skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
They have released no code and no paper, and failed at the demo that ScienceNOW asked for.

Here's their explanation for the failure, quoted in the article:

> So why didn’t our demo work on the checkerboard pattern? Before the image is presented to our algorithm, it has to pass through a retina+LGN kind of processing (it is a basic, common-to-all-CAPTCHAS pre-processing). In the demo, we had a specialized retina which was faster and gave a few percentage points more accuracy on reCAPTCHA; the downside being it not working well on the checkerboard pattern. (Or any pattern where some portions of the letter are black and some portions of the letter are white). Its just like putting on sunglasses being specialization we add to our eyes for going out in the sun, which causes us to see some other patterns not as well. It is not a fundamental flaw and we have tested that our system works with the checkerboard pattern as well

That's a lot of fancy words to say that they overfit to their training data.

That makes this sound like a very typical result in supervised machine learning (if it's a result at all). They have used an algorithm to learn a brittle heuristic that works in the cases it was trained to work on. Whether they have a Recursive Cortical Network™ that Emulates The Human Brain™ is irrelevant.
Because most consumers decided that if it played HD movies and was cheaper than the adjacent unit, they would buy it.
Democrats vote for her because they prefer her to a Republican. However, we recently changed how our primary system works. If there were an anti-surveillance Democrat that ran in the primary, and if enough people were to wake up, things would look very different - a lot of people I talked to last go 'round didn't realize our primary system had changed.

And I don't mean "wake up and see that the other guys are right" but just "wake up and realize the rules were changed and a different strategy might better get you what you want." If some democrats vote for Dem-who-isn't-Feinstein because they want to lock down the general for Dem-vs.-Dem, and some Democrats vote for DwiF because they agree more with DwiF than F, and enough Republicans vote for DwiF because good god please anyone but F, things could look quite a bit different.
ZenPayroll (YC W12) is hiring developers to help make payroll delightful
ABOUT US:

+ We're building the future of payroll. If you love solving foundational problems that affect millions of people, we'd love to talk with you. You’ll be an early member of the team with significant responsibility and equity stake.

+ Payroll is complex and there are tough engineering challenges to be tackled. We move tens of millions of dollars every month. Payroll is business critical and must always be correct. Business owners and their employees depend on us to receive their pay. We strive for 100% test coverage, and every commit is code reviewed by another developer on the team. We all hold each other to rigorous standards and we’ve all become better developers because of it.

+ We raised a $6.1M seed round last year and are funded by the CEOs of Yelp, Dropbox, Yammer, Box, Parse, and others, as well as Google Ventures, Salesforce and Y-Combinator. Full list at www.zenpayroll.com/investors.

+ Our founders are second time entrepreneurs from Stanford who have had two prior exits. We’re in this for the long haul and are committed to building ZenPayroll into a truly significant company that we’re proud of.

THINGS WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

+ Experience with Rails | Backbone.js | CoffeeScript | MySQL is a plus but not a pre-requisite.

+ Interest in using a test driven and code review development process.

+ Interest in building user-facing features and core-backend functionality, as well as being an active part of the design process.

+ Desire to understand the customer perspective. All members of our team are builders and it's important everyone understands the pain point we're solving.

PERKS:

+ You'll be a core member of our team as we grow the company. As a result, you'll receive a competitive salary + significant equity stake.

+ Housing stipend if you live near the office, delicious and healthy food and snacks, company retreats, gym/sports club stipend, dream work set-up, and more -- including copious espressos brewed by one of our co-founders. People are the foundation of our company and we make sure they know they're valued. Full list of perks at www.zenpayroll.com/careers

Above all, we're looking for individuals who are yearning to do the best work of their lives. You'll be amply rewarded for the work you do.

To apply, send a note to jobs [at] zenpayroll [dot] com and include your LinkedIn, GitHub, and/or any project pages.

We’re located in SoMa, San Francisco, CA and you must be local or willing to relocate (we'll cover the cost).
Looking for user feedback
iFunding is a real estate investment platform that uses technology to make private real estate investing simple. Individual investors can select and make direct investments in pre-vetted institutional quality real estate assets directly on our website.

We recently went live and I would love your feedback. Thank you.
> They find out which reviewers praised their devices most, and then send them free stuff, so they're more likely to review positively their future products, too, knowing that they will probably be "rewarded" afterwards, again.

This is like finding out someone still thinks Santa is real.
With projectors, lamp technology hasn't advanced all that much, so brightness is important, and is inverse with resolution.
Has the secure-boot stuff been fully sorted yet?
You should post this on the front page
It only makes sense if you were going to (hypothetically) do something with the pesos. Let's say you bought 100 pesos worth of bananas when you hopped in the cab. Then, when you got out, before you paid, you sold the bananas. Because of inflation, you got more pesos for the bananas (say, 150 pesos), and still only had to pay 100. So at the end of the trip you have 50 pesos you wouldn't have had if you had to pay at the beginning (and couldn't buy your bananas).
It may be that some people with complex scenarios prefer rvm. It would be interesting to hear from them. (for real! I'd be interested!)

I like the sandboxed gemsets that RVM provides. It seems you can do something similar with rbenv if you use this add-on [1].

I've also used the RVM gem programmatically to install gems on the fly in an isolated environment, and optionally tear the whole thing down when the program completes.

1. https://github.com/jf/rbenv-gemset
> Do you think Lessig's deleted comment represented trollish complaining?

Yes.

While the user probably has a real complaint, instead of voicing their problem and making a reasonable complaint, the comment resorts to long-winded, over-the-top, trollish melodrama. Let's look at it:

"enter a Brave New World where huge monolithic companies such as yourself[...]"

"your untested 7.0ios system"

"you have become the Goliath of the tech industry"

"I will be the first one inline if someone with some money or some lawyer who had this happen to them to be a part of a civil action lawsuit against you"

And more similar threats and accusations.

The user is literally making false assertions of iOS 7 being untested, attempting to smear Apple as a science fiction villainous corporation and threatening legal action.

It would be fair to consider the whole comment trolling and Lessig drawing attention to it seems like little more than click bait aimed at people that already want to tar and feather Apple – it certainly has nothing to do with the actual WiFi support issues at hand (remember: this was posted to a support forum and they didn't delete the whole thread on the topic, just this comment).

I have great respect for Lawrence Lessig but I think he's fanning flame wars here.
Generate 512-bit prime numbers in Javascript
If only Lenovo would take notice and see what is happening in the market. I really want a better screen on my Thinkpad with a higher resolution.
The key issue is what you just described in your last paragraph. Micro-managing by metrics without thinking in side-effects is actually harmful to the team. There is a reason measuring productivity by LOC is considered a bad practice (which was actually very common in the past).

I completely see the need for metrics, but they are very easy to gather by specialized tools for the job (software engineering, customer service, etc...). It seems that Peak is just a glorified dashboard, and by assuming that the product is actually "automatically tracking work" (referencing their slogan) one would be damaging the team's productivity and morale, and not increasing it.
As the owner of a physibles domain name, and hopefully
one day a company; fanciful stories like this are a bit
too soon. Actually, I hope we never have to resort to
living in manufactured houses. The overly strict building
codes and approval processes in the U.S. might bring this
kind of building a reality though. Right now, I think
we need to work on ending homelessness. Yes, build pyramids
in the middle of the country where land is still cheap.
Nothing fancy, but livable. Kinda like kibbutzes, but on
a much larger scale.
For the love of all that is good in the world, please give us this kind of pixel density in large form-factor desktop displays already. I tweet at Dell periodically pleading this case, but it's always crickets.

Every time I see a high-DPI portable device, I long for my preferred consumption and creation context (desktop) to get some needed love from manufacturers.

(Yes, my wife has a Seiki 4K and I have several 30" 2560x1600 monitors, but I want better. The 30" form-factor is from 2004! These displays are the equivalent of a Motorola RAZR flip-phone.)

Edit: see my spur-of-the-moment review of the Seiki lower in this thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6631442
Cameron hints at ‘tougher measures’ if media continues publishing Snowden leaks
Our Best Practices Are Killing Us
What would be a preferable term, data engineer? I don't have a background in statistics, and I do a lot of things that would make PhD level statisticians unhappy... but the things I do are sufficient for my own purposes.

Sometimes I don't need a mathematically proven process. I often find a use for something like a Monte Carlo simulation, without rigorous methodology, because it works for me, and for what I'm doing.

By analogy, not every website needs a multiple tier, doubly redundant architecture. Sometimes a "dumb" setup with a single webserver and database on a single server gets the job done.

In fact, when I worry less about scientific validity and focus more on what is necessary to get the job done... I make a lot more progress.

It feels a lot like scientific elitism to me.
Typical response from someone who doesn't understand any form of mental illness as they have been blessed to not suffer from it. Try some empathy.
Well, with every bit of respect that is due, you're off the frontpage in almost no time at all in spite of 45 upvotes. That means that you were heavily flagged, even though most people didn't waste the time to tell you.
Show HN: Enjoy Time Left - Android App that will make you see life differently
oh, that didn't cross my mind, I'm not sure actually
I am not sure you can say this when nobody ever even manufactured such a screen as an experiment.
A first look at the Pharo debugger
Why is the M6800 not more awesome? 17" 1080p, only.
As a resident of Washington the first thing that comes to mind is the difference in climate between the west and east. The eastern part of the state is mostly semi-arid, nearly desert in some areas.

I've heard we also have one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the US, but I'm having a hard time finding good data on that.
What is virality?
Well, you can still fire someone for any reason in "right to work" states. Fighting this is really hard.

The use of a "trial week" says to me that the company in question sucks at being able to accurately assess candidates, and is taking the cheap and easy (for them) way out. I know that other companies are capable of doing a good job of interviewing someone in a day or two, why can't these people?

I can't think of any circumstance under which I'd entertain an offer on these terms. I don't think any of the people I've worked with and can recommend would, either. This company is probably losing good people up front; folks who have been around, have experience, and can go elsewhere with less hassle, and so who don't bother to send in a resume.

All told: Meh. I'm not impressed.
> The Mac is great -- just as I remember it when I was a little kid. Actually, not exactly -- the emulator seems faster than the Mac we had. Also, I tried to get it to crash but wasn't able to.

You really shouldn't see a crash on a fresh install of the operating system. A lot of crashes on Mac OS Classic were caused by software that hooked itself deeply into the system and corrupted state. Not so different from Windows, actually ...

As software became ever more complex in the 9.x era, Option-OpenApple-Reset became as familiar as Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
It seems the 13" has been discounted. (at least in australia)

Ive always been thinking of buying one in the back of my mind. Do dell support linux well in the XPS line?
The algorithm uses non-deterministic Miller–Rabin primality test. It generates (probable) primes with very high degree of certainty, so practically it should never generate a non-prime.

It uses the standard browser crypto.getRandomValues() function.

Works faster in Chrome.
After upgrading to 8.1 on my retina mac, I haven't found it much better than 8. Changing the DPI settings still breaks stuff until you logout, plenty of icons are still blurry, IE's support is buggy, and third-party app support is still scarce (e.g. Chrome is a no-go).
Yup.

Just ugh try not downloading random cracked programs and open up any spam emails.
1. "So as we enter a Brave New World where huge monolithic companies such as yourself began to possibly test ways to take out old phones so that customers have to go purchase new ones"

2. "I will be the first one inline if someone with some money or some lawyer who had this happen to them to be a part of a civil action lawsuit against you, just for the fact that you have stood quiet while people struggle with this issue!"

While "trolish complaints" is a nebulous phrase, I think statements like the above move the post from being an issue report/support request to a more inflammatory post.

If you read farther down in his blog, Apple has responded directly to Lessig:
"These forums are intended for technical questions that can be answered by the community. We want everyone to be able to contribute to our forums and have their issues addressed. We feel that we have a very strong community and that it is an excellent resource for users to get assistance. I encourage you to continue using the Apple Support Communities while abiding by our terms of use. The Apple Support Communities Use Agreement, which also includes helpful information about using Apple Support Communities, is located at https://discussions.apple.com/static/apple/tutorial/tou.html...
TL;DR - this is a shrewd play for a number of reasons.

You don't understand, it's just business.

Furthermore, the conversion of requiring people to beg via email to explain they're broke is next to zero. People won't do it. They'll take the POLR: fake accounts. Kicking them out also won't help: they can attack the brand and also if they succeed, the service looks like the bad guys. Furthermore, it builds stats by having more accounts registered on the platform. Whether those fake accounts get killed off is up to the business owner. Is padding stats worth the liability and cost of junk accounts?

We're still talking about DistroKid, so it just bought them free PR.

The point is everyone can make more money by taking a calculated gamble on positive ROI giveaways. The unit cost of an app is often pennies. Any concern about mass defection of paid users to unpaid is unlikely if the service is good and shows trying to take the high road. And that adds goodwill valuation to the brand. These intangibles make the service of higher value than a formulaic subscription service that thinks short-term only. It's not quite the same as selling gym memberships. :)

The meta is that when a service is small, keeping CAC low and getting as many users as possible while maintaining cool is hard. The churn between paid, unpaid and closed accounts is also a delicate dance to keep satisficing toward $. Sometimes giving accounts away in exchange for something non-monetary is a way go (real friends or not).

And also, don't forget gangster marketing: http://youtu.be/t73Q3f4YjwQ
Sounds like you agree with nfoz... you don't always need mathematical expertise ('scientific validity') to play with data, but when you do, you need a statistician.

Really, it comes down whether you need to confirm your assumptions and quantify your uncertainty, etc. Often, in applied situations, you don't. In science, you do.
Thanks for the tips, I'll dig into it a little more.
Here's a case study of mass-media attention-seeking through pseudo-science: an evaluation of behavior on sinking ships, coincidentally issued five days before the centennial of the Titanic's sinking. POS, but well, ok, surely serious scientists wouldn't take such work seriously. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) received the paper for review on May 2, 2012, approved it on June 29, 2012, and published it on July 30, 2012. Science has lost its way....
For details, see
http://purplemotes.net/2012/04/22/deadly-sex-discrimination-...
At least there was no unethical attacks like the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco ended up being...
Nothing. I virtually never see my desktop, so I don't bother decorating it.

I don't care what my computer looks like, only what's in the windows and consoles. All I want is windows, a task bar and a few gadgets in the tray.
Nope, you're thinking of GWT. Relatively few Google products actually use GWT; the bulk of them are on Closure. GMail's client (and Google+, and Docs, and Search) all use Javascript-compiled-to-Javascript for the client side.
> she's said she's not going to run for re-election

Link? This Feinstein 2018 graphic seems to indicate she's running: http://www.diannefeinsteinforsenate.com/
how does this happen?

How can wealth be sapped like this over a few decades? is it because of true malice, or incompetenance?

What would one do to try and prevent such from happening in one's country?
You are missing the point. Above a certain level, the negative side effects start out weighing the positive affects. So just because something is not close to toxicity, does not mean it is actually having a net benefit on your health. With vitamins, take the recommended dosage, or preferably slightly less, as it is likely you are getting at least something from your diet, not matter how poor. Anything above that is likely to start having negative effects that start to outweigh any benefits. Most adults get sufficient vitamins and minerals from their diet, even a poor western diet. Vitamin D however, is the exception if you don't get enough sun.
Dianne Feinstein last week: NSA’s mass collection necessary 'to protect the homeland from terrorism'.[1]

Dianne Feinstein today: 'I am totally opposed' to NSA surveillance of US allies.[2]

People talk a lot about economic class (1%/99%, rich/poor, etc) but there is another way to think about class: rulers versus ruled. Feinstein is part of the US ruling class and has been for decades. She now has more in common with foreign leaders than US citizens she supposedly represents. Once you understand her mindset her views make perfects sense.

Unfortunately these paternalistic views are pervasive with our leaders so I doubt replacing her would help. Rockefeller, next most senior on the committee, is the forth generation of a ruling class family. And Wyden, apparently the only opponent of mass NSA surveillance, would simply be outvoted by the rest of the committee.

And I doubt elections will turn on this issue. However I do get the sense that they are getting tired of spending so much time on this issue that it is interfering with their preferred agenda. So perhaps the continued hassle will eventually wear them down.

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/20/nsa-call-re...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/28/nsa-surveillanc...
Socialism works great until you run out if other people's money. ...which we have; the pipeline just hasn't emptied out yet.
Never an XPS, again. Ever. XPS is the short name of Dell misunderstanding gaming laptop.
Actually a market is a place to negotiate prices. Seller-fixed prices are an American curiosity.
I don’t see why you’re comparing it to last year’s 13" MacBook Pro.

The new 15" MacBook Pro has specs that are very much like this DELL laptop. Same screen size, same resolution. Same SSD, RAM, and GPU. The MBP has a slightly faster CPU, i7 2.3Ghz instead of DELL’s i7 2.2Ghz. The DELL is 10% cheaper.
Strange, I get no particle effects.

When I check out the chrome console I find:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'innerHTML' of null
> So you take a picture of each sketch, and upload them to Dropbox

You just created an incentive for programmers to draw useless diagrams on paper and upload them on Dropbox just to "score one point".

Sure, we could go on and on suggesting metrics back and forth to minimize this problem, but my point is that metrics must be carefully chosen due to the unintended side-effects that they may cause. Maybe you can use the number of pictures on Dropbox just to get a sense of overall quality, but if you are going to hold individual people accountable using very exact metrics, then they must be chosen very carefully. This tool certainly does not help on that regard.
Bimodal distribution :) Polarizing but plenty of comments.

This issue sits at the intersection of big data and politics. It's fundamentally cheap storage and networking which enables this surveillance.
Probably the widely-help belief that anybody can come up with statistics for anything.
Whatever you want to call it, I suppose. I don't think the Windows 8+ features are resolution-dependent. There's a new slider in the display control panel that lets you set the scaling factor. Windows 8.1's main change was adding a checkbox that lets you set a different scaling factor for each screen, and you can choose a custom scale, not just 1x/1.5x/2x.
Would be nice if this became their Linux dev box, and they had an external monitor to match.
https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/daru4

with the exception of the touch screen, which you can pretend isn't a touchscreen.
Does anyone have any experience using hi-res screens with linux? If so, what are the issues, if any ? Is there a distro that has really good support for these kinds of displays?

I know the laptop comes with Win 8.1 which supposedly has decent hi-res screen support but if you wanted to wipe windows and put a Linux distro, which one would be best?
Then you would absolute hate RescueTime: https://www.rescuetime.com/
You don't get it because you are tracking resolution without regard to the panel size. Large standalone panels cost more and have a smaller market than laptops.

The 2004 30" Apple Cinema Display was 98.44 PPI and cost $3300 at launch. Today that same $3300 buys you a 31.5" 4k monitor at 140ppi. I wouldn't call that "pretty much the same resolution".