skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Anecdote is not data, but if you insist... http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/search?q=service&restrict_sr=o...

There's good reasons why Apple tops customer satisfaction surveys pretty consistently - obviously there'll be failures sometimes, but overall they do aim for customer satisfaction more than most companies.
You don't think millions of constituents would support the "Free $1000 Check Every Month" bill? Democrats get to claim a victory on income inequality, Republicans get a victory for cutting spending and government waste. It's the bureaucrats who administer these massive programs that would be the losers.
Whats interesting is that most small collection agencies are getting squeezed out, due to the high cost of regulation.
>>>It's all, "screw you, you're paying for it".

No, it's "we're all paying for it". I'm in a high enough tax bracket that I wouldn't benefit (financially) from a basic income, and neither would the vast majority of my friends and relations. I'm still in favour of one, because I think it's better for society overall.

Voluntary and opt-in programs are ludicrous for taxation. The benefits produced by the spending of those tax dollars are universal; roads, healthcare, public education, law and order, etc. are critical to a functioning society and would fall apart if anyone could just choose to freeload off those of us with sense.
I think your objections are reasonable, but miss the point of what basic income is trying to accomplish. Basic income is a more libertarian answer to the problem that all people share some basic needs. The success of failure of the system should considered overall.

I am sure that, if it were implemented, there would be many exceptions and special cases. I don't agree that all those exceptions or special cases would be bad or to serve "special interests." EX: severely disabled people may retain the services they used to receive through discontinued social assistance programs as it would be unrealistic to support their increased needs out of the same pool everyone uses (as we've already decided their increased needs should be supported).

I also expect there would be people who mis-managed the money, just as there are those who mis-manage the support they receive through the current US social net.

However, considering how hellishly complex the current systems are, my gut feeling is that both the problems you outlined above would be reduced. The straightforward nature of such a program would make it vastly easier for people to access the services they get for their money.

The question you should really ask is if BI seems like a better answer than the current system.

P.s. I'm not sure how I feel about BI, but I think your objections aren't the biggest worry.
Why is it that libertarians never consider it government wealth redistribution when one has government employees with guns come around and point them at people on a piece of earth that a piece of paper at a government office says one have an exclusive right to?

Especially when that piece of earth is on, say, the other side of the country from the person the piece of paper says owns it.

That's a form of government wealth redistribution that most libertarians seem to be a fan of.
> Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income".

A properly-implemented basic income barely touches this, on the margins. The majority of social incentives don't lie on the line between starving and subsisting. I don't see how putting a floor at subsistence level (not even enough to buy a TV, e.g.) would somehow remove (or even appreciably affect) the social incentives around getting more money. People want iPods and TVs and Xboxes and decent cars and bigger houses (both to use and to show off), and there's no reason a basic income would change that.
If any one wants to know I seem to have found some sort of debt marketplace.

http://www.debtconnection.com/mastersearch.asp
Data structure to hold millions of sorted numbers
Gold ETFs are fubar. Gold itself is not very liquid. There are all sorts of prohibitive fees and tax penalties for taking money out of a 401k or a mutual fund before a certain date. The barrier to accessing the value represented by any mutual fund or 401k holdings is substantial. It took me months to move money from one dead 401k to another one I controlled. Imagine the amount of effort required to spend $50.00 of a 401k on groceries.
> It's a thousand bucks- pretty hard to live large on 1k. Besides, comparing the issue of poor people abusing handouts to corporate welfare is molehills to mountains. If your concern is abuse having a detrimental impact on the society as a whole, don't look at poor people.

Absolutely, I agree that the corporate welfare is absurd and I was completely against the bailouts. I'm not singling out poor people but rather abusers of the system. I completely understand needing welfare to help you get you back on your feet after being let go from a position. I would also hope that people can budget better in the case of no work for a while.
no s, wow. thanks!
The paperback is just fine.
They're still based on or valued in USD, which is what the OP wanted to avoid. A lot of good those USD-valued mutual funds are going to do for you when they're worth peanuts due to a devaluation of the currency or its buying power.

"I hope you are not suggesting that gold is a better investment than a diverse portfolio of stocks and bonds."
There are a lot of people that believe a big government/market crash is coming. And they're absolutely desperate for ways to weather it without eating their own toes off.
You are probably right. I just wish there were better options, I suppose.
Hungry Bird – Addictive iOS Game
Your acute mistaken conclusion> Simply throwing money at FOSS will not fix any security bugs.

I can't think of anything closer to "throwing money at FOSS" than something like the internet bug bounty. Google/Facebook/etc collected a pile of money and put it up for a bug bounty for software used by most of us on the internet. https://hackerone.com/ibb click through to the projects and look at all the bugs that have been rewarded. https://hackerone.com/internet and https://hackerone.com/sandbox are the coolest.

My interpretation of your general conclusion is: without quantification spending money/effort on security is not useful. I disagree with that because its the nature of the beast. Its useful to have people look through code and some weeks there will not be a lot of findings. Its absolutely okay for a status report to read "I tried this, thought think might work, investigated the way X works to ensure it doesn't do Y - 0 total findings".

What people to pay & how to know you are getting your moneys worth are not unsolvable problems. For example at the company I work with we hold yearly bake-offs giving different security consultants the same code to see what bugs they find, we then use the best 2 or 3. Thats an approximation sure, but it solves your what people to pay problem.

How to know if you are getting your moneys worth, this is harder and rubs against the essence of security/QA work. No one knows what lurks in randomCode.tar.gz. That is the whole point of the exercise. But apparently the world agrees its useful to have corporate application security teams to do some vetting of the code looking for vulns, more useful that nothing at least. More useful than tools? Well thats a weird comparison because you likely need security people (or engineers with a bit of security background at least) to run some tools. I think tools vs people is a different debate but I would bet on people even at an equal cost point.

I agree quantification of security research is hard, I disagree that because we can't quantify something it is not useful.
One thing I still don't quite understand. So a battery in a laptop will significantly deteriorate in the amount of charge it can hold over several years, to the point of being useless. How does this work for Tesla? Do their batteries die down gradually, and have to be replaced? What is the cost of replacement after this 8 year period?
I think subsidizing healthcare just for the elderly is a terrible idea. A fixed maximum annual benefit of say 30k would enable massive economies of scale, drive down costs, cover most issues, and not waste 100's of thousands of dollars on people who are beyond any known treatment and are effectively brain dead. Supplemental insurance for catastrophic problems would be optional as the vast majority of heath issues could be affordable. And vary few things are actually better treated by trowing lot's of money at them.

Supplemental insurance even for the elderly would still be reasonably affordable by most people, but it remove the current model where hospitals maximize revenue by providing pointless and often cruel care for the dying.

PS: I say this as someone that recently dealt with significant health issues. The ratio of actual costs vs delivered healthcare in the US is stupid and unsustainable. But, so is trying to write an unlimited check for any reasonably large group. Cap costs and you will see organizations operate within those limits.

Edit: Yes, I realise this is one of those things you can't say, but that does not make it wrong. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
In the original plan you could trade each dollar of basic income for $2 of tax free income. you work and make $1000, you keep all of the 1000 + 500bi. you make 2000, you keep all of it + 0bi, you make 10000, you keep the first 2000, you pay tax on the next 8000, and you get 0bi.

something like that.
> Except this solution eliminates a lot of the existing opportunities for corruption by generally simplifying the model.

But you're just assuming that this exact plan gets implemented, and then gets followed.
The title gave me a rush thinking it was going to be about this hadith :) http://sunnah.com/muslim/12/76
"Liquid: Funds can be bought or sold easily (with no fee), money is accessible via ACH."

Just as a heads up, most finance folks don't consider being able to buy/sell something easily as the only bar to liquidity. Volatility is also a major component. That is, if something can change value dramatically from day to day it can be considered "illiquid". So lots of people do not consider mutual funds "liquid".
No, you probably won't offend anyone. I used to live in a small town in southern Alberta (Canada) and we had this guy come and pray there. After a while I learned he wasn't Muslim.. and people were mad that I asked if he was Muslim (don't remember why I did... I think I asked when did you convert).

Anyway, if you go up to any mosque and find a person you can ask, hey is it okay if I check this place out? Can I join in the prayer? Unless you meet an old uncle from the old country, they'll probably welcome it.

The mosque I go to now, in Edmonton, we have this guy that comes for the potluck. One day, the prayer is starting and I tell him, let's go pray (we were cleaning up) at which point he tells me he's not Muslim! Anyway, no biggie, he continued cleaning up while we prayed :)
Laws that increase the barrier of entry to a particular market benefit the existing businesses in that market.
That was easy to answer when low-level jobs were available, because most people take pride in having gainful employment, even it it involved putting hamburgers into a bag. But those low-level jobs are drying up, so the old remedies and incentives aren't going to work any more.

The solution isn't at all obvious. I will say this -- anyone who comes up with a workable solution that passes muster with the various political forces at work, will deserve his or her resulting fame.
Relevant, from Schenier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/04/police_disabl...

TL;DR - Voice recorders installed in police cars, and after a time it was found that a significant number of the recorders were missing or tampered with. Go figure.

Playing devils' advocate, though ... it's far too easy to criticize in hindsight what happens in a split second, both sides potentially fueled by a combination of fear and adrenaline.
> My second problem with this is those who mismanage their
> money. There will absolutely be people who abuse the
> system and use this money to not cover their required
> expenses and use it for a variety of things they don't
> need.

The problem that basic income tries to address is that the super rich can't possibly spend enough on stuff that they don't need to generate the kind of economic activity that's required to keep large parts of the population in business and employed. Basic income's solution is to create more consumers. Even those who mismanage their basic income are generating economic activity.
They don't allow the batteries to be fully charged or discharged, to limit the type of wear you're referring to.
Elon Musk : “If we truly believe that electric motors are fundamentally more reliable than gasoline engines… then our warranty policy should reflect that.”

This is putting money where your mouth is.
> But they suffer from “memory exhaustion” rather easily, to the point where even several blackboards on a funky roller system might be insufficient for a one hour lecture developing a complicated proof

This is more of a problem with people or time constraints, not the medium.
there are starter kits available on the site.
I'll quote the slides:
1. (R)econaissance
2. (I)nfection
3. (C)ommand And Control
4. (E)xfiltration

They're litterally running nmap for the reconnaissance part but I believe the "heinous" qualifier apply to the rest of the plan, which according to figure 18 consists in acquiring "as many new ORBs as possible in as many non 5-Eyes countries as possible". Unless I'm reading it wrong, they describe how they try to pwn as many machines as possible outside of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Worth a re-read: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
I always hated reading that phrase in my textbooks
Where does a dentist then raise money to buy a new XRay machine?

Where do you find money if your top doctor wants a raise or threatens to leave for a competitor?
> Public sharing is tunneled through SSH (i.e. HTTPS).

I don't think SSH means what they think it means
I do think that millions of constituents would support the "Free $1000 Check Every Month" option on the ballot, but I don't think the option would ever get close to being on the ballot.
Who would you recommend for hero status to tech people?
> any current mean[s]

But that's the point, innit. Who's to say we don't discover magic quantum carbon nanotubes or something thing that makes it feasible to setup a graviton detector at some point in the future. And who's to say it won't be useful, either.

I'm serious; the Higgs-Boson was theorized to exist in 1964, and was proven to exist only after great expense in 2012, utilizing many cutting edge technologies.

General Relativity was theorized in 1915, but not really tested in 1959, and now I use it almost every day in the form of GPS.
On the last point, if people don't buy the basics, then they literally have nothing to fall back on. This is the goal. Because everyone gets this basic amount of money, there would be no reason for someone to go without the basics except that they choose to. For once society at large would be able to actually say that a persons situation is completely of their own making.
Spaced repetition(with mnemosyne) worked very very well for me when I was preparing for GRE's verbal section. However, I have no idea how I could use it for technical knowledge.
...yeah, thought about the same :)
Utilizing APIs as a Marketing Vehicle for Your App
Don't forget the slashed z so it's different from 2.
I really don't get the point of tabs for visual layout in any kind of document be it plain text, source code, or a word processor document. They never seemed to work right for me.

I remember using the tab key to enter tabs back in school to make something like an informal, 2-or3-column table (or whatever I was actually doing). This would have been in Word. Things would line up pretty until I wanted to change some text. If I made it longer I would need to add another tab because the tab had shrunk to nothing. If I made it shorter the tab would jump into the previous section and no longer line up with the other lines.

As far as I can see, the same will happen with this source example if it were using tabs and a proportional font.
Your comment seems to imply that there's a good store of wealth that fits these criteria, but that it's not allowed. What is it?
For sure, it's definitely not the ideal interview problem. My intended argument was just that it's not an unfair interview problem.

As an aside, I don't think it's that unlikely to come up with a dynamic programming solution without prior knowledge of the general problem class. It's a pretty intuitive idea.
TIPS already exist, and you can buy them online easily:
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glan...
It doesn't magically fix human nature, which prioritizes immediate needs over very distant ones.
I'd like to hear your ideas for other benefits.
Medicare and Medicaid should be eliminated in favour of some kind of universal healthcare, period. Basic income shouldn't come into the discussion.
Man, me and the wife are dealing with this right now (didn't read yet). One company sold to another to keep it going. We got it off but now the next company is trying to collect so we have to go through it again, but not until it hits her credit. Just BS if you ask me.
Most rational people would agree we would all benefit from a wholesale scrapping of the current US tax code and restructuring of entitlement programs. If you thought getting the ACA through the political process was hard, just think for a moment on the fight all of the existing beneficiaries and rent-seekers (tax attorneys, H&R Block, etc.) will put up. It is fun to play what-if with the numbers but given our current oligarchy it is pure fantasy.
It's not currently possible today (Web Workers are high-overhead and quite limited) and I haven't seen it in any of the standards for browsers that will be implemented for the foreseeable future. Are there any solutions you can think of?
This is one of the most insane and backwards things I've heard all day.

Edit (added my thoughts):

Person A works long hard hours to achieve something. Person B does not. Person A subsidizes person B. I don't agree with that. It's called robbery.

It's that simple.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172461

No one flagged it.
If Flipboard had any regular, perceptible lag, no one would use it.
Concluding my Adobe Research internship
I like how the interview writeup leads with a Godwin (or reverse Godwin, even more skilled).

The NSA could save face by not actively making itself look bad.
I wonder if you could run it as a non-profit, offering reductions in exchange for classes on budgeting, &c, (where appropriate) and making up some of the shortfall with donations.
"I am not planning any nuclear attacks as my centrifuges are on the fritz and I have been unable to procure switches accurate enough to get a good implosion out of my C4 detonators. Also, it turns out that my ICBM designs are prohibitively expensive, and the Russians will not let me have access to their launch sites for some reason."
To make more than $1k/month, or whatever the basic income is.

The current welfare system tends to provide a disincentive to work, since if you work you lose your benefits. A basic income system would eliminate that. So you have to factor that in too when thinking about how the incentive to work would change. There are a lot of Americans now who want to work but can't because it would cost them way too much money.
There isn't right now. Someday Bitcoin might fill that role.
You haven't tried Sencha Touch 2, eh? At least, I've been pretty happy with it (packaged in PhoneGap afterwards of course).
If you look at the militarization of local police to me it seems to be clear that the ruling class are moving to eventually gun down 3/4 of the human population. Share the wealth? Hell no! Who needs consumers when you can gun them down and continue to make a fortune off of artificial financial instruments.
The hospitals aren't the problem, every hospital in the Boise, ID area is non-profit and frequently they work with those without coverage to significantly reduce or completely write off their medical expenses.

It's the insurance system that is the problem, since I have insurance the hospitals won't give me a dime off my bill, and my costs are heavily inflated because those of us WITH insurance are subsidizing those without.

Now, I'm a software engineer, I make a comfortable income and have a high deductible healthplan and a health savings account, I know I will be able to afford health expenses should they come up, at worst I can make payment arrangements because my annual out-of-pocket max is $5K/10K (individual/family).

But many families in my area are just scraping by on barely above minimum wage, and planning for health issues is not high on their priority list. If something happens to them, the $5K debt can be devastating, and it would take them YEARS to pay off what I can in months.
I agree, but I think there is too much at stake for too many high net-worth individuals and corporations for the US to make a change to the single-payer system.

A 10% rise in taxes? That's a heck of a lot of money. The majority of the rich won't buy into it, they'll fight it tooth and nail.

In my opinion, I think it depends on how well appeals for/against a single-payer system resonate with the middle class. Do they generally feel that they will be subsidized, or be subsidizing?

Heck, even some poor people (who would be net winners) won't even support it on principle.
Connectivity issues in Digital Ocean's AMS2 region
The Cato Institute had a post about this last week: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/08/04/matt-zwolinski/pragma...

Their argument for BI is that it sharply reduces rent-seeking behavior by lobbyists and special interests, which could reduce quite a bit of pork and wasteful spending. It also gives political cover to remove lots of expensive middle class entitlements, like the mortgage interest tax deduction.

It would definitely take a massive compromise bill -- probably a constitutional amendment -- to make sure that entitlement programs are dismantled at the same time BI is instituted.
How to Retry Java Method Call on Exception
Profit != revenue.
You have to watch now important stuff
Your credit score (and collateral, if it's a secured loan) is your incentive to repay the debt at face value. So I disagree that people would choose to default just because they can get it for pennies on the dollar. And given the ability of people to do that would be rather limited (as after the first time they'd have shot their credit score) it doesn't seem like it would create any sort of unworkable problems for the industry.
I suppose that would work if you trust the consumer price index. My own experience belies reported low inflation.
Why not? The Chinese government exterminates Muslims in China (the problem) and do a fantastic job not telling the world about it.
I'm curious about your worry over abusers of the system. Maybe it's the conditions I've lived in, but I always got the sense that abusers of systems where greatly exaggerated. I don't have any hard data to point to, but I thought people like welfare abuseres where a small enough part of the problem as to be effectively inconsequential?