skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm a Canadian as well - most of my friends in my town don't have access to a family doctor and are on waiting lists. And that's family doctors - try getting an appointment with a specialist.

This isn't Kamen's point though. If the US can continue to accelerate innovation, being the biggest medical innovator in the world, costs for older technologies will also fall improving access. Restrict what technology companies and healthcare firms who use these technologies can charge however, and you reduce the incentive to innovate. Improvements in technology in every other industry results in lower not higher costs. One thing he doesn't talk about as much which is a hurdle is the system of third party payers - but I think he at least discusses a more sustainable solution and the threats that the current and proposed regulations pose.
I've heard this argument a bunch recently. You're suggesting the rest of the developed world has somehow made the US its bitch as far as medical research and development goes - the US does all the hard work, and everyone else with a public health system reaps the rewards.

I don't buy it.
"A price control in Canada is effectively subsidized by US consumers of a given drug" I think that is the crux of his point, if the US didn't have these crazy high prices - then the drug would not have been developed.

I liked this quote: "Every drug that's made is a gift from one generation to the next because, while it may be expensive now, it goes off patent and your kids will have it essentially for free."

The high cost in the US is paying for the R&D that makes the drug possible
That close button cutting into the content isn't going to work in every situation, and it's being used inconsistently (images overlay the close button, everything else is given a margin to make room for it).

Worse, that bounce effect whenever you open a lightbox or scroll? That's just plain annoying.
Good point. For some reason I keep forgetting the combination of those two items within neo4j.
>Others have found it interesting and thought-provoking.

Yes, that's quite concerning.
Canada recently fought

No, the province of Quebec did... Canada's system is not national, it's provincial. BC for instance allows for several areas of private care.

I'm not to be allowed to make decisions that balance for or against my lifespan.

You just gave examples in both Canada and the UK that showed that you most certainly can. You're argument is bullshit and comes from a place of ignorance - assuming that somehow the rest of the world has some sort of inferior system simply because we have single payers.

It isn't true. Every health statistic shows that the US is actually lagging behind. You're fighting each other for a dwindling and ever more expensive piece of the pie, and the solution is staring you right in the face.
When last I got something with the discount, it was exactly 10%.
Non-existent systemic risks???? Did you suddenly forget about the last year. Have you been asleep for the last 18 months? Systemic risks are very much existent.

And if banks and financial institutions are going to cry for federal bailouts every time a "systemic risk" rears its ugly head, the only thing any responsible government official can do is put in regulation to make sure that the systemic risks are controlled.

The financial industry loves to complain about regulation but it is the financial industry that brought this on their own heads by (1) fuckign up, and (2) asking the taxpayer to pay for their fuckup.

As far as the rationale, it is different from what you said. The rationale is that certain parts of the economy are so intertwined that if one financial company craters it can cause a chain reaction disaster for multiple other completely healthy financial institutions. I am not sure I buy this logic, but again the financial industry used this very same logic to say it was not their fault when the economy imploded, so it is only fair that the same thinking should be applied to them now that the feds are starting to regulate them.

Now you could make somewhat of an argument that VCs are not systemic risks, and that may be true if they were mostly owned by wealthy individuals, but that's not the case. VCs are mostly owned by financial institutions that may borrow against their property, so if the value of a VC craters they may cause a sell off spiral in a larger financial institution. Again, I am not I believe the above sentence, but if you buy into the theory of systemic risks, it is pretty obvious that VCs are one.
I see your slippery slope argument of "the ultimate socialized/rationed model". But aren't you concerned that without any type of public option that no insurance company will insure you at any price given your current condition? It seems that an insurance company would lose money by insuring you. Unless they charge exorbitant prices. Ultimately, your insurance company is going to decide what care you get.
Geopolitical Attacks On Twitter Intensified Almost Tenfold Last Night
The obvious moral is that if you're going to send anything heavy through the mail, send it in a larger than necessary box. Machine tool parts and so forth of steel are actually significantly denser than bricks.
Have a look at Tokyo Cabinet/Tyrant too.
Ah, the area where we disagree is on the size of the company in question. I was thinking medium to large, while it looks like you are thinking more start-up. I agree that a week is much more viable to assess someone in a startup. In a large corporation, they'll be lucky to have a computer by then!
Sorry, every health statistic doesn't show the US is lagging behind. Look at cancer detection and treatment and survival rates from heart attacks. I think that you can get a system that works with a single payer system - but it's tough to find one that also innovates and is sustainable - there's a good case to be made here that the US actually subsidizes the rest of the world with developments in drugs and medical technologies/techniques.
I'd just like to point out that the internet was government-funded innovation. As well as the massive amounts of R&D we do in the military space. Another area in which we lead the world. To assume that government-funded equates to lack of innovation is false.
Coincidentally, I've been researching sociopaths (and by extension, psychopaths to some degree). I've found that most have no interest in "treatment." They view their way of thinking as an asset that allows them to be clear-headed and rational, and to get what they want out of life without all those pesky things like "conscience" getting in the way of success.

So this brings up an interesting conundrum: clearly, it's to society's advantage to "cure" these people because they pose a threat to the fragile stability of social life by violating norms (and laws!) that neuro-typical people adhere to. However, normally medical treatment is left entirely in the hands of the person. Who wins in this case?
Do they no longer make hardware?
The United States is subsidizing the medical expenses of the rest of the planet.

Who do you think pays for medical research and why?
Not to sound like, well, everybody else on the site, but if you think there's a market for it, why not start up an Indian Python consultancy?

Hell, even "Indian Python" sounds cool.
I don't know about other statistics off-hand, but there has been a debate about this off and on for months on Megan McArdle's blog - one thing that has been well established is that cancer survival rates are substantially higher in the US than any other country.
In case you want to look up something critical (airline flight information?) when there happens to be a 30-minute GMail outage?

In case you want to take your data with you when you migrate to a different service?

In case you want an archive of your correspondence that will live on even if Google goes out of business decades from now?

In case you want to keep snapshots of your mail folders and be able to compare them, to see when a message arrived or was moved or deleted?

So you can access your entire mail archive when you're offline?
Dropbox helps gets things done but stays out of the way. It's so subtle I forget I even use it. That's exactly what I like in a program.
The initial invention was gov't funded, but it wasn't until (decades) later when business began investing in it that it really took off. And became much more than an academic toy.
Government Recruits Geeks to Blunt Cybersecurity Threats
We thought you might like this report from USNews.com discussing what we have been talking about for years.The U.S. Cyber Challenge aims to identify 10,000 patriotic geeks and make them experts.
Please point me to these stats, they seem interesting but I can't locate them.
That's a whole lotta blue.
I hear the "maximize shareholder value" rule quite a bit. But I have never seen a reference to a law that proclaims it or defines what it means. Can anyone find such a reference?
Especially Powell's Technical bookstore...everytime I go home to Portland I go broke buying books there.
I agree. I wouldn't mind trading the private bureaucrat who determines if I get care (and gets rewarded for containing the medical loss ratio * ) for a government bureaucrat who determines if I get care.

The point I agree with is that the very high medical expenses in the US aren't just going up in smoke. Because of those high costs people are directing private investment dollars towards creating new treatments.

* medical loss ratio - the amount of my premium that actually gets handed over for medical care - typically 75%-80% vs. 95% with Medicare.
I have no problem believing the same people who would design a purposefully confusing interface to spam people's contact lists would also abuse their uses through customer service.
It also ignores the fact that even if we accept his premise and if we assume that every single cent of the R&D money put up by the US comes in via high health care payments (it doesn't - a bunch of it is government funded and/or funded through charitable organizations), then if the US going to a universal healthcare system somehow halved the cost (bringing it down to the French level, while extending coverage to all), and this price cut somehow only came out of the money that'd get pumped into R&D and thus cut it to the bone, nothing would be stopping America from taking the savings and putting them right back into R&D.

In other words: Money doesn't magically disappear just because the way it is distributed changes.
Voted up in hopes that tptacek sees this so I can watch him rip it apart. ;)
While this regulation will clearly be disastrous for America, can you imagine the windfall of campaign contributions and lobbying frenzy that will ensue as a result of this thing passing?

Timothy Geithner or whoever is crafting this proposal is probably licking his/her lips at the thought of a $200bln industry on their knees willing to write a check to anyone who has the power to decide who are the winners and who are the losers in this regulation madness.

Administration: 1, Rest of America: 0

Could it be that the political system in Washington is corrupt beyond belief?
Since the gov't wants more control over all that money, doesn't IT have an even bigger conflict of interest?
Well given that the blub paradox extends to business-savvy as well, I think it's reasonable to throw some rough numbers out there for prospective entrants into the market to have some idea what they're getting into.

However I agree with you that it's ridiculous to dismiss the market based purely on these numbers. First you would have to compare to other markets you could develop software in. You have to factor the entrenchment of market leaders in those segments, and also how each of the relative markets are growing or shrinking. Finally--and this is the thing that is keeping me out of iPhone development--you have to factor in the risks of developing on a closed platform with strict and arbitrary entrance requirements and how those things may change in the future.

Both Apple and Facebook have the ability to rip the floor right out from under your profitable app. Personally I think they are both great platforms, but I would not limit myself to them unless I was just trying to do a quick flip. In terms of long term value I would want those apps to be tied to some valuable backend service or open web technology that would not completely kill the business if Apple decides to kill my app.
Embracing REST with mind, body and soul (Rails and the new respond_with)
UK government reveals details of ID card crypto
Some other nice things:

• Offlineimap uses maildir format, used by some IMAP servers like Dovecot. So if Google ever goes evil and locks you out, you can just use your own server instead.

• Theoretically you can use Offlineimap to reproduce exactly all your mail and folders/labels onto another IMAP server. This would be pretty useful for migration, but I've never actually tried it.
I agree. I really like their release cycle and transparency. They produce a solid product, they understand their market, and they are innovative. The only thing I don't know is how profitable they are.
I work in a one developer shop. Short story, nothing nice was setup when I showed up. Here are my tips and what I have done.

1. Force yourself to follow a set of rules.

2. Force yourself to follow a set of rules.

3. Setup a test server.

- When I took over all the projects were updated on the
the production server.

- The test server should be a clone of the production
and regularly updated.

4. Setup another server (hardware or VM) for your "department"/yourself. This is your "production" server for yourself/"department".

5. Setup some kind of ticket tracking system. Be sure it
supports multiple projects, time tracking, scm tracking,
and some kind of wiki/documentation.

- Start your wiki listing how you are cloning your
production system.

- Create projects for the projects currently in production

- Document those projects

6. Setup some kind of SCM.

- Pick one. Which one? Mercurial? git? subversion?

[ commercial ones not listed, because more than likely
you have a zero dollar budget ]

It honestly doesn't matter. Just pick one and stick
with it no matter what people say. When asked why you
picked one over the other. Just say "I needed it."

- Learn SCM strategies.

- Write policy for your SCM strategy.

- Follow your own policy

7. Educate the users on how to submit bug reports.

- Inform then that emailing you does not get the problem
fixed

- Bug reports let them track your progress and allows
for open two-way communication.

- It also gives your superiors a way of monitoring and
measuring your success in the workplace.

[ if they don't "see" your worth then you are worthless ]

Last, remember that you are a policy maker as the sole
developer. Implement policy that helps you set standards and
expectations not only for yourself but for your users.

good luck

edited for formatting
Fail isn't an interjection, it's only a verb no matter what 4chan retards think.
(perverse alternative method)
Travel to equator (or pole, but equator is nicer). Take 1 rope and form a Turkish head knot. Attach to second rope to form pendulum. Set pendulum in motion and wait for plane of oscillation to precess 11.25 degrees, or 1/32 of the way around the circle.
Yes, but these companies determine what to invest in based on how much profit they presume to make. Should profit be the only motive to creating new treatments?
Access to a family doctor has nothing to do with the fact that our system isn't private, it has to do with a well known shortage of doctors.

To the point though: I reject the notion that there is effectively a single country conducting health research that the rest of the world is leaching off of. It's preposterous and unsupported. Further, even in the USA a vast majority of medical research is government funded!

If the US moved to a single payer system, medical research will change, not end. That's the same thing that happens whenever there is a disruption in any industry.

To suggest that we will a reduction in medical innovation because the US suddenly collectively and not individually paying for medical coverage is to spout nothing more than PR that various corporate interests would love to pay for.
Rightscale. They put out such a solid product and make using ec2 so easy, it's not even funny.
You're argument is bullshit and comes from a place of ignorance

You need to learn to argue civilly. Then you might not get down-voted.

No, the province of Quebec did...

Fine, that doesn't affect my argument.

You just gave examples in both Canada and the UK that showed that you most certainly can.

No. There's a difference. The UK system says "we'll give you $X for treatment A; if you want the more-expensive ($Y) B you get 0". What I'm arguing is "we're willing to invest $X; if you want B, you'll have to kick in Y-X".

In concrete terms, suppose that my hypothetical colon cancer can be treated for $50,000 but there's also a $60,000 treatment that's better but the government doesn't cover. The UK says that I have to "take it or leave it"; they won't let me get the alternative by kicking in the extra $10,000. I'd have to pay the full $60,000. For practical purposes, that's all but a prohibition.

You're fighting each other for a dwindling and ever more expensive piece of the pie

This is wrong. The pie is enlarging; everyone has access to better healthcare than anyone could get 60-70 years ago. The increasing expense is due to the availability of additional treatments. As Mr. Kamen said, there are treatments (e.g., polio) that were in effect infinitely expensive two generations ago that are now within the reach of literally everyone. The stuff that's outrageously expensive will be available for our kids.

But not if nobody develops them. If those researching new treatments can't sell those treatments because the gov't puts a wet blanket on the industry, then the treatments will never be sought.

Another thread in this page claimed that government funding would prevent this. There's a little truth in that, but it all revolves around the politicization of disease. We can already see the effects of that: government subsidizes AIDS/HIV research at something like 10x the rate of breast cancer, normalized to the number of people suffering from each. It winds that we help those with the best lobbyists, not those with the most need. And that's certainly no better than the Adam Smith's invisible hand could do.
Seven Lies About Lying (Part 2)
I've been building checkers to learn jquery. firebug enabled + red moves first:

http://notsquidnote.com/checkers/checkers.html
"But really, what do we want as a society? For a two-digit number of extremely wealthy people to have access to the world's best prosthetics, stuff that is in the realm of sci-fi? Or for everyone to have access to "good enough" prosthetic technology that advances more slowly?"

If you choose the latter then you are short-sighted, because in the future everyone will be worse off.
Companies weren't interested in the internet until they could make a profit. The same way they aren't interested in treatments/medicines/cures unless they can make a profit. What if these decisions were made altruistically based on how many people you can help, regardless of the profits...
Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman Pink Unlocked
Sony Ericsson W595 definitely delivers an accelerometer sensor to auto-rotate the screen according to your orientation. inbuilt features of Bluetooth, 2.2 QVGA display, FM radio, audio jack, motion control, USB, walkman player system, and 3.2 mega pixel camera.
Here's a start:

On cancer: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596 and http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080716...

On heart attacks: http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/01.CIR....

On access to medical technologies: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/13/4/113.pdf
I simply don't believe that pricing for the sedan. The price of the roadster was originally hinted at being about $70k. It jumped several times to its current $109k, as the car came closer to production. And, if halving is the goal, we'd now have to guess the sedan will sell for $54.5k.
... In the US. Which is one country out of many.
Prove this.

This is nothing more than conjecture and PR taken to laughing stock levels (outside of the US at least).

Even in the US, the largest research funder is in fact the US government, just like every other country.
The government doesn't make money, your government representatives do. I would think that the government representatives would make more money by keeping the healthcare lobbyists in place. Then again, maybe this healthcare threat is simply a shake-down to get the lobbyists to give them more money. Who knows.
All of those apart from app store/battery are AT&T. None of those are issues in the UK with O2 as the carrier.

Battery life sucks if you leave 3G on, the app store is meh.
DigitalSLR
Moving to Argentina has given me a newfound respect for the USPS - their reliability, sense of duty, and their humanity. In many ways they are a representative slice of America - flawed but generally reliable, hard working, and flexible.

Losing things in the mail, spending hours waiting in line to pick up a package, christmas presents delayed for three months for no apparent reason, all of these experiences down here make me miss those guys.
not to denigrate the smart people and great work done here, but i think this is a pretty depressing list when looked at from on high. this is the creme of the crop of all the yc hacker intelligentsia? suprisingly banal imhop.
My guess is (a). Scala is a really interesting language, and has some serious (and undeniable) benefits, but the Scala community seems to have the same permafrost problem that torpedoed Python, as well as a bit of 'technical excellence over everyday practical value' (e.g., Scala's proliferation of operators and syntactic magic).
"you can't take the baseline and then pay for the overage"

If that was allowed, there'd be a fuckton of nickel-and-diming going on where it'd be very difficult to avoid being forced to pay overages.
While we're theorizing, what if you knew you could make a pill that would be "a painless treatment once a year that would stop all aging and disease but costs $1 million." But it takes a company 50 years to develop and costs $1 trillion in research. Could a company take such a risk? Could the government?
RPGDX Has Announced Their Summer 48 Hour RPG Contest
In Italy, you can't sent a package without tying a &&(* string around it.
The sedan is planned to be sold for 59k. That is before the government refund of 8k.
Who in the United States doesn't have access to healthcare?

Quite honestly, I don't see why this is such a massive issue with everyone right now...

Medical innovation (in it's current state, meaning building things on a molecular level) is prohibitively expensive. Gone are the days when a guy in his basement can hack out (or stumble upon) some great new wonderdrug like penicillin.

These things are not cheap to do...

Also, how does the US Gov't plan on getting the cost of healthcare down? If there is some magic wand that they can wave and make everything cheaper, then why don't they do it? Why do they want control over this so badly?
This is actually quite helpful, thanks. I did look at neo4j, but I got as far as noting "this doesn't have queries" before giving up. So thanks for pointing out that Lucene might help with the querying part.
I am using couchdb (with couchdb-lounge) to store distribute a large dataset for a computationally intensive scientific application. So far so good.

MongoDB is heading that way, but its support for partitioning, which couchdb-lounge is performing adequately already, is in alpha.