skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I paraphrase:

He constructs a narrative of a hn user who does not feel "entitled" because he got what he wants. This hn user must be in constant anxiety because he is more successful than he deserves, so he rationalizes his position by explaining why others do not deserve as much success.

The phrases "entitled", "deserve" and "dumb luck" are much too overloaded. (PG essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html)
...and how's that working out for ya, Bruce Lee?

Many, many generations have come before you with exactly the same idea, and all struck out (most notably the "boomers", who went a long way towards giving us the environment we're facing now). It sounds as though you want someone else to fix the problems you're facing rather than pick up your tools and fix them yourself.

Learn about the environment you've found yourself in and then try to fix it to the extent you are able. If _everyone_ did that in their own corner of the world, we'd get the result we wanted.

I faced a load of crappy jobs when I graduated in the early 90s and found myself far, far behind where I thought I'd be. Today, I'm running the kind of company I wanted to work for when I graduated.

I've worked at fixing my corner of the world and have succeeded to some small extent -- what have you done?
I am really missing my NewMogul :S.

If I were to guess he is probably just too busy to go through email, and doesn't know NewMogul is down. If anyone knows him personally please call him and let him know.
I'm shopping for something similar, and looked at the EP-1. It's got a lot going for it, but also has a lot of missing bits that may annoy the enthusiast:

- Lack of fast, good AF. Word on the street is that this thing takes up to 2 seconds to focus. That's dog slow, and on par with point & clicks, not DSLR-level performance (or anything approximating it).

- No viewfinder, and a highly substandard LCD. So you take away the viewfinder in the interests of compactness, fine, but in that case shouldn't you at least throw in a fairly standard LCD? (900K+ dots) After all, the LCD is now the user's only way of composing the shot. But no, the LCD on the EP-1 is a paltry 200K+ dots.

- No built-in flash, but that's (somewhat) minor.

I'm excited about the possibilities of the Micro-four-thirds format, but I don't think the EP-1 is going to be the game changer.

Though it looks incredible. Damn people and their sexy electronics :(
There has to be a great party somewhere. I guess nickb and _why are attending.
Here here!

If this was the Facebook iPhone app, then by all means everything you can do in Facebook should be in there, but given how Posterous goes the opposite direction (in regard to complexity), a "do everything" app would be out of character, don't you think?
Sure, there are many axes of the possibility space, at least theoretically.

But you don't find many, if any, societies in the Communism + freedom quadrant.

The other three quadrants have many examples. And those tyrannies that have become more free over time have usually needed a dose of capitalism as the first step (ending collective enterprises, especially farms, and trading with capitalist markets, for example).
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Thankyou. :P

I don't even have the whole line on my iPod, to be candid. I had to whittle it down to "turtles and goats\nfilling up boats" to make it fit. It's really just a reminder of _why and his words, although I have always liked that particular line. I've found it running through my head on occasion, like a song stuck in my head. (This happens to me with many words and phrases, most recently "alabaster M&Ms")

Now why don't we discuss my iPod wallpaper? http://viewsourcecode.org/forum/why-wallpaper.png

(Next up: I take you all downstairs to my basement where I spin you some old Thirsty Cups records of mine.)
Days late, but worth the response for accuracy's sake since I just popped in on HN now:

> 1. A linear mapping is not a "kind of equivalence" by any > reasonable definition.

By definition, ANY mapping is an equivalence relation--even if that relation results in a 0 or NAN value.

> 2. The eigenvectors are not the rows of the diagonalized > matrix...

Correct. It depends on one's orientation (columns vs. rows), but the matrix which does the coordinate transforms contains the eigenvectors. Bad wording on my part. The key behind diagonalization is it removes any orientation issues from the relationship by establishing eigenweights across a given vector space.

> 3. I think the paragraph beginning "For the common 3D isometric ..."

Your interpretation is correct and, indeed, my choice of verbiage was poor. I really should have used the words "ortho-normal to a given vector space" which collapses to the common XYZ unit vectors in a linearly partitioned vector space of 6 degrees of freedom (3 translations & 3 rotations)--e.g. classic Cartesian space.

> Tensors are just as linear as matrices.

Most tensor fields are modeled using linear approximations (i.e. matricies of n-dimensions), but the very fact that a tensor itself is being used in the characteristic equations is typically indicative of non-linear behavior in the overall system. For example, in fluid dynamics used to model airflow across a wing or boundary values issues when the Cauchy stress tensor is used for structures undergoing plastic deformation.

I believe that you are conflating Manifolds with Tensors. The latter is a refinement and/or characteristic relation defined upon the former. A non-linear Tensor is defined upon a manifold with one or more non-linear relations. Perhaps you are used to dealing exclusively with metric tensors?

> The probabilities in a Markov chain's stationary state are not eigenvalues.

Here you are spot-on. Indeed it's the eigenvalues of the transition matrix (or convergence for ergodic ones) to which I was referring. Thanks (again) for the correction and further clarification.
The author is saying that libertarians are the product of luck, moderate intelligence, and a bad understanding of sociology that limits their perspective to introspection alone.

The author's observation is based on a product of his bad luck, moderate intelligence, and a very selective view of the arguments advanced by libertarians.
Yeah, disappearing completely is attention-seeking. _why could not have left more quietly if he tried. No grand announcement, no farewell. He's gone. The fact that people exploded around him is entirely because a lot of people decided _why was worth an explosion of interest. Don't blame the guy for wanting to go.

How is ending a blog a pussy move? I wrote it for a year. In May I decided I didn't need it anymore, so I told my blog readers I was ending it, gave them my email address, and a month later took it offline, saving the archives in downloadable format for people who wanted it.

This is teenage-level stuff, complete with teenage-level temper tantrums and teenage-level poetry.

I find this really funny, since you're the person who had a mini-tantrum and I'm the teenager who told you to quit it. It's also funny because my social scene includes teenage poets who've won national awards, so my concept of teenage poetry's a bit different from yours.

If you retain any honesty at all you'll call out bullshit as bullshit whenever you see it, and pretension as pretension likewise.

I don't really believe _why was pretentious. I think that your insulting the OP was bullshit, so I called it out. I also think I called you a cunt, so it's not like I was pulling punches. I just don't believe in unchecked aggression. It's hurtful and immature.
Longer explanation, with pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadwiger%E2%80%93Nelson_problem
I think there are few people that get rich without working hard or being 'smart'... but it depends on your definition of 'smart.' There are plenty of people that have gotten rich by being clever, while not well educated.

[ This obviously excludes people that have obtained wealth as some sort of 'birthright' ]
nothing to this. the person mistook akamai servers for msft bing servers.
nickb is not a pseudonym.
I don't agree with the people who're looking for some huge revolution in society. I prefer the guys who're quietly ducking out and finding some place where they can be happy. That's the subject of a whole different diatribe that doesn't belong here.

However, I sympathize with the thought that society as a whole does a lot of harm, and I don't like the people who get mad at the people who complain about it. That holds even if I disagree with some of the ideas of the original complainers.
Ultra fast and impressive! Any plans to turn this into a plugin for jQuery?
Robin's got a lot more on medical care at http://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/medicine .
You need to go back a few months or more to get stuff like this essay though; most of his newer stuff is on status signalling and medicine.
Congrats to you all! I've been enjoying Mugasha for a few months now, and have sent invites to several friends. Its been a hit with me and everyone I've shown it to.
But their competitor, Tumblr (I think that's their closest competitor), offers a very simple way to post audio, video, links, text, photos, and chats from their iPhone interface. Looking at the picture of Posterous's app, furthermore, I don't think it would be tough for them to add more functionality without sacrificing the integrity of their app design.
He hasn't commented on HN in 48 days.
"actuary"

Disagree. I have known many actuaries in my lifetime (one of my exes was one), and the last thing I would do is describe their job as intellectually stimulating. High paying though, oh God yes.

I have known several actuaries who graduated from college, got great, high-paying offers from major actuarial firms... and then promptly quit their jobs two years later. The amount of tedious boredom in that job drives many people right out of the field.

It's one of those fields that you get into because it's a stable, high-paying job that has a high barrier to entry (years of licensing, so random guy off the street can't replace you - like you (potentially) can with hackers), not one of those fields where you can expect to be challenged and excited all day.
Wiles is widely regarded as odd, to put it mildly, for that effort. And it still didn't work and he had to get a former student in to help fix the proof.
This is a detour from the current ongoing conversation, but what are the Plastic Cups?
The problem is that gov't FORCES everything on everybody; markets allow each to choose what is important to them. A really good example of the conflict is the current health care debates - if you want to see both sides in close argument, look at the comments on Megan McArdle's blog at The Atlantic. Megan claims to be a libertarian, but she's not much of one, I follow her blog mainly because of the interesting conflict in the comments.

Also, I am serious about does anyone have any rational justification for gov't other than its ability to threaten.
I think he meant the Thirsty Cups, _why's band:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Thirsty+Cups
I know this sounds geeky, but the software developer in me really cringes at the idea of anything that can't be changed later. It's not pain or aesthetics that bothers me, it's the permanency of them. Do others feel the same way?
Making money depends on a lot of variables beyond your control. Making art is completely within your control. Every 5 year old does art, very few people make real money.

In any case, if money is your goal (absolutely legitimate) you'll have much better odds choosing finance rather than technology as your field.
> My intuition is that removing corn subsidies

Heck, why not go ahead and remove tobacco subsidies!
I thought this paper, mentioned in the comments, was a lot more interesting:

http://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=95436

Argues that extreme value theory predicts the best time for 100m dash in the near future is 9.51 sec.
Thanks, but as far as I can tell that still doesn't actually answer my question.
Success & Motivation: What Entrepreneurs Should Not Do
For every patient like him, there's probably 10 or more being treated for conditions they could have avoided entirely through better diet and exercise. Nearly all cases of diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, and most cancers are preventable, just to name a few.

I think the point is that if we focused more on health (i.e. long term preventative health) instead of on medicine alone, there would be far more available resources to handle the genuine medical needs.
From NM's whois, he's based in Ottawa, Canada (there's an exact address in fact). Someone who lives nearby can check in with Prakash or Miles and then do some knocking or doorbelling.
I was disappointed by the backlash against Squashed on this site.

Worse, it's astonishing to see how many people here haven't bothered to read his post on entitlement, the one that "angered techno-libertarians", before flaming him on HN.
I sort of preferred the last article because it was directly connected to your business selling designer shower curtains. It embraced "We sell artsy $30 shower curtains, and you know what sells artsy $30 shower curtains? Beautiful photography sells artsy $30 shower curtains, that is what." That is both intellectually interesting to me and, hey, they are nice shower curtains.

The new article is sort of wandering into that weird Internet marketing/social media haze where you have a blog to Twitter to send people into your autoresponder so that when they sign up to your RSS feed they can... BAGH! Shower curtains! Stick to the shower curtains!
Ask HN: Have you seen cases of english words in youtube urls?
As youtube grows, the instances of actual english words in youtube urls should grow (albeit very very very slowly)

Have you seen an instance of english words in a youtube url?

I don't know why but I found no research or mention of anything like this on the web.
Have you tried resetting your home router? (Or circumventing it as a test)
I thought this was meant to disagree with my statement. This status message doesn't say Programmers = Big Boys, Designers = (What would you call it? little boys, girls, hobos?).

There is power in a template paradigm. Much like MVC is for people who "can't handle" hacking their entire program into a single executable, convention (guided suggestions or limitations) can do a lot for a group of developers even if they aren't collaborating with designers. If they don't recognize that, so be it (they will) but calling convention a softball for the less manly application developer is a crudely un-meditated suggestion.
Hi quizbiz, I've added my info to your site but some fields got (severely) truncated. I am, in fact, not a lamp, but a LAMP / Android developer :) You may want to add some "maxlength" attributes to your form fields, or else expand your database field length to accommodate more info. Thanks!
I just gave you rational justification. I'd have thought clean water was justification enough for anybody.
we (2 of us) are interested in a third. diN0bot@bilumi.org

my partner just wrote up a neat survey that we're using to quickly understand prospectives. love to get feedback on that, too ;-)

EDIT: cambridge, MA closeness is a strong requirement from now until the end of december.
Top Most Fuel Efficient Cars to Buy with "Cash for Clunkers" Money
I thought that's where they were flaming him. There was a huge HN post about that article a day or two ago.
who's next? bad one but It reminded me of Atlas Shrugged
Yes. Thanks for the correct re-wording as "or" and "equivalence class".
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checkout logomyway.com

crowdlancing logo design.
You can ask for a project and find a good designer that you can keep working with.
The difference is GOV'T IS COERCION, that is the whole purpose and justification of gov't. Libertarians object to being coerced and to coercing others. Can anyone give me ANY rational reason to do as gov't orders other than to avoid being assaulted or worse? (This is an adequate reason, I obey the law, but I don't think it is a good or rational reason).
imo..its not really the idea that makes a billion, its the execution of that idea.
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUS...

This looks like the acquisition equivalent of the exploding term sheet.
This bothers me honestly, why would you accept benchmark screenshots from someone that made claims against another persons code?

Was this an interview or something? Was _why alerted to this as a chance to refute the claim by providing his own benchmarks? Could the data even be validated and not easily doctored?
That seems true in general, but it's still dangerous to declare that you're working on a famous problem (P!=NP, 3n+1, Riemann); it's something you keep to yourself until you've made serious progress.
gasp he was planning this all along! and he left clues!
You are arguing against a point the article isn't making. There are two types of treatments:

1. Marginal treatments, or treatments you will not pay for out of pocket, but will consume if they are free. These comprise 30% or more of treatments.

2. Non-marginal treatments, which you will buy regardless of whether insurance pays for them.

Your son's friend's hemophilia treatments sound like they fall into category 2. The article argues that category 1 treatments are useless (equally likely to harm or help you).
People are extremely multidimensional; but the fundamental political division is willingness or unwillingness to coerce others, that is to use force to make others do what you want them to, which is THE fundamental feature of gov't.
Bitching about people bitching about it does worse than squat.
Left a VM. called a couple of numbers. Not sure if that is his current address.
what? why 'should' that happen?
Exploding iPhones Are Latest Headache for Apple
I think the part where you say it digresses is what the author would suggest it's about.
I didn't read HN comments for that one. I was referring to how they're flaming him in this thread ;)
Wow, I can't believe I thought it was "Plastic Cups" all this time. Thanks stephencelis, I've edited my comment.

Edit: ah, now I remember. It's because in chapter 4 of the poignant guide, _why starts using plastic_cup as an example variable and I thought he was making a reference to his band, and forever thereafter I confused the name.
Flex vs. OpenLazslo for SaaS rich Internet applications
Games company wants to hire unemployed Wall Street analysts
Going Private “Like Having A Tattoo Removed, Layer By Layer”
Good for you, Sparky.

Now, what are you going to do about it out here in the Real World?
The government doesn't inspect whether food is kosher but if a package of food has a kosher symbol on it I am fairly certain it is. Private organizations certify for kosherness and that seems to work pretty well. Why can't it work for food safety?

EDIT:
I would trust a private organization much more than the govt. in determining food safety because there can be competition amongst food safety certifiers and financial responsibility(I could sue them if food they said was safe, wasn't).
That could very well be the worst relationship possible.
Jarame_1's profile - Buzzster
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/geom-color.html

Yes, there are an infinite number of points at a distance 1 from the original point. However, that doesn't matter for the problem.

All you want to do is color regions of the plane such that, for any given point, every point a unit away is in a different colored region.
GM Cancels ‘Hideous’ Buick SUV After Would-Be Customers Twitter
The Impermanence, Karma, and Bad Behavior of Why The Lucky Stiff
Maybe he was arguing against democracy, not government?

His point-- and it's one I think I agree with-- is that majority decision making really only differs from tyranny only numerically.

The alternative, I suppose, would be voluntary governments, and decion making by consensus.
I'll agree with you to some degree, but in some cases force is needed. See my response to you elsewhere regarding regulations, which I think is an important part of society.
I'd rather say magicpn ;-) (see potion's source)
I'm afraid I don't know who Sparky is. I'm guessing he's not another martial artist?

I don't care much about the Real World. I'll just keep things stable and happy where I am, and avoid the rat race as much as possible.
The police have absolutely no responsibility to protect you. Look it up. The chief of police of your town could know that a murdering rapist is coming over to your house this evening to murder rape you and the chief would not be responsible in a court. The private individual is alone responsible for protection of his or her life and property.
I've met him (in Ottawa). He hasn't responded to emails since early July. That address is a multi-unit building.

I don't see that it's really appropriate for me to go knock on his door though. There is a thing called privacy and he does have family.
art=money see: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...
Why is this at -2? It's a perfectly factual, if unprofound, remark on the linked article. I thought the same thing when I read it. Why identify Linux as a "desktop" thing? It's a unix clone, and remains so whether it runs on TVs or phones or telco racks.
If food being kosher was a matter of sickness and health, I'd want to make sure there was a nationwide focus on it. Kosher is a small industry, and it's a religious industry, meaning that it's all relative anyway. If a Jewish man accidentally eats an unKosher meal, there's no harm to anything but his psyche, and chances are if he ate it by accident he wouldn't tell.
I'm looking for a graphic designer and/or sales guy and/or information architect, usability guy.

I'm a python and javascript hacker. I have a couple of ideas, but the one I'd like to persuade is real-time web analytics with understandable, beautiful presentation of data and statistics to the user. However I'm not insisting on this, I'll gladly discuss your ideas.

Interested? Let's talk; contact details are in my profile.
I'm confused. When did _why add this section? Recently? Did he even add it at all? It begins: August 19th shall be known as _why Fawkes day.
I don't know how to say this politely but we really need a bunch of Erlang articles on HN right now. _this _is _getting _out _of _hand.
@spooneybarger You can read up on the Infinite monkey theorem.
I also noticed that if you rearranged the letters in 'why' you get 'hwy', which, if pronounced a specific way, sounds very similar to the Pacific island of Hawaii, leading me to believe that he made his escape there on the 19th, which you get by fully curving the bottom right part of the 'h' around to make a '9', flipping it over both horizontally and vertically, and placing it to the right of the underscore when propped up to give us the '1'. It was under our noses the entire time.
My parents came to the same conclusion when I was about 5 when Bobby was getting a lot of attention as a real brat of a prodigy. My father had taught me to play, and after a few months, I beat him. Never played me again. Took me a long time to understand what had happened, and longer to forgive him.
Any software app or business can lead to lawsuits for any reason at all. Basically, if your company makes any kind of significant money, other people or businesses will do whatever they can to try to take it from you.

A well written terms of service for your application should include legalese to cover liability for use of the service ("you use the software at your own risk, you don't hold us responsible for damages due to use of the software, no expressed warranty, etc"). You're probably ok just using a sample terms of service if you are solo or small, but you will want to talk to an actual lawyer with experience in this stuff when your business grows and you start making significant money.

Disclosure: I build legal case management software for large organizations, so I'm not a lawyer, but I am familiar with the kinds of things that companies get sued for (everything!).
Just like money can do things art never will ... boring, ugly, world-changing things ... which can be very beautiful.