a picture. If you hold down the backward or forward button for a few seconds, the software will speed through your photographically documented life. like a flip movie of what you've done, where you've been, who you've met.

If you have an iPhone or (better) play with a friend's iPhone, give it a play.
I disagree with the premise that it's a "cult of genius" that's pushing people out of physics, at least in the way the OP suggests.

Oh sure, we’re plenty clever, and are whizzes at figuring out the tip when the check comes due, but we’re not Feynman-Einstein-Hawking smart. We go through a phase where we hope that we are, and then reality sets in, and we either (1) deal, (2) spend the rest of our career trying to hide the fact that we’re not, or (3) drop out.

The problem's not about ego, but economics. People don't drop out because their egos can't handle the realization that they're not Einstein-level. They drop out because, in academia, you can't have a decent life unless you're a "star" (which actually has more to do with politics and doesn't require Einstein-level talent). Consider the brutal, decades-long fight one must endure for the "prize" of a middle-class job that it's hard to be fired from. You only get to bypass the degradations of academic ascendancy if you are, or seem like you might be, a budding Einstein; so people who are merely "plenty clever" but have better options drop away.

If the very-good-but-not-genius physicists could have a good lifestyle, even accepting the likelihood of overall obscurity, they'd take that opportunity.
Freshjerky.com
Investors to Support Passionate Work
But if one of your kids emigrates to the US, you'll be -1, so it's probably better to say undefined at this point.
You should check out the Bruce Sterling speech from Reboot11. He talks about categorizing everything you own into four categories: beautiful stuff, stuff that you have a strong emotional connection to, tools that are absolutely needed to live a better life and "the rest".
Everything in "the rest" category you should get rid of. Video of speech is here:
http://video.reboot.dk/video/486788/bruce-sterling-reboot-11
The abolition of work
Cassandra: My IT guy is better than a husband
Actually he has long stepped down as a CEO of Infosys. He, however, continued to wield the title of co-chairman until now.
A Proposal for Fixing HTML by Douglas Crockford
So, would Facebook rather publish the "real" number, or a larger stable number that keeps increasing and passes the smell test?