skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you thought of organisms as computers with IP addresses, each functional group of cells in the organism would be listening to the environment through its own active port. So, as port 25 maps specifically to SMTP services on a computer, port H1 maps specifically to the windpipe region on a human. Interestingly, the same port H1 maps to the intestinal tract on a bird.

Could anyone expand a bit on this subject? I found this completely fascinating, but I'm having trouble finding further reading on the underlying mechanics of "ports", as the article calls them.
This only works if you're requiring lots of references, so you can look at the percentage response. Most hiring processes want 2-3. That's an awful lot to leave up to chance.

Far better just to know how to interview a reference on the phone. If you're looking for the "is the candidate outstanding" response, just ask for specific details about what made the candidate outstanding. A crappy pro-forma reference won't have any.

If you were really serious about references, you'd track down backdoor references anyways.
> Claiming that these 30 acceptance / rejection regions will somehow be independent of each other isn't true -- since our tests are accurate, or at least reasonably so, the accept / reject regions will be the same, or nearly so.

Ok, here's an example. Test 1 tests the following hypothesis: the last two digits of polling data are uniformly distributed amongst the values 00, 01, ..., 99. Test 2 tests the following hypothesis: the first digit is distributed according to Benford's law. For large data (like vote totals) these tests are (nearly) independent, no?
Mix tunes for power coding sessions
The Not-Quite-Green Toyota Prius
Might be the sampling is skewed, but still it means that people are still susceptible to the false claims that Internet Explorer makes.
I don't have a choice. Medical necessity, meet Chicken ;)

Indeed. I discovered that my fear of needles was exceeded by my dislike of hospitals -- so when it came down to "inject insulin 5-7 times a day or end up in hospital", the choice was easy.
Why do I have -14 karama?
Any ideas? Thx in advance :)
Maybe it's just that I'm in the U.S. but I found the story of Centralia, Penn. pretty fascinating. To think they had a fire burning underneath them for almosts 20 years and were completely unaware.

There was a documentary made that was apparently just released on May 19th of this year (http://www.amazon.com/Town-That-Was-John-Lokitis/dp/B00208GJ...).

Check out this picture from their filming: http://www.thetownthatwas.com/assets/0000/0802/setting-up-in... And 11 people still choose to live there. Crazy.
because of your two comments on the experts-exchange thread. they earned you a -8 points each.
Ok I get it. Just looked here. http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html looks liek people have been down voting my stuff. Fair enough.
Yeah, they're like the most simple, convenient medicine delivery mechanism since... the pill? :)
Not sure why you got downrated (I had exactly the same thought, based on years of reading the WSJ). I found the piece thoughtful and plausible.
As much as this is great for the employer, it really stinks for the candidate. Even a mediocre reference is a reference. It proves that you at least worked somewhere and did something. That said, I'd never list a bad reference.

References are funny things. If you have to call them, you probably shouldn't hire the candidate anyways. If you have that much doubt in their skills, or integrity you're likely to feel that way regardless of their references.
Facebook Admit Click Fraud Problem, Says Fix Coming Today
you're probably not good with people. don't worry about it a lot of computer guys have aspergers and other types of social syndromes.
Experts exchange thread? I can't even find that can you show me the link? (Thx for the answer by the way)
-8 points by jv2222 4 days ago | link | parent | on:
Stackoverflow Eating Away at Experts-Exchange

If I was experts-exchange.com I would be shiing myself
just about now.

-8 points by jv2222 4 days ago | link
shiing = shi - - ing !

You can click threads, to see how much karma you got/lost from your comments
Tabs have always seemed like a horrible misfeature to me. The OS already provides a taskbar, so now you've created N*M places to look. Not only that but you can't see all the tabs at the same time once there's multiple windows, so you have to pick a window, check all of its tabs, move to the next and repeat. The "it's like MDI/documents/text editors" argument is bogus because the window that contains gmail has nothing to do with the window that contains HN, or reader.google, or whatever. It's like all the programs written in C++ get their own taskbar, separate from the ones written in VB, separate from the ones written in JS. Except we only separate the JS ones for some reason.

For Chrome specifically:

1) it lacks the option "New pages should open in [X] a new window [ ] a new tab" compared to Firefox, which makes tabs ignorable.

2) On Windows, I'd much rather they follow the OS conventions for MDI rather than make up their own "cool"/"clever" one (see media/audio players, for some random reason). All of a sudden, for example, you can't double-click in the top left to close. Well, way to be clever, but that's crap.
Ok so now I know how the karma got knocked down... but I'm not exactly sure that comment deserves -16 is there a policy against swearing or something?
A theory of historical cultural stagnation
Want to really understand the "lean" philosophy? Learn from the origin
Looking at the way we imported Valentine's Day and Halloween, it could be possible.
Infinite Summer
How about not letting the AMA artificially limit the supply of doctors? How about letting patients care for themselves? Acquire their own medicine? Ask for their own blood tests and monitor their own hormone and chemical levels without having to go to a doctor? This guy is a doctor, no wonder he doesn't mention allowing people to not need him. Imagine if we forced companies and individuals to go to people with computer science degrees to get help with their computers.

Seems like if we'd remove the medical doctor gatekeepers and allow people to care for themselves, then health care costs would go down.

It seems so strange that in a free nation, it is illegal for citizens to care for their own health.
Only 2% of users know what a CVT Transmission is, do we need to rethink the 'powertrain' game?
Evolutionary Impact of Alcohol?
This link should be titled:

Good Method to Check Someone's References?
The lack of top-left corner double-click drove me nuuuuts. Until I found out that you could middle-click to close tabs.
I already unfollowed. I'm not willing to try it multiple times. I am not an earlyvangelist.

I could be persuaded if emailed a personal apology from the founder.
I find it hard to believe that the government can make a decision that is better on any metric than the consumer whom it directly affects.

There is a fundamental problem with medical insurance though. Insurance only works because of uncertainty about the future. As information about individuals' medical conditions becomes more detailed, this uncertainty is reduced. For that reason, it seems like, ultimately, this has to lead to the distasteful prospect of some kind of universal insurance that people acquire at birth. As knowledge increases, every condition becomes a preexisting one. (Except for injuries due to accidents)
Anyone have any evidence that this works? Other than just the fact that it sounds like a nice idea.

In years of calling references I never found them to be a predictor of anything at all. You get great references for awful candidates and vice versa. I don't even bother any more unless I know the reference personally.
Origins of Employer-Sponsored Health Care in the U.S.
Interview with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
Sounds like fear mongering to me. If a doctor wants to spend time with their patients having electronic medical records shouldn't stop them from doing so. I don't think I even agree with the premise that people want their doctors to be their buddies holding their hands. I think most sick people want to be cured. The days of having one family doctor are gone. You'll get bounced around to various specialists if you have any serious problems anyway. As we've seen in other areas technology has an incredible ability to get results if used correctly. I have faith most medical professionals are smart enough to use a computer or electronic testing equipment.

Either way the status quo is unsustainable. If something isn't done about it now we'll have a medical crisis in a few years/decades that is every bit as bad as the credit crisis was. And we'll sit around and say gee, someone should have done something about it sooner. It's too bad everyone was so terrified of change and willing to let the rich & powerful con them into thinking everything was just fine when it really wasn't.
Mission Critical Datacenters
Stream Data Centers is a leading national investor and developer of new data centers including: colocation data centers, and disaster recovery centers.
xah lee seems like a social fellow to me:

"will be building a dam, when there is a pussy flood. for i am a collector of nature, and a lover of its treasure. i will use my savings, to quench those thirsty, and lubricate those angry, for i have suffered and suffered; the pain and anguish." —Xah Lee, 2002.
High-tech dentistry: St Elmo's frier
This post really hits home for me in particular. We just launched our product about 3 weeks ago and although we're making money, it's not the big splash we'd hoped. I know that I at least had envisioned building a product, making it awesome, and not worrying very much about the sales and marketing. A good product sells itself right? We've been doing some soul searching and I think we're just going to have to grind through the transition from product development to managing a business and selling a product. I'm both terrified and excited.
Across a variety of my employers, none (via health providers) have offered HSAs/HDHPs. I can maintain one externally, but the extra tax paperwork to see the same tax-free employer health dollars is painful. My assumption is either most employers are ignorant and/or providers lose dollars when offering them in a stable of employee options.

That is, providers offer them to the adamant, but don't do much to spread the word otherwise.
Paternity and parental investment: Like father, like son
ulcerative colitis
A web of sound: Talk about that
You really think people are smart enough to care for themselves? The government is trying to protect us from ourselves, hence the "click-it or ticket" seat-belt law.

Maybe the best way to fix our health-care system is to fix our educational system first.
Perhaps a more realistic proposal than self-care is clinic-based care by registered nurses and other well-trained non-MDs.
The chemistry of revolution | Bagehot's notebook
Swearing is generally tolerated if it's not excessive. No need to censor yourself by obscuring the letters though.

I don't think the comments deserved -8 each (-8 is the most something can be down modded), but the downvoters (rightfully, in my opinion) thought those comments didn't add much to the discussion.
Tech.view: Planes, trains and automobiles
"...many modern autopilots use Intel’s veteran 80386 processor..." surprised me. I would have been less surprised by Motorola 680x0 or IBM PowerPC: I thought both were more common than x86 in embedded devices.
Thanks. Yes, we're looking into making no 1 and 2 happen asap.

We've look at few JS libraries, but, they're not as good looking as Flash one. What is the major drawback of Flash you think? Isn't most people's machine got Flash installed these days considering YouTube etc? Thanks
Okay. We'll make sure to iron out that bug. We'll try to reproduce it based on your information. Thanks!
This is an article about marketing browsers, i.e. what can browsers offer so that people start caring which browser they are using.

I just don’t really see the big problem there. We have got a lot of healthy competition in the browser market. The dark ages of IE6 are (nearly) over and the future of browsers is looking pretty good.

I don’t think you will be able to change much about the way people think about the web and browsers. Browsers are just one of those transparent things that remain in the background. And I’m pretty sure that throwing features at the problem is not the right way to go. Turning browsers into glorified <Insert-Your-Favorite-Web-Thing-Here> clients just seems to be a pretty stupid move.
I find it interesting that this page says that it is "protected by COPYSCAPE do not copy" (plagiarism will be detected by copyscape)

It also says it was "Written by Anastasia on June 17th, 2009".

And yet... Much of the copy on Kowloon Walled City was lifted from Wikipedia. For example this passage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

The streets were illuminated by fluorescent lights, as sunlight rarely reached the lower levels. There were only two rules for construction: electricity had to be provided to avoid fire, and the buildings could be no more than fourteen stories high, because of the nearby airport. Eight municipal pipes provided water to the entire structure (although more could have come from wells).
do all coders listen to techno? I find myself much more efficient when listening to jazz.
Stiff asks, great programmers answer (Torvalds, Norvig, Stroustrup, etc.)
Outside of work scientists are human. At work they are better be scientists. See "Cargo Cult Science", by Richard Feynman http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html
You really think people are smart enough to care for themselves?

Of course. I know more than one person who was forced to diagnose themselves and then insist on the tests that would prove it to the doctor. People know more about themselves than their doctors do, and have a much higher incentive to get it right.
If you're looking for the "is the candidate outstanding" response, just ask for specific details about what made the candidate outstanding.

The strategy, such that it is, is designed to get around the reality that many, many bosses are only allowed to say "I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE." If you ask "Is the candidate outstanding? What specifically makes you think so?", you will hear "I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE."

That said, like many brilliant engineering ideas for evading legal requirements by simple logical tricks that a profession filled with people who are paid $300 an hour to think of loopholes totally can't see coming, I strongly doubt this idea will work. You're not selecting for outstanding candidates, you're selecting for managers who are not risk-adverse.

A risk-adverse manager will ignore your little logic trap, call you, and say "I am returning your phone call with regards to $CANDIDATE. I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE. Have a nice day." He will then document that he was asked for a reference for $CANDIDATE and followed company procedure to the letter. You have learned no useful information from this, aside from "Ahh, $PREVIOUS_COMPANY has a corporate policy to not provide useful references"
Xkcd meets reality
The Game on Change Of Heart - Hip Hop Flashback | Hip Hop MVP
Imagine if we forced companies and individuals to go to people with computer science degrees to get help with their computers.

If the occasionally recurring calls for licensing of "software engineers" is any guide, some of the people reading this are imagining the legislation of supply and salivating at the higher salary this would mean for them. :/
Prebuilt nuclear reactors small enough to ship by rail
Yes, I do think people are smart enough to care for themselves.

It's more philosophical than whether or not people are smart enough though. I think people should be able to choose. If I make a mistake in my own health care and I die, then that is okay. I could fall off my roof while I'm trying to fix that too or repair my car's brakes wrong.

Doctors make mistakes in patient care too and they are still allowed to practice medicine.

I also think we should fix our educational system and one way would be to allow students to break free from the lowest common denominator factors that are also ruining our health.
Anybody can be paid to write "lisp" for a living, just work closely with small business owners and provide them with "software solutions". I have been a working Lisper since 2001, pretty much since I bought Winston and Horn and started replacing C++ with it, but I digress.

Naggum, RIP good fella.
Best company in each country to buy a prepaid SIM from | Brad Ideas
Just because they...err we...have a higher incentive doesn't mean we have a better ability to diagnose. I'd like to think I'm a smart guy (3rd year PhD student) and I can't tell the difference between a cold, flu, allergies, or mono.
Ads Are Free When Consumers Spread the Word
Very neat stuff. Places like that have always fascinated me. I will never forget the website Kiddofspeed (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/) that I stumbled upon a few years back. A woman travels through the Chernobyl area and documents it. Very fascinating pictures and stories.
Disclaimer: I am a physician.

There are greedy physicians. There are bad physicians. These physicians can drive up health costs. I do not find, however, much evidence to support the idea that physician reimbursement has anything to do with our high national health costs.

Most I know are neither bad nor greedy. Generally, my colleagues are the best, most compassionate, smartest humans I know. The physicians I know have worked 60-80 hours a week for their entire professional lives, went into enormous debt to finance their professional educations and make between $140-200K annually before paying for their own expenses, health care insurance, sick time, vacations, etc.

I understand what you are saying about taking your health destiny into your own hands. Most physicians, including myself, want you to do just that, and will work with you to encourage you to efficiently and cheaply monitor and care for your own conditions. Most of us feel that has to be the future. Most of us believe strongly in preventive medicine, and feel caring for chronic disease is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

I'm with you, notwithstanding your hyperbole about the illegality of caring for your own health in a free nation.

But I think you might agree that when your 9 month old starts wheezing one February day in the midst of a common respiratory syncytial virus outbreak, despite all the self-learning you did on the Internet, you're probably best advised to seek counsel, evaluation, and treatment from someone who has seen a few cases of RSV, seen a few more cases of how fast children can go down with something so seemingly simple, and can treat it effectively.
If I'm trying to learn new concepts, classical is good--or no music at all. When I'm coding (and the most I'll have to do is look into documentation), I listen to techno and electronic stuff. A lot of stuff I do is iterative (especially when I'm doing design work), so the music keeps me creative.
However, if only 2 or 3 of the 10 references selected by the candidate return your call

who the hell gives 10 references when applying for a job?
Bead sort: faster than O(N log N) sort
These are really good, thanks for posting. I generally listen to LTJ Bukem during long sessions, so this will fit right in.
I haven't had the problem of sluggish old Firefox processes for years -- because it crashes on me at least 10 times per week.
I think you're totally right. And honestly I think the side-effect of having a ridiculously costly health-care system is that people just end up caring for themselves anyways. Unless of course you're my dad, who fainted at the wheel, was taken to the hospital unconscious, and then charged because he didn't call our insurance to pre-approve the ambulance...
Some writers, when faced with a problem, think "I know, I'll use a cliche". Now they have two problems.

Is that "Cargo Cult Writing?"

Is this "Cargo Cult Meta-commenting?"

Nope, it's Cargo Cult Recursion. (Which is the application of the "Cargo Cult" metaphor by imitating the surface details of other such applications. We keep using those words. I do not think they mean what we think they mean.)
Black holes on a desktop: Dumb insolence
Exactly what I wanted.

I don't recognize a few names, but those I do recognize are all people I know. Absurdly accurate.
The tracking on the advertiser's server also takes a few milliseconds before you're redirected to the landing page.
You're not a Scientist if you don't go by anything under than what you observes from systematic study/experiment or logically deduce.

Proper Scientists can oppose each other not difference in subjective bias but through different objective experimental data.

There are plenty of other so-called abrasive or odd Mathematicians/Scientists in history. My main areas of study are Mathematics and Computer Science so I name more in those areas (though not all listed are necessarily Mathematicians): Kurt Godel, Grigori Perelman, John Nash, Theodore Kaczynski, Nikola Tesla, ...

I could keep going but the bottom line is not the abrasive/"whatever you what to call or define them" genius is not all that odd, certainly not the majority I would think.
Browsers are not the issue here. When Woz designed the Apple II, he imagined that everyone who owned one would write programs for it. Instead, they used it for VisiCalc or Number Munchers. Programmers look at a computer and see possibilities, competing technologies, and a vast environment to explore. Everyone else looks at a computer and sees a tool, something to let them catch up with Grandma without having to call or pay a visit.

The real question to ask is what makes programmers (and their ilk) different from everyone else. I'm convinced the answer is education, but it seems like no one is interested in discussing the sad state of such in the US.

Bottom line: Most people don't care what computer, let alone what browser, they use. All they care is what it can do for them, and faster load times don't seem to make that big a difference.
Looking at the number of people who are overweight/obese, who are smoking, who are abusing alcohol etc, I can not agree.

It seems very simple to me to understand how to eat/exersice properly and how to not poison myself. All the information is readily available to anyone who needs it. Now if so many people can not even get this bit right, what chance is there that they would be able to diagnose more complex cases?
Different species have a different type from the protein family Hemagglutinin(HA)(they all look similar to each other) these proteins are similar to services offered on a port. Viruses like Influenza target HA but only of certain types. In the case of Influenza HA doesn't actually act as a port, its not designed to allow things to go into the cell, the virus however uses HA as a recognition marker for where it will attack.

As a side note H1N1 means HA type 1, and Neuraminidase (NA) type 1. NA is a necessary protein for Influenza to leave the cell after replication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_sort
How complicated can building a plane be? . . . Seriously, what a tale. Thanks for sharing but I remember seeing commercials for the 787, marketed as the response to the Airbus A380, as if Boeing was expecting me as a passenger to ask if I could fly in one next month.
Hello,

I am putting together information on the Iranian elections for a report I am doing on the political risks of international investment. The information that I have collected thus far indicated that the highest rate of non respondents in the indicated polls was 43%. That was the rate for the Washington Post poll. Would it be possible for you to share the polling data with me for the polls with non respondent rates higher than 43%. That data would be EXTREMELY helpful to me.