skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wouldn't compare mass-transit costs in Asia with the U.S. For a wide variety of reasons I haven't even quite figured out (probably labor), laying new track in China, Japan and Korea is some incredibly small fraction of what it runs in the U.S.

For example, Phase 1 of Line 9 in Seoul cost around $875m or $52m per mile. This is in one of the densest urban environments on the planet.

That's 1/5th the cost of the per-mile system cost that I linked to earlier. Which was built on open and reserved right-of-way, all above ground, and didn't require massive infrastructure rerouting or other kinds of issues you might face doing the same work in a dense urban environment.

If a developer was putting up 1,500 housing units, I'd bet they could afford to split the cost of the mile of mass transit rail running by their development if it ran ~$50m per mile.

Some back of the envelope math.

Wholesale costs on new housing is around $80-90/sq ft. So a 3,000 sq ft. home costs the developer ~$250,000.

A quarter acre of property (fairly standard these days for new suburban development) in an undeveloped or rural area runs around $5-20k. So we're probably looking at a per unit cost of $300,000.

Financing construction of 1,600 units like this is $450m.

400 acres is under a square mile, but let's add in roads and green space and things and this development would easily be 1 square mile.

Let's say we want to put a subway stop right in the middle of this and run the track right on through in exchange for zoning the development.

In Korea, that'd be $50m.

In the U.S. that'd be $250m.

The developer isn't going to eat that, so they build it into their per-unit cost.

In Korea, that's a $31,250 additional per-unit cost. So my housing costs are about $330,000 per unit.

In the U.S. that's $156,250 per-unit. My housing costs are now $456,250 per unit.

The going price for single family homes in this area is $600,000. I can make a 45% ROI in Korea, while in the U.S. I'm only making 24%. My goal was to try to make 50% ROI.

24% is a pretty slim markup. Even if I boost the sale price of the houses
(advertising easy access to the subway as justification), I'd have to hit $870,000 sale prices to hit 45% ROI and $900,000 sale prices to hit my target 50% in the U.S.

Are there enough buyers for that? Maybe. But it increases the developer risk substantially such that they may not bother at all.
ajitvadakayil.blogspot.com,

secret.TV
I wrote a similar scheme for UEFA and Euro stickers in 2008. If they use the same scheme, it's a simple numeric sequence encoded via a PRP.

So basically we took numbers from, say 1000 to 3000 as "valid" codes, used a modified implementation of RSA to encrypt them to numbers in a specifically sized domain and then base-30 encoding them, to exclude pairs of hard to distinguish digits and numbers (5 and S, 1 and I, 0 and O).

To validate the codes, the code needs to decrypt the number and verify that the value is within our allowed range (in this example, 1000 to 3000).

This is relatively safe if the domain is big enough that random guessing has a very low probability of hitting a valid code. On the other hand, the domain needs to me small enough that the codes can be easily typed, typically 12 digits is way more than we would have done.
According to Personal Audio, they've lost interest in suing podcasters because the podcasters—even one of Adam Carolla's size—just don't make enough money for it to care.

I expected some sort of epiphany, where they realized that being a patent troll was wrong. I should have known better...
Apply now for tickets to TEDxCERN
Better late than Python.
Inquiry reveals two decades of errors in FBI forensic lab
The model number is ASU15RLS2.
Understanding the Difference: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
“Internet.org is a global partnership between technology leaders, nonprofits, local communities and experts…” - Which nonprofits? Not listed in the founding members.
Does USB promise any security? If so I never heard about it before. Otherwise it's not much surprise that an unsecured protocol is not secure, though.
The Sleeping Habits of Geniuses
Passionate Reason: the blog of author L.E. Henderson
That's very interesting! What are your thoughts on RISC-V?
Theoatmeal.com pending ICANN verification?
Which Japanese sword art?
>I don't need scientific papers to tell me I find e-ink more comfortable or not, it becomes very quickly apparent when I try to read a book on a tablet.

Well, without science to back it up, it's mostly good ole superstition. Subjective feeling doesn't say much (that's why placebo work too). The same things ("I don't need science to back this up, I know I feel better with it") are also said for "magnetic bracelets", homeopathy, and tons of similar things.
Yea, smells like silo to me.
This article is severely lacking in actual information. They also make no distinction between Windows, Macs, or Linux. I seriously doubt that if I plug in an infected USB device to my Linux laptop its firmware will be able to alter the DNS settings (/etc/resolv.conf which is owned by root). That sounds like a very OS-specific (probably Windows-specific) vulnerability. My best guess is it has something to do with the "automated whether you want it to be or not" printer driver installation mechanism whereby Windows PCs inherently trust the driver that's provided by the device.

The ability to modify the data as it's copied seems like the only actual vulnerability to me. As in, I write some executable to the USB drive and the firmware modifies the executable to perform other functions. Once the file is copied off of the device though it should be pretty easy to detect such shenanigans with something as simple as a hash check.

You could also have separate flash storage on the device that isn't visible to the OS where you could store whatever data you want but that's less of a concern when you consider that a perhipheral like a keyboard can't record the keystrokes of another perhipheral (not directly, anyway--you'd have to get the user to execute some malware).
Investment in LA Tech Has Nearly Tripled in Five Years
What is Acetyl-L-Carnitine?
Macaron for CoffeeScript now supports “Literal Macros”
by the aSocial unDemocratic Party

I have no idea who this party is. But I do know that making up insulting names for groups is very destructive of any useful conversation. ("Lol, more like Worst Buy, amirite??")
The clojure.walk functions are sometimes overlooked and very powerful:
http://clojuredocs.org/clojure_core/clojure.walk

Take a look at postwalk: "Performs a depth-first, post-order traversal of form. Calls f on each sub-form, uses f's return value in place of the original. Recognizes all Clojure data structures. Consumes seqs as with doall."
I briefly considered hybrids, but the question was concerning an 'electric car', and I don't really feel like hybrids fit the brief.

Like I said, this might all change with the Model 3, and I genuinely hope it does. I'm tired of driving petrol dependent cars, and I want my next new-car purchase to be fully electric.
Show HN: I used Squarespace to build a site for my new game. Very pleased
>That's not how science works, and your comments are abrasive and offensive for no good reason. Things exist before scientists can prove them, and that's why research is done.

Research WAS done though. And didn't find much in advantage.

>Why not believe them when they say they feel less strain?

Because that's not how science works either. Subjective feelings are a dime a dozen. Users of homeopathic "drugs" also "feel less strain" but they're just drinking water. People can be led to believe (and "feel") anything by marketing, religion, snake oil merchants, etc.
What is your favorite writing pen?
30,000 downloads in a day. What I learned
Not precisely - I'm the architect behind this and personally, I hate anything labeled free or trial - they tend to draw people in, yes, but they're often crippled or limited.

What this is 50$/month for 12 months (600$) off your cloud usage. There are no support fees or minimum, you have direct access to developers here, etc. There are no limits to what you can consume, no rate limiting, etc.

For anything you use - say, OnMetal, that goes above that credit (which could increase in amount or time) you pay competitive infrastructure only rates.

As a dev; I much prefer the "let me build what I want to, or need to" versus being stuck in a sandbox or worse, surprise costs if I do something crazy.
That workflow is pretty outdated, you know. It's about akin to using tables for layout, and about as much of a no no. I know, git can be pretty confusing, but using version control, even in a one man shop, is a huge boon.
Mesa: Geo-Replicated, Near Real-Time, Scalable Data Warehousing (VLDB 2014)
I can never get enough of the arrow theory.

Here is a malformed question that occurs to me just now:

In a language like python i can form instances of a product type using tuples, but making instances of a sum (variant) type ... ?

How is it that the duality is broken when I no longer have variable declarations? Or is every object instance already a variant (of every possible subclass) ?
In my experience with code that does data ingest and manipulation, assoc-in and update-in are probably the most useful functions.

Why? As you get used to functional programming, you look for ways to reach in and 'update'* nested data structures. Since you don't have object dot notation, you need another way.

* By 'update' I mean to return a new persistent data structure with a small change.
I live in a larger house, being single any house is overkill but I went a bit beyond because of pricing and location. As such I have three bedrooms and two baths where the vents are kept closed. This does mean they seal completely so in winter the rooms can hit the 50s (F) on a below freezing week.

You don't need to live in a cold climate to want good insulation, it can save a bundle in hot climates too if your a fan of extreme AC; think 72F that some I know live by. I do the ceiling fan method, 78F and a nice big ceiling fan in every room.
> it appears as if they get paid (or are forced to) not fix it

Occam's Razor says ... perhaps they believe 99.9% of people do not care and are not capable of understanding which encryption standard is being used to communicate with their base station, and thus Google prefers to focus its efforts on things that 99.9% of people would consider when buying a phone?
"Yglesias may not realize it, but all serious academic support for BIG is based on the idea that many people will quit working"

"BIG does little for those who want to work."

These seem contradictory. Presumably those who want to work can fill positions vacated by the many people who quit working (but are still able to express their needs directly through the market).
> Does USB promise any security

I don't believe so. It's just a bus and protocol for easily connecting external peripherals and it doesn't look like it does much else.

Others have compared it to networking technologies, but a more apt comparison for its use and design would be the PCI r PCI-E bus. You're connecting things to act as the local machine, by that point you're implicitly trusting them.
1) Software, more specifically web applications.

2) Automated browser/ui tests, hopefully I'll get to move more toward the api/service/functional level as well. First stop will be to essentially build a regression suite.

Other

1) Nope.

2) Using agile

3) Not constrained other than by management and other workload. Essentially I can make testing here what I want and I want to make it good. I'm fighting some pretty old ideas on a regular basis.

4) Basically no, they've hired me and another guy to 'develop' it but I had zero testing experience and the other guy has a few years, though has never led.

5) No, it's Patrick!

I feel I have a knack for doing some unexpected things when I have freedom to think and I'm not hugely rushed. Unfortunately I don't get much support from management. For example, I found an unexpected bug which I and several devs thought was a 'show-stopper', the product owner thought this was, 'testers running through unrealistic scenarios.'
Obviously Google is the landlord, since it owns the servers and you're just renting space on them to put your property.

In any case, your analogy doesn't work either way you phrase it. If you're the landlord, and Google is the tenant, then the government doesn't need your permission to access the property, just Google's. The government can't break in and search the servers, but it can get the documents with a valid subpoena duces tecum (subpoena for documents).

> Giving someone access to your property does not automatically give the government the right to search it.

No, but giving potentially hundreds of people you don't know and have never met access to your property does undercut any argument that you have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy with regards to that property.
By PRP do you mean "Pseudo Random Permutation"?

Would you be able to outline some psuedo code to explain your answer?

I tried out the codes from this rather spammy page on the FIFA stickers app (http://en.stickeralbum.fifa.com/), and they always seem to work, so it appears that the person that put it together has either figured out the algorithm, or knows what it was to start with!
Looks promising!

The closest projects I've seen are http://pleiades.stoa.org/home for Ancient GIS open-data and an iOS App with a timeline database, https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timeline-eons-free/id4333521...

Edit: David Rumsey's classic site has many historical maps & charts, e.g. http://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2012/3/28/timeline-maps
Isn't it already supported in NodeJS (there is a --harmony flag)?
For offices, it's likely more a matter of keeping pockets of hot/cold air (or other quality issues not related to temperature) from forming. Even just with lighting and office equipment, there's a fairly considerable energy flux into many office spaces, and without mixing you'll tend to get uncomfortable pockets forming.

Your #3 point strikes be as fairly valid: large electric motors do impose a very high load, and the current draw could be harmful to the motor (and switching / control circuits), while the imposed load might also be hard on other equipment. I doubt the energy usage argument (for cycling the motors off) really carries much weight, and it should be possible to idle such systems at low power. For most commercial buildings, you've got systems for heating, chilling, and air handling which are pretty much all operating simultaneously: you have a need for hot and cold air in different places, there are mixers which will deliver what's needed where it's needed (at least in theory), and the fans blow all the time.

Though I've only a pretty glancing familiarity with HVAC in general, not particularly my area of expertise.
This is really great.

By the by (and I know that this is about to sound like an ad, but I have no connection, I'm just someone who likes printing out old books scans and sticking them to my walls), if you want large-scale color prints of this stuff, I've had good luck with Shortrun Posters -- they focus on churning out one size of poster super-cheap, so the prices are way lower than I've found elsewhere. If you stick to the default options, you can get 18" x 24" posters shipped for like $4 each.

http://www.shortrunposters.com/posters/18x24.html
I can verify this with my own n=1 experiment. I take 5000IU daily, and it has improved both my daytime energy and my sleep cycle.
It probably would help, but is also more expensive, and I would expect the bus companies to be quite careful planning their upgrade cycles and end-of-lifing for buses.
I just pulled numbers from some of the public transit buses that DoubleMap tracks. I see annual usage of 40k-50k miles on a single bus. Given 2013's diesel prices and standard diesel bus efficiency, that might be about $1/mile, so let's say $50k/yr in fuel for a single bus.

If they claim to save 20% on fuel, then a single bus would save about $10k/yr, and if the system can pay for itself in three years, then it would cost about $30k.

These mileage numbers aren't for London, so that estimate could be off by quite a bit. Still, consider than a standard diesel bus may cost $250k in the US while a hybrid 40' bus could cost $600k,[1] and this looks like a great deal.

[1] http://www.intercitytransit.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/hybr...
How about Global Thermonuclear War?
There are other ways to find meaning. For those who fail to do so in a job, BIG makes it less painful to step back and look for it elsewhere.
I've used it for lazy on-the-fly image scaling transformations (desktop client software), but I agree that it's not really of general interest.
So you can give them their daily bread (basic income) or make them pretend to work for their daily bread (job guarantees).

Aren't there other options? Imagine a ramped up EITC, where people have to get some job at some number of hours per week, in order to get benefits. They need to do something at some level of value for someone else.
> XMPP, from my brief experience with it, is well suited to "instant"-type communications, but the vast majority of "legitimate" emails are significantly more substantive than "instant" messages, so I believe the NeoMsg protocol is superior for this particular task.

XMPP is just a transport protocol. You can use it for pretty much everything you want. Yes, it's highly targeted towards messaging, and yes, it sucks if you want to send some binary (or even some xml). But I believe it's much easier to adapt it to your needs than start from scratch. You're tackling a very difficult problem here because you need network effect for success.

Oh and the fact that communication is or isn't substantive isn't due to XMPP: it's due to pretty much all existing clients targeting instant communication. One client I find interesting in this context is Salut à Toi [0]. Check all the features, you can do far more than just chatting:

- Use your MUA to send messages accross the XMPP network

- Use XMPP to remote control your VLC

- Play games together

You really need to see XMPP more as a (mostly) generic transport than as an IM protocol.

[0] http://sat.goffi.org/features.html
I would love feedback on the copy.
What about a jet turbine? Plenty of stuff is dangerous if it "fails" in the worst way.
Are these codes generated from a binary which you have access to? You might have an easier time reverse-engineering it, if your local laws allows to do so.
In Chlupp's case, he pretty much designs his structure around the tank, it's integrated to the building core.

An alternative he points to in Europe is a community / neighborhood storage, where a thermal storage tank serves a number of homes. Another option is seasonal thermal storage using ground-base storage, where you've got suitable geology (no moving water table to whisk your heat away helps a lot), used in at least one instance in Canada. Heat is pumped in during the summer and extracted in the winter, as part of a ground-loop heat pump.
I should add that driving in dense urban areas means fewer miles, lower speed, and more frequent stopping and starting, so the savings in a smaller city would be smaller.
A standard engine is a ~300lb block of iron containing 8-10 fuel air explosions per second. If so much as a piston rod gets over stressed its capable of destructively disassembling itself in a blink of an eye.

A jet turbine rotate at speed in excess of 50k rpm. In the event a blade broke off, it could sale though the outer casing, your body, a cement wall, before you could hear the engine exploding.

Yet... that's perfectly safe. All I'm saying is mechanical engineers are VERY good at their jobs.
You are heating the walls and floors which take a long time to come up to temp. I liken it to the difference between keeping large truck at 65mph compared to getting it up to speed.
Might be sample size related. Or simply that Saigon is in much more demand than Hanoi and the ones that entered the data could simply have stayed in more expensive accommodation such as very central or in the financial sector.
Okay, but when does the factory first come online? The projections are for by 2020, so where do any possible cost savings for the III come from? Unless we can expect it to slip a few more years like the X did.

I am hoping for a 200 mile range mid size, but I doubt Tesla will be first. I am also expecting range extender vehicles to have much more popularity initially because to be honest, I don't have time for 30 minute charge cycles when I am on trip and most people I know just want to get to their destination.
A Facebook without noise aka no advertising?
Related: When the Spanish invaded and conquered the Americas, they burned just about all the Mayan books be a use they were "heretical":

> In particular, all those in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July of 1562. De Landa wrote: "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

No wonder those people "regretted" it, it was newly all of their written culture being destroyed. Imagine if some aliens invaded Europe and burned all these books and all that was left was 3 books.
I wondered if anyone would get the reference :-)
> Then we tried making a RainyCafe iOS app that we planned to sell for $1. Apple rejected it because they found that our Rainy Cafe app provides "a very limited amount of content and a very limited set of features" specifically because it "only contains two ambient noises."

It's a shame. I'd pay up to about 2 dollars for the app as it is now, up to 5 if it had:

- copy hinting at how I'm going to make much more money with this app thanks to increased productivity compared to working from home in silence and saved coffee/transportation money;

- copy bragging about all the binaural recording techniques and smart processing you used to achieve exceptional realism and deep immersion, hours of café recordings without discernible repetitions, etc.;

- actually those techniques implemented;

- higher customizability (pick rain/storm, ambient audio image characteristics).

There's http://www.coffitivity.com/, but frankly their sound plain sucks compared to yours. Their “Morning Murmur” has hissing recording noise all over it and unrealistic rubbish instead of stereo image. They do have an iOS app, but I wouldn't have it for free.

I realize their hiss may result from actually higher quality audio (though they still need to filter it out), but in this case even audio quality is of questionable matter. In a real café I can put my headphones on in order to reduce distraction, but in this case I can't, so the recording has to be pre-processed (certain frequencies subdued) or allowing to pick from a number of processing presets.
To put my comment into context, I'm already forced to purchase a server from say Dell, off of their state website because they've already been put on price agreement, which means they've already bid on and won the right to sell to the state. There is no RFP, there is no other procurement process other than to order it off of price agreement.

But having said that, even with companies on price agreement, I wasn't allowed to take anything else that they might offer me if it wasn't also being given to the general population. A quick story: I received a really nice backpack from HP when I bought one of their very first "convertible" tablets (this would have been around 2008-09). When I purchased it, the site made no mention of the "extras" and I had to tell my boss that I received these without being aware that I was going to get them.
Upgrade Your CMMS Using a Moving Mentality
Really cool, thank you !!.
Yes, I know. That's why I posted this.

Shame on them.