skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are dangers involved in eating at McDonald's, going to grad school, talking to strangers, thinking things through very carefully, dressing funny, starting religions, getting married, staying single, doing meaningless homework, getting a cubicle job, and heeding the advice of your high-school guidance counselor. The dangers are quite severe, including heart disease, getting beaten up, and living a wasted, unfulfilling life (a fate worse than death).
In a post a couple of weeks ago on HN, I commented on the difficulty of redesigning the human body. In many contexts, people often suggest "obvious" improvements to the human body, the classic being "let's just get rid of the appendix". But I've get to see a redesign that I can guarantee is actually a good idea.

Here's another example, where some people considered it "common sense" that we'd be better off not swinging our arms around, but, when actually investigated, it turns out that what the human body is actually doing is done for a reason (in the sense that not doing it is less optimal for the body, not in the "intention" sense), and those who thought there was a trivial improvement were wrong.

Just something I thought I'd point out, since this is such a perfect example.
Yes, and in any given season, all things being equal, organic food tastes better. You are just telling yourself what you want to believe.
The Hangover: AOL Gives Time Warner’s Quarterly Results A Headache, Again
All I can think of now when I hear someone reference the Segwey is Woz playing Segwey polo on one. If that doesn't say dorky, I don't know what does.
Book Review: The Passionate Programmer
I have a Segway (a black i2). I'm sure that people think I'm a dork, but that doesn't bother me. It's fun to ride, and it gets me to class on time, unlike the bus.

Graham's comments are dead-on, but don't let that stop you from getting one if you want. What other people think (especially the average man on the street) doesn't matter as long as you don't want anything from them.
Users & customers validate #2 better than investor opinions. Whether or not it's viable to experimentally build depends on the domain, but if this is holding you back, you can choose an idea with a low startup cost.

Finding a team also helps validate the idea. Bouncing your thoughts off sharp colleagues is a key step in honing your idea. Once they're excited (about either you or your idea) you pop the question.
Except when they don't.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/Th...
choice quote:

"You cannot outsource blame. You HAVE to take responsibility for your mistakes,
whether they are mistakes in your code, mistakes in code you are using,
mistakes by your host, or mistakes in who you trust. These are all security
choices. Learn to control this shit. Learn how to read code. A lot of the time
it only takes a very shallow audit to realise that the code is crap and is
bound to have bugs. In a smarter world, security professionals get paid to stop
people from getting owned. End of. These is no limit to the scope of an audit."
Unusual Paintings of Obama Naked with Unicorns
Did you notice the link and decide to respond with a non sequitur, or just miss the link?
I'm pretty sure that the main reason we're not there is that many people actually prefer roofless cities.
Steve Jobs' take on the Segway:

"I think it's coming along," said Tim, "though we expect—" "I think it sucks!" said Jobs.

His vehemence made Tim pause. "Why?" he asked, a bit stiffly.

"It just does. [...] Its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant, it doesn't feel anthropomorphic."

This is from "Code Name Ginger: The Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World". The chapter with the meeting with Jobs is available here:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html
Remember these are physicists so this solution only came after they spent hours trying to throw string across (you may neglect air resistance) float string across (you may neglect the mass of the string) and jump across (assume a spherical physicist in a vacuum).

The mathematicians came up with the string solution, but only after a few days of attempting to drop the ball of string from the bottom to the top because they had a different convention about coordinate systems.
Pop science doesn't vindicate textbook science which still discourages high amounts of saturated fat.

And the Massai (and Inuit) referred to in your link are hardly good examples. They have short lifespans (as low as in the 40s), suffer from atherosclerosis and thickening of the arteries. The Inuit are also not long lived and have a high rate of osteoporosis. These groups' "adaptation" to a high protein meat diet is hardly desirable. They are forced to eat a high meat diet out of circumstances, not as a chosen optimal way of life.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/26

American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 95, No. 1: 26-37

ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN THE MASAI
I would use a panda. A cool panda, but not too cool so that children will get confused. Because, remember, stay in school.
The list of the most famous hackers has been made over and over again and hasn't changed a whole lot (RTM, Mitnick v. Shimomura, ...), but it seems like the list of famous hacks continues to grow. Are these old school famous hackers really so famous they're that can't be unseated, or are the new jacks just getting the short end of the stick?
My conventional grocer ships the kale to Wisconsin from Georgia, and by the time it gets here it is yellow and wilted. Compared to the farmers market, where the kale I find is dark green and crisp. Same story for most other produce. The winters drive me crazy, because kale grows great in January in Wisconsin, yet the grocers insist on shipping it from Georgia, so I go without.

Efficiency compared to what? Stripping of minerals? Loss of topsoil? Petroleum dependence? Water contamination? Yeah, it's true, conventional farming is more efficient at all those.

You're concerned about needing more farm land with "organic" practices, but in truth, "conventional" farming is destroying arable land at an alarming rate.

Edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/09/soil/mann-te...
And here I thought the reason the Segway never caught on was because it was prohibitively expensive to own and didn't fulfill any real need.
Closely held corporations ought to have buy-sell agreements, which are legally enforceable contracts, at the beginning. But if in fact the company is tanking (= a share of ownership in the company isn't worth much), this may not be worth suing over.
I noticed it was a link to men's health and my latent homophobia prevented me from rtfa. (I am only half joking.)
Handy Tips Regarding Creative Business Cards Printing
A market's efficiency is inversely proportional to its complexity -- proportional, that is, to the average understanding of its participants.
Um, "stealing software worth 1.7 million dollars"? Software to do what, exactly? To run the environmental control system on IIS. Ok. So, what exactly does the development cost of the software have to do with the fact that Jonathan James downloaded the code? This makes it sound like NASA was out $1.7 million. Idiot reporters.
Apture and Kiw.is = URL shortening with a twist – Blog – Apture.com
What do you think the options are / will be?
Here's the example link from the post: http://kiw.is/5q
Do people really yell insults at Segway riders?
Meet Leah Culver, Open Source Girl
I think they just needed the right celebrity sponsor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbRSQVsOX_Y
It is speculated that the Masai are protected from their atherosclerosis by physical fitness which causes their coronary vessels to be capacious.

Exercise, exercise, exercise.
I disagree - it's called margin of error and confidence intervals. If the difference is not large enough it can easily fall into the realm of statistical error.

I would check myself I were you. Disagreeing with research is fine, but calling a bunch of trained scientists liars is a pretty serious accusation, especially when you yourself are not trained in the field.
If a bunch of supermodels were to come to your house and have sex with you, which kind of condoms would you use?!

Cross that bridge when you get to it ;-)
Yeah, that's not how most people work. Whether we admit it or not, we want people to like us even if we'll never see them again.
I don't think that's a valid argument. It's perfectly okay to notice that what you're benefiting from is not something you want to support. I can replace words in your argument thus: "It's amazing how many people have jumped on the safe work conditions bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of horrible work conditions in third world countries."
Umm, not legally. The USDA regulations specifically forbid artificial preservatives. (Natural ones like citric acid are fine.)

They can and sometimes do cheat, even though the fines are enormous, but reading labels won't help with that.
Ask HN: Aftermath of startups? Or fail stories?
It's not good to think of failing but as we all know there is a good chance of failing for startups. Do you have any stories about the aftermath of failures? What happens after a startup fails? How do founders go on life? What about inverstor relations?
Confessions of a Quackbuster: Beware the spinal trap
Except that Kamen has achieved something, while Wolfram has not achieved much. Kamen created new technology that helps people. What has Wolfram achieved in the last 30 years?
I'm with pg. Take the recent movie with the mall cop. I only saw the trailer (I swear!) but a cop in uniform, even the rental version, isn't really dorky. But put him on a Segway and hilarity ensues!

Another thought experiment:

1) Cop on a horse

2) Cop on a motorcycle

3) Cop on a mountain bike

4) Cop on a Segway

I've ordered them, I think, from toughest to dorkiest. Maybe you could swap the horse and motorcycle (though horses are huge). But is there any doubt the Segway is in last place and by far?
"Programming" and "Software Engineering" are different things.

Are there any engineers in the audience - not software engineers, or even computer engineers, but mechanical, electrical or civil engineers? My guess is that there's about the same level of "what you learned in school is never enough for practice" as with the "real" engineering disciplines, but I don't have any experience with it myself.
EPS (Email Parsing System) is intended to give people the ability to write their own email processing tools. Whether you want to process incoming and outgoing emails, or just analyze a message, this package is intended to aid in that endeavor.

http://www.inter7.com/index.php?page=eps
What?! You don't consider Mathematica a technology that helps people?
The best thing the Segway has contributed to society are the antics of Will Arnett's character, Gob, on Arrested Development. He showed just how dorky the Segway really is.
just my opinion but text is popular because you don't have to make those decisions quickly. it lets you communicate with less exposure.

if you don't know how to reply to a certain statement, you have time to think it over or not reply at all where with voice if you do not reply, the other side will have an easier time pressuring you into it.
Bing on Yahoo search results pages is a product endorsement. Users will become familiar and comfortable using a Bing branded product. Bing Sports is a text ad on the current "sports" search results page. It'll go from, WTF is Bing to, "oh Bing, they have sports news"

It is like BMW switching to Toyota engines and putting a little sticker on the dashboard that says Powered by Lexus. How long will BMW last when that happens?
Not to mention that you look like a tool and they are banned from the sidewalks of SF.
Google has a strange way of not just reinventing an industry (like they did with search, docs, and you could even say the calendar) but they constantly do so in such a way that is promotes the industry. They never destroy something because they can to eliminate competition. (like GM did when they bought and subsequently ripped up the street car lines to make more room for their cars)

In times like these, efficiency in the system is a must, and thankfully they are not sacrificing any for their brand.
100 twitter tools
Don't know if anyone has posted this yet. If it's already been posted, I apologize for not taking the time to look through the prior posts.

Otherwise, I hope you guys can make the best of this!
Sure the segway has it's issues (as does Dean Kamen) but that didn't stop him from amassing a cool billion + dollars so it seems he's doing something right.

The guy holds 100+ patents and instead of resting on his laurels he just keeps going. He certainly has my respect (for the work he did, that he got wealthy of it is secondary to me).

Anybody that would want to use a segway but doesn't because it makes them look smug has self confidence issues that the segway could never cure. If you need it and can afford it use it otherwise don't. Image doesn't enter in to the equation.

That's the same nonsense that top gear gets in to, cars for hairdressers and that sort of crap.
While not Steve Jobs, I will always remember Maddox's thoughts on the Segway:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=segway_more_...
Thanks for providing a more interesting response than GP.

In the absence of 'textbook' science citations, I'm going to have to rely on 'pop' science that does provide citations to respected scientists at accredited institutions who have performed actual studies.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/ provides another copious set of links to refutations (based on citations, not appeals) of traditional saturated fat studies and other indications of its overly maligned status.

I'll also note the penultimate sentence of the abstract you link: "The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more than compensate for this disease."

Exercise or not, it's worth noting that the study does not draw any strong correlation between saturated fat and a decreased health.
Came here to say this, with just one addition:

I think there is a select group of people for whom the Segway has a legitimate use--I'm thinking along the lines of people who have trouble walking long distances (say, more than 5-10 minutes). I've seen a lot of people using the Segway for this purpose.

But as a normal means of transportation? No. Price, need, rules for usage etc. are pretty big hindrances for purchase.
It's a valid question! Nicky Barnes would brand his heroin by using electrical tape instead of scotch tape -- apparently, it worked. But most drug sellers compete based on customer service, since it's hard to control branding.
I agree that the dork factor is working against the Segway, but I don't think it's the dominant factor in it's failure. If Segways were significantly better solutions to the problem of transportation in dense areas, ordinary people would have started to use them and the dork factor would have faded away.

In my view the biggest reason for the Segway's failure is that it's a product designed for an infrastructure that doesn't exist. Kamen and his team envisioned cities without cars when they were designing the Segway. Unfortunately all that's available are crowded sidewalks, making the Segway the most expensive way to move along at walking pace.
No tributes to Fravia? The list seems incomplete..
What is your definition of "caught on"? They're doing about $50MM/yr in business, so there is a market.

The problem with Segway, IMHO, is that the initial hype was completely misdirected and Dean Kamen drinks far too much of his own Kool-Aid.

Segway has made a good inroads in the police and security market, as well as the tourism markets.

For what it does best, it's really not that prohibitive, but for consumer transportation, there is less ROI in most cases.
Hopefully Pot will be legal in the USA so the rest of the world (especially china) can take over world domination :)
Well, I don't use Mathematica, so it does not help me. There are other computer algebra systems out there. There are substitutes. By contrast, Kamen created medical devices that help save lives (e.g., dialysis systems, insulin pumps, etc). I love software, but some problems can't be solved with software alone...

Though Wolfram started Mathematica, he has not been actively contributing to it for many years. So, while Mathematica has helped many mathematicians, the kudos go to Wolfram AND his programmers. As much as Wolfram loves to project the image of the lone-wolf genius (and fail to give credit to other people), the truth is that Mathematica is a huge team effort these days.

So, imagine that Mathematica had not been created. Mathematicians would be using other computer algebra systems. If Kamen had not invented his stuff, people would have died. They're playing entirely different games. Sure, Wolfram was a teenage genius that got his PhD in particle physics at Caltech at age 21 or so... but he needs to invent cold fusion (or something huge like that) to attain the fame and notoriety his ego demands.
I don't think there's any legal responsibility to make the shareholders money, just to serve the shareholders' interests. Usually that interest is "make a good return" but there's no reason it needs to be that. Maybe the shareholders formed a company to create functional art. In which case, money is merely a means to the end.

(I don't know the law, though, so maybe there is some legal requirement to make money)
Arizona May Sell State Capitol Building To Balance Budget
Toyota Humanoid Robot Runs At 7 Km/hr - Awesome Vid
Perlmonks hacked: It's Time for Everyone to Change Passwords
Online video watching nearly doubles since ’06
Oxt Weekend: "Not this weekend but the weekend after"
The EMH doesn't take in to account arbitrage risk (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1292533) among other things.

Bonus questions:
Is it so inefficient that models based on EMH should be replaced?
Is there a better assumption we can base finance on?
everyday ...reddit (2005-2009)
Don't know if anyone has posted this yet. If it's already been posted, I apologize for not taking the time to look through the prior posts.

Otherwise, I hope you guys can make the best of this!
That's not the worst part. From the article:

"Today, James asserts that he's learned his lesson and might start a computer security company."

However, if you read the Wikipedia page THAT THEY LINKED TO IN THE ARTICLE you'll learn that Jonathan James committed suicide in 2008.

I believe the Internet term for this is "FAIL".
Market research can be useful, but there are two significant drawbacks to it for innovative products:

1) the User Interface drawback, read any books on designing HCI and you will be told not to do as the prospective user initially says he wants, give him a mock-up and see how he uses it, he probably doesn't really know what he wants until he tries it; in this type of case without a mock-up or practice, an experienced designer will probably do better than market research would;

2) for something really innovative who is the prospective market and how will they use it?. If it is REALLY innovative, then even the designers are likely to mis-judge how it is likely to be used. This is related to pg's common refrain that a startup will likely change direction, sometimes more than once.
Many sites suffer from this sort of spam. It's all a form of advance-fee fraud. I wonder if anyone has found an effective means to combat it -- logistical regression models, keyword filtering, etc.
Well obviously the immediate effects of being poor and living in a third world country are going to dominate any long term effects of chemical buildup, all the more so in polluted areas where the individual may be exposed to much higher levels of toxic chemicals in general.

The rest of your comment seems irrelevant. I'm not disputing in any way that plants have toxins or that we had to develop various practices to make us safer. I don't dispute that many man-made chemicals are safe and useful. I don't even dispute that pesticides could conceivably improve safety from a hypothetical insect-born contagion.

However genetically modified mono-crops sprayed with heavy loads of pesticides simply to increase yields does not strike me as something that goes towards food safety at all. It goes towards short-term profit, and you can bet the cost of any long term health effects is simply ignored until 30-40 years down the line when the soil is depleted and the effects of various pesticides have time to show up in the human population. At that point the industry will throw its hands up in the air and say "how could we have known?" while pushing the new and improved fertilizers and pesticides with a new batch of as-of-yet-unknown problems.

That's why I think it's a good idea to eat more traditionally raised food. It's not because I'm some hippie idealogue or because I don't believe in science or progress, it just strikes me as a safer bet given the severe holes in nutrition science, and in many ways, the intractability of solving the health "equation".
A related thought: I guess Coca-Cola, with their "Coke is it!" ad campaigns, might begin to re-brand themselves...
so somebody is actually going to be making money from twitter! :)
I am also a big fan of FIRST but think he has the problem of having had success early in life and therefore doesn't know his limitations. Take a look at the FIRST logo for instance - it sucks. And the name, FIRST robot competition, makes it difficult to explain to someone and impossible to brand: "What do you mean first robot competition, I have been hearing about robot competitions for years."

The Segway is a classic engineering failure, a solution in search of a problem. They developed the iBOT wheelchair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT
and where looking for a way to sell a commercial version. I think the quote "medical device styling" is right on. If, instead of using his usual industrial design firm, he had given this to IDEO and had them pump out 20 different versions they might have had something.
Let the White House know about Paul Graham's idea for a Founder Visa
It'll take you two minutes. Copy the contents of http://paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html and paste them on http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

Provide your our comment, attribution, message, etc if you want. Maybe if enough of us do it, someone will read it.
HN shout-out 1:00 in.
Congress: File Sharing Leaks Sensitive Government Data
The meaning of "organic" is getting watered down:

http://www.manyhands.com/articles/story.cfm?id_no=6010024200...

For example, "products labeled 'Made With Organic Ingredients', which contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients, but can contain up to 30 percent non-organic ingredients"
It's just an interesting data point really. Although if you have no genuine interest in functional programming then you'd better really like booze.
Matrix of Emails against Email validation checkers
I was just walking past his childhood home the other day, on the way to the beach. There's a small plaque commemorating the location, but that's it. I'm not sure whether the house is still in his family.
'electric smoke'
And then ethere's an excellent play called "Glenn" that is structured around and like the Goldberg Variations.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1552450589?ie=UTF8&tag=... (Fully whored link).

Glenn Gould is depicted at four different stages of his life, and like a contrapuntal piece of music the four characters speak against and with each other in various combinations. If you love Bach's music, this play is an amazing experience.
Great idea! Would love to attend.
Spot on. Kamen just needed to change the design a bit so it would look cool and fun to ride. Add a seat, make the rider lean into it, angle the handlebars, whatever.

The bottom line is you need to make the person look like they are "driving" and "riding" and not "being transported."

All they needed to do was the "teenager test" -- put it in front of a bunch of high school kids and see if they'd ride it in front of each other.
At 13 pages I think this document made the leap from cheatsheet to small tutorial.