skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
One answer is that there is a philosophy that fees or taxes should only be levied on people who use them. Automobile ownership is a discretionary act that is already highly subsidized, so the government feels justified in levying specific fees against car owners.

Another answer is that user fees are politically expedient, as you point out -- it's a way to increase government revenue without increasing taxes per se.

In any case, if you buy a car, the DMV fees ARE generally rolled into the purchase, though as a separate item. Not to be too pedantic, but you can always buy a vehicle and not register it -- for example, if you are from out of state and plan to register it in your home state, or if you need to do some work on it before you put it on the road.
http://js2coffee.org/

/s
Speaking as en ex-physics major and student with their heart previously set on a Ph.D. and academic career, I can relate to the sentiment at the end of this article. Many of my peers (undergraduate and graduate researchers) looked down on non-academic jobs. This is a sentiment that definitely needs to change. It'll make everyone happier.
How do they become less representative? The sample groups are exactly representative when they are based on income. e.g. Polling millionaires about their feelings seems pretty representative of millionaires' feelings, even if there aren't that many.
Interesting. Maybe app stores should show a helpful chart to explain the star rating, so that the results are more uniform.

In my case,

5 stars = Does exactly what I want;
4 stars = Does most of the things I want, minor features missing;
3 stars = Has a few useful features, the rest are irrelevant;
2 stars = Frequent crashes and major bugs;
1 star = Does not install or start at all no matter what I try (very rare).

I mostly give 4 stars, but there are a lot of 5 star worthy apps, as well (Pocket Informant and ES Explorer, for example).
I love CoffeeScript and am excited about nimrod, but I don't see the point of TypeScript. Honestly I am fairly certain that it was largely created by Microsoft as part of the EEE strategy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) since the main advantage of JavaScript is not having to supply types.
Why Bitcoin has intrinsic value and how it's bootstrapped
I literally hit downvote when he start whi..talking about whi..talking about hate on significant whitespace.
The compelling reason for me is F#'s compiler is far smarter, catching entire types of bugs that the C# compiler will not. For example, if you use option types, you can almost entirely eliminate null reference exceptions, as the compiler will complain about misuse of an option.
The lack of default circular references on types enforces a real layered architecture, so you can open up any F# project and read it top to bottom, with the lowest layers coming first. This post has a great explanation of that feature: http://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/cyclic-dependencies/

Also, with default immutability, type providers, and less boilerplate I feel a lot more confident with the quality of the code I write, and I am able to write it faster.

Since it's possible to do full C#-style OO in F#, I personally don't see a reason to use C# at all. F# is more supporting of a multi paradigm codebase, it's safer, and requires less code to do the same things as C#. Combine that with what I would consider to be an extremely short learning curve, I am happy finding C# programmers and letting them learn F# the first week of the job.
You might also want to look at Odometer: http://github.hubspot.com/odometer/docs/welcome/
A business with network effects if it works. The risks are: we borrow each other's strategies and go on a direct collision course, we merge and the teams don't mix, we merge and diverge in strategy later on... One of the teams has a single founder doing tech and hustling, so the two tech people may mix but the third person may feel threatened too. The upside - we are the best freaking team for this on the planet and we move twice as fast and everyone's financial risks are lowered by faster seed money and faster execution. (because nobody is making money yet)
This is a weak piece, it overlooks many things.

First, there seems to be the idea that a PhD's place is in academia. Where is this idea even coming from? Back in a different time I got a degree in chemistry in Germany, and the idea was that you would sign up with one if the chemical companies. The degree program was very thorough and broad and lasted five years, and you would start work, be given a mentor, and do anything chemical. Your degree equipped you to do that, it was very broad, if it was chemistry you had heard of it. A PhD was required, chemical technicians would be trained on the job. The lesson here is that a broad degree makes you more employable, but you cannot sell this idea when students have to raise their own funds to pay for their degree and when state and federal funding lines for universities keep shrinking.

But what happened was several things: the great monoliths that in Germany had a standing like Microsoft or Google were broken up and sold off (except the BASF), and the perennial pharmco crisis started.

There is another lesson, I think: deep science requires deep pockets that only a large, established company can provide. Startups are no solution: it seems that the big pharmcos are now turning into brokers that acquire startups, in-house projects aren't done any longer, instead you acquire a startup, and testing is contracted out abroad. Another problem: no one cooks up their own compounds any longer, you contract out to a Chinese contract shop that employs PhDs from China. I'm not sure if this is cheaper or better (there is something to be said for short communication lines - just walk up a floor), but it is current practice.

Also: at my second-tier state school the quality of applicants started really going up after 2009, when the crisis had settled in. To me this means that private jobs have disappeared, and universities aren't hiring much either.

This is an economic problem, and I really can't see how turning universities into trade schools could be helpful to create jobs. Neither do I see how increased reliance on privately-funded research institutes would help - no matter how big their endowment they would still be competing for external funding, the biggest source of which is the NIH. But the NIH keeps getting its funding cut.

There's the other problem: the government isn't funding science as much as it ought to.
I have no debt and significant savings/investments but that is because I don’t own a house. We have this social expectation in the USA that one must be a homeowner or they are nobody or haven't made it. Even those who can't afford a house have one. I also paid only 12,000 for my small car that is extra fuel efficient instead of buying an expensive car or SUV even though I could afford one.
If it's an object treat it as a dom node, if it's a string, run it through document.querySelector.
This is how I do setTimeout:

delay = (ms, func) -> setTimeout func, ms

So you can write it like this:

delay 100, -> console.log "100 ms passed"
Looks like the behaviour is limited to the first 2 decimals.

You can see this if you put 6 random decimal numbers and set the duration to 20.

I tried putting 10 decimals and it just shows a string of 0s after the 2nd decimal.
When I read what is allowed and what is not, it boggles my mind. I attempt to try and see how they see the world, I can but I cannot accept it. I am not sure if they would go further but stop because of why? Or that they truly think what they have codified is right?

If I could bring back Donahue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue I think it would make an interesting discussion. Have all of the audience screened for what ever security clearance they need to witness an interrogation. The interrogation itself is on a 1 minute delay, incase they actually divulge something.

We get to see the audience witness an interrogation, 4k, HD whatever. They aren't in the same room, the interrogator doesn't know a thing.

Then the audience gets to ask John Rizzo and John Yoo why this is legal.

I can only imagine the outpouring of a Catholic housewife from Ohio ripping them a new asshole.
When I first started using CoffeeScript I dropped just about every optional character you could. Lately I've been going in the opposite direction and adding most of them back in. I find this is also a matter of taste and experience. Whether I add the parens or not depends a lot on what's going on at that point. I do appreciate how flexible CS can be here.

I'm interested in things like ToffeeScript and JS generators. I do like what they do for code readability.
Is there a graph like this per department somewhere? Also: Can a degree get you a job data (either industry/academia) would be very interesting to look at for Bachelor's and Master's per degree.
Because you have to type less code when writing Python. No braces, dynamic typing and so on. Programs are half the size or less than C# code. The less code, the less chance there is for screwups, the less time it takes to grok and the less work it is to refactor. That's why Python wins every time.
Still a third answer: unwanted behavior is sometimes taxed to deter it.
I do agree that there is really nothing to show that you've done: program wise. On the other hand, the students did learn a lot about critical thinking which, I feel, is a great start to programming.

This was also for a BIS degree (not a CS degree) which focused on the "business" side of information science: so most students weren't interested in coding (though I felt this was not to their advantage).

Really, it was a bit the fault of administration for placing the class in the first semester of the degree when students had not taken any programming classes yet.
Carpoolers will be taxed through this, although less since they have fewer vehicles; bicyclists aren't taxed because 1. there are so few of them that it wouldn't matter and 2. we do not want to decrease incentives to bike below their already very low level; and the unemployed have jack all to do with it.
No, I'm not asking for bugs. I'm asking for a basic feature of natural languages: to define a context where I work, where short, concise words have a precise meaning. This is an elementary thing - its the basis behind namespaces, the drive behind object oriented programming. Its a fundamental design mistake to put limits on this.

But its worse, because its also a silent mistake. Shadowing could be forbidden but variable declaration and assignment could still be different things, and then the compiler could warn you when you try to re-use a name. But no, coffee script will give you random bugs instead.

JavaScript has its rough edges. CofeeScript simply has a rot right in its core.
Ask HN:  Who are the top front-end masters?
Who do you think is currently the top front-end developer in terms of usability/design/know-how?
I really dislike his (textual) voice, among other things.
Not just lower than the nordic countries but a lot of other countries: "There is more intergenerational mobility in Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, France, and Canada than in the U.S. In fact, of affluent countries studied, only Britain and Italy have lower intergenerational mobility than the United States does."

And also: "In spite of this low mobility Americans have had the highest belief in meritocracy among middle- and high-income countries."

TL;DR: Tell the same lie enough times and people will start believing it.
In what sense are technologists second-class citizens in academia? Anything to do with computing is the best part of academia to be in at the moment, from compilers to systems to machine learning to AI. Relatively high salaries, more funding than just about anywhere except physics and medicine, good consulting prospects if you want to do that in addition to or instead of academia, quite a few faculty openings if that's your thing, many full-time researchy industry jobs if that's your thing, etc.
His last tweet just says "Ok." [0]

[0] - https://twitter.com/luk
IMHO this diversion doesn't classify as an attack. It was not meant to hurt in any way, or at least there's no sign of any harm done in your post. I try to use common sense first, and only afterwards stick to the letter.

Not sure exactly that comparing DNSSEC (signatures == trust) and DNSCurve (encryption + signature but only hop_to_hop, not up to root.) makes sense, that's why I said above that unbound + OpenNIC (which I trust and support DNSCrypt).

Thanks for taking the time to reply
All good except you have it the other way. Killing
OBL was an unfortunate side-effect of setting back eradication of deadly diseases by many decades.
Ugh, also I hate infinite scrolling when it crashes and makes me reload the page. Like on Facebook I would scroll down and down up to posts from months ago, then it would crash on me, or I accidentally click on some link, which brings me back all the way to the top when I try to get back on it.
Don't forget the Polish American scientist Albert Sabin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Sabin
The guy developed the oral vaccine and supported the national plans to immunize large population. That is what I call a Good Genius.
You're right that it's not that great, although it might be more or less impressive depending on how much one expects these things to be predictable at all.

But one useful way to look at it is to see this as indicating how good the base rate predictor is compared to random commenters or your gut feel - 65%? Did you know, in advance, before I spent like 3 months collecting the data, that the right rate was 65% rather than, say, 10% or 90% or 50%?
On the contrary, short names are a source of clarity and expressiveness. Humans convey so much information through context, and shadowing nicely allows us to at least approximate that.

But I would be okay with this stance (yet would not use coffeescript) if the language had a mechanism to warn you when you're trying to reuse a name. Instead the language's features combine in a way that will clobber your code and lead to subtle or not-so-subtle bugs.
Bicyclists, carpoolers, and people who don't drive for whatever reason don't put as much strain on the road. Why would we tax them? Moreover, what is your point?
Asking for a friend, what do you do if you don't have anyone to talk to? I feel like the answer should be obvious, but I have no idea what it is.
Yes but DNSCurve is hop-to-hop and solves a different problem. If you are able to take a over a resolver between the victim and the TLD, you can easily hijack DNSCurve.
I'm a PhD student, and pursing non-academic work after graduate school is totally normal and expected. Many of my advisor's former students have entered industry, so how could she not both expect and accept it? I wonder where this attitude is most prevalent. I imagine it varies across country, region, university, department, etc.

Edit: That said, I don't think my advisor does a good job preparing us for industry.
Yes I'm sure the literally dozens of electric cars not paying gas tax in North Carolina are responsible for the shitty roads.
If I could steal a Picasso I would be set for life.
Ask HN: Web based usability testing (screen & webcam)?
What do you use for remotely testing users of an alpha web app?

Our perfect solution would be a web based service that users are directed to complete a task, with both their screen recorded and a webcam/audio stream to match. Closest service we've found was openhallway.com - but it's Java based and I had trouble getting it working reliably.

Is there a flash based / html5 service that you would recommend? And more broadly what are your thoughts on remote testing?

Other contenders:
- http://www.loop11.com (no video recording features)
- http://silverbackapp.com (mac only)
Ask HN: Is there an organization like the EFF in NYC that is hiring?
I'm tired of what's happened to the USA at the hands of the NSA. I'm tired of wasting my time and energy building frivolous apps for frivolous people. And I'm tired of just whining about it and not taking action.

I want to devote at least half of my time to working for an organization like the EFF, but it's based in SF and doesn't seem to have availabilities outside of SF (https://www.eff.org/opportunities/jobs/).

Is there an organization based in the US that's doing work like the EFF that's hiring?

Thanks in advance.
First, there seems the idea that a PhD's place is in academia. Where is this idea even coming from?

It's in the air, in the environment. Perhaps your circumstances are different, but in the US the overproduction of Ph.D.s is sufficient to sustain at least one business: The Versatile Ph.D. http://versatilephd.com/.

The online blogging on the phenomenon is hard to miss.
It's still ludicrous. I'm not a civil engineer, but I was discussing this with my friends who are. In summary, the amount of damage that a vehicle does to a road is proportional to the fourth power of its weight.

A Nissan Leaf weighs 3,291 pounds (source: http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/versions-specs/). A GMC Yukon Denali weighs 5,491 pounds (source: http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/ca...), or 1.67 times more. It should do approximately 7.75 more damage to the roads it drives over than the Leaf will.

At an average of 15,000 per year, the Yukon owner getting 16 mpg (source: average of 14mpg city and 18mpg highway from http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/po...) will burn about 950 gallons of gas per year. At $0.563 per gallon tax (source: combined state and federal taxes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States), that owner will pay about $550 per year in taxes.

If NC is being honest about their reasons for taxing electric vehicle owners, then the Yukon owner is being subsidized about $225 a year (should pay: $775, will pay: $550) for driving a more polluting, more damaging vehicle. That's assuming that electricity is completely untaxed in NC so that the Leaf driver is paying only that $100 tax.

TL;DR This isn't about fundraising. It's about protecting gas-burning vehicle markets.
The developer also seems to claim that the keylogger exists as well. If you want to take his word for it as well.
Before There Was Computer Porn, There Was This Guy
Ask HN: Steps to become employed as an Android developer?
In order to become employable as an android developer, what are some tutorials and books that one can study to build demonstration apps? I have done Java development and have made a basic Android application but it is not enough to be employed. Any advice would be great. For instance, salary range. Thank you.
Everywhere I've been, good technologists - right alongside good lab managers - are universally well regarded, and many professors I know will insulate their techs jobs from the vagaries of grant funding as best they can. And when labs do hit rocky periods, its usually the techs they worry about the most.
Some context, since Ben assumes you know who he is, and, more bizarrely, doesn't put a bio anywhere on his site:

Ben Milne is a founder of Dwolla. Dwolla was sued by TradeHill in 2012: http://betabeat.com/2012/03/dwolla-was-just-sued-by-bitcoine...

Dwolla also came to the attention of the DHS in 2013: http://pando.com/2013/05/14/dept-of-homeland-security-freeze...
I would. Why wouldn't you?
Can anybody explain some good use cases of implicit return? When I was doing a project in CoffeeScript last year (the only time I've used it), I found myself just using the return keyword explicitly because it was more readable, and I never ran into the issue the article talks about where it can be bad to accidentally return something from a function that should return null/undefined.

When would implicit return make code better? Maybe I'm answering my own question, but I can see them being more readable to somebody coming from a Haskell or LISP background than to somebody like me who has worked mostly in C, Java, and Python.
What does Yelp actually have to furnish? If the "identities" are "John Doe" and throwaway420@gmail.com, are they complying by just handing over that information? Or are they legally obligated to identify the reviewers as real people? What if the reviewers aren't US citizens?
21 Year-old Dies from Cocaine - Parents Petition to Ban Bitcoin
Flowhub: Peer-to-peer visual programming for your fingers, from the NoFlo team
I've met at least two Ecology professors who bring up the idea that, for a population at replacement rate, there's only one new faculty job for each current faculty member's students. One.

I've been in several departments that are very welcoming to industry and non-profits. What they tend not to be welcoming toward is the idea that, because you're not headed to academia, you can either half-ass or rush your research.
I am a math professor. My first Ph.D. student got a job outside of academia and I was happy to support him fully and unreservedly.

But:

>students still come out with a very narrow window of extremely specialized knowledge

Duh.

>Additional courses in broader topics such as writing and business would also be beneficial (6).

Huh? This suggestion ignores the purpose of a Ph.D.: to produce a piece of original research, which is necessarily extremely specialized.

(And for that matter, if students in my Ph.D. program want to enroll in courses in business, writing, or anything else, they can.)

If students or employers want alternative degree programs, that is well and good, I encourage universities to begin offering them, and as a professor I would be quite happy to teach and advise such students.

But I see no reason to dilute Ph.D. programs, which continue to serve the purpose for which they were created.
What's the point of learning UML and Design Patterns? (Especially, if you can't program?)

What were students supposed to be able to accomplish that they couldn't do before?
The goal is to avoid leaking information on the url that might be sensitive. The fact that the user is coming from bing is not sensitive, and this might be important for webmasters. The query might be sensitive and thus should be stripped.
This is uninteresting to me. But in a few years, I wouldn't be surprised if most of their users are turned away in droves because the first thing you see when you log on is a huge sponsored story right above the fold.
What a great way to discourage people from engaging in a behavior that you want them to engage in.

Why not make up for the (arguably inconsequential) loss in revenue by making the people with the less desirable behavior (purchasing gas-guzzling, polluting vehicles) subsidize the desirable behavior? In other words, make up for lost revenues by increasing gasoline taxes. If it gets to the point where that's not enough, increase gasoline taxes again, and generally keep increasing them until people aren't driving ICE vehicles anymore.

When it gets to the point where even that doesn't cover it, charge vehicle registration fees based on vehicle weight, since that's the true measure of the vehicle's contribution to the wear and tear on the roadways.
Indeed. It should use the scaling factor of 10^6 (instead of 60). I have submitted a pull req: https://github.com/inorganik/countUp.js/pull/2
Roughly 0 people that are presently considering an electric car are concerned about $100 a year.
There are quite a few hotlines which have volunteers who are willing to listen. I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing your friend is looking for, but it's certainly better than nothing.
And if you ever needed to manually patch in an easy-to-remember NOP, 0x00000000 was ANDEQ R0, R0, R0.
Makes sense. Well... It produces less than 4096 interesting 32-bit values.
Because, while this income-only definition of 'poor' is common and often drive policy, it doesn't match what people intuitively think of as 'needy'.

We need another map that's based on consumption-poverty, not income-poverty – and controlled for local prices. Unfortunately that data is a lot harder to collect.