skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> vastu shastra, which is astrological woo.

I'd give you that in its current marketed form it is astrological bullshit, but originally Vastu Shastra was a formal form of science [1] grounded on engineering principles and urban design. All persevering to obtain a 'calm' for the dweller.

One can still infer from the high precision N-S-E-W positioning of fairly huge ancient Hindu temples, historical remains of homes and dwellings, monasteries and other artefacts. Even the 1000+ step staircases in some of the forts and fortresses [2][3], transoceanic bridges [4] suggest the quality of math that was in play.

The choice and placement of stone, wood and metal w.r.t Sun, tropical climate and other ergonomic needs is simply mind blowing. Math has to be at the root of it.

Obviously not many records exist to substantiate the level of skill and academia prevalent at the time. I wish someone undertook a journey to research and substantiate just about "everything" that we have from Egypt to Indonesia (Hindu kingdoms spanned that far, yes!). At the risk of being shooed away by existing pride.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastu_shastra

Even the wikipedia here, for example, says ... "while Vastu had long been essentially restricted to temple architecture..." which is completely wrong, and they defeat it in the third paragraph where they define "the Sanskrit word vastu means a dwelling or house with a corresponding plot of land" which is what Vaastu Shastra was all about, not temples alone.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChandBaori.jpg

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chand_Baori

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_Bridge
"Given enough effort" is the key there. Just because someone can break into your house given enough effort doesn't mean you leave your doors off the hinges.
how much money are you going to get if you put together an anti-telecom PAC

what about free labour? that's what the op seems to be hinting at. people want to take action. but they need ROI on that <action>. They need scale, distribution, co-ordination. etc.

your other points are good ones, especially the persistence and duration of entities like the telco's on influencing legislators over their entire careers, etc. that persistence and their deep pockets make them formidable opponents. for sure.
It won't be much longer until the airlines say, fly NY->LA for only $1500 including all fees such as being able to board the plane, bring a carry on, check a bag, get in flight meal, free wifi, etc etc.

Once we all fed up with nickel and dimeing they'll go back to flat rate to "save us money" only to then go back to al la carte.
I am not sure why an article goes to Nr. 1 that has a made up table full of silly unjustified numbers in it.
This is the only part of the article which seemed odd. Surely you benefit from ability to make a bunch of transformations in your head, without having to go to a computer?

In other words, if computer in Distil does that kind of thinking which is necessary faster than the author - heck, if it can do that at all - I want to work in Distil. Still didn't get it? I'm definitely not talking about rot summation and multiplication.
A Vending Machine That Spits Out Custom Algorithmic Cartoons
Dan's arguments aren't very meaningful to me, precisely because I went to college and my experience was not the one he promotes college to be.

The vast majority of the classes I took were taught by GTFs (Graduate Teaching Fellows -- graduate students) rather than any kind of professor, adjunct professor, associate professor, or teacher. They followed a strict curriculum and "deep conversations" were a very rare occurrence. I was actually only taught by a full professor in 2 classes.
The majority of the classes I took were required general education fulfillers, again taught by graduate students, and not subjects I was interested in (read: homework grind).
There were tons and tons of facilities, athletics, teams, etc. I participated in a lot of teams and loved them, but I probably only took part in 1% of what the college as a whole offered.
At the college I went, the average professor makes $91,000 a year. The average administrator salary was $286,000.

I agree with Dan that college provides enormous value, but It also comes with enormous waste. When people talk about the outrageous cost of higher education, it is because so little of the tuition money goes towards the actual education, and the few activities a student participates in, and a huge amount goes towards giant administrative fees, unnecessary facility fees, research employees who do not benefit undergraduate students, etc.
Is college extremely valuable? Of course. Is the already high and increasing price justified? I don't think so at all. Are MOOCs the answer? Not with the experience and engagement level they currently have.
I see college as not worth the cost due to problems of bureaucracy and financial models. MOOCs have a much better model of precision education -- you get to learn what you want to learn, and don't have to support the stuff you don't use. Though they are certainly grappling with huge problems of engagement, and the experience is terribly incomplete due to the lack of physical peers and extra-curricular activities.
In an open society, I would expect society people view toward this issue will change as well. If everybody know my things and I know everybody things, hopefully stigma or negative impact an toward the issue mentioned will be less.
Easy: Make sure "economy" internet includes enough to cover most people's needs, most of the time. Price and market "full-service" internet like a luxury so most users will select the "economy" plan.

Sell inclusion in the economy plan's whitelist for a private, negotiable fee (measured in millions). Sell exclusivity per category (not outright, but by offering reasonable fees to only the highest bidder). Big players don't have to worry about competition, so their R&D costs are lower and their stocks are safer (and more attractive) investments. ISPs win, large internet companies win, small-government and pro-business voters win, the market wins. Large companies which are in themselves platforms (Google, Amazon, Apple) become the only option to reach consumers, so they can take as large of a percentage as they want. Consumers lose.

This is precisely the nightmare scenario motivating internet neutrality protections.
What do you think about low force microswitches? Would you consider them for a future model?

http://mykeyboard.co.uk/microswitch/
Solve First Layer Of Rubiks Cube, Easy
> "Politicians shouldn't support $SOMETHING because it increases the chances they might be assassinated"

Powerful and/or controversial politicians always have lots of security for this reason.

> "Maybe gay people should just stop having so much gay sex if they want to stop being victimized by society"

Poor example. They're victimized for being gay, not for the type and quantity of sex they're having.
> Guix is a version of Nix

Why would I use one and not the other?
I fully agree. From what I've read, nicotine itself is not as addictive as smoking, and it's not the part of tobacco smoke that causes cancer. Also, the withdrawal symptoms are typically more mild than caffeine withdrawal.
Given that we hammer it into every kid, who do you think these kids are who aren't going?
"The rest of your argument is very far fetched."

I have apparently underestimated my ability to craft a joke.
It was very close to a 60% keyboard. It just wasn't better enough than a 60% keyboard to really be worth my while. I find the split layout to be a lot more comfortable. And I didn't even touch-type when I fell down this rabbit hole.
Yes, but that's almost a separate issue. Water vapor is a limited feedback: if you double CO2 concentration, the additional water vapor will increase temperatures further, but only enough to induce a fraction of the original amount of increased water vapor to be sucked into the atmosphere. If this weren't the case, small deviations in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would cause even greater deviations, leading to runaway global warming until other, negative feedbacks grow large enough to counteract it; in other words, we must be in a stable equilibrium, as an unstable equilibrium would have already collapsed into a nearby stable one.

Methane clathrate guns aren't the same: the idea there is that we've not historically explored the relevant parameter landscape (oceanic acidity + temperatures). People hypothesize that, if we're not careful, we can stumble into a saddle point where a small delta propels us away from our current equilibrium and toward one with much higher mean surface temperature.

All of this is to say that water vapor feedbacks are well established, while a methane clathrate gun is just a speculative hypothesis.
There really need to be more studies on the effects of nicotine in isolation from all the other chemicals in cigarettes. There have been studies that have shown that the MAOIs in tobacco interact with nicotine pretty strongly in creating addiction. I wouldn't be surprised if the MAOIs are also related to why people with mental and mood disorders often self-regulate with tobacco.
To be truly fair, you need to compare this against ext-js which is ~700KB
This line has me more excited over everything else. I can't wait for a mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint like device.

I'm a big fan of Thinkpad keyboards and have a few USB versions, but finally switched to mechanical keyboards 6 months ago. I still miss the Trackpoint daily though...
>> when you sit down to think about it, it's most likely all in your head.

Nicely done.
Yes but remember the time you saved up and bought an album only to realize there is only one good song on it. I like the option to listen to the songs I like.
I also gave lozenges a try after reading an article here, and found 2mg to be too much, at first. You get used to it, though.
For anyone else seeing the term for the first time, MOOC is "Massive Open Online Courses."
“Americans ask ‘How are you doing, but don’t really want to know…”

That's always kind of sad.
See the excellent series of LWN articles, "Namespaces in operation" <https://lwn.net/Articles/531114/> for an overview of how namespaces work on Linux.

To answer your time question: AFAIK there is no namespace for system time in Linux. If you don't want processes within a contaier to be able to set the system clock then don't launch them with the CAP_SYS_TIME capability.
It's easy to take action.

Buy DSL from a third party. Someone like "DSLExtreme", or ACD.net, or similar non-AT&T provider.

They're (some) of the companies who directly use these agreements that AT&T is trying to destroy. If more companies like them existed, and/or had better revenue, they could stand up and fight for their future.

Of course, no one will sign up for their service, because they'll only be able to provide you with 0 to 6mbps of service (because they only are allowed access to Central Offices, and not the smaller offices / boxes AT&T uses to get you Uverse), which makes them significantly slower than either ATT Uverse or Comcast in the vast majority of markets.

Which is why we're in this mess in the first place.
I followed: http://www.peterfriese.de/android-testing-with-robolectric/
I can't get it to run a specific (gives junit 3.8+ required error), but am able to run the whole suit.
Are you asking which tools to use or what to measure? Strategy to me is what to measure, although there is some technical strategy on how to measure and display the data so it isn't overwhelming and useless.

First, measure most everything at the day, week, month and yearly level, then do week over week, month over month and year over year comparisons. Usually this means we store the most granular level and then rollup from there.

What to measure depends on what you are doing, but IMO these are some general things you should always measure: signups, cancels, time on site, time from signup to first use, A/B tests of course on features, pricing etc. This is in addition to the normal reliability, server metrics etc. I recently setup our sites to start tracking peoples first visit until signup, of course this isn't foolproof as it relies on a cookie, but I think it will help us over time.

The key to the analytics/metrics is you want to be able to cross section them and be able to look at when you add a new feature, or remove something etc.

Frankly, besides storing normal metrics, we store every API call, the time it takes, who made it, which machines were involved etc. This lets us basically look at everything that happens. From that I can get signups, cancellations, engagement statistics and a whole host of other things, this solves most of the business questions and almost all operational concerns like machines being whacked.

Not saying my ideas are 100% right or even correct in all circumstances, but thought I'd at least share.
This criticism of aversion to proofs is in general valid. However, be aware that Indians also made some significant steps towards calculus, and the first book explaining this had "arguments" and worked out examples. (This is not second hand knowledge, I know the language and have a copy of one volume of the book.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuktibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3%C4%81

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_school_of_astronomy_and_...
"Just" learning Dvorak isn't necessarily going to help people. For me, the angles I need to keep my wrists at to type on a traditional keyboard are a showstopper, no matter what layout I'm using. I've previously taught myself Dvorak. And Colemak. Both are, indeed, clearly better than QWERTY. They're not better enough to justify continuing to use a physical layout designed around 130 year old mechanical constraints.

Please note that I'm not saying people shouldn't ditch QWERTY. They should. But that alone isn't enough to just declare the battle won and go home.

(While the keyboard.io prototypes are labeled in QWERTY, the firmware speaks Dvorak and Colemak as well. As of last weekend, it also speaks Workman and a variant of the Maltron layout.)
Good example, poor wording.
Performance Co-Pilot being bundled as part of the monitoring tools is pretty interesting; I see one of the devs has been blogging about it in the last month or so: http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/19/exploratory-perfo... and http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/26/performance-regre...
Show HN: Open Source Viber-competitor RingMail lets you dial emails and websites
A cross-platform 3d game engine by Blackberry
There is the fact that to a certain extent, entrepreneurs know their odds going in. Gamblers more likely than not doesn't.
I believe there is some technical merit here. Bandwidth to an airplane is limited and charging a small fee keeps it from being inundated.

When it's free -- like when Google sponsors it at Christmas -- it's not usable it's so slow.
It's been years since I did this research and can't find my listing of sources.

After a quick deep dive on the topic, I found this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18852035
In short, cells from oral tissues experienced relatively more DNA damage. In absolute terms, it's not much, but reason enough to default to patches, versus oral routes, IMO.

Also, oral nicotine causes all kinds of gingival recession. This is pretty widely known (halfway decent source for this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2388141).
NSA Reportedly Uses Google Cookies To Target Suspects
Ask HN:  Recommendations for a decent employment lawyer in SF?
I am a contract employee at a startup. My contract officially ended Oct 31, but I still put in, at their request, 35hrs/ week at the company.

I have yet to get paid for EITHER Oct or Nov.

I'm not looking to sue, but my emails/conversations are not getting me anywhere., and I'm not sure what else to do.

I'm pretty sure I have another job lined up. I would have left earlier, but I wasn't certain of employment rights in CA, and I knew if I left I would never see my cash.
"Of a million MOOC users, the study found that only an average of half of those registered for a course ever viewed an online lecture for that course. And only 4 percent ever completed the course."

I wish I could get 4% of all my visitors to convert!
Heh. I've considered it. "Maybe"

There are some other switch technologies I'd want to try first. But fabbing our own switches gets expensive fast.
Certainly it was below the 30k' cruising altitude. And over a heavily populated area. And voice connections are easier to get than data in my experience doing, uhh, "research" of this sort.
Tell that to house ownerser.
I'm not against antibiotics being used to treat individual sick animals. That's a whole different proposition from employing them as a food supplement and just dosing the entire herd as a prophylactic.
And here I am, just trying to find notched Dvorak replacement key caps for my MacBook Pro...
Office 365 Word does it without the need for SharePoint (both in the Word web interface and the Desktop app). It's terrible, I can't recommend it. The number of crashes and sync-losses we had was ridiculous.
Tiny dots of Sugru.

(Alternatively, many folks recommend you _not_ relabel your keys when trying to learn a new layout.)
> "Powerful and/or controversial politicians always have lots of security for this reason."

Yes, and I'd argue that goes with my point. As a society, we never say "well, they sort of had it coming when they were a hack for the socialists/capitalists/whites/blacks/misogynists/feminists/whatever"; we condemn the assassin, and on top of that provide extra security to the politician. In the same way, if a woman goes out in public and gets raped (which is surely more risky than staying indoors all day), we don't condemn her for doing something that statistically increases her chances of becoming a victim of sexual violence, but condemn the rapist and, on top of that, try to build government policies and social practices that decrease the chance of her becoming that victim.
"Everything is listed..."

Everything is a pretty broad word.
Five Signs that Your Mentor Is Giving You Bad Advice
One good aspect of this is that producers will able able to advertise their food as being raised without unecessary antibiotics. Many milk producers prefer not to use the growth hormone rBST, but because the FDA has no found any difference in the quality of milk between cows that are administered rBST and those that are not, producers who prefer not to use it have to put a disclaimer on their on their milk stating this FDA finding to prevent legal action from producers who do use that additive. With an FDA guideline saying 'better not to use antibiotics as a food additive' producers can draw consumers' attention to that fact without having to use defensive legal language that undercuts their message.
Chrome Apps, now available for Mac
Previous discussions of Owncloud here have mentioned that Owncloud suffers from scaling issues and a few other big problems. Could anyone familiar with such previous issues comment on whether those seem to have been addressed?
Also, just for a little more detail.

From the business you need to measure profitability, cash, revenue, customer acquisition cost, supply chain (where the customer came from), customer value, life time customer value, time to cover CAC etc. Not sure where you are at with those.

Even in these broad categories there are lots of details. For example on revenue, IMO you should measure it against head count, as well measure profitability against # of employees etc. When you are bootstrapped or working on the smallest possible budget, this will also help you know when you can/should add more staff etc.
Corliss Law Group Estate Planning Law Corporation: Business Review and Audit
What If You Already Have a Business Entity?

When we are involved in the original business planning and choice of entity, our engagement often involves an initial Risk Assessment of the areas of risk that your business will most likely be subject to. These risks can involve business processes, record keeping, reporting, compliance procedures, economic and capital structure, labor structure, procedures and compensation, insurance coverage, and a number of other issues. The purpose of this Risk Assessment is to attempt to anticipate risk exposure and assist in providing structure, processes and safeguards to eliminate, minimize, or prepare for such risks.

If we have not participated in the original planning, were not asked to initially conduct that review, or after any business has been operating for a while, we offer a Business Review and Audit Package which includes a Risk Assessment. This process allows us “audit” and assess the choice of entity, whether conditions have changed, and the common risk areas and exposure brought about by the way the business is operating. We offer several Review Packages priced to accommodate the needs of any business.

The Business Review Process parallels the steps of the Entity Choice and Formation Process. In general the necessary information is gathered, reviewed and evaluated and a report presenting our findings, along with recommendations for changes, a timeline and the price of our services to design and implement the recommended changes.
Well, bringing down the maximum response time is a good goal. Really, if all your responses are fast enough, then it doesn’t matter if most of them are on the slow end of that range.
Ask HN: Who Are Your Favorite Writers-for-Hire?
We (MailLift.com and Profiles.io) are looking to hire some content writers, have a decent sized budget, but have no idea where to look. Any suggestions?
> If it was a free-market enterprise, you would have reasonable prices and services.

The free market only efficient under certain circumstances: when transaction costs are small and when there are few barriers to entry.

One well-known form of market failure is the "natural monopoly", and one form of that applies here: the geographic monopoly. The barriers to entry for a new ISP may be quite large, if significant investments in physical infrastructure which must be made before the ISP can operate. (One can also intuit that having multiple physical telephone networks connecting to houses in the same neighborhood would be wildly redundant.)
Wait. He shot cops in the head? Awesome!
"When people talk about the outrageous cost of higher education, it is because so little of the tuition money goes towards the actual education, and the few activities a student participates in, and a huge amount goes towards giant administrative fees, unnecessary facility fees, research employees who do not benefit undergraduate students, "

...Wondering if this is actually true or just something you can say because it seems right enough. Have you done any actual research into this?
Ask HN: What are the top 3 apps you use daily by amount of times opened?