skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Here's a hypothetical. Say 23andMe's results indicate a 30-year-old client has the three most common BRCA1 and 2 gene mutations that 23andMe tests for, suggesting high risk for breast cancer. That person might book an appointment with a doctor, an appointment she might never had made without the DNA results. The physician might recommend a mammogram, a test a thirtysomething would not normally get. In more extreme cases, such as the much-talked about case involving actress Angelina Jolie, someone with particularly alarming results might decide to get a preventative mastectomy. Insurance companies are concerned that they'll end up paying for every step.

This seems reasonable. Someone does a genetic test, gets a result, and sees a proper doctor to discuss the results. If that person has a strong family history, and has the mutated genes, they might take preventative action which imght include surgery.

Insurance companies should be paying for that.

It's not like someone's got a whole body CT scan and is then getting unnecessary tests from the uncertain results of the scan.

> At the same time, health insurers can’t increase premiums for these potentially expensive customers because of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a law that makes it illegal to do just that. The logic goes: People don’t get to pick their genes, so it’s unfair to penalize them for the unfortunate bad luck of having a predisposition to Alzheimer’s.

I expect to see a bunch of people who don't disclose their 23andMe results and who then have their insurance cancelled.

Insurance companies have departments dedicated to finding ways to avoid paying out. See, for example, the woman who was about to get treatment for breast cancer when her insurance company cancelled, stating her undeclared visit to a dermatologist for acne several years earlier. (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/16/health.care.heari...)
Managing Remote Workers: Top Tools for Bosses
I did the "Yacht Route" that a bunch of people here are talking about. Well worth it!

We had backpacked North from Peru and ran out of North in Cartagena, so we headed down to the local yacht club to see what we could find out. As luck would have it, there was a woman standing on the dock chatting to some friends. She was single-handed, heading to Panama in about a month, and didn't like the idea of doing the overnight journey without a crew.

The only downside? "Well, I'm not going straight in to Colon. I was planning to spend a few weeks sailing around the San Blas islands first. Would you be OK with that?"

Uh... I guess.

The San Blas are amazing. There's absolutely no way to visit the place if you don't have your own boat. There are no hotels. The locals won't let you sleep on the islands or let non-Kuna run tours there. But for something like $5/month (depending on the local village) you can moor your yacht anywhere you want. Just don't take any coconuts off the islands.

Most of the islands are completely unpopulated, of the white-sand & palm tree variety that you think of when you think South Pacific tropical paradise. The locals clump together on just a few islands, with ridiculously dense concentrations of thatch huts piled on top of one another and overhanging the sea. 200 yards away might be yet another tropical paradise, but they'd prefer to be next to one another, so you can have that one to yourself if you'd like.

They have little shops (and solar powered cell towers supplied by the government), and they'll row their dugouts out to your yacht in the morning to sell you Kuna bread and fresh fruit.

All in, we spent 5 weeks on the boat. It was rather pleasant. Enough so that I often find myself pricing yachts online when I look back on the experience.
I hate to be go all happy family on you, but please avoid
swear words in a public forum like hacker news. There are enough forums where that sort of behaviour is a part of the culture and it degrades everyone.
The recruiting jigsaw analogy
I get a feeling that this is what Apple might be trying to accomplish with their rumoured iWatch. They've been hiring experts in heart rate measurement and other biometrics. There have also been rumours that the iWatch would integrate with home automation systems.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/18/apple-taps-new-hires-in-...
I think you greatly misunderstood the intent of that message. Still, I doubt you give a fuck what I think either, so as you were.
The crossing of the Darien Gap is about 90 kilometers (from the article). I assume @exue was referring to that part.
I thought I was doing good by scanning /new and flagging garbage, but alas my link also vanished soon after.
This is a bunch of speculative nonsense. As the article itself finally admits in the last paragraph, there are "situations in which preventative procedures lead to healthier people with lower overall health expenses". In other words, the additional care that 23andMe customers (might) request can actually help insurers. But let's not let that stop us from painting a startup David vs. BigCo Goliath story and bashing the big bad insurance companies...
I've done this before with Python, making AST literals directly out of tokens. It's potentially dangerous however, similar to eval-ing input. It can be done safely with care.
Well, it has favored the early adopters a few magnitudes too much. I am not comfortable with someone holding 10% of currency.

If Satoshi came out of the high tower and announced plans for his stash, I would feel a little bit better. When/if BTC hits 1m/BTC his stash would be worth 2T and that is a lot of claim checks on society.
Proactive vs. Reactive Defense
Preventative mastectomy in this specific case might actually save money. Breast cancer is not guaranteed, but the risk multiplied by the costs should work out profitably.

Also, in other countries than the U.S., insurers are supposed to maximise well being and life expectancy...
have a fun and honest excuse about why you absolutely must give them out.

> I’m sorry, I just got 500 business cards made and I’ll feel like such an idiot if I don’t give at least one of them out at this party.

> I’m dying to get new cards made but I will feel like such a tree-destroyer if I don’t get rid of these first—have one!

None of those sound like either fun or honest "excuses"
Well it depends on where you stand.

For beginners a very good book from my experience is C++ Primer by Stanley B. Lippman, Josée LaJoie, Barbara E. Moo.
The 5th edition even goes into the newer topics like the aforementioned lambdas, also variadic templates.
A nice thing is that it comes with exercises, which in my particular case was how I learned programming. I found a new feature of the language, or a class new to me and I played with it until I understood how it works.

Another good book for beginners is Programming -- Principles and Practice Using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup, from what I read, he wrote this book with the background of teaching programming at the university and wanted to write a good book which uses a good approach which can be used for teaching students programming in C++.

If you are already further in and not at the beginning of learning C++ there is a list of books I recommend as further readings:

- Effective C++ by Scott Meyers

- More Effective C++ by Scott Meyers

- Effective STL by Scott Meyers

---

- Exceptional C++ by Herb Sutter

- More Exceptional C++ by Herb Sutter

- Exceptional C++ Style by Herb Sutter

---

- C++ Templates - The Complete Guide by David Vandevoorde and Nicolai M. Josuttis

- Modern C++ Design - By Andrei Alexandrescu

- C++ Coding Standards by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu

Last but not least, reading the C++ Standard is the last bit on the topic of C++

This is the list of books which I recommend anyone who really wants to become great in C++

HTH :-)

Edit: I should probably mention The C++ Programming Language (4th Edition) by Bjarne Stroustrup as a must have as well ;)
I loved your comment more than the story. Really, it's good to see that we people do actually care for one another. This kind of thing could happen to everybody.

Good luck helping that guy and others that have real problems, wish you both all the best.
Genetic information that the insurance companies cannot use to price insurance leads to adverse selection. If insurance companies were permitted to use (and demand disclosure of) genetic tests, it wouldn't affect them.

Consider a world without GINA/other regulations and with simple actuarial pricing of insurance. Say you have a 1 in 100,000 risk of a disease costing $10k before a genetic test. After the genetic test, you risk is either 1 in 1,000,000 (if negative) or 1 in 10,000 (if positive). The insurance company would charge you $1.10 for a policy if untested, $11 for a policy if tested positive, and $0.11 for a policy if tested negative. These policies result in a 10% profit per person (ignoring admin costs, etc). If you lie about getting tested, that's grounds to revoke your policy.

As a result of GINA, people can get tested but the insurance company can't price insurance accordingly. As a result, the people with a negative test will drop coverage while people with a positive result will buy it, and prices will have to go up. If everyone behaved this way, then P(disease|buys insurance) = 1/10,000 in spite of the fact that P(disease)=1/100,000. Prices will rise to $11.

Price increases will reduce the quantity purchased (resulting in lower profits) and result in political/regulatory pushback.
It looks like the Ubuntu packages are not there? (apt-get cannot find them)
I agree that in modern C++ you need to avoid all the bare-C ways. Actually, my C++ is almost C# if you look at it, especially with the new c++11 standard.

But I still believe that to learn C++ the best way is to start with C, pointer arithmetic, and classic strings. Otherwise you will just miss the point and join the hordes of script kiddies who "once started C++".
Software, the moving target
I'm taking a QFT class at my university right now, and it's very different than any discussion of quantum mechanics I see online. It's pages upon pages of math and linear algebra. Very little text or discussion.

Physicists don't really care whether you call it "probability", "probability amplitude", or "fish". What you end up with is an equation that you can take to the lab and use to predict experimentally measured results.

I'll add that at some point the math just becomes so bizarre that you can't (or at least I'm unable to) come up with some kind of textual analogy for it.

(This is what QFT is like for me: Manipulate symbols according to mathematical rules until you end up with an equation. Realize the equation can't be solved analytically. Realize exponential computing power would be required to solve it numerically. Make an approximation and modify the equation. Solve numerically and see how well it agrees with experiment.)
Why even put "general office IT" in the ad? Any task that can be described as such is far beneath the abilities of anyone meeting the other requirements. Whatever it means--Installing Office? Stringing cable? Deskside support?--this stuff can get done for $20/hr or less.

It only makes sense to ask a rockstar do-it-all to do it when you already got 40 hours from him, aren't paying OT, don't give a shit about his mental health, and are wringing as many hours as possible out of him to reduce the effective hourly rate.

This is the thinking of a scumbag cheapskate turd. No one who is paying a fair price for talent like this would waste it on vague low-level chores.
What do cows think about?
Hm, this post was kinda bad for me to read. I thought this was a completely community driven board. But I'm a fairly new member and some things never change, apparently.
not sure. It has some good basic introduction, mainly to syntax, but (imo) leaves out and even goes against quite some good prcatices. If it would include that, instead of just laying out dry theory, it could be pretty good (eg I especially like the C++ FAQ Lite way of explaining why and not just how).

For instance there's a very small chapter on const saying it declares a variable you cannot change. A novice will just read it and forget it. It should (again, imo) say "use const for everything possible" and explain why that is.

Likewise, the strnig chapter starts with saying "use code like using namespace std; string blabla; or you can also use std::string" and leaves it like that without further explanation. A novice might read that, think the first one is less effort and just continue using it. It would be better to make clear the second one has some advantages.

I could go on like that (all loops using post-increment, chapter on array while vector is only covered in the last chapter, chapter on pointers but references are mentioned nowhere, really??, new/delete but no smart pointers anywhere, templates, lamdas or most C++11 features for that matter, ...) but of course there's always a line between introductionary and deeper knwoledge and it's not entirley clear to me where the authors wanted to draw the line. Also there's a lot to tell about C++ of course. Yet, we're in 2013, close to C++14, and C++ has evolved a lot. Large parts of modern C++ programs look nowhere close to what is presented in this book.
pets ...hahahhahaha
Unieke ondergrondse kerstmarkten in het Nederlandse Valkenburg
This is really nice. I would love to have the option of displaying a galactic coordinate grid and other bearings, and perhaps labels on some notable stars.

Great work.
> Powershell designed for syntactic power at the expense of extensibility. And it made the wrong choice.

A decent syntax is orthogonal to extensibility: Powershell uses .net because Microsoft likes .net. A Python, Ruby or node-based equivalent wouldn't use .net, and still have a clean syntax.
The cake is a lie, they don't teach howto scale yourself. They teach howto use THEIR infrastructure to scale. I mean it's still really useful to know and all, but the headline makes the impression that Google teaches you howto scale your own company's App from Zero to 1Million RPS.
No, you simply hold down the key you want. No mashing. I have been easily beating guys who seem to be hitting the keys as quickly as possible.
You don't get to be captain of a 747 after three years on the job. I think it's pretty well established at this point that there is a significant downwards pressure on airline pilot salaries in Europe and the USA.
On "GoingNative" Alexandrescu's "C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices" was touted as being written out of the real feed-back in the industry. It might be that "good advice for trickier problems", although it isn't a "guide" into C++ (as it assumes you already have a great deal of knowledge and expertise).
I find pry, pry-debugger, pry-remote etc. much better than RubyMine's debugger in practice. I found IDE debug setup to be quite fiddly, as a lot of our app needs other bits - Java, C++, queuing, mock smtp, etc. to be in place at the right time.

I used RubyMine for 8 months before switching to emacs. I was more productive after 6 weeks in emacs than 6 months in RubyMine.

Emacs' robe integrates with pry to do symbolic lookup of definition (I guess that's what you mean by "method click-through"). It works especially well when you're browsing symbols created through metaprogramming. But I don't normally use it, I normally use helm-git-grep, often initialized with text from the cursor. This package changed the way I worked - it's instantaneous incremental grep from across your whole repository.

Much of the app I work on is written in CoffeeScript and Backbone. Instantaneous lookup of message strings made whole chunks of the app almost trivial to work with, whereas they were a chore before.

I don't code languages like Ruby in anything like the same way I write C or Java. I find Ruby is best written in an in-context REPL, where the results can be interactively seen. I then look at the command history and pluck ou the bits I want to keep, and refactor them. Emacs REPL buffers work very well for this too.

The ability to write a mode hook that binds a key to a function that's especially handy in that mode - or even bind a key to a lambda that only needs to work in the current session - is killer though. Binding keystrokes through UI is a complete PITA, and it always feels like a dodgy investment, because you don't know how easily or reliably you'll be able to export it or import it onto the next version or next job. Whereas the investment I put into emacs feels like it'll last me decades.
WONDERFUL.

I love this guy, he's really doing a great job!
Seriously, I dropped out of college and worked my way back up to the position of 'lead developer' and it took me a couple of interview rounds, when we tried to fill open positions, to realise that there are so many clueless programmers on the market. Before that, I thought this was mainly limited to the companies I knew. So, if you have experience and browse HN, chances are that you are already in the top 10%. Of course this is an oversimplification and based on anectodal evidence. By the way, I was of course desperate after I dropped out and thus was lucky just finding a job.
That doesn't seem right. Can you give an example? I use lots of js metaprogramming, but it mostly involves wrapping and passing functions, mixing in methods and dynamic getters etc. I don't think I've ever actually had to use eval, or anything eval-like.

OTOH, grep for instance_eval and class_eval in rails source.
This is pretty basic, well known stuff that has been around for years.
Automated tests for SOAP API in Java
It's especially interesting when compared to the "but my code is self-documenting!" that a lot of technical people advocate.
Microsoft plans to boost security over N_S_A fears
Why don't you describe what you were trying to monetise? Possibly someone here can see an opportunity in it?
According to this study, there's an 8.7% unemployment rate for recent CS grads. For experienced CS grads, it's 4.7%.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/HardTimes....
> If you make changes to your site that make both IE6 and all other browsers fast, then what are you optimizing for?

If you specifically make changes to your site in order to make faster on IE6, and it also makes all other browsers fast, the "all other browsers" part is best described as a side-effect.
Competing platforms/ecosystems slow down innovation? I would say we need at least a couple of strong JS contenders to get the most benefit. The Central Bureaucracies such as W3C make change (granted positive or negative) slower.
CNN Insider Amber Lyon Says CNN Is A Hoax
Pagekit - A modular and lightweight CMS
Pagekit is a new CMS which is developed right now. It's built from the ground up with modern technologies like Symfony components and Doctrine.
Simple: You don't invest in Bitcoin/Zerocoin in the first place.

Digital currencies are the online equivalent of cash, not of a savings account or stocks. Like regular cash, it can be stolen (e.g., by hacking into your computer) or lost (hard drive crash with an outdated backup), and thus, you shouldn't have more on hand than you can afford to lose.

Different rules apply to speculators, of course, but you are talking about retirement savings. Putting your retirement savings in a Bitcoin wallet is about the same as having a pile of cash under your mattress.
I have found a mistake: In table 9.1 of chapter 9 "Data types and Conversion" you wrote that the char data type ranges from -128 to 127, but that's not true, because the standard doesn't say that a char is signed or unsigned, it depends on the implementation. A char can be an unsigned char and in that case it will range from 0 to 255.
How about WebCL?
http://www.khronos.org/webcl/
I'm not sure avoiding putting a disclosure of interest will avoid that sort of thing. I think when discussing anything related to your employer you need to be really careful.

Opinion should always be disclosed as such with disclosure and probably normally a disclaimer that it your personal view and not that of your company although if it is a statement of pure fact I think it is OK to post anonymously and/or without disclaimer.

Your comment about G+ above is very much opinion.

A factual statement correcting another post "you can now do X by going to Y" in response to a complaint that you can't do X is for me fine even if related to your employer and you don't disclose anything.

Working for myself now means I don't have to worry about contradicting my employer or embarrassing them, it is a nice freedom to have.
I'd be interested in this as well. The workarounds mentioned seems to require a bit to much hacking for my liking.
Are there any actual plans for implementing simple disk-usage (and perhaps network) limiting?
This is my worst nightmare - I have had my company for 10 years and we've come close to this position twice, first in 2008 during the global economic collapse and second in 2011 when the country I am in had a revolution. I can still remember the stomach churning fear in my stomach during the worse periods.

Good luck to you and your family - it was a brave thing to do. I pray that you get back on your feet as soon as possible.
Ask PG: How should one deal with luck?
In his talk You and Your Research, Richard Hamming said:

There is indeed an element of luck, and no, there isn't. The prepared mind sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck. The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.

From this passage it is pretty clear what he thought luck consisted of when it comes to scientific research and how you should approach it. He sends a warning ("you must aim big") that still feels quite comforting ("you can/you'll eventually get there").

When pg and other people talk about luck, it seems like they mean slightly different things -- "there's a chance you'll die even if you do everything right" (= you need to play dice with God and win, among other factors), "most startups die from mostly common causes, so make sure you're not doing these mistakes I've written about 30x times" (= most founders are utterly clueless), etc -- that are all statistically true if you're speaking to an audience but can yield conflicting advice from an individual's point of view. It may be my own stupidity but it's not very clear what to make of this luck thing. How should one deal with it? Sometimes it seems rather grim, other times it feels encouraging.

Search pg's essays for "luck":

http://search.store.yahoo.net/paulgraham/cgi-bin/nsearch?catalog=paulgraham&query=luck&.autodone=http%3A%2F%2Fpaulgraham.com%2Fnsearch.html
I'm using the onboard/ondie Intel HD4000 and it works. You might have a driver that is blacklisted. Chrome and I think other browsers have a list of drivers known to allow execution of dangerous shader code and block WebGL in those cases.
Mentoring for people visiting the Congress for the first time #30C3
Google's load balancer offering doesn't need to prewarmed was the main point. Its a fair point, having to prewarn ELBs isn't exactly fun, form takes about 10 minutes to fill out. If you're doing TV ads, lots of stuff is last minute. You can prewarm it yourself by throwing artificial traffic at it but you always risk just taking down the ELB if you ramp up to fast. Weird things happen to ELBs if you spike them with big bursts of traffic, one of service providers had 24 hour backlog of web hooks that they sent out all at once. It caused our ELB to fail all the instances even if we brought up new ones. Also during load you can get other sites to show up on your ELB. Had asp.net error page show up on ours. We run rails. Wish amazon would scale up ELBs instances based on the number instances you have behind it using the ratio calculated on past usage.