skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Can this be used in robotics? I know the air-compression muscles provide some of the best performance for grip and human-like motion but they require noisy heavy equipment and can be costly. Although this solution looks more primitive it makes me wonder if it could be engineered into an effective replacement at a much lower cost and weight along with silence when in operation.
> Have you, or any of the other people on HN who repeat this ad nauseum, ever considered the possibility that the people running google are actually just hackers who got lucky enough to have the resources to pursue projects that they think are cool?

Have you considered that making this impression on gullible people has been part of Google's schtick from the beginning?
It's worth thinking about which of these services you need:

- Book-keeping: Keeping track of paperwork, and movements in cash/bank. Ideally these are entered into accounting software monthly (or more frequently). Some small, cash-based businesses just put paperwork (receipts, and copies of issued invoices) in a shoe box, and give that box to their accountant once per quarter or once per year.

- Statutory accounts/tax filings: If you were a Limited company in the UK, these might include (i) annual accounts filed with Companies House, (ii) annual Company Tax Return filed with HMRC, (iii) quarterly VAT return filed with HMRC, (iv) PAYE (payroll tax) filings with HMRC.

- Monthly management accounts (for you and your investors)

- Planning and advice: at a minimum this would include planning to minimise tax (you can't leave it until compliance time) but may also include cash flow planning or broader business planning

There's more detail around each of these things. I'd be happy to go into more detail about any of these as it relates to UK-based companies.

(I am a qualified accountant but the above is general information and not advice.)
Yes, Tinder Works in Antarctica
> it reminds me of other languages where it's global (JavaScript)

Ew, I didn't realise JS had them and implemented them like that. It's supposed to remind you of Perl, which probably made more sense 20 years ago.

> It get's confusing. And even as a local it is still bad. How is it that the =~ operator can assign local variables? Can other method calls do the same? If not, why not?

Actually, they're not locals, they're "virtual variables", going by the code. You can make your own using the C API - they just call back into a function:

rb_define_virtual_variable("$&", last_match_getter, 0);

Same way things like $LOADED_FEATURES, $_ and $SAFE get managed. It's probably just as well it's not exposed Ruby-side ;)
Gravit – A new design tool
I hope it is okay to post a weekly update on our Design Tool's Progress. We've released a first alpha preview yesterday which you can try online and play around at http://gravit.io.

The application has been in development since roughly about two years and is completely based on HTML5 so you need a latest browser for running it. It works pretty well considering it is all Javascript and Canvas though.

Let us know what you think. We highly appreciate any feedback at this point so we can take any input into the current development to really shape the design tool that serves your needs.
1. Parking provided by businesses is not free. It's already internalized. Only free city parking is not internalized.

2. You show only that the governments are failing to internalize these costs. Don't punish the users: punish the governments. They're the ones in the wrong.
The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula
Yep, that's exactly what I felt too. The only question I got wrong in fact.
Governments are controlled by people (at least with democracies), people want cheap subsidized private transportation, so the people get what they want until its not tenable anymore.
Polymer updated with new look, new logo, and new beginner content
Some people actually prefer the palm oil in the Nestle KitKats, just as Cadbury tried to tell everyone.

I suspect it's a similar phenomenon with people who prefer HFCS Coke to cane sugar Coke. If you're used to palm oil, cocoa butter will make your chocky bar taste "off".
Given that this looks more like a microcontroller, I say AVR or 8051 would make a better "real thing" recommendation (YASP looks somewhat like a mix of AVR and 8051 to me - the upward-growing stack in particular, is not common and the first MCU to come to mind with one is the 8051.)
Either this idea was made years ago or I had the idea years ago, I'm pretty sure the former. (Can't really remember, but it's very familiar to me, think I can vaguely remember visiting a site like this in the past.)

Personally I can't imagine ever using something like this, not sure if that's because the concept is flawed, or because of my personality, or perhaps it's simply a service aimed at school crushes rather than adult life. But would be interested to hear from someone who thinks the opposite.
Worst. Kit Kat. Ever.
Facebook, Google: pay for my time
I met a South African septugenarian living in Arizona who imports his chocolate and candy from Australia because what the Americans have to offer is such low quality.
Godiva chocolates are also dreadful and unsubtle. I tried a little bit to find edible chocolate when I was considering moving to the US. And when I want a simple chocolate bar, I'm not interested in a bitter high cocoa dark chocolate.

See, it's a quality of life thing. I don't want to have to go to specialty stores to get a treat that doesn't taste like vomit at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. I don't want to have to make my own ice cream to get a nice chocolatey flavour. I don't want to have to bake my own biscuits to get edible triple chocolate chip cookies. Etc. You get the idea.
Space detection is very exciting to me, but this feels like a technological stopgap. Is there any research being done into "blind" space detection, that doesn't require the use of cameras? Is that even possible? It would be amazing if I could have my phone in my pocket and (for example) adjust the rotation of a nearby camera based solely on my hand gestures.
You are both right, there is no better way to put it.

My problem with the whole thing is that you get sucked in and by the time you realize what's going on, it's too late to turn back.

You get tempted by the amazing gadgets and services, somehow your whole life ends up in Google's computers. You think it's just a bunch of geeks like you. Then Snowden blows the lid on the whole thing and now you're in some Philip K Dick story.
I'm curious to know more about the course, e.g. the target audience, objectives and content.

One of the reasons for my curiosity is that I'm unaware of any specific subsidies for accounting courses. Another reason is your comment "you resort to double entry".

Double-entry is fundamental to accounting, in the same way that memory is fundamental to computing.
I was pretty shocked when I bit into a slice of "Healthy Choice Wholemeal" bread in LA and found it sweeter than a slice of raisin bread back home.

Similarly, to me corn bread is meant to be savoury, not so sugary it's like a slightly caramelised cake like I had in one place in NO.
Not everything is running on Linux you know, and therefore not everything is prone to the 0 day remote Linux kernel exploit. Get yourself other backup layers on other operatying systems, like Tarsnap, that runs FreeBSD, and you should get another level of security.
Why BBVA is good for Simple
I humbly disagree, having tasted European chocolate. Godiva is pretty good, and certainly orders of magnitude better than Hershey's.

Divine chocolate (Whole Foods) and Ritter Sport milk chocolate are even better. I mean, really, take your pick. There's so much variety. (EDIT: Though, in retrospect, I guess they aren't made here. But I still say that Ghirardelli and Godiva are pretty good, even if they're not the best chocolate I've ever had.)
I've thought a lot about HyperCard.

In 1994, when I was in fifth grade, I used HyperCard to make a demo of a program that would allow you to fax a grocery order to a store using a modem after you checked off the items you wanted to buy. Then the store would deliver your order to you. I didn't actually know how to make use of hardware devices like modems, but it was possible to make the user interface work reasonably well on a Macintosh LC II. I was of course bummed that there was no color. (HyperCard was black and white only unless you used proprietary extensions, which could sometimes make things run very slowly.)

The author of this post seems to think that HyperCard was "before its time," but it wasn't. It defined its time, and ours. It was a huge part of what made the Mac so appealing to so many people--the ability to sculpt new technology in a custom manner. There was no comparably easy-to-use tool on the PC--Visual Basic didn't come close--and there never would be. The result was that all kinds of Mac owners developed their own stacks that solved exactly whatever problem they thought needed solving; PC owners had to hope that a software company would make something for them.

What's sad is that now our computers are so much faster than the LC II I used in fifth grade, but even if they're a hundred times faster, they're certainly not a hundred times easier to develop for. Most fifth graders, even smart ones, probably couldn't write an app in Objective-C that does today the same things a HyperCard stack did in 1994. HTML5 is the next best option, but it's still not as easy.

I worked on a prototype of a modern-era web-based HyperCard with a friend, but we stopped working on it because there was no VC interest and it wasn't clear if there would be a good business model. It's a shame, because HyperCard is one of the things that most excited me about computers when I was a kid. I still miss it.
Haha, sounds like me. Using bootstrap and playing around with the styles, I can get the project 80% of the way there visually. I never feel satisfied with my designs though... having a style guide to follow would probably be able to bump me past that.
I think the issue probably comes from tourists purchasing their favourite snack bars, such as a KitKat or Mars, age being unpleasantly surprised. Here in the UK, I love these chocolate bars - definitely nothing like candle wax?

This extends to more than just chocolate though. The Big Mac using mechanically recovered beef would be a big unpleasant surprise (which doesn't happen here except for the nuggets).

Mix that in with cultural differences, you have plenty of horrors (I've heard egg mayo is blended in US rather than mashed together so it's chunky, which has horrified many a Brit). However, anywhere worth holidaying has great food to eat do I don't think it's fair to say its 100% bad. In my opinion, the bread in Spain sucks (unless fresh) yet I've eaten at many great restaurants and bought great snacks.
I want to emphasize just how good this book is. It may very well be my favorite thing I've read and I was also initially skeptical when it was presented as fan fiction.

I think I might restart reading it.
"It's clear that Kleiner lost their first bet on health startups" - What do you mean by this?
There is no way to get your money out, plus there are a number of other issues with them. Gox is dead. Read up on reddit.com/r/bitcoin or bitcointalk.org
It could be a very subtle AML tactic. BofA asked me if I remembered the name of the staff member who set up my business account prior to letting me make a wire transfer. Of course, since they can't tell you it's AML you think they're insane until you catch on and give the standard answers.
That is basically what Trader Joe's does.
It's true that "consumer chocolate" in America is pretty bad, i.e. anything made by Hershey's. Too much sugar and not enough cocoa.

Good stuff should be above 57% cocoa. If it's less than that, buy high-quality milk chocolate.

That said, other commenters on this thread are correct that it's not too hard to find good chocolate if you just know what to shop for.

My all time favorite is Valrhona. It's by far the best chocolate of them all. Obviously that's personal preference.

We're lucky that we have at least two awesome local brands in the Bay Area. Recchiuti chocolate is awesome, the only location I know of is in the ferry building. Tcho chocolate is the other one and I've been told that they do some interesting stuff with analytics to create the ultimate chocolately goodness.

I care little for Ghirardelli. I went to Ghirardelli Square as a kid and it was fun, but it's just not my thing now.
It is fact, not opinion, that Hershey's chocolate contains an olifactory compound found in vomit.
It's historically important but frankly I believe Self is a very flawed language in several respects for anything other than prototyping.

Smalltalk has aged much better IMO regardless of it's relative market irrelevance.
This list is amazing. To experienced programers, what it's like to make a serious project using any of these?
Did I understand this correctly, will this actually map onto virtual Earth geometry at the same position and scale as real-life? That would be amazing, you would literally be able to use Google Maps to walk inside buildings and look around not to mention it could be the first Earth-accurate metaverse. Imagine sitting down with a more advanced pair of Google glasses and being able to see both your real-life environment and its identical online copy with virtual avatars navigating the hallways along with your real-life co-workers.
Telegram – A safer alternative to WhatsApp
node.js, primus (for websockets), angular.js and mongodb
it's all ready to use in https://github.com/nherment/node-boilerplate
That's roughly the difference in the UK as well. My sister does accounts and tax for a number of small-ish businesses. She provides a part-time book-keeper for those businesses who don't do it themselves (either on-site or remote). That way (i) the business is paying only the rate necessary for the service they need and (ii) she has a decent starting point for remaining work (accounts preparation, tax calculations etc.).
What makes you say it probably won't happen if we model the human brain?
What about next season?
That would be fine except Hershey's chocolate really isn't very good. They use way too much sugar and not enough cocoa to really make it respectable chocolate. The only reason it sells well is because of market dominance and that many Americans are deprived of exposure to good, high-quality chocolate.

When it comes to food we should remember that the Bay Area is a total bubble. Some of the finest food in the world is produced here and some very innovate and ground-breaking work in the various food movements came from here.

Sorry, but Hershey's gets me worked up.
large money crush imagination and suck all the life out of creativity, of all people zuck should've entertained huge ecosystem of various clients that suit other people's needs...
They should have solved that issue then, not just consider it.
Did Yuna Kim Get Robbed in Sochi Olympics?
Has anyone used these, and can they give me a comparison: tmux/scree/byobu

Currently a byobu user, it seems fine so far. Wondering what others offer more than that.
> I don't need to file a flight plan, I just go

Always (ALWAYS) file† a flight plan, and stick to it. If (when) something happens this will save you. Countless experienced pilots went on their own, had a trivial issue, landed at various vertical velocities and died because they were known to be missing but no clue where to be searched for. Also a proper flight plan includes timestamps, because it is not just a matter of position in space. Don't assume people will know, make sure of it.

BTW this is not just valid for airplanes but for any remote adventure you're undertaking, even on foot. A bruised ankle can mean death in remote areas.

† although preferable, it might not be to an official/local authority but to whoever cares enough for you to be trusted with your life.
Google unveils smartphone with 3D sensors
remember a number of things (in UK at least):

Employee hidden costs: Employers NI, PAYE, car allowance, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, paternity pay, training, pension, healthcare

Contractors have to pay all of that from their turnover - along with professional indemnity insurance, public liability insurance, accountancy fees etc.

And note I said turnover. There seems to be this misconception that all contractor payments go straight into the contractor's pockets. They don't, they are business receipts that go into a company. That company then pays the contractor.

What contractors do get is the ability to shift things around as they see fit. Employees are stuck with whatever structure of payments to make up "the package" is decided by the higher ups.
Forecast.io update
Yes, it is completely futile, if you ask me. I've thought a lot about the varying arguments, to the point where all parties from agnostics to the religious and/or spiritual and even the (noisy) atheists frustrate me for their absolute confidence in their own 'logic'. But, and it's a big but, from a human point of view, futility should not be cause for concern.

Life is beautiful (to the average human) in so many ways. Anyone who can read and contemplate this kind of post has won the greatest lottery in the universe, and those winnings shouldn't be squandered on worry and complaint.
Hm, that is a shame. I wonder if there's a way for technology to help change that. Maybe by offering a graphical budget breakdown of spending that the public can browse? I remember seeing something like that for the federal government, and it was pretty eye opening. I guess there's no incentive for a terribly run government to roll that out, though.
I also use byobu but byobu uses preconfigured screen or tmux configuration. You can choose the tmux or screen backend with the commands byobu-tmux or byobu-screen.
Because it can't be withdrawn and Mt Gox will probably disappear soon, taking people's coins with it.

People buying it are buying the coins at way below market rate, essentially gambling that Mt Gox will eventually allow withdrawal (presumably they have other bitcoin investments too), while people selling are sensibly trying to get what money they can out before the company folds.
Java And Scala: Former Competitors May Be BFFs Before Long
Ask HN: What are some network security/IA topics you'd like to see researched?
Like the subject says.

Background: I have an opportunity to do some post-grad research in the near future and am having trouble finding something still unexplored.

I'd originally wanted to look at encrypted protocols which end up revealing (through metadata, etc.) what's really happening. However, I see a lot of work has already been done in that arena.

So, I'm turning to the collective wisdom of HN for ideas on where to focus my efforts. I'd prefer something IA- & network- related, but would gladly consider anything.

Thanks!
> The thing that steamrollered HyperCard was Visual BASIC

True from a market standpoint, I recall one of the Mac magazines had an article about jerry-rigging a database front-end in HyperCard, and it was clear it was no VB.

However, more similar in spirit to HyperCard was Lotus Notes, with its networked hypertext document databases where data storage was largely abstracted away. That was a proprietary web before there was the web. (However with an awful UI and ugly templates.)
Google unveils new smartphone prototype with revolutionary 3D sensor chip
EBay Inc. Acquires Computer Graphics Company PhiSix
That was my first thought (and why renting is in general uneconomical for anything other than temporary purposes) - but then, if you were bringing them home and back next time, you'd have to pay extra on baggage charges, so then it becomes baggage charges vs. rental charges, I guess.
Having grown up in western Europe and moved to the US at age 24, I feel the exact same way. Most products (examples that still strike my mind: home tools, buses, street signs, desk lamps, food, etc) in the States are lower quality than what I would find in Europe.

But stuff in the US is also usually less expensive. So I guess it is just an effect of the free market: US buyers preferring lower quality but less expensive products...
I don't know about the milk chocolate suggestion. The taste comes from all the fat that comes from the milk and you have maybe 20% cocoa. You may just as well have a smaller piece of a dark chocolate with a glass of milk.
The present may be the only time that exists, but what matters most is the quality of life in it.

One contends even in such an unfortunate event as your wife is experiencing, her fitness and otherwise excellent health means through treatment she'll enjoy a higher quality of life than someone out of shape with a body not ready for the battle.
Digital Elite Camp 2014: Data-Driven Marketing and Conversion Optimization
If FB hired him, then one of the other N messaging apps would have become the biggest one, and Facebook would have bought that company.
That seems insanely low for Google.
I use screen and tmux for different tasks.

I'll use screen when I need to run a long-running task and can't keep my terminal session open.

I use tmux with a script so that I can ssh into multiple nodes and broadcast the same commands to them all at the same time. Great for interactive deployments that I haven't been able to automate away with CFEngine just yet.
NSA agent charged with beating his 3-year-old son
This is a joke, right?

Hershey's uses paraffin (wax), copious amounts of oil, and so forth to ensure that their product has a uniform texture. If a "nontaster" would prefer any product, it would surely be Hershey's, not a good European chocolate bar.

M&Ms don't taste the same the world over. They taste very different abroad. So you might want to rethink your claim of being a supertaster, since you apparently can't taste most of the differnces the rest of us can!

I grew up with Hershey's, and it was obvious to me from a very early age that it was nasty. I could barely even bring myself to eat pure milk chocolate from them. The only thing that was bearable was if they put peanuts or something else in it to hide the taste.

As a kid, I always assumed that it was because they loaded it up with corn syrup and industrial fats rather than actual cocoa butter. And it turns out I was right... only about 11% cocoa in the "chocolate." It's like Taco Bell and their meat which they're legally not allowed to call meat because it's mostly not from an animal. Using soured milk is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say.
> Do you test a person's ability to build a $16 billion company?

This is called "being a VC"
Advertising, just like Google.
Make a course...
Take a look at this guys submission history. Flagged.
JMonkeyEngine 3.0 Stable – “Capuchin Prime” released
I don't doubt your sincerity. Unfortunately, all of us have bugs, and if that bug in one step from write access to repos -- that is unacceptable.

I hope that Github is reactive enough to get permissions setup in a failsafe manner so I can give this a spin.
AI resurrector lets people Skype their dead relatives | Springwise
Great, I will probably give you a try when I get a chance.
I've had Hershey's chocolate before. It's not that nice.
Time travellers: please don’t kill Adolf Hitler
Add a blog of other subpages with content...
Chatsecure has real problems on iOS. In fact all XMPP clients do. Because of the way iOS multitasking works, Chatsecure and other OTR-based XMPP clients can't carry on working in the background so you end up losing the connection.

I've used threema for about a year and dived into an older version of the client and found it good enough (assuming you're more bothered about the provider knowing what you're doing rather than the NSA etc.).
There's always forks.
LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already