skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Energy spending as percentage of income has gone down.

Also, the inflation adjusted price of gasoline hasn't really changed in a brutal manner:

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

It's twice as high as the 'typical' trend, but vehicles make better enough mileage to eat most of that.

Edit: and if you drill into it, the shipping cost of the food at the grocery store is probably less than the gas cost of driving to the store. So shipping hits prices, but it hits them when a $0.05 shipping cost for a package of whatever goes to $0.10.
My browser can type my credit card information faster than I can.

Honestly, `autocomplete=off` is an unwelcome attempt to try to save me from myself.
This explains why I don't get recruiter spam... ( I live in Brazil )
I've used Perl extensively inside the BBC, Credit Suisse First Boston and a few other big corps. Also was a dev on a global warehouse management system written in Perl. But saying your startup is using Perl is not going to get you funded or laid anymore (and I miss grunge too) so there's not much love for it in Valley/Incubator circles.

These days I'll drop into coding in Perl for the regex syntax and backticks. But the reality is there's not much difference between it and PHP in terms of features. Used to be that it was better than Ruby because of performance and stability but they're about par now. So I don't think there's much point in evangelism or debate about Ruby vs Perl vs PHP or even Java anymore because they all get the job done in pretty much the same way. From a practical PoV I'm more interested in languages that actually do something well that other languages suck at e.g. node. I wrote a FSM/Long Polling web server implementation in Perl using epoll() before Node came along and now I love node more than most (and still wear the scars from a particularly tough hashref autovivification bug).
Erlang/OTP 17.0-rc2 has been released.
Not these faux "shutdowns".

Especially the latest one, where the Park Service went to great efforts, employing a lot more armed Rangers to keep people out of anything they could claim as their turf, including things open 24x7 without corresponding 24x7 coverage, like the WWII Memorial. But not, curiously, a rally for immigration "reform".

Look, I spent a dozen years "inside the Beltway", I know political theater when I see it. It's just that, not "hardball". Heck, they even made the furloughed employees whole, as they have in times past.
He never said he's spending more than he's making, or that he's failing to save money. He asked about why things aren't better than they are, and whether things are that way for everyone else.

Telling him to cut costs is absolutely absurd. He didn't ask for advice and he didn't say his costs are extreme.
Obviously I have very limited experience with jobs though wanted to share some here. I am getting a few recruiter emails lately from various companies. Some of them really do over-estimate me (I always tell them the truth though) and some just don't mind and will continue the recruitment and interview process with me. For example, this week someone tried to recruit me for a senior level (from a famous company). I told him the truth; I am only an undergraduate senior, I can't really call myself a senior level engineer. At most, above junior level. The email, I am not sure if it was generic or not, but started with "I'm impressed with your experience and work...". It could be just a generic body - to make people like me excited about the email! From what I understand, they usually just crawl through mailing list and Github-like places. So to students out there, participate in OSS and OSS mailing list will get you some attention. I promise.

I obviously don't mind someone getting me 30 recruitment emails every month. But I guess when I reach that level of famous, of competence and successful, I will look at them as spams. If I want to recruit someone that successful, I'd meet that person in real life. Go to the conference, walk up to him and tell him the offer.
If he's actually in proper Seattle and not the surrounding area, the nearest affordable housing might be dozens of miles away from where he works, increasing his transit costs considerably.

As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, Matt Yglesias's book The Rent Is Too Damn High is good on this subject; increasing rent is not some law of nature but a result of development restrictions in many metropolitan areas, which got started in earnest in the '70s and the results of which are getting worse every year with population increases and rising returns to knowledge creation (see Steven Berlin Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more on both).
I meant using a VPN through TOR, between the client and the VPN service. This prevents the TOR chain from sniffing, at the cost of the VPN service potentially seeing your client.
The change that they're making to Chrome only affects password fields.
Why would you blame the study authors for doing a correlation study? I know "CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION!!!" is the go-to takedown on the internet, but correlation studies actually can have significant value - otherwise peer-reviewed journals wouldn't publish them.

I'm also skeptical of Politifact's competence to adjudicate public health scholarship.
I don't disagree with your general reasoning and what you wrote in the post, by the way. I think I agree with it. It's just inappropriate for the discussion, at least as it's written :-)
The one thing that made me take my current job is the personal touch I was given. The person who contacted me was simply just being human, and not seeing me as just another number. That makes a difference.
I recently moved to US (from India) and I was shocked to see how the "free market" economy is structured to bankrupt the middle class and poor. Indians have far less income than Americans but are somehow able to save more.

Here are some basic problems I see with economy:

1) Rent: When people are paying half their paycheck to rent a studio apartment, there is something seriously wrong. The monthly rent in most areas is more than 1% of the property value, which is insane. Why pay $2,000 per month to rent, when you can buy it for $1,500 per month mortgage which won't increase every year and will build value towards your equity. In India, most people own houses or spend around 10% to 20% for rent; despite the property being far expensive than US. Example: it costs $500k to $1 million to buy a 2 bedroom apartment in Delhi, but you can rent it for $600 to $1,200.

2) Healthcare: Our healthcare expense in India was less than $500 per year (without insurance). It is more than $20,000 in US, and we are still held hostage by medical practices and insurance companies. Examples: wait 3 weeks to schedule an appointment with your doctor; $this is not covered by your insurance; pre-existing conditions.

The drugs I bought in India for $10, costs $200 in US; there are drugs created by Indian pharmaceutical companies and sold to US pharmacies for $1 (they still make good profit on it), but it is sold for $100 in US. The prices are artificially inflated so high that it is not affordable by 99%, so they are forced to buy insurance. This isn't free market economy, this is extortion by monopoly; there should be no place for middle man in healthcare.

3) Banks are designed to screw consumers in every possible way and suck every penny out of your account. It's is not much different in India; just the amounts are lower and banks are regulated by Government.

3) Service & Utility companies: most people pay around $100 per month phone and $100 per month for cable. In India it costs $5 per month for cable, and most people pay between $5 to $15 for phone. Moreover, there are no draconian contracts and service is much better; phones work in remote villages and even in lower basement of concrete buildings. It is silly how a company's 'Terms of Service' can hold consumers hostage and even super seed the law.

4) Consumerism: Americans are obsessed with credit cards and buying everything they can't afford. Why does a minimum wage worker spend $100 a month to buy an iPhone when there are prepaid Android alternatives available for much less? Why do people making $30,000 to $40,000 buy BMWs and $2,000 purses?
> A fairly small studio apartment in the area where I live is approaching $2000/mo, minimum

Unless you live in NY, SF (/me waves!), or DC, that number is grossly out of touch with the actual costs of rent in the United States.
https://www.robinhood.com

Anyone else think this web design style is getting very cliche?

<snazzy background>

LOOK THERE IS ONE SENTENCE HERE

... scroll scroll scroll ...

WOW ANOTHER SENTENCE

... scroll scroll scroll ...

WOW SO DOGE

... scroll scroll scroll ...

...
"meanwhile the Koch Brothers and hollywood quietly funnel bajillions of dollars into superpacs and get all the politicians in their pockets."

Here's the problem. You probably think the Koch Brothers is one of the biggest spenders. The joke of it is that they aren't. Their PAC network isn't in the top 10, but they are good targets for certain networks (in the same way Soros is for other networks). Heck, some of the stuff Koch is for horrify Republicans.

Hollywood, as a whole, is much more effective with money, but money is not their only weapon. The glamour of Hollywood and mingling with celebrities has always attracted politicians. Look at the celebrities testifying in front of Congressional Committees. Does anyone honestly believe they are the most qualified to testify? No, but the can surely attract the attention of politicians so it makes up for the lack of expertise and is one hell of a money equalizer.

The media is not a neutral observer and their pointing to "enemies" is a distraction for themselves and their friends. Go find the actual contributions and PAC spending to see what is real. Big Tech needs to deal with reality and the actual system.
Game A Week: Getting Experienced At Failure
That's the simpler explanation, but Occam's Razor is a thin reed to lean on, because simpler doesn't equate to correctness. Let's inspect: "the US market doesn't give jack shit". But how would we know? The media hasn't even tried.

I imagine this would piss me off if I were a Rachael-Maddow-watching soccer mom. Show anchors are hired for their ability to work up their viewers. Taking pics of me in my underwear is a softball. Notice rasz_pl's comment below -- any producer worth a damn sees the potential in this scandal. So why is Brian Williams not leading off with it on the Nightly News as he did with the snoopware-webcam story from over a year ago? Who the fuck can tell me that? Open your fucking eyes man, and start asking your own questions.

As for "this only pertains to UK citizens" - this program wasn't limited to the UK. In many ways, the UK spying on the US is more sensational. Furthermore, the NSA and GCHQ have blurred the lines between jurisdictions. As for "only netizens would care" -- most people use the Internet. Yahoo is an everyman portal. This is an egregious invasion of privacy. Who cares if you're a netizen on this story? The story's content is not to blame either; general viewership can be enraged about esoteric things too (a great ex. the "bridge to nowhere" - just think about it).

The US would care if the baby-boomer/mainstream media tried to cover it, at all.
I meant javascript - my bad. The bug in Javascript was that it identified the MAC address, right? Javascript can still track client info if I'm not mistaken.
The xkcd on infinite scrolling is very relevant here[1]. It even uses the same book comparison!

I don't hate infinite scrolling as much as I used to, but I think that's just because I'm not a heavy user of any sites that have infinite scrolling.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1309/
Here's hoping Rust will give them a run for their money.
Perfect idea!
Now, for someone to code/write it as well.
Every time I've witnessed infinite scroll being implemented into a project I've been involved with, the decision was not made by the developers.
This is a fair point of view, and I kind of agree with it, but you overlook a very important question: Is he setting all the goalposts?

If the 'goalposts' are 'live in a studio apartment, pay for health/dental care, have heat and light and hot water', and the costs of THAT keep going up, what is he supposed to do about that? Will he be happier and better off if he gets an inferior health plan to save money? Obviously not.
> Legal tender, and paper money are not delegated to the federation, but prohibited to the states, therefore they remain the province of the people.

The power to emit debt instruments, including in the form of paper money, is, to the extent it is not included in the power to coin money and regulate its value (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 5) a necessary part of the power to borrow (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 3). See, inter alia, Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421.
It is awesome.

Remember mode is just a very simple way to remember stuff, and it can be plugged into org mode.

The biggie that I forgot is calc. Just awesome.
Too many hippies on this thread.

The biggest problem with the us economy currently is the erosion of middle class jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled labor. My grandparents lived comfortably on union jobs. Most of those jobs are gone now, and those that exist are paying less all the time. I know a man who is 60 working in a lumber mill making less then he ever has in his life (40+ years of factory work).

Yes sure consumption has increased with affluence but Many people don't realize how hard it is for an unskilled and unconnected person to find any kind of work. I know some Iraqi refugees who could not even get agriculture work because the Hispanic population always filled any open jobs through network effects.

The only jobs that exist for unskilled labor are service sector, fast food &tc. These may pay enough to survive in many places but it will not be comfortable or secure.

Second biggest problem is the rising cost of healthcare. 15% of GDP and growing, more than half of that is government paid (medicare / medicaid / etc). My father is self-employed so purchases his own healthcare, but there is no out-of-pocket maximum for him so when my mother was diagnosed with cancer there was a massive financial cost despite 80% being paid by the insurance company.

There are other problems as well, but those are the biggest cause of financial insecurity and lower lifestyle quality among the bottom quintile of US citizens.

Edit:

Fewer hippies after I had composed my rant. Re: rents. yeah they are bad but really only outrageous on the coasts. So depending on your location the rent can kill you, but in my hometown it was never a big deal.
hmm I thought that was mondo 2000 - I recall having to goto forbidden planet (the uk biggest sf book shop) to buy my copies of mondo 2000 which where racked together with skin 2 :-)
The Videogame That Finally Made Me Feel Like a Human Being
Yeah, a database with an unfamiliar paradigm in a project with late and constantly changing requirements, a major one of "no window shopping" in August, and others through the week before launch, is an obvious recipe for an extra big disaster.

Some people have theorized that Accenture's new role is to quietly replace much of the current code base with their not quite so horrible California exchange code.
> Also, it's not hard for a developper worth its salt to get productive in perl.

Unfortunately, it's productivity gained at a very high cost, which becomes apparent once you try to debug and maintain that piece of software.

Sure, Moose and other modern helpers will fix that to some extent, sometimes with other tradeoffs (performance). But the "malleability" of Perl feels silly at some point where you get a bloated, slow and lacking simulation of a type-safe language when you could use a much faster modern language with real static type checks and great maintainability (like Go) instead.
At that point, why use Tor at all? You need to pay for the VPN, so presumably they know who you are.
The recruiter emails are mostly awful. One of the worst was where a recruiter emailed me three times about a position, each time getting more desperate and ending with a title about how he will change my life.

On the flip side of things, a good recruiter did help me get my first job in the tech industry, and I'm currently enjoying a great experience with another recruiter who I met at several tech meetups in the area.

I keep a pretty low profile (excepting on github), and yet I get a few attempts a day, whether via phone or email...personal or work, and my work email isn't even publicly published as far as I'm aware. The spam has got to end - it seems like these are low quality recruiters.
I didn't think it was possible to drive from Alaska to Argentina. How did you cross the Darién Gap?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_Gap
Most recruiters are terrible (as far as spam mails go) but every once in a while I get a well written email, actually applicable to my skills, with some personal touch, and most importantly explains the job I'd be doing and which company they're recruiting for. When I get a "good" one like that I like to reply and thank them for not being a shitty recruiter and that I appreciate them sharing enough details for me to understand the role they're trying to fill. But, that's like 1 in 100 at most, a majority of the messages I get are "We're looking for an iPhone/Android/Xbox developer for a new secret project at a secret company!"
It's written as the last line of that section/paragraph. It's essentially a closing argument. The reader can be drawn in no other direction. If they says "interestingly" or such that it was obviously a small paragraph then maybe I'd not draw this conclusion.
http://priceonomics.com/the-rise-of-bay-area-rent-prices/

This is from 2013. It hasn't gotten better. Their median for the city I live in is $2395 (and for reference, I'm an hour+ drive from San Francisco; ~2 hours by train).

Rents around me have definitely been going up, even if they're not at $2400. And that's for studios/1 bedrooms. If I were to move into the exact apartment I have now, the rent on the lease would be a few hundred dollars more than what I'm already paying (despite the fact that they've been bumping my rent up as much as they can).

Yes, there are low-rent areas. But a lot of people don't have the option to live in them.
The former was chose to make a point, but I contest the fact that Monoid is extremely abstract. It's very concrete, it effectively describes an interface and if implemented according to certain laws it is a Monoid just like a Container or Iterator. The name has existed for nearly a hundred years in mathematics, it relates very obviously to any data structure that is a monoid.
It is a state of mind, at least in part.

Older generation, especially those through the hardsihps of war, are happy to live, period. Jobs we consider shitty today (like cashier or truck driver) are much better than infantry man in war torn Europe.

Today's people are much more spoiled, not just in consumerism, but the idea of being above manual labour, freedom to chase your unprofitable goal, not settle until you found a dream job are all quite new.
What's wrong with the names is that they don't communicate very well to the 95%+ of programmers who aren't in the FP/Haskell world. That's most of the people who are going to try to use it on C++.

I'm not a C++ programmer; I don't know what half the names are from the GoF book. Does that make them bad names? No! Since when should a word have to carry around its own definition so that people who've never seen it before automatically know what it means?

I mean, some concepts are clearly not able to be explained to the layman; you need some background. But do people really need to learn abstract algebra to be able to get their heads around this stuff? Are there no better terms that communicate to more people?

Concepts like Functor and Monoid and Monad are extremely simple. You don't need to go back to school to learn them. You only run into trouble if you expect them to be explainable by analogy to a more concrete notion.

And, given that that's the problem, clearly dog breeds are not the answer either.

It was a sarcastic remark but it highlights an important point I want to make. Assuming you knew nothing at all about dogs; if you were given a list of dog breeds and a stack of photos of dogs, would you be able to match the breed names to the photos? No, probably not. That doesn't mean their names are bad; you simply lack the experience to figure it out.
Bitcoin-Stealing OS X Trojan Now Masquerading as 'Angry Birds' and Other Apps
I think the message tree was stored in its entirety assuming it wasn't too big. But each of these messages was significantly smaller than the memory footprint of the DOM element in which they would have been displayed. The efficiency of putting new content into a DOM element at the bottom of the list (below the visible content) and reordering it within the parent (so it was at the top was significantly faster than deleting that bottom DOM element and adding a new child element at the top.

Give me a few minutes and I might be able to find the Google I/O talk where this was described ... Wave used GWT to generate its Javascript but it's a great technique for browser-based clients regardless of how you end up with your Javascript.

The method of "recycling" DOM elements is described in minutes 20-25 of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_CLzgEL7FA. I can't find the reference, but I also remember hearing that they used some preloading to make other operations on the screen react much faster (e.g. loading the first 25 messages for each wave headline in the list).
Right, but there is zero risk distribution which contributes to the transaction cost differential with other services.

If bitcoin were to become mainstream, the transactional cost would raise because of the overhead with risk deferment.

Cryptocurrencies will definitely become mainstream because of the international and speed factors, but I don't think it will be bitcoin.
If we assume for the sake of argument that MichaelGG is a Native American who is a member of a recognized tribe, I believe that "If tonight I get a vision that mandates I must use this chemical with my followers, I don't qualify." would still be true. I believe that if he started a new religion in his tribe, he wouldn't automatically have a right to use peyote as other 'recognized' Native American religions do.

From wikipedia:

"Congress passed an amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (42 U.S.C. § 1996), i.e., the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994 (42 U.S.C. § 1996a), pertinent excerpts of which are given below:
Use, possession, or transportation of peyote
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the use, possession, or transportation of peyote by an Indian for bona fide traditional ceremonial purposes in connection with the practice of a traditional Indian religion is lawful, and shall not be prohibited by the United States or any State. No Indian shall be penalized or discriminated against on the basis of such use, possession or transportation, including, but not limited to, denial of otherwise applicable benefits under public assistance programs.
—42 U.S.C. 1996A(b)(1)."

Note that "bona fide" and "traditional" language.
Well, the speech feedback would help with that. No idea how any of this is supposed to help you in a pool though.
It is performant (I use SBCL), libraries are just about trivial to use now that zach did quicklisp: http://www.quicklisp.org/. I use it for almost everything that I do now. Even pen testing.
Why do recruiter emails bother people so much? Just ignore them.

Sometimes they give me a small piece of visibility into the job market. Mostly they are a non-event.

Why let it bother you?