skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yet another major fuckup in the education space by Bill Gates. His flagship high school, which he wanted to model every other school in the nation after, literally got shut down after having a graduation rate around 20%. And yet he has yet to pay even a dollar in reparations to all those kids whose lives he destroyed. Diane Ravitch has a good quote about the Gates foundation in her book:

"To advance its agenda, the Gates foundation increased its spending on advocacy. From 2005 to 2009, the foundation quadrupled its annual spending on advocacy to $78 million. Accord to Sam Dillon in the New York Times, the foundation will pump an addition $100 million into advocacy over the next five to six years. That kind of money buys a lot of advocacy and support. Gates funded the groups that wrote the Common Core standards, the groups that evaluated them, and the groups that advocated for them. Gates funded liberal groups such as Education Trust, centrist groups such as the Center for American Progress and the Center on Education Policy, and groups on the Right such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Jeb Bush's Foundation of Educational Excellence, and the Media Bullpen. It funded groups that advocated for charter schools, such as the Education Equality project, and groups that argued against seniority and tenure, such as TeachFirst, TeachPlus, and the New Teacher Project. Kenneth Libby, then a graduate student known for poring through tax filings of foundations and advocacy groups, commented, 'It's easier to name which groups Gates doesn't support than to list all of those they do, because it's just so overwhelming.' [...]

Writing in Dissent, Joanne Barkan described the challenge that the aggressive venture philanthropists pose for American society:

'Can anything stop the foundation enablers? After five or ten more years, the mess they're making in public schooling might be so undeniable that they'll say, 'Oops, that didn't work' and step aside. But the damage might be irreparable: thousands of closed schools, worse conditions in those left open, an extreme degree of 'teaching to the test,' demoralized teachers, rampant corruption by private management companies, thousands of failed charter schools, and more low-income kids without a good education. Who could possibly clean up the mess?'"

If you want to read about what happened the last time billionaires got involved with the school system, John Taylor Gatto does a pretty decent job documenting it in his Underground History book.
>If you feel restricted by a type system, you're using it wrong. A type system is a useful tool, not an impediment. It only prevents you from doing wrong things.

Only a perfect type system is capable of preventing only wrong things, and allowing all correct things. In the mean time, we're left with things that are slightly less perfect. Like OCaml, Haskell, SML, Java, Smalltalk, Ruby, Javascript, Python, PHP, Prolog, and everything else that even attempts a type system.
I might use this comment to respond to every single person who uses the cost of alcohol as a reason not to drink saying "there are so many other things I'd rather buy.."

LIKE WHAT? A PEN? That's a pen. You can never convince me that I should believe that pen is objectively more valuable than a night out treating friends. Forget it. If it's more valuable to YOU because you love pens and dislike drinking, fine, but this argument that "stuff" is somehow inherently worth more than "experiences" (like food, alcohol, events, etc.) falls so unbelievably flat to me.
Its a southern European culture - wine goes well with some tastes and since wine vapours a lot it delivers taste also to your nose. Beer is usually used only with fatty/heavy foods as it helps to dissolve them and stimulates stomach to work harder (that would be mainly German/Irish kitchen).
Note that those cancer prevalences are associated with drinking >3.5 drinks (50g alcohol) per day, which is borderline alcoholic (assuming it really means most days, not just some days)
$/sqft is used by most experienced people on the residential side as well.
Legend Confirmed: Atari 2600 'E.T.' Game Discovered at New Mexico Dig
Yes, the order changes over time, so the second page will often contain items from the old first page.
It does add up even with comparing "dinner" vs "dinner+drinks".

I had that view semi-recently (a year or so ago): dinner+drinks is too expensive for my tastes. But I blame the "dinner" more than the "drinks" from a monetary perspective. Nowadays the usual arrangement among my friends & me is that we get together at someone's house, one of us cooks, then we go out for a few beers. The food is usually better, and we value the "bar outing" part of the atmosphere more than the "restaurant" part. So we save the $30-50 that the meal costs, which is a huge cash win, much more than saving the cost of a few beers would be.

But this is just an issue of where you want to spend your entertainment budget. I personally feel restaurant food is a huge ripoff, and that the ambience of a restaurant is not worth it. While I feel the $1-2 supermarket beer vs. $5-7 for a bar beer is a reasonable incremental price for the ambience. Maybe you feel drinks at bars are a huge ripoff, while restaurant meals are worth it. Spend your money as you wish either way! But then it just becomes an issue of personal budget preferences: I also think movies in theaters are huge ripoffs!
and this is perfectly fine. it allows you to do more if you know how to use it. and if you don't - it is really simply to understand. again - this is how js different from many (all?) languages out there, but why it is bad - i am not sure. extra line of code in some cases? I don't think this is really that bad.
When they say $100 million, do they mean raised or company value? If they burned through $100 million in 15 months, I have no idea how they could light that much money on fire so quickly.
Yeah but with apple you hear people loved working there even if jobs was harsh. Looks like there's a balance between getting the most out of people and just creating a toxic work atmosphere.
So out of curiosity, which major tech companies operate on a stack ranking system? It seems that Microsoft has gotten the most flack for it in the past, but it seems that many other companies also have it. Here's what I've heard, from different employees at different companies:

* Amazon - top 20%/70%/bottom 10% buckets

* Facebook - definite bucketed review system every six months

* Google - unsure if bucketed, but performance review every three months and again at end of the year.

* Yahoo - definite bucketed review system every three months and again at end of the year.

If anyone knows the performance review systems at any other company, please definitely feel free to call them out in the replies.
No, I live in Brooklyn, my rent is absurd. I was spending $1k a month on cabs, restaurants and bars. That's five to ten nights out. Less if you go with your significant other.
Video interviews of everyday artists + cool site
If someone avoids alcohol there are 4 options:
-he dont like it
-religion or family tradition
-he got sick after it
-he is total wanker after few pints and he dont want people to see it

When someone is not ordering alcohol people might think the last one - and that's from the start bad omen.

I fully support people not drinking alcohol but unfortunately I find out that most people dont drink because inner them is coming out.
Citation? Usually the flight plan is to increase altitude (less atmospheric drag) before increasing angular velocity to full orbit.

Elon's been pretty explicit that F9 stage 1 will land back on the pad, or very close by.
I (an American) drink fairly often, and occasionally to excess. I have a fairly high tolerance, so usually I won't notice much of an effect until I'm drinking at a rate of greater than 2 drinks per hour, or, if I'm drinking slower than that, until I've had at 7+ drinks.

So it's not unusual for me to go out with some friends, have 5-7 drinks, and not "get drunk", only developing a slight buzz at most. As long as I'm matching each alcoholic drink with 1-1.5 glasses of water, I feel perfectly normal the next day. (I have noticed that, as I get older, I need to hydrate more and more to avoid a headache afterward. Annoying.)

On other occasions, I do enjoy drinking to a point where I'd consider myself very drunk. It's fun. Frankly, I'm mildly annoyed at the suggestion that the European method of drinking is somehow superior. It's just different. Possibly healthier, possibly safer, but I'll be damned if I let other people tell me how to enjoy myself[1].

I'm slightly tempted to write a follow-up article with, "why I don't participate in bro culture", based on this article's pervasive reference to clubs, "certain intoxicants", and other such questionable things the author appears to indulge in, but which seem stupid and harmful to me.

So wait, indulging in intoxicants other than alcohol makes you a "bro"? Damn, dude, check your holier-than-thou perceptions at the door and let people do their thing. I don't personally do any of the harder stuff, but I'm not going to condemn others if that makes them happy. I think you also have a very narrow-minded view as to what a "club" is and what types of people tend to frequent them (hint: the answer is "all different kinds").

[1] As long as my enjoyment isn't harming anyone else, anyway.
Looks awesome, would definitely make something cool looking with this.

I googled and saw that there are a few isometric game engines out there already. This would be pretty unique if more geared towards art/graphics and focused on ease-of-use.
6 of the Oldest Trees in the World (2012)
I find it hard to believe a glass of wine matched with dinner does not increase enjoyment of the activity. I realise taste is acquired but for someone who already drinks wine surely this is ignorance.

I've seen someone order a $100 steak well-done. They may enjoy this meal, but they have no goddamn idea what they are missing.
I think he means more like Zipcar than some other sharing thing. Where you share from a corporation, it feels like sharing and is considered sharing but it's actually renting.
I deal with the same issue on Verizon. I found that using LiveChat, the support there seemed to be more tech. focused. If I start by sending a screen shot of my traceroute, I usually can get what I need within a few minutes.
Have you never solved a problem and had people completely ignore you? That they listened is what he's pointing at.
It's all where you place your value at. Is that so hard to get? I like pens (yeah they're expensive pens). And folks like me obviously find value in things other than alcohol. Nobody's trying to say that drinking is worthless: it's just worthless to US. If you get enjoyment out of it, more power to you. I'm not sure why there's so much controversy about not liking the act of drinking :S :S
I think the point is, that people think the person making the most noise is having the most influence, even if their influence is mostly just white noise.

The article is part of a book. I'd imagine the book has a broader thesis.
First I respect his decision. For some it can addictive and if you feel like you can't control yourself it's best to avoid. However, he uses "getting drunk" and "drinking" interchangeably, there's a lot between those two points.

A drink a day, sometimes two, are not harmful.
They will not really intoxicate you.
Everyone else is drinking so any dumbing down is valid for anyone else.
A drink are two is not unhealthy, maybe it's even healthy.
OVH.us.

It is a French company. I worked with them when I was in France and it was awesome.

They recently opened a datacenter in canada and they are the cheapest hosting company I've ever seen.

I currently have 10 physical servers there and I have had no problems so far, except maybe their crappy user interface...
Could you say more about your approach to print? I'm reasonably far along with a manuscript, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. LeanPub seemed nice and easy, but they don't do print.
I don't see why this was downvoted. I don't necessarily agree with you, but there was nothing objectionable or even necessarily logically wrong with what you've said.
$100 is certainly a bit on the high side, but I live somewhere where mixed drinks can cost $12 at nicer bars. Have 5 of those (not unreasonable if you go out around 6pm and stay out until 1-2am), throw in $15 worth of food (as the author mentioned), and you're up to $75. I tend not to go to bars that charge cover, but that could be anywhere from $5-$20, though usually if you arrive at a particular bar before 10pm or so, there's no cover charge.

So $100 may be slightly hyperbolic, but it can happen without too much difficulty, depending on your tastes. I happen to really enjoy Scotch, and whiskey in general. Go to a bar with a selection of mid- to high-end stuff, and that can run you $20+ per pour. I tend to drink them quite a bit slower, though.

But agreed that this doesn't answer why he doesn't drink at all, but is more an answer to the question of why he doesn't "go out drinking".
The company's lore is that it was originally called Cadabra.com (as in abracadabra). But then people were confusing it with cadaver, so it was changed to Amazon.
Here are the points that to me only seem to apply to people irresponsibly binge-drinking:

#3 "expensive": I have never spent $100 when out drinking. You have to drink like a dozen beers to hit that, even if they're fancy craft beers. If you're really spending $100 on drinking, the issue is something other than drinking per se (either very expensive tastes in drinks, or binge drinking).

#4, "You slow down, you slur, you say dumb shit": If you drink a lot, sure, but most people do not slur their speech or act noticeably different after one or two beers.

#5: explicitly about "getting drunk", not about drinking alcohol in moderation

#7: drinking alcohol in moderation has generally been shown to be healthy, not unhealthy.

#8: "The day after is not worth it". Again, this only applies to binge-drinkers, not normal drinkers. You do not get a hangover from moderate alcohol consumption.

#9: "It turns some people into monsters", also something that only applies to excessive drinking. Having major personality changes from one or two drinks (vs. 6+) is quite rare.

My impression is that what the author really wants to explain is why he no longer engages in dozen-drink outings at a club, that result in a drunken stupor, large monetary expenditures, possibly unpleasant or regrettable social interactions, and day-or-more recovery. But most people who drink alcohol do not engage in that specific kind of drinking.
This looks cool. Is there more or a development web site for this?
Valve has an annual peer view, it's described in the leaked Valve Employee Handbook.

Summary:

>There are no professional reviews by supervisors (because there are no supervisors). Instead, Valve uses a system of anonymous peer reviews, conducted once a year, where employees give their opinion of everyone they work with. Every Cabal is asked to rank the people they work with. No one ranks themselves. Results are delivered anonymously, and it’s up to the individual to decide what to do with the information. One concrete change that comes out of peer reviews is compensation adjustments. Valve goes out of its way to pay its people what they deserve, according to “who’s providing the most value at the company.”

http://www.forevergeek.com/2012/04/10-things-learned-from-va...
> I doubt it is easy to displace the systems these schools are using today

...which is pretty much why the players in this space who are finding success are companies like Clever (clever.com), who let schools keep their existing SIS/student management software, but offer conduits to get the data out into other applications.

I know the Clever co-founders post here fairly often, they'll probably chip in on their perspective at some point.
Anonymize the information as soon as the students graduate. Done! That way it can still be used for gaining insight without being traceable to any given student.
And yet blackboard exists and is thriving.
I think they folded because they figured out that public education in the US isn't about really developing understanding and learning. It's designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny appreciable leadership skills and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens in order to render the populace "manageable."

Individual teachers don't think this: they actually think they're supposed to help develop a student's intellect. A lot of conflict arises here.

John Taylor Gatto wrote about this in his essay "Against School". It's a good read.

http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
For what it's worth, as someone who did two internships there, the whole "Amazonians hate their job" thing is way overrated. With the exception of pager duty, most of the legitimate complaints employees used to make have long been addressed. I've interned at other big tech companies too, and Amazon stands out in my mind as having some of the highest morale.

Here's another interesting data point: both of my teams at Amazon are still pretty much 100% intact after 3-4 years – whereas my team at Google, to take one example, have almost all left the company since 2011.
What if the problem is one that doesn't have a self-evident solution? Like "who should we hire", or "what is the best way to implement our current goals".
Do you have a reference about that supposed flagship high school with 20% graduation rate? I searched and couldn't find it.

At least the info on why and how they failed would be useful to many education innovators here.
"Has to" is pretty strong. You folks have chosen to work that way, but other people do it differently.
Honestly, where is this level of scrutiny when it comes to things like facebook and google+. How are the privacy violation in those enterprises different?
> Discoverability by real name is the point of Facebook.

Yup, and it's also it's greatest weakness. Hence the abandonment of Facebook by millennials to communication mediums that are inherently private—SnapChat, Kik, and anything else that doesn't put their behavior on the Internet, Google-able in one hop by authority figures.

Facebook is great for middle-aged people with stable (boring) lives who want a digital scrapbook to share with similar people. Hence all of the photos of people's kids.
Wealthfront has been doing continuous deployment for years, and they're financially liable for any bugs. You might want to reconsider your opinion.
The abusive nature of this comment was entirely innappropriate for Hacker News. There was nothing poisonous about the poster's comment, it written in a reasonable tone, wasn't unnecessarily argumentative, didn't say anything objectionable about a particular person and seemed to make a reasonable point.

Please try to address the matter without virtiol next time. You can disagree in a civil manner. The above comment has absolutely no valuable content in it, and is extremely poisonous to discussion on HN. Ironically, you just became the person you rail about in your comment!
I don't drink very often anymore (maybe a few times a year). I've never liked the taste of most alcohol, so when I drink, it's generally just a lot of shots to get it down easiest. When I went out more, I drank more (the incredible effort I have to maintain to be around people is lessened if I'm drinking). As I got older, it seemed easier to just stop leaving my apartment, and I was never a fan of drinking at home.

I suppose somewhere in the back of my head I always worried about becoming an alcoholic (coming from a long line of stinking drunks), but thankfully, I don't really have any addiction issues.

I'll admit that it's probably a bad thing that so much of our culture is alcohol-centric, but I don't begrudge that other people just like drinking.
> by flooding them with comments

> We have to make it clear

> completely neglects to link to the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System, or mention any way of doing the things the article advocates

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/proceeding/view?name=14-28

> common sense fail
Well maybe if you were offering to share it, it might work. :D
Explain != justify. Not drinking is, for better or worse, fairly unusual (at least in some circles). It's natural to be curious when someone says they don't drink. As long as the questioner is asking out of curiosity and not pre-judgment, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Structural typing (sometimes referred to as "duck typing") has a few problems that make me unconvinced about the benefits.

First of all, I agree that the accidental argument is not very convincing (two developers writing a method Launch(), one that launches a football and another that launches nuclear missiles).

However, we lose two important things with implicit interfaces:

- Code readability. It becomes much harder for a human to interpret what types are actually implemented.

- More importantly, it severely limits the tooling available since the compiler has a lot less knowledge about the types you are dealing with. Automatic refactorings are all but impossible with structural typing.

Overall, I really don't see the harm in saying explicitly "My type is called Account and it implements Serializable and Entity" as opposed to me having to guess by reading all its methods and also having to remember which methods are necessary to be an Entity or a Serializable.
I have had good luck with Toshiba satellites. Running Debian on a P750 currently. This is my second Toshiba with linux, don't have any issues.
The original article on which this article is based[1] has an interesting chart of median employee tenure for various companies. Amazon is at the bottom, with the median employee leaving after only one year. Google is not much better, with a median employee staying 1.1 years. In contrast, Microsoft employees stay 4 years and IBM employees 6.4 years.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/jeff-bezos-a...
In your case? Absolutely. In the average case? Probably. In his case? You have no way to know.

In my case, I don't like the taste of alcohol, to me it's very pungent. Also, I tend to run on the warmer side, and alcohol tends to heat me up even more. Therefore, for me, a glass of wine with dinner - "matched" or no - decreases my enjoyment of the activity.
"Shit... charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500. I took the mission. What the hell else was I gonna do?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/quotes
They raised $100 million. Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/02/05/gates-foundation-backed-inbloom...
The Roman Empire was very successful, maybe that's the best way to lead too? Of course that's ridiculous. If you have a big house, a big salary, and you're miserable, are you successful? Amazon has a nice stock price, good technology, and (allegedly) broken employees, is it successful?
Considering the language was created in about a week, Javascript is nothing short of a computing miracle.

It has enabled anyone with a web browser to write software that can run on billions of computers.

And it is extremely easy to learn and use, with no boilerplate whatsoever.

People who require the boilerplate to feel comfortable probably shouldn't use Javascript, and should have their heads examined.
I am Nick and I am in MN. Who are you? I don't know anyone personally who thinks of a bench as vacation. I think anyone who hits a bench knows they're one step away from the streets.

Could have a rule that your dues increase somewhat when you hit the bench, encouraging you to get off as soon as possible.

There's always the Mondragon as an example, which I've heard good things about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Uber And Lyft Drivers In Tampa Are Being Threatened With $800 Fines
I don't think you should. There are plenty of options other than MacBooks if you are an Ubuntu user. My top two would be:
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...