skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Tropo alternative with good voices/answering machine detection?
I'm an advisor to a company that's really struggling with Tropo and we're looking for an alternative with the following requirements:

- Good Answering Machine detection (Tropo says the best you can accomplish is around 60% accuracy but some companies are saying they're at 95%+, how is that possible).
- Good voices and SSML support (we need to customize things quite a bit with <prosody> tags - not sure who else supports that).

What kind of players are targeting this space? Seems like most companies are more focused on texting and very basic voice stuff.
Great questions :) -- this borders into future announcements, so sadly I'll have to defer to the answer on this paper, which you summarize well here. (Not asking you to believe, only to wait a bit longer.) Also, this answer is actually not bad: information on the distribution of pieces will become widely available so users can tune rewards accordingly. Storage pools also have a ceiling: after backing up the entire piece set, it's better for them to compete than to keep growing.
> Prostitution is a victimless crime.

Only in the same sense as selling organs or babies (or conspiring to fix prices) is a victimless crime. There are instances where society legitimately chooses to make certain consensual interactions illegal because of the implications that conduct has for everyone else. As 'tedks points out below, turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole. Moreover, as with selling organs or selling babies, there's a strong belief that such transactions are usually only technically voluntary, and are driven by economic duress more than anything else.
Depends if your a non-avowed CIA officer in a dodgy part of the world or not.

I am sure vilerats and the other "state" officers killed in begazi familys might have appreciated a bitmore worse case planning.
The question is, will anybody create a good grammar for 3D interaction with applications? A related question is, will gestures adapt well to 3D?

From what we know now, the most likely answer to both of those questions is "no", but things may change once 3D gets widespread.
Either way, it seems like a middleman.
Already happened https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7753589
Porn and Games, I guess?
I mean that hiring a car in advance and hiring a car spontaneously are pretty much the same thing.
هزة ارضية قوية يشعر بها سكان القاهرة الان
Show HN: Datepair.js – intelligently select date and time ranges
Namecheap Launches NetNeutrality.com
it surely does, how people can invest in a such useless app, well there is market for everything, but this is insane, well not as insane 16 billion whatsapp valuation, the market is crazy, CRAZY!!!
Now that you point it out I can see how it could be interpreted that way. I had trouble recognizing that because I don't think being wealthy (owning a Tesla) is an indicator that one "built something substantial".
Reply from myself: the title has been changed, so it no longer makes that claim.
The patriarchy doesn't even provably exist. It's just a bogeyman feminists like to throw out when they have nothing of substance to say.
And if you scroll back to weekly you see any quarterly growth exists in one or two peaks pushing the quarterly numbers up then rapidly falling back down.

Realistically though we're both playing with figures to show the result we expect.

I've found plenty of merchants who accept it who have seen little to no revenue from it or shrinking revenues when they original saw some. Do you know of many merchants that are seeing increasing bitcoin customers and revenue?
Nick Hunn has been spot-on with his wireless analysis for years now.

He was writing about the advantages of Bluetooth Low Energy way back in 2010.
MaidSafe is doing similar kind of thing. I think they have much better plan and idea http://maidsafe.net/ http://www.safecoin.io/
The disappointment with set -e is that it does not work everywhere:

- with an unset 'hello' variable, try:

set -eu
echo "`echo $hello` world"
echo "huh still going?!"
foo="`echo $hello` world"
echo "not reaching this as expected"

Fun, now you have to manually write your whole program in what's basically SSA (static single assignment) form.

- It's deactivated in if/then context, which at first makes sense, but then when you try to force it on explicitely like:

set -eu
if (set -eu; false; true); then
echo "huh why still true??"
else
echo false
fi

and your declaration is just ignored.. you begin to wonder how many places set -e misses really.
The reality is that since women make, on average, 2/3 of what men make and most people are heterosexual, most sexually active women are sleeping with someone who makes quite a lot more money than they do. Because if you flip that around, it means men make on average 1.5 times what women make. For that and a very long list of other reasons, most women are de facto trading their bodies for money in some sense, to some degree, almost every time they have sex.

So I have kind of a big problem with your idea that prostitution is per se some big moral problem here.
And of course relation databases are an application of set theory.
I think, that despite this be a good rebutal, it show exactly why the first article. When try to justify why programing is math then it focus in the kind of task that benefit a lot for it, then dismiss "the kind of applications that we haven’t yet automate".

In real life, even in math-heavy task, the dominate factor is doing that kind of stuff.

The problem that people that say "please, programming is not math!" is get rid of the elitistic mindset where if not good at math, then worse at programming, and dismiss the importance of other kind of knwoledge (art, writing, other domains, etc). Math is a part, but is not the whole. This is the message.
As the others have said, there are too many bits used at the poles. You might be interested in sphere point picking:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SpherePointPicking.html

x = sqrt(1 - u^2) * cos θ

y = sqrt(1 - u^2) * sin θ

z = u

θ ∈ [0,2π)

u ∈ [-1,1]

The idea is to pick θ and u uniformly instead of latitude and longitude, which ensures equal spacing anywhere on the globe (no squishing at the poles). If you visualize the areas of the side of a cylinder and a sphere:

AreaOfSideOfCylinder = 2 * π * * r * h = 2 * π * r * (2 * r) = 4 * π * r^2

AreaOfSphere = 4 * π * r^2

You can see that the areas are equal, but if you think of the triangular sections of a basketball, a uniform distribution uses just over half the bits of lat/long. That’s because the sections bulge out, and also latitude isn’t as susceptible to pinching (perhaps someone who works with distributions can provide the exact ratio). So my guess is that this scheme would use perhaps 6 or 7 digits, depending on whether a checksum is desired.

I've used the formulas on that page with great success for things like random stars in OpenGL. This is loosely related to quaternions but I don't have enough math to describe how exactly. Quaternions sweep uniformly, whereas Euler angles pinch and suffer from gimbal lock.
Any hints as to what we can expect in the last category?
I did implement those, but the deeper understanding eludes me. Honestly I never gave them much though, when it comes to choose whether to take a week and learn it properly I always rather code or do something tangible. Except for linear algebra, which is something I might use in the future.
It would appear that you are under the impression that this is some sort of Star Wars-esque 3D volumetric projector.

There's nothing floating in the air. No one knows how to do that yet. This is just a more advanced version of the lenticular display on the Nintendo 3DS.
All employment is driven by economic duress.

Few would work if they didn't have to.
You make a good point, and it worries me somewhat. It manifests itself not just in discussion about math, but also in discussions about fast runtimes, discussions about algorithms, discussions about data structures. There is a lot of vocal self reinforcement of the ideas that speed matters little, algorithms matters little, data structures matter little.

The situation reminds me of an aphorism. I am sure there would equivalents of this story in other cultures. The story behind the aphorism goes like this:

A worldly wise frog visits his friend, a frog in a well. The frog of the well wants to know how big the world is, and proceeds to ask questions by jumping over increasing fractions of the diameter of the well, and asking "is it this big ?". About the point where the frog jumps from the sides to the center of the well, the frog proclaims now if you say the world is bigger than this you are just bullshitting me.

I see this a lot in CRUD programmers, just because they havent found a way to exploit some algorithms they think these are universally useless. Not only that, influenced by these oft repeated lines, they do not even try to find an use that would make their code more efficient. Some are more radical and propose that these topics should not be taught in CS courses. Redis is proof that CRUD can benefit from all these. Similarly, I have also seen many compute oriented programmers think CRUD is trivial. In which case I would just slide the keyboard towards them and ask them to write something that scales, is performant in terms of speed and latency, is robust and frugal with hardware resources.
Other animals, including say monkeys and chimps, have also been shown to readily and willingly trade sex for material gain (usually food).
While harm reduction is a great thing, legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking and the status of women in general.

Based on what evidence are you claiming this?

Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.

Sure. But they are enslaved whether prostitution is illegal or not. To claim that the criminalization solves that problem would be laughable; all it does it sweep it under the rug, by forcing prostitutes to hide and avoid help, with fear of being imprisoned.

Here in Portugal we decriminalized all drug use. And you know what? It seems that when people can ask for help without fearing they'll end up behind bars, they actually do it more!

If we want to end prostitution, we must attack the root of the problem, which you so well pointed out: the literal enslavement of women, and the economic situations that lead them to it. Criminalizing it solves nothing, it's just one more case of a policy that makes people feel good about themselves while they screw those they wanted to help.
> many prostitutes are not in the business of their own free will

How many? What percentage? Citation needed.

Weasel words will get you nowhere.
The graph in the article is really bad. The heading says "Reported rape offenses per capita" while the vertical axis says "Rape offenses per capita".

Two things:

* Those are not the same thing.

* 40 rapes per capita? (Yes, the article says per 100,000 but the graph should stand on its own.)
> legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking

The opposite is potentially true, because if it's decriminalized, it will also be regulated. Which means that everyone involved could be required to have their IDs on file, and could also require medical exams where doctors could ask whether they are there against their will.

When it's underground, it's less visible, and therefore easier for human trafficking to go undetected. [1] Human trafficking is clearly not a victimless crime, and all attempts should be made to stop it, but keeping prostitution illegal doesn't help, and probably instead hurts, that cause.

>Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.

"Forced" means they had no other options. You'd rather they or their families starved, then?

Work on fixing the underlying economic realities that are "forcing" people into a profession against their will. Don't try to outlaw something that will continue exist no matter what laws are passed.

It's as futile as the War on Drugs.

[1] It's also worth noting that human trafficking doesn't always involve sex work. There was a case in Boulder, Colorado a few years back where people were lured to the US under false pretenses and they were forced to work in a chain of Thai restaurants without pay.
I second the recommendations of both _Worm_ and _Ra_.
where does it say they need to keep the profits in USD? It would be interesting to know how they justify that - http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf.
A few days ago the UK underwent one of the largest public sector strikes in decades. No one noticed. Schools ran half classes, bins were unemptied but basically, nada.

Either withdrawing labour no longer works, or withdrawing labour needs to be long enough that It hurts the employee more than the employer or, as I suspect, the industries that could have an effect by withdrawing are not unionised (retail being the obvious one)

I am just wondering how the coming "robotisation" and the supposed need for wage-for-breathing will happen in a world where unions have no more power.

I am proud of the UKs labour movement - but it seems to have forgotten.
Doesn't that depend on how you define economic duress?
If we are talking about voluntary prostitution in a country with a welfare state then does it count as coercion if the person chooses prostitution over a minimum wage job because it pays better?
That's still not free product, that's a free trial. Those are worlds apart in customer expectations.
Sure, but you say that like it's a bad thing in itself. There's a long, long tradition (thousands of years at least!) of despising middlemen because their products aren't tangible. But they get rich because a connection through a middleman is better than missing the connection in the first place.
Important numbers.

" To date, Yo has had over 2 million installs of the app and currently has over 2,000 developers who have started working with the API. "
Also, will books that aren't on Amazon cease to "exist"?

There are a number of books I enjoyed in the paper era that I flat out can't find on Amazon now, and I tend to think of Amazon as "ALL THE BOOKS".
How often are you getting non-line-of-sight propagation with MURS?
Wordpress is the best way to go. It is the most popular choice, easy, and has everything you will need.
Unless you have some specific reason to prefer something else - go with wordpress(self hosted).
Selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isn't selling fucking legal!? Why should it be illegal to sell something that is perfectly legal to give away?

- George Carlin
How Comcast became a powerful–and controversial–part of the Internet backbone
After backing up the entire piece set, the requirement per-node for joining the pool declines - say 100GB each instead of 500GB each. Or perhaps you have a setup where the pool master takes care of storing all the data and the workers all do POW. Then it's up to the pool to tune prices so that workers can profit as much as possible.

You might end up with multiple competing pools, but it puts the barrier-to-entry of being a new pool at a high price. Everyone will mine for the cheapest pool, and the 1 pool that can provide all the storage at the lowest cost is the 1 pool that will control all of the data on the network.

It seems like a fragile solution.
Kickstarter Film Fest (Live)
Well, it's not something you can TRY yet -- i think those are the guidelines? :)
I disagree; perhaps the idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men BY MEN is a foundation of patriarchy, but the simple sale of sexual physical services isn't.

I can sell you my labor, the product of my labor, or actions I can take upon your body (massage, for example). Why is sex different?

I'm not talking operations-wise, I'm saying that excluding the slavery and pimping, what exactly is inherently wrong with the act itself? What separates sexual activity from other activity as something that 'is the foundation of the patriarchy?'
> a third, uncomfortable hypothesis: it's possible that violent males consider prostitution and rape as "substitutes". With prostitution legally acceptable and cheaper than when it was a criminal offense, would-be rapists might shift away from violence toward women, opting to purchase sex instead.

I'm really not sure how one could consider "uncomfortable" the idea that some people who would otherwise commit a crime, would instead opt to pay for a legal service?

When prostitution is legal, isn't this situation just the same as someone buying a car instead of stealing it, or streaming a movie on Netflix instead of torrenting it? The only difference I see is that the rape prevented would have been worse than stealing or copying, so it's even more important to prevent it.

edit: I can see people saying that I'm comparing a crime against people with crimes against objects. So here's another situation: someone paying an employee instead of enslaving him.
> If we are talking about voluntary prostitution in a country with a welfare state then does it count as coercion if the person chooses prostitution over a minimum wage job because it pays better?

Here's an interesting question for you: is the public entitled to make prostitution illegal,[1] on the basis that they don't like the sociological implications of selling sex becoming an alternative to getting a minimum wage job? I think they are quite entitled to do that.

[1] Though I prefer how Sweden does it: to make buy sex illegal, but not selling it.
Here's my list: http://digitalmind.io/post/best-startup-books
Hard to remember - some devs / architects I met at LGA conference are trying to reduce their internal app footprints and move to a database is not the cow nor yours model.
It's outlawed because, while it may be a victimless crime, it's not a victimless industry.
How would you distinguish mathematics from logic? Some very smart people [1] have thought they were deeply related.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica
Does "Renting your spare room" (airbnb) or "Renting your car" (uber) sound sketchy? It's all about how the protocol works and the security guarantees on top. Users should store pre-encrypted files. (except for public goods, like wikipedia)
That's a flaw in the approach? What is the benefit of being merciful to those who commit crimes out of "being impulsive and not thinking even five minutes ahead"?
Please read the entire letter. You've got pissed off about a statement without bothering to read the reasons and the data he gives for making that statement.

Let me take just a few of the point you make:

>> "cheap carbohydrates == diabetes for a big portion of the population"

Ok. How about looking at it another way? Cheaper food means less people starving and dying young.

>> "how much toxicity do you want in your fish? Do we want to all be beta testers for Monsanto, just to stay alive?"

If it's a choice between eating toxic fish and living off it for many years or dying or course I want to be beta tester for Monsanto. I despise the company and am all for healthy sustainable food but for a lot of people it's a choice between eating and not eating.

>> "how much time do we sit commuting in mega-sprawls vs previous generations"

You have to sit in traffic in a 'mega-sprawl' and previous generations had to work their ass off on a farm from 6am to 10pm. You drive your nice, air conditioned car to work, or take cheap public transport while people in poorer countries dream of having a job. You have it easy.

You entire position is based on that of a comfortable person living in the US ignorant of the fact that when someone talks about the world they are not only referring to you. His statement was about the world. Here are a few of his points from the letter to save you reading it:

1. the percentage of very poor people has dropped by more than half since 1990

2. Since 1960, the life span for women in sub-Saharan Africa has gone up from 41 to 57 years, despite the HIV epidemic. Without HIV it would be 61 years.

3. The percentage of children in school has gone from the low 40s to over 75 percent since 1970.

4. Today there are only three countries left that have never been polio-free: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

5. A baby born in 1960 had an 18 percent chance of dying before her fifth birthday. For a child born today, the odds are less than 5 percent. In 2035, they will be 1.6 percent.

The main reason I posted the link was the following point:

Drops in child mortality have been shown to lead to drops in the number of births. In countries where your child is likely to die at a young age you have many children to 'compensate' for the likely loss. If you can be quite certain your child won't die or measles, polio, malaria etc. then you won't have as many children.
Really? If the pool only has 51% of the mining power but gets 100% of the block rewards, pool members would get coins at double the normal rate. I don't see a lot of people leaving in that event.
No offense, but it means either you are both indeed great or none of you are, which one is true I will never know.
Advice for foreigners on how Britons walk
I'd be more worried about making the code readable and easy to modify than high performance. You realize this is at best 5-10 OPS right?

Because in 12 months, nobody is going to know that you saved 2 operations by cleverly "arranging" your code.

I'm not saying you shouldn't arrange your code as best you can, but performance in this situation would absolutely be secondary to readability.

The link you give has nothing to do with the topic of math. It's mostly about knowing how your application is interacting with the system and a basic pragmatic approach to lock contention (also not math).
Perhaps you should rename it "whuffie".
I do want to know what my colleagues make.

I want to know that the intern sitting across from me didn't get an unfair deal from HR when they started, like I did at a previous employer. Not everyone knows to check GlassDoor, and not everyone is good at negotiating, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve a fair (market) rate.

I want to know that the guy in the senior role in the corner who gets a lot done is paid appropriately for his work, because if he isn't then he's liable to find a company that will, and that would be a bigger loss for us than losing a few dollars to his pay check. This has happened at every tech job I've ever had -- so maybe I'm just thinking totally wrong about this, but I'd like to know why if I am.

I want to know that my female colleague is not falling victim to sexism in the paycheck.

I want to know if I'm working for a company that abuses colleagues, and this is one of the ways of spotting that.

I understand that jealousy can be an issue for some people (myself included), but in my opinion your effort should be put into analyzing why your feeling that jealousy.
There are times when I notice jealousy in myself, but when I stop and look at what I'm jealous at almost every time the other person is deserving of what they got. I take it as a learning experience, a sign that there is room for improvement in yourself.