skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
To simulate a universe you'd need to be able to solve, or at least approximate with great accuracy, the n-body problem.

And we can't even do that with n >= 3 (without restrictions).

To simulate a small universe you're talking about one hell of a large "n".

Some physics are fundamentally not workable with logic and processing power due to exponential growth requirements for each additional n (and it makes no difference how large or advanced that other universe is)...

Those same physics require something much more fundamental, the fabric of space-time itself with some energy/motion introduced into it.

Hence the only way to "simulate" a universe is to create one... But then it's not a simulation at all.
XDATA participant here...

I completely agree with your emphasis on the community as one (if not the) defining attribute of what makes open source special. I think, however, that attitudes towards open source in government are definitely starting to shift. Events like the (3rd annual) Open Source Summit [1], and efforts like XDATA contribute greatly to overall awareness of the importance of understanding and embracing open source in government.

As far as supporting established OSS projects, this is definitely a big part of what XDATA is doing. Several of the projects on this list have well-established communities at the Apache Software Foundation (e.g.: OODT, Spark, Shark, Mesos, Tika) and others have strong ties to university research programs (Stanford, University of Washington, USC, UC Berkeley, etc.)

In a sense, what XDATA is doing is helping to connect these communities and funding them to come up with ways to collaboratively leverage their software and skills to solve data-intensive problems.

[1] http://ossummit.org
Ask HN: How stupid is Droplr, really?
Everyone gets that businesses need to grow. And startups need to thrive.
yesterday I found a SPAM email from Droplr (I received a few days back), saying that "your 30-day free trial of Droplr is ending tomorrow ... If you do nothing, your account will be disabled, but all links will remain active. If you'd prefer to delete your account, you can do that at droplr.com/user".

That clearly means two things: my data will be stuck at Droplr (i.e. can no longer access it) + I can delete it from the link above.

The first unfortunately turned out to be true - I tried to check one of my drops today no luck - I gotta subscribe.

The second, not very true: if I go to /user it just redirects me back to /upgrade.

This means two things: Either I subscribe, or my data will be lost in the interwebs, forever.

And here's the worst thing: all my (and your) drops are still available.

Thoughts?
The thing that bothers me about it it not really the interviews...it's the fact that you're going to have to spent 8 hours a day everyday, for years with these people.
Think about that.
Oh, get over yourselves, both of you.

He's just starting a conversation, and while I wouldn't advocate handing out participation ribbons, you're just trashing someone that had a thought and expressed it--you and gfodor are buddying up to one another over how worthless that thought is.

Spare us your revelry.

I'm as big a fan as a dirty flame war as anyone. I find complaints over HN's critical culture to be tiring and self-defeating.

But if you're going to be negative, don't give each other high fives about it.

Edit: I suppose this is directed more at you, lutusp, because gfodor seems to be posting criticism in earnest.
Since the beginning of hacker news this has been one of the most discussed topics here. Paul Graham's essays are a good place to start.
You're right. I think "unstated, untested assumption" would be better than "flaw" in that context. If indeed it turns out that a simulation can be more compact in its host universe, then maybe everything really is a simulation, and it's simulations all the way down to infinity. But this would defy my intuitive sense of the nature of reality (derived from things like the conservation of matter and energy, and the geometric idea that four inches of space won't fit within three inches of space), and would effectively allow infinite computation within a finite space.
Was the hack-a-thon in NJ? I'm still trying to figure out how they're involved in any of this...
Another irony is, the act of seeking mental health services can, in some cases, be used against you in future medical, legal, and employment situations. This might also explain why so many people, while being supportive of professional mental health services, seek alternatives.
Cool idea. 100xxx harder than flappy bird. I pass :)
That is quite a leap to assume root access. A user mode database should have write access only to partitions that are mounted noexec. That would make getting root privileges quite hard even on a vulnerable kernel.

Also with proper hardening you can prevent the kernel from being modified even by root. Things like FreeBSD securelevel that once enabled blocks writing to kernel memory and raw disk devices.
It was not. Nor are the authors from NJ or have any ties to the state. Yeah, it's pretty confusing.
So. There are sports which don't require competing with other people in any real sense - take a look at rock climbing, hiking, riding bikes, SCUBA diving, tai chi, yoga, dancing etc etc. Some of these can be solitary if you don't like big groups.

On the physical pain side of things - that's just the hump you have to get over, and I agree it sucks. Once your body is trained to do a basic minimum of exercise, the endorphins outweigh the painful aspects, and it feels good man. Like, really good.

To your original question, I suspect 20min a day walking is a bit low, both in terms of your overall exercise per week, and intensity. Intensity counts for a lot in fitness, IMO it's worth pushing it a couple of days a week, go for a run or something. Or join a club that does some kind of fun exercise.
Because nothing could be accomplished without avoiding constant distractions which comes from society. When Sartre said his famous "the hell is other people" he probably meant this too. Others, like Mishima, Rand, Nabokov, Hesse also emphasized if not loneliness but certain safe distance from so-called society. It is perfectly ok to be alone from all that socially constructed reality they created for themselves. Like Tibetans said "the hell is a not a place, but a consequence of behavior of inhabitants".

So loneliness is required, at least it is more bearable and natiral condition for those who is labeled as by society as "introvert" or "autist" or other words they cannot understand. Introversion is an effect, not a cause, and with good books, like "Catcher" cited by OP one is never alone, and it is a better condition than being "social animal" before TV set, or with a bottle on the street.
Basically an opposite response to the one they provided in the Aaron Swartz case.

Sure, there are big differences between the two cases (among them, the fact that Swartz was not himself a student at MIT, and the fact that the Tidbit team faces not prosecution but a subpoena--albeit a subpoena that presages prosecution). Nevertheless, the narratives are strikingly similar: boundary-pushing, widely-respected hackers confront aggressive and ambitious prosecutors, where the right kind of support from the school can make all the difference in the world.

Is MIT being hypocritical here, or did they learn something from the Aaron Swartz tragedy? Or maybe the differences between the the cases are actually what is significant.
One of the issues I have is with this style of interviewing, period. This has no relation to the way I actually work. I don't write production-quality enterprise application software at a whiteboard in front of a group of judges. I don't hear the problem and immediately start writing code. Instead, I think the problem over, perhaps google around about it, perhaps discuss it with my colleagues. I spend more of my time as a developer planning, prototyping and designing solutions than writing code. If you think it through carefully first, you can write the code quickly in the end. Just not on a whiteboard in front of a group of critical judges.
This advice is far better than it sounds:
> “Find better people,” he replied.

That was exactly my reaction on reading that phrase. IIRC, pg says something similar in "Why Nerds Are Unpopular": we all want the approval of our peers, but one of the advantages of being an adult is that you can choose who your peers are.
We’re Shutting Down and I’m Scared – The Aftermath
MIT failed to support Aaron Swartz, with very dire consequences.

Do the right thing, MIT.
We don't have to sever all the transoceanic cables to protect sensitive networks from foreign intrusion, we just have to stop plugging them into the Internet in the first place.
the goal of business

The goal of some businesses, yes. Not all. And even the ones that do have this as a goal only succeed to the degree that we, as customers, let them.
Letters With Strangers
OP is incorrect that psychology is not a science. The remainder of the discussion is quite tedious, and shows that the OP has a very confused notion of mind body separation (hint, by and large they are not, whether you're a dualist an epihenominist or something else - I tend to something else but wouldn't feel confident to write my viewpoint down).

What is correct is that experimental designs are more or less not possible in behavioural psychology. This could be OP's second point of confusion. Essentially the only time real experiemnts as opposed to quasi-experiments are possible in science is where a known physical quantity is already well understood (e.g. moles of Hydrogen, quanta of photons, metres of distance, joules of energy etc). Where complete control over a known physical quantity is not practical, the only possible experimental design is in fact a quasi experimental design. However, to claim that quasi experiments are not valid is to deny a large amount of scientific knowledge, and flies in the face of deductive logic.

Next up we have this whole notion of falsifiability. It's a red herring. The discipline of psychology was the original field that enabled the types of statistical analysis that underpin much of the modern economy. Psychology provided the intellecutal basis of using single case studies (e.g patients with a rare or unique illness) to further scientific understanding. In psychology this resulted in much of our understanding of the functions of different parts of the brain prior to the development of neuroimaging.

Finally, lots of concepts in computer science originate in psychology - heuristic being the one that comes to mind at the moment. My entire development methodology is based on the idea that human short term memory is fixed to 7±2 items (based on data from quasi-experimental studies). Thus when I am writing code my primary purpose is to only have to attend to 5 things at a time, at most, as this is the lower bound of the reliability of my short term memory.
It happened straight away. After clicking on any of the data, that's what happens.
I lost 80 pounds through walking->jogging->running over the course of about a year, going from 310 to 230.
Well, the NJ Attorney General is probably a less imposing opponent than the DOJ. But I agree.
That sounds like an expensive way to do it. Shin splints are incredibly common for runners of all types, and a lot of the solutions are well-understood.

1. Get fitted for proper running shoes. There should be shops nearby that will watch your running style, and advise the right shape of shoe for your foot.

2. I wouldn't recommend running 'barefoot' full-time to start with, either with something like Vibrams or literally shoeless, but this is actually what fixed my shin splint problems. Most people who haven't trained in running are terrible heel-planters - striking the ground first with the heel, then rolling through. That jars your shins and legs (and upper body etc, it's all connected) something fierce. Running barefoot pretty much forces you to knock that shit off, and the results are quite dramatic.

So maybe don't go straight for barefoot, but either do a few short runs on grass shoeless, and pay attention to the way you're running. Aim to run on the balls of your feet only, and slowly relax into a flatter running style, but DON'T HEEL PLANT.
Just signed up. Looks nice. But kind of creepy that I had a profile pic on the site without having to upload one.
> The advantage Persona supplies is that even if you do choose to use an email associated with real identity, Google (or the email provider, e.g. Facebook) will only see a "Sign in to Persona" event, and will not have additional data revealing that you had signed in to Islington CC (in this case).

In this case, it would seem size does matter. If alice@example.com is the first user from example.com to sign in (or first modulus cache of exmaple.com's key at the service) -- example.com will see 1) a sign-in-to-persona-for-alice@example.com in close temporal proximity to a request for it's certificate from the service.

That's how I read:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Persona/Identity_Provide...

anyway?

So, if a site already has gmail.com's persona cert on file, google will only see that alice@gmail.com uses persona (and only whenever alice needs a new/refreshed persona session).

I don't think this is much of a flaw, but there definitively is a bit of traffic going back and forth. But much better than with the alternatives (that I'm aware of).

[edit: and obviously the site/service will get the email address as well, but then most other solutions also require the site to get the email address]
Thank you for providing evidence to back up your assertions. Oh wait . . .
Gravatar maybe?
The logic should more precisely be: the dynamics of the universe, ie. the things that physics allows, includes the operation of Turing machines, so that the physical laws are at least Turing complete. Thus, the universe, from a computational point of view, a computer.
Me, I just accept the suffering. With my interest in entrepreneurship and technology I have drifted apart from most of my friends (who spend their time with kids and hobbies nowadays) and never really became close with anyone in the startup community - everyone seems too busy with their own stuff to pay attention to others.
Maybe it should be pointed out that the real thing is open source as well.
The tooth fairy and the traditionality of modernity
You found a way to make it even harder, great...

Jokes aside, this is really fun and challenging.
FWIW, I think you should advise the algorithm you're using to generate the "wrong answer." It appears you're calculating `(a ± rand) x b` as the wrong answer, but that often means the units digit will be wrong, which is an easy tell. That is, 11x999 is going have have a "9" in the unit's digit, regardless of the rest of the digits. I think it would be more challenging to run a mix of `a x b ± rand x 10` as "wrong answers," to make the game more challenging (... since it's not already hard enough).
If someone can show a track record of having changed their views, and their arguments are from the perspective of achieving a greater understanding, and not of cramming some ideology down others' throats, I'm markedly more willing to consider that they are sincere in this statement.

It's not necessary to bend in every wind, but I look for some signs of adaptability.
It also looks like you'd want to avoid flapping into the top of the pipe.
also bitting. :)
> Initially, they were. Then they became important to protect Europe from the Soviets. I would argue that to some extent they're still fulfilling that function.

I've got some news for you about the Soviets. I hope you're sitting down...
The homepage has no JS other than analytics and cloudflare, and css/html is super clean. Quite a nice departure from the typical bootstrap+jquery combo.
This

this is both ridiculous and, unfortunately, true. If it is a concern for you, you can ask that your therapist not take notes, then there is nothing physical to subpoena.
Such a weird case. Tidbit doesnt even do anything interesting, it is a demo of a clone of an existing piece of software (used to steal CPU cycles from victims, which is why NJ is interested).

NJ is I guess confusing cause and effect, and suspects these MIT 'geniuses' of supplying thr 'prohibitively complex' code to the known criminals and then trying to use that same code to win honors at a hackathon?
Ask HN: Found Huge Security Vulnerability – what next?
Okay so I have found a major vulnerability in a Fortune 500's system that can be exploited to reveal/modify critical customer information. This particular company has millions of customers. A similar vulnerability at, for example, Google or Facebook would easily fetch $10,000-$20,000.

The company does not, however, have any sort of vulnerability reward program. I also have a previous felony conviction for computer hacking and I'm trying to avoid any additional legal trouble.

I'd like to be compensated for discovering this vulnerability, and I'm wondering what the next step(s) should be.
Quite right, we wouldn't want to let any facts get in the way of belief. That's how science works, isn't it?
U.S. law firm ensnared in NSA surveillance
This is true. However, part of the thinking behind persona is that most sites will want to let you reset your password, so they store: salt+password:username:email. Some are being "clever" and use the email as the username -- hopefully paired with a numeric/uuid uid -- so that when you change email providers, you can retain your account. Some might store a phone number for recovery etc. Some require a working email in order to register (to fight spam accounts).

Further, in general most sites will log your ip, be able to match that to your username, and so, unless you're using tor, be able to provide enough information to track you across sites anyway.
I found that the usvsth3m gave "you can't do binary under pressure" has a similar issue. http://games.usvsth3m.com/binary/
MIT has a new President at the time of this writing vs. the Swartz case. Could be a key driver.
Climate Change Cartoon
That is happening already. Cisco took a big hit for this reason. However, it isn't going to become a hemorrhage until some competitor offers and markets an open and verifiable alternative. You can bet that US diplomacy is working hard to make sure nobody actually dares sell against NSA back doors.
It blows my mind that some very famous people submit comments here.
I tried to cancel the cable part of my package after the promo expired. After a few minutes, the then offered me $10 off my monthly bill and to extend the promo another year.

The cable box will remain off and unplugged as we never used it but they're obviously just trying to keep their numbers up for some reason I can't comprehend.
C Self-hosting it would be problematic, if/when using FB isn't an option
Rescue Time is good. Not sure about UI though!
If like me you haven't heard of this story here is some more background: http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N4/abelson.html . Still looking for some project information I will update the post when I find it.

EDIT: eff post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/eff-challenges-new-jer...

EDIT: hackathon page: http://nodeknockout.com/teams/shoop-team

EDIT: Looks like they have taken down a lot of the posts linked from nodeknockout.com
8 Pro and higher have `gpedit.msc` but a lot of the policy items map to the registry. I imagine these [1] are the registry keys for that configuration item. It's just a matter of configuring them.

[1] http://m.kapilarya.com/how-to-disable-help-tips-in-windows-8...
PC vendors are mostly selling a commodity product, competing on price, so the margins are slim. Apple is selling an image, which reduces the price competition, and increases the margins. They also only target the top of the market; a lot of the PC volume comes in at the very bottom end, which Apple doesn't even touch: you can't get a mac for less than $600, and they don't ship anything with less than an i5, skipping three tiers of Intel processors.
I was going to rebut this with an optimistic outlook but then I went to apply and... well, let's just call the application "tone deaf" and leave it at that

sigh
I agree, next step is a more intelligent algorithm. Also plan to add options for selecting times tables and changing distance between pipes so it's friendlier for kids to play. Thanks for checking it out!
There is a small delay between clicking and the impulse that makes this quite harder than the original, even before the math.
If you're going to go as far as running it in an emulator... then why not just write something that works in process and avoids the whole visual feedback / physical input loop altogether? It's how bots are written for MMO's like WOW.
In those cases, there is usually a non-player server that can be targeted.. Also, there is absolutely nothing stopping this kind of attack from hitting multiple servers; the only limit is the total bandwidth.
A 60 hour work week? Jesus. I pulled those before college at a factory. And during college at a gas station. But now? Hell no. I average 20-30 hours a week with a daily nap. But then I don't really care about money so long as my family is happy and comfortable.
Computability and Complexity
Internet-only service costs within $10 of your TV+internet package? That's odd.

You could have cancelled tv service and asked for a promo discount on your internet service. Calling with specific knowledge of a competitor's plan and threatening to switch to it gets you the best deals.
kudos, the site has a clean interface. Though I have no idea how to use the site properly. Is there any tour guide to the side or a simple welcome page on how to use it?
Try to paste the Gettysburg Address.

"Four score and seven years ago..." - the sentence is very hard to read.

"all men are created equal" and "we are engaged in a great civil war" - passive voice.

And so on...

The moral is that you should not trust an automatic tool to judge your writing style.
It is uncanny how well the visuals go with the music. It was playing "Robots With Rayguns - Right Through Me" while showing clips from 80s movies and it was a serious trip back to 1986.
https://github.com/wting/hackernews

... though obviously the real thing isn't open source, as pg and kogir have made numerous changes they're not releasing and AFAIK they're not taking pull requests on news.ycombinator.com (but they do have a bug tracker @ https://github.com/HackerNews)

Odd that in all this time no one seems to have forked the original code and iterated on it. Deployed it, sure, but not (say) fixed any of the bugs that annoy people about HN, or made it better.
Show HN: Flappy Bird in the command line
I want to add something a lot of people don't know. When you have cable+internet, you end up paying about 20% taxes+fees on the final price. Some of that is government taxes, some are misc fees, but it's a lot more than your state sales tax.

With just internet, there are usually NO taxes+fees, not even state sales tax. So even if cable+internet cost the same as just internet, you will still end up shelling out $10 more. The $50 cable+internet option will cost $60, whereas the $40 internet option costs just that.
Flappy
`Just wanted to see if this got to the front page of HN (based on what I am seeing, there is potential).
Which is, itself, Balkanization. It also entirely defeats the idea of having a domestic Internet in the first place. Do you not know of anyone who VPNs into their work intranet over the public Internet? Even the government does that.
Performance is indeed pretty bad. The code I adapted it from (floppy bird) just uses divs and css. Maybe I'll just rewrite it in canvas if I can't improve things :I
I think most of them are inefficient workers. There's no reason, other than doing a critical surgery, to work on a single task for 15 hours in a single day. It's ridiculous.
Julia for Matlab users