skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is silly...of course it reduces poverty for those that do not lose their jobs...and if you operate under the assumption that anyone earning the minimum wage is living in poverty, then of course it would reduce the percentage of people living in poverty in aggregate.

There is still a few major problems with it as policy:

1) For those that do lose their jobs, their effect is extremely negative.

2) For those with little to no work history, the possibility of being priced out of an entry level job is a huge problem, leading to the prospect of reduced earnings for the rest of their life. [1]

3) For those who do not lose their jobs, the fact that they didn't lose their jobs is indicative of more major problems...they either don't understand the value of their labor, or they don't know how to negotiate with their employers. A minimum wage increase for these people is like treating the symptoms instead of the disease, and without addressing these issues, these people will likely be underemployed for a long time.

For those reasons alone, the minimum wage is a terrible way to reduce poverty. A serious answer is three-fold:

1) Use real programs to reduce poverty. This means a robust welfare system or a negative income tax or a universal basic income. These cost money, but at least their costs are known, as opposed to the mostly invisible costs of the minimum wage.

2) Promote wage transparency laws (which help those who are underpaid to know the true value of their labor). These prohibit employers from firing or retaliating against employees for discussing wages, which is a tactic to keep information asymmetrical in the favor of the employer.

3) Abolish the minimum wage.

[1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w5030.pdf
AlienTube is a browser extension that embeds Reddit comments into YouTube
Go-linq: LINQ query functions over slices for Golang
an Adium developer is listed and Adium is libpurple-based, isn't it? That kind of implies these changes will have to occur to libpurple, even if it's just on a fork.
This is your brain on religion: Uncovering the science of belief
An Israeli study showed that, in complete opposition to the researchers’ hypothesis, a religious lifestyle was associated with a doubled risk of dementia 35 years later. Moreover, there are studies showing that praying is positively correlated with psychiatric problems.
> Minimal wedges are paid for the jobs that require low qualifications or in fact no qualifications.

Technically, minimal wages are paid where supply of labour greatly exceeds demand for labour. It is theoretically possible to see high skilled jobs pay low wages and low skilled jobs pay high wages, and you do see it happen sometimes, though the reverse is definitely more common.
> It's that thing Ford showed in its early days: paying workers extra so they can buy the cars they produce yields more economic activity for the benefit of everyone -- they also bought fridges and what not.

You can only raise salaries so high; eventually you'll reach a point where the company isn't profitable anymore. Then you either have to keep salaries at a lower rate, or raise prices to the consumer (and that's already at the point where the company makes no profit). Between the employees, company (or owner or stockholders) and consumers, someone has to make a sacrifice.
I don't want to nitpick but probability theory doesn't care that the event already happened at the site. So presumably the risk of another tsunami coming in or a major earthquake is pretty much unaffected by the fact this specific site already had seen a major disaster... I guess the site itself has changed and that means something in the terms of the probability curve, e.g. it can't get much worse or something along those lines...
I think he means it like stealing a credit card number opposed to stealing a car. The original owner still has the credit card number but the information has still been stolen.
Ask HN: Find new job while winding down startup.
So my startup is winding down over the next month or two and I'm still officially associated with it. But, I have to start looking for full-time work now because of my financial situation.

Has anyone been in a similar spot? Are employers a little hesitant seeing that you're still an officer in another company? What if my company was (well, is) technically a competitor?

I can't afford to wait another month or two to start applying, and I can't ethically (maybe legally) completely bail on my cofounders right now either...kind of a tight spot.
I know navigating things like the FAQ can be tricky. They encourage removing "gratuitous adjectives" and rewording linkbait, but knowing what qualifies as what can be hard.

In my opinion, the given title could be considered linkbait, only because it doesn't really tell you what it is, only that it's the "saddest" and "greatest" thing ever.
browser quirks and deficiencies still exist they have just moved to the mobile platform. Android is the new IE
iA Drops Syntax Control Patent, Internet Silent
Not only that, but with typical rates of addiction, adultery, domestic violence, pedophilia, drunk-driving, tax cheating, etc. there is huge potential to build a "caucus of the compromised." Perhaps enough to swing any vote that needs swinging.
yes and yes. I read it in high school, and twice again in the 25+ years since. Now reading Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking.
Instapaper was an idea, and Marco is pretty firmly in the camp that you can't steal "ideas" (Though, you can do feature-by-feature clones, which another of his competitors did in a really annoying fashion. )
Original signals: 37 tidbits on online philosophy and design wisdom. [1999]
Contaminated water is expected to reach the US west coast this year; it's just not dangerous. (So I agree the pill solicitation is likely incidental.) Here's a good writeup of the whole thing:

http://deepseanews.com/2013/11/true-facts-about-ocean-radiat...
Clearly the official tool runs the C source code through a markdown interpreter first!
I really hate that this senator cares about only himself being wiretapped. Rather than caring about his constituents. This is the kind of selfish behavior that is appalling.
Amsterdam's hottest tech start-ups 2013
Partly true - although ios7 on the iphone 4 hasn't won Apple many fans.
Don't need to look far to find claims of some fairly serious side effects of the drug in many contexts, but it's interesting to hear that it's possible to tamper with neuroplasticity artificially.
Great read. thanks for the link.
Radiation Dose measured at Monitoring Post of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear PS
Back of the envelope: If there are 100,000 gallons (400 tons) of radioactive water leaking into the pacific ocean in Japan per day, to be diluted by the 187 quintillion gallons of water already there (not hyperbole, a reasonable estimate based on 70 cubic million miles of water), than the ocean is 1 1,880,000,000,000,000th of a percent more radioactive per day. Or basically zero. It would be interesting to calculate how much more radioactive the water gets from alpha particles in sunlight shining on the water than from Fukushima, but I'm not feeling up to it at the moment.
How they made Gravity: Video shows pioneering “Light Box” technology
There have been extensive studies on the efficacy of EtOH hand gels - for a wide number of pathogens, they are just as, if not less effective than soap and water, especially when you add in mechanical action.

They're an excellent substitute, but not a stop-gap, especially not in the concentrations available through retail in the U.S.
Any KI pills that would be delivered are about 2-3 years too late to help with the Fukushima disaster anyways. The radioiodine released by Fukushima during the event has a relatively short half-life (which means it's no longer a thyroid risk now) and is no longer being produced since the reactors are shutdown (which means the Fukushima won't be a thyroid risk in the future, at least due to iodine).
love the apps thanks for the work guys.
Would the air around the object being levitated be trapped as well?
I never figured I'd need to hack my vocal cords... or that I'd see a post like this on HN...
Finding a full-time job would probably raise flags to any co-founders, partners, employees, investors, etc...

If I were you I would start applying asap and try to focus on landing contract work(3-6 months) with some "fun" startups. All of your associates should understand that you are, or will be, strapped for cash and wont be demoralized too badly as long as they see your new transition as temporary.

Also it could be a great motivational booster for you to get back to your own project.

Good luck!
My point was that you've managed to blame the victim TWICE in once sentence. Its not my responsibility to leave the environment when I'm being harassed; its the responsibility of the hierarchy of power to address the bully or harassers. Therefore leaving is only the "best" response if you are interested in protecting the ability of bullies and harassers to continue their behavior.
It seems that what you're pointing out is basically no company can stand up to the financial sector because they are too dependent on them. But at some point if your right hand is causing you too much pain, you'll have to cut it off. I wonder how close we are to that point.

I'd like to see the financial and insurance sectors run primarily by tech workers and leadership. I think this could help neutralize the problem. I think this alludes to zt's comment as well.
If the government paid for all education, then education would be adapted to suit political / corporate desires (they are the customers in the transaction).

For example, the politicians who control Texas education ensure that all Texas textbooks are ``politically correct.'' Aka censorship. That's what happens when politicians control education.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/revising-the-revisio...
You do realize the enormous technical accomplishment that Snappycam's reworking of the jpg algorithm, and it's implementation on the iPhone processor was, right?

To call it a "decent iPhone app" somewhat puts down the 12 or so months of hard core research and implementation that jpap put into it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010474
Earthquakes are caused by two continental plates releasing tension as they slip past each other. Earthquakes (and therefore tsunamis) are not independent events, and strong quakes are unlikely to occur in close succession.

Probability theory defers to physics.
Lesson learned: Do not publish a link on HackerNews at New Year's Eve. Especially not when there is a typo in the title.
Sort of but it's not exactly the same thing. Physical items generally take effort to build or to extract, and they generally pay for the land or materials or whatever. Copyright is meant to artificially inflate the value, for the benefit of the author who wrote it.

If there is a case of someone just inflating the price and adding literally no value at all then I would say that is just as bad.
Why was Gates hectoring the hobbyists?

1. The hobbyists had a culture of freely sharing code, which Gates was trying to break up (now known as Linux, Github, C)

2. Software was about 5 years away from Congress making software definitely copyrightable in the US [1] (there had been some court decisions)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright
> Would the government tell us the truth if we were actually at risk or would they lie to avoid the mass panic that would undoubtedly ensue?

Another good question is, supposing that a mass panic would be elicited if there were honestly a wave of harmful contamination approaching, which answer should the government give?

One might reasonably assume that the government should give the answer which causes the least public disorder (and subsequent harm to the public).

But this doesn't mean you shouldn't trust the government per se, this means you should educate yourself so that you have some basic understanding of the likelihood of things like Fukushima affecting the West Coast. It does no good to say that you can't abdicate your rationality and trust to the government exclusively, if you then simply abdicate those to whoever is screeching the loudest.
Exactly. Personally, only a very small fraction of my searches are 'random', about something I've never browsed about before. However, most of my searches are either very predictable (related to stuff I browse, search every day). Or I'm searching for something I've browsed already just didn't bookmark or can't bother to find because I know google will find it.
Yep, I don't like the title that much either, but Lolmythesis sounds pretty descriptive, and that's about what the page is saying. Borderline case if what you say is true! Anyway, I ha thought HN policy on this is reasonably strict for some reason I forget, and although I'm far from certain on this topic, I don't feel like angering Gods I don't comprehend. Maybe it's time for yet another tiresome FAQ trip!

EDIT: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html misleading or linkbait? Well by current standards, it's hardly UpBuzzNovaGawkworthy, I suppose. It's sad though, because some great stories have terrible headlines and they don't get traction here because we're apes and fall for that stuff despite ourselves.
Hey! Alex from Fetchnotes here — we actually JUST released a new web app that is way faster. Check it out and let me know if it's still giving you trouble: www.fetchnotes.com
> "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"

Yes who can do professional interpreters for free. Guido van Rossum could not possible put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, and document his product for free.

This is after all what this letter is about. An interpreter for a programming language, and the complain is about hobbyist and other non-commercial entities using it without paying money for it.
That is a well understood argument for the common good. Which is that the vast majority of the citizens are served by available benches, not by occupied benches, (or other publicly supplied services) and so excluding people from sleeping on them makes sense in the context of the entire constituency.

> That said, I also think it is society's responsibility
> to provide another option.

I don't think many would disagree, the challenge comes with deciding what exactly is that option? I am an engineer so I find I tend to come up with practical but socially inept solutions.

At the time there was a discussion about how "we" (where we is the city of Sunnyvale) might use the Onizuka Air Force base facility (aka the 'Blue Cube') which was being decommissioned and turned over to the public sector for re-use. I was trying to figure out if there was a way we could convert part of that facility into what would essentially be caves, self heated concrete structures that were impervious to fire, contained internal pipes with a heat transfer fluid to maintain a livable temperature (cooling or warming), a dedicated latrine system that would periodically flush out all waste, and that were nominally "open" but could be enclosed with available materials. Something that people who were otherwise unwilling to live in a more traditional shelter/section 8 housing, might be able to survive in. This wasn't even a basic income kind of problem, these were people who are mentally non-functional adults. Was there any sort of place we could create that would make their lives better than it was today. They are an at risk group for whom it is very difficult these days to provide services for.

It was wildly derided as putting these people on a 'reservation' or 'in pens' or any number of things. Like I said earlier, socially inept. I don't know have any good solutions.
For reference, valproic acid (and/or its salt) is sold under the trade name Depakote. This is not a drug you should consider taking lightly, whatever neuroplasticity benefits it might confer.
Why Not ditch bosses and distribute power: Brian Robertson at TEDxDrexelU
Actually Sanders is generally one of the less execrable members of that august body. His letter (http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/letter-to-nsa) makes it abundantly clear that he's very alarmed about NSA spying on all Americans. This letter indicates a tactic meant to stoke other legislators' outrage ahead of the upcoming Congress, as opposed to a strategy of opposing NSA spying specifically on lawmakers.
If we can believe that jpap told us the entire story, It's the former. He never mentioned modifying, in any way, the mechanism by which images were retrieved from the photo sensor array, just how he compressed and saved them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010474
I read GEB in high school and really liked the parts about Typographical Number Theory (TNT). It became useful when I lucked into being able to take Chomsky's linguistics seminar as an undergrad. The math-ish parts (generative grammar, IIRC) were easy to grok having read GEB.
Conspiracy theorists think Snopes is either part of the conspiracy[1] or isn't a reliable source of information (as compared to anonymous, breathlessly apocalyptic Wordpress blogs, of course.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7014214
> Well Chrome does this too, and uses that data, combined with your Gmail and Google Drive info, to provide "better" Google results

No it doesn't: https://www.google.com/intl/en-US/chrome/browser/privacy/

Your search history is used (if you have it turned on), but that's just from using google.com for search and is independent of the browser you use.
Yes, you do. Legally speaking. Which means if the song makes money and is popular, and your samples aren't covered, you can get fucked hardcore. Regardless of how long the sample is.
> Having it totally destroyed, or pushed under the sea, although perhaps creating an bad initial spike, probably wouldn't release as much radiation long-term.

The reactor has generated as much radioactive contamination as it's going to make (note that contamination is not the same as radiation).

So in that regard the worst numerical damage Fukushima could realistically do is to eject all of the contaimination into the sea. But even assuming that it would be of negligible impact to radiation levels ocean wide (at least, assuming adequate dispersal).

Given that it's easier to assure adequate dispersal for a continuous low-level transfer to the sea than it is to assure dispersal for effectively dropping the cores into the ocean, I think that dropping the cores into the ocean at once would actually be the worst possible thing.

Of course there are real concerns with groundwater contamination too, which might make people think that getting the damaged cores as far away as possible into the ocean is preferable. But even that possibility is more of an annoyance than a health hazard, since if the potable water going is radioactive it's easy to detect and avoid drinking it, unlike other chemical and biological drinking water hazards.
If it was in The Matrix, I missed it. But, OTOH, Baudrillard's Simulaca and Simulation was definitely featured in The Matrix, FWIW.
Voice search with punctuation. I would use Bing if it provided this. As for now I use Bing simply to make sure I'm not loading cached pages on bad connections.
That makes sense, as to why they didn't need to publicly disclose use of the sample. Still licensed, just not publicly disclosed.

There are a few other tracks off Discovery that are like that.
It's just funny to me because it shows the author's lack of understanding of the Duchamp piece or why it was interesting at all.
The real question is: has an human looked at Congressional metadata, or are they likely to do so? This question was not asked because, given the data protections in place, the answer is likely no.
Note that Apple also make a Thunderbolt gigabit adaptor for the same price.
I'd really love to have perfect pitch but I always thought it was genetic until just a few months ago. Does anyone know any adults who were able to teach themselves perfect pitch, without the aid of mind altering chemicals, and if so how'd they do it?
An old analog hacker rule of thumb is that if your product is going to emit RF, you'll find spurious RF on input and output terminals (including ground terminals), which you can check with a scope. Such a pre-test is cheaper than getting a field test done and failing.

The scope test might be do-able on a comparison basis between the two designs. It's possible that Apple over-engineered their shielding.

It's not necessarily a cloned design. The cheap part may simply implement standard protocols, and use the name of the Apple part to ensure driver compatibility without too much testing. Still, that seems rather under-handed if it's what it seems.
Ah crap. Thats what was in the movie, I retract my previous comment. It's been a while and I knew it was some book on the table when Neo was sleeping on his desk. :D
I wish Jeff a fast recovery. He is probably overworked and has a lot on his mind. Get well soon!
Not that xkcd is an authoritative source, but this chart helps give you the right orders of magnitude:

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

The extra dose in Tokyo immediately after Fukushima was only twice a standard chest x-ray, or one NYC->LA flight.

So any excess radiation reaching the US West Coast will be diluted to negligibility.
How is that the real question? The potential abuses are enormous even if no human has looked at the metadata yet. What if there is a vote next month to reduce the NSA's funding -- might the metadata be examined then, just to see if any congressmen are having affairs? What if Senator Wyden tries to run for president in 2016 -- might the NSA take a look at who he's been talking to?

The fact that the data is being stored at all is cause for concern.
It is a tremendously entertaining book to read. Yes.
Interesting.

I think the mnt_* call is checking if the file system is mounted/accessible to write the change to the objects inode entry.
Its an amazing book. Anyone curious about existance, life, and how the whole system works will be amazed by the author's expertise on the subject; as if DH had been working on it since decades. Though, I would say people outside tech community might find it less entertaining (just my opinion).
Check out Meteor (https://www.meteor.com). I'm a Ruby on Rails developer by trade, but recently tried it and even after just a few hours of playing around with it, found my 'getting stuff done' speed was beating the pants off Rails. Now whether it's ready for production or not is another matter entirely...
> In addition to the needed nuclear materials for the reactor itself, there were/are at least 89 tons of used rods, "hot" enough that they need to be constantly cooled, stored on the Reactor 3 site.

There's no need to put "hot" in quotes, it's not a synonym for anything, it means the spent fuel is literally hot as in temperature.

It is true that the reason they are hot is because of ongoing heat generation from the fission fragment/decay products in the spent fuel. But that is an issue at literally every other uranium-fueled PWR or BWR reactor. They all need to be cooled until the decay heat finally dissipates.

Failing to cool the fuel rods would not turn them any more radioactive than they already are. Rather, the loss of physical fuel integrity once the fuel melts would release the existing radioactivity into the spent fuel pool (which essentially means the nearby air, since the fuel pool would not have water in it by definition in this scenario).

Luckily it's the easiest thing in the world to avert this; just keep water on the fuel rods, and there is no problem. You can even avoid circulating the water if you wish, the boiling water will remove heat just fine (but in this case you must still pour more water in to maintain the level).

The loss of full containment is certainly unfortunate, but it's nothing more than that. It's certainly better than having the entire reactor core assemblies dumped out straight into the ocean, but even that would not be the disaster implied by many if you run the numbers.