skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Could it also be they are dying of radiation poisoning?

Barry Eisler writes (fiction) about a contract killer who makes deaths look like natural causes. (www.barryeisler.com)
It was just because Thomas Jefferson said it and Joe Harris goes to the University he founded, it's just bizarre that I saw it 2 times in less than 10 seconds.
Any wallet that has been exposed to a computer connected to the Internet, or is sitting on one, is a "hot wallet".
I'd wanted to buy a bunch two years ago but was still a poor grad student and thought the price then was too high...i could have paid off my student loans...
I Rented Apartments To Rent Out On Airbnb For Profit
BlackBerry ousts marketing and operations chiefs, replaces CFO
"the device used to take the blood pressure reading, if I understand things right, did have to be approved by the FDA"

that is true, the FDA would bust a mfgr of a device that claimed to report blood pressure but instead did astrology. This specific example of 23andme is, as near as I can tell, getting busted for interpreting the results, not for using 'cat /dev/urandom' to generate the results and then interpreting them.

Kind of like the same FCC that gets excited about out of band RF interference also got sorta excited by janet jackson's halftime show.
What you quote explicitly mentions going to your doctor with results. Do they need to work "see your doctor" into every single sentence?
When you put it in the same sentence as 'tastes and behaviors' you're creating a very different context from things like heart disease. Imagine, for example, a genetic test that says that you, Crusso, are 29% more likely to commit a criminal act involving deception than the median person. Now imagine that your genetic testing service has a data breach and suddenly you have immense difficulty getting hired, getting credit, or getting a table in a restaurant.

One has only to glance back to the last century to see overconfident claims along the same lines from eugenicists, for example. Or look at the dreadful state of science journalism and the broken logic that prevails in many internet comment/forum sections to see how easily a statistical correlation can be substituted for fact - to say nothing of poor statistical work in scientific research, where publication strongly favors positive results and replication is often under-prioritized.

Now please return to your preventive custody zone, non-citizen.
Great idea! Will be testing this out.
I know it's not the point of the article, specifically, but it's very difficult to draw any startup conclusions based on a game company. Games are notoriously difficult to make into successful products, even more-so than your average startup.

That said, I do think the author has a lot of good points. Surely there is a portion of "randomness"/luck, but there's also a healthy dose of focus & determination that make things work.

To play a bit of devil's advocate, I do feel that in the last few years the idea of "success" has somewhat diverged from what it used to mean. Is Twitter successful? To their founders & early investors, certainly they are. In 5 years, will Twitter still be relevant & a worthwhile investment to their millions of new stockholders?

Was Zynga "successful"? Again: to early investors, they were wildly successful. They were able to dump their shares onto a greater fool.

To me, those are two examples of "lucky" startups. A startup like Salesforce is less "lucky" and more a well-executed product. It's not as sexy as a Facebook/Twitter/Zynga, but it's a solid business addressing a specific need. It isn't reliant on "scale massively and figure out a sustainable business model later", which to me is what the aforementioned companies are.

To paint a picture, some startups have fisherman tactics: throw as wide of a net as possible, catch as many things as possible and some small portion will be valuable. These would be startups to whom luck would seem to play a larger role (in my opinion).

Others are more focused: identify a specific set of targets to go after, and hunt them down. This would be more like Salesforce. To me, these are the startups that don't rely as much on luck.
For an advanced version: The C++ Grandmaster Certification MOOC where participants build their own complete C++11 compiler in C++11 is still going strong:
http://cppgm.org/
23AM's offering is in two parts.

First, they do some genetic mapping.

Second, they do an analysis on the markers found.

The objections are based on the second part (and the marketing for it), which seems by itself to be very equivalent to WebMD. I don't think there's any suggestion that abstract-genetic-marker-finding is the problem here.
>> I work on startups because I like building things and I want to change the world.

That's nice, but you also need to be able to pay the bills, right?
Right now we are only doing a split on adult female/male but we realize that is not perfect. The next incarnation needs to include what you list because "healthy" varies.

Thanks for your feedback!
Luck and skill tend to have the same distributions (generally a normal curve). As an outsider looking in, it is difficult to tell the difference. In fact, it can be difficult as an insider as well. We may have a plan, and attribute our success, or failure, to the plan rather than to luck. Or something could look like luck to an outsider because they don't understand all of the intricacies that go into making a system work.
Microsoft? Open-source? Are you sure you worked for Microsoft? /s
You're not reinventing the wheel but you are essential inventing your own framework.

So there are only 3 possible choices:

1. reinvent the wheel
2. use a framework
3. write your own framework.

This 'light glue code to bind together my libraries' thing someone mentioned. That. That IS a frikkin' framework! And it sounds clunky as hell.
In an STM monad, or an ST monad, or even an IORef, or a core.async channel, or whatever. Functional languages have manifold approaches to state that do not require you to lose track of time. And that's the real key to understanding state, isn't it? Time.
Without an appropriate study to determine reasonable efficacy, it is possible that the diagnostic technique could result in a large number of false positives.

This could result in a large number of unnecessary follow-up BRCA tests which could potentially increase the waiting time for test results or unduly raise costs for lots of patients. Not to mention the stress of feeling like you may be suffering from a potentially expensive and life-threatening illness.

So: totally reasonable.
Quite. Big-ticket schools have a lot of incentive & budget & momentum to promote big-ticket degrees. MOOCs just don't have the visibility, so those who tend to participate are already plugged in enough for awareness of such obscure options. 20% being "new students" is pretty good.

MOOCs also don't yet provide confidence for all-in degree-scale participation, so they appeal more to those looking to fill educational gaps instead of building their academic career thereon. High-school graduates just aren't ready to pursue MOOC degrees en masse; they will as momentum & reputation builds, but not yet.
Http://www.dpblast.com/
Seaborn: statistical data visualization
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
– Seneca

Fools wait for a lucky day but every day is a lucky day for an industrious man.
– Buddha
1m Why you're not at a disadvantage if you're a first time entrepreneur
Yes, we (should) all know that but somehow we are still deluged with books and blog posts from these lucky few telling the rest of us how to do it. Worse yet too many are taking it as gospel when they really should just do it their own way.
My intuition is that it's very random. A business professor and economist (Luigi Zingales) once commented that lots of firms tend to find new ideas all at the same time. When the market is ripe and the arrows point in the same direction, everyone seems to find it. Execution is important, but a lot of randomness hits the process too.
And because of that, perhaps you should be getting that test (or not getting the test), with the help of a physician who is better equipped to help you interpret the results.

Or at maybe for particular results the company should just refer you straight to a doctor for more information.

These are the questions that I think the FDA will be interested in having the company addressing.
Yes, that's what I view it as, as a subscriber to 23 and Me. Though, fortunately, I also haven't seen anything that as a real concern that I didn't already know about from family history.
Seems like this is kind of a parallel to his "lottery" analogy - doing those things is sort of like buying another ticket. Your chances might be better but it doesn't mean you're going to win.
Hey, on Chrome 32.0.1700.19 beta this:

Use the keyboard shortcut Command: Option + J (Mac)

doesnt work, as the shortcut seems to be Option + Alt + J.
Divorcing.
Pretty vapid.

Author doesn't seem to be that knowledgable on the valley.
Make no mistake

aka 'Please accord the following assertions the weight of fact*.
Any hospital offering primary care has a lab at their disposal that can do this. Genotyping is nothing new...but as for competitors in 23&me's area (aka public access genotyping for cheap an that I can remember off the top of my head): deCODEme, lumigenix, Dna Genotek and MapMyGenome
21st Century Alchemy: Open the Data and Stir…
How whales made the dramatic evolutionary shift from land to the sea
However unlike the existing system there will be a transparent, competitive market for such insurance mechanisms, and they will be available to consumers/businesses directly.
The Letter: FDA Orders 23andMe to Halt Sales
PandoDaily Acquires Paul Carr’s NSFW Corp
Excerpt and comment on “How To Get Rich” by Felix Dennis - 2006
"There is no moral of the story other than: failure does not mean that you didn't do well."

While this lesson is pretty well internalized, I think there's some difficulty with the converse: just because you succeeded, doesn't mean what you were doing was right. Life is contingent.
This, to me, implies an extraordinary claim of prophetic insight.

The person who "recognizes" the opportunity is still doing a lot of guesswork, and good luck has as much to do with his recognition of the opportunity as it does anything else.

Networking and having a head start are also key factors--show me a successful tech startup and I'd lay better-than-even odds on the founder(s) coming from a life of (relative) privilege (and also being white, if in America). What could be luckier than being born to the "correct" parents?
Dell here.
You think diagnostic services sold to doctors aren't a concern for the FDA? Virtually every medical product or service the FDA regulates is marketed primarily to doctors.

Anyways, my comment was a response to the commenter who claimed 23AM was marketed as "entertainment". Horseshit.
What a CREATIVE Baby Announcement
What does "predicate" mean in this context?
Player Manager was an incredible game, combining the best of Kick Off and Football Manager.

I hope Dino Dini is rich and happy!
Here's a great description of just how that quote fit on multiple levels: http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/pnrgd/wanted_to_share_m...

It's much more than Oppenheimer simply realizing he created a massively destructive weapon.
Thank you! If I can make one suggestion it would be to add somewhat at the end a demo of the final project. The first thing I do with tutorials is always to scroll to the end and see what I am going to end up with.
Having worked at a company that went through the FDA process for a genetic test product, where the link between gene in question and phenotype were fairly well characterized, what we want to do for our analytical studies were to basically push the tests out to their failure modes. That meant seeing what happened with common contaminants, what happens with incorrect sample collection technique, what happens with incorrect storage, etc. For our clinical tests, we had to prove not the lab rate, but the actual customer use rate.

For example, 23andme ships you a test package, you sample it yourself, send it back and then they process it. While quantifying that last rate is simple (as you say), it's crucial to understand how well the product will work in practice, with an actual customer on the other end.

For something like 23andme, that would likely mean getting a whole bunch of untrained test subjects, having them preform the sample collection as instructed by the instructions shipped with the sample collector, having them shipped over by standard means to the lab, and then processed. The test subjects would likely then have to have their DNA fully sequenced with some gold standard test, and then the results compared. 23andMe would be given leeway, in the sense that inconclusives don't "really" count as a wrong result.
If not for encapsulation, how do you denote those parts of the interface which you commit to keeping stable and those parts of the interface that are for internal use only?
Doh! Didn't know they changed it. Thanks for the heads up!

Did the menu access change? Or is it still View > Developer > JavaScript Console.
Oh yes, that might be even more important. See the Superinvestors of America: http://www.tilsonfunds.com/superinvestors.html
http://www.coindesk.com/google-ventures-invests-in-bitcoin-c...
+1 for the share button up top (https://github.com/carrot/share-button) - but adjust that hover color to blue or grey!

</shameless plug>
3 years ago I did consulting for a UK bank on a project that involved migrating off os/2.
Has this been tested? I can't seem to type a regular sentence without it injecting random words in the middle of it.
I'm the author. Thanks for the comment.

I agree with you, I don't know the Saleforce history but I'm quite sure that at the beginning of the company, they had lot of luck. I'm sure at least 10 other companies tried to address the same problem on the same market and failed.

Execution is mandatory but lot of the execution is also based on lot of uncontrollable parameters, hire the right guy at the right time.

Look at Evernote for example, they were almost bankrupt even if the execution was good, the market here and so on. It's a pure luck if the are still there and so strong.
If successful startups are just lucky, I have some questions:

- What's the expected monetary return for someone wishing to enter the startup game? In particular, is it positive or negative? For example, the usual platitude "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" also applies to the lottery, where the expected return is negative. Could it be the case that rational people just shouldn't do startups?

- What's the expected return after adjusting for diminishing marginal utility of money? For example, a person with 2 million dollars is not 2x happier than a person with 1 million. This increases the impact of the previous point: even if the decision to a startup gives you positive expected money, it could still lead to negative expected change in happiness. Most of the monetary wins go to a lucky few, which doesn't raise their happiness enough to compensate for the unhappiness of the unlucky many.

- What's the expected return if you take the previous two points into account, and also compare against the next best thing you could've done instead of a startup? For example, is there anyone on Earth who's deciding whether to do a startup and who wouldn't get higher expected money, happiness... everything, just by getting hired at Google?

- Given the above points, is it ever morally okay to advise someone to do a startup? What advice would you give people if you were truly, honestly immune to survivorship bias?
The Bitcoin travellers: round the world using online currency only
Why more than 1 follow up test?
Thanks for the suggestion 1337biz. If you scroll down to "Your First jQuery Project" you should see the example we're creating in the guide. Let me know if there's anything else.
Seconding this. The latest Europa Universalis game is eating all my time while I conquer South-East Asia one nation at a time. Imagine a Civ game with twice the depth and ten times the run time.

My neglected partner hates it.
Beastie Boys Fight Online Video Parody of 'Girls'
First off, you can't just take the label "framework" and slap it on any arbitrary piece of code which works together for one or more tasks. By that logic, every site and app ever written is its own framework.

But...

> You know what I did? I wrote a framework for that site, and I called it “the site”.

The key differences between my "framework" and these popular frameworks:

1. I'm not holding out my "framework" for that specific site as some general reusable "best practice" for every other site on the planet.

2. It's highly customized, and customizable, to the specific site. When I don't like how events interact with views, I don't need to worry about forking some general framework project (and creating upstream update nightmares) and hacking into the guts of it to change the assumptions it makes. My "framework" is much thinner of abstraction, and far less convoluted.

Not because my "framework" is better. Just because my "framework" is specific to the task.
If you are screening for something, the first test should have a low rate of false negatives. Anyone testing positive on that test should take a second--possibly more expensive--test with a low rate of false positives.

If you remove big blobs of flesh from yourself on the basis of a single test, you are not making your medical decisions wisely. The only decision you should be making on the basis of 23&Me results is whether to take another test that is more specifically targeted at the potential problem.

If 23&Me says you have BRCA, you don't get a double mastectomy. You talk to your doctor. You perform self-exams more often and more thoroughly. You get additional screenings that are not cost-effective for the general public with a lower risk profile. That's the whole point of consumer-grade genetic screening.
There was also Minix at around that time (late '80s/early '90s).
Nice! I actually used a horrible version of Street Fighter for my Intro to Programming course. We were learning conditionals, so I thought, "Why not teach them character selection and Event listeners?" A little confusing, but kept everyone interested.
I don't think she did it to be hip - I'm sure she had many doctors advising her, and she underwent many tests before making her decision. But it was heavily publicised, and it set a dangerous precedent that people with less access to medical resources will send away this $100 test, see "cancer risk", and start pushing for unnecessary surgery.
If successful startups are just lucky then you should have as many startups as you can to get more chance at winning. That could mean focusing on quantity instead quality. Also that can be the reason behind MVPs: do something minimal that works then move onto the next project.
Microsoft confirms Windows RT will die
I don't think "and of course, I also have to pay the bills" is an instructive part of anyone's life mantra. "The bills" are whatever you decide they're going to be - there's a very low fixed cost to staying alive, what you decide you need beyond that is up to you.

I have no trouble paying the bills now, but I've gone through times working on a startup where I lived on less than $4 a day, for example, without any regrets. That's not my life now, but the point is my life's goal isn't to maintain the high standard of living I enjoy now, it's to build things, try to change the world, and be happy. Having a decent amount of money does help the third thing in that list, but not without the other two.
Not Everything Is 80-20, Don’t Blindly Follow Pareto’s Law
PowDomains - and the browser tries to search your .dev domain on the web...
FDA orders 23andMe to halt sales of DNA test kit
It's similar to a video going viral. Luck is always a factor, but you need less of it as the quality of your video increases.
But if another company like 23AM pops up, they could be the "second company". If companies are not required to prove that they are reliable, then you could too easily get multiple false positives.
Why Japan Is Crazy About Housing
From what I understand, the test doesn't attempt to diagnose an existing condition. Instead, it shows whether you have a gene that indicates a predisposition to the condition. In that case, prophylactic measures can be taken, once confirmed and if desired. This is what drove Angelina Jolie's decision to have a double-mastectomy.

That's a hugely significant difference vs. actually being diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. I don't think people would commit suicide or become unduly despondent if they learned they have a gene. They would just know they need to take action, get further testing, be vigilant, etc. It's not much different (in spirit) from knowing that your family history predisposes you to a certain condition.
Nope, that one worked, and this is how I figured out the proper shortcut ;)
How did you use both FDA and FCC correctly and then fail to notice they are not the same word?
This is often illegal because the code you write at most companies is their property, not yours. And if they sued you you'd be in a lot of trouble :/
It also works with GNOME Chess.
There's a pretty good film from Hong Kong about that too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1202514/

Edit: I misremembered: it's from Hong Kong, not South Korea.
What a Difference a Light Bulb Makes
4, 5, and 7, obviously.
But often people get certain tests when they have certain symptoms or risk factors. For example, smokers are much more likely to have lung cancer. Screening them for lung cancer is a good idea, even if the screen has some false positives because there's a reason why the the group has above average risk for the disease.

People are screened for the BRCA gene when they have a history of certain cancers in their family. If you get a positive result, there's a small chance its wrong. But, if you took all of American and gave them that test, there'd be thousands of people getting positive results, living in fear, and sometimes taking medical action.
Can't tell if you're joking, but pretty sure Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita, not the pulp fiction book from which your quote originates.
Actually, Pakistan is mentioned once in the context of being a possible suspect, as are the USA and China. The other mention is to state that only the Pakistani media initially took an interest in the death of one scientist, which is hardly some kind of negative accusation.
Apple Agrees to $350 Million Deal for Israel’s PrimeSense
FDA tells 23AndMe to immediately stop marketing its personal genome systems
That graph isn't one picture. It's a lot of pictures that they fit together. When you zoom in you get different pictures.

I see these circle/star plots sometimes but don't see the advantage over bar charts in conveying information or meaning. Am I missing something that a circle of dots adds that a line of bars or dots doesn't?
That's really interesting. Mind sharing a link to it (if you have one)? Would love to check it out.
Titan 0.4.1+ demonstrates good in-memory graph performance
Is there anyone else that sees this as a positive thing for the company? They've lived under the cloud of potential FDA regulation for a while, and I'm a bit surprised that it took this long for the FDA to step in.

Obviously, it would have been preferable to have the company and FDA work together to announce how FDA regulations apply before an enforcement action. But, now that it has happened, the process has started. If the company can come out of this with some kind of FDA approval, then that cloud will be lifted and they can keep on working. And then the company will know exactly what rules they'll have to play by. So, depending on how things work out, it could end up being a positive for the company.

Now that the FDA has played their hand, I'm very curious to know how the company will respond.
How to mantain a fluid element's aspect ratio in plain CSS
hahaha, thanks Jeff, I'll change that on the next revision ;)