skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
But to be fair - that's mostly because makeup and creature design costs money, and you only have so much time to tell a story with characters which will probably never appear onscreen again.

The Klingons are one really good example - they were always supposed to have the ridges IIRC but all the original series could even afford was brown makeup and evil looking mustaches. They also reused mattes of alien cities all the time. They're also a good counterexample as they're supposed to be an advanced, warp-capable civilization but apparently they're all psychotic blood-knights who just happen to have spaceships.
> Imagine if the government levied a 15% tax on smartphone sales and spent that money to subsidize telephones for the poor. Could you then turn around and say "Apple and Samsung are getting massive government subsidies?"

Not only can you say that, you should say that. The tax money is ending up in Apple's and Samsung's pockets, routed through poor people (who presumably benefit from the subsidy, of course, and thus putatively benefiting society as a whole as well).
I imagine all of those Valedictorians moving on to Ivy League status are simply gathering the benefits of a childhood designed to make them subservient, unquestioning, and anything but self-determined. Of course they end up vomiting in frat basements. They're dumped into adulthood without an iota of experience of being a human being. How are they supposed to know what to do when no one is telling them exactly what to do with every moment of their day for the first time in their entire lives?
Isn't the entire reason companies aggressively pursue trademark claims against small fry precisely because lack of enforcement leads to weakening of the mark?

I don't see how Twitter has a brand confusion case against them since they've obviously known twitpic existed for many years now and haven't asserted brand confusion until now.
This type of spam seems like the comment equivalent of "native advertising", where the goal is to trick the reader into believing that it is organic content when really the point is to sneak a brand impression upon them.
This is insanely fun.
It was leaked the day before.
APA should ditch the Goldwater rule.
1 should rather be "don't build your business on being an obvious missing feature from another product, especially such that if the product implements that feature, they make you irrelevant overnight" with 1a: "if you do, understand that your business' potential exists entirely in the short term".
29 charts that explain Americans' financial lives
CrossClj actually does this exact thing: e.g., http://crossclj.info/doc/org.clojure/core.async/0.1.338.0-5c...
The charity doesn't get the same amount of money though. Even setting aside the reduced value of getting money in the future instead of now, you're not going to get 100% payments and you have no interest or penalties to make up for it.
Do you actually have to follow these rules? Is this a kind of "best practice guideline" that PMs only sorta follow? Or is this rulebook ever/sometimes used as a procedural weapon between PMs battling for resources, budgets or influence?
Ask HN: Are stock markets due for correction or mini crash?
Hi HN ,
I am reading so many news articles that are repeatedly suggesting that stock market in US is now inflated. Since many of you have invested in stocks for years , have seen last two crashes (2007, 2000) , what is your thinking ( rational or irrational) behind your conclusion ?
Can we please have discussion when you think market will start pulling back ? We know Quantitative Easing will end soon. What do you think ?
Would you mind giving the model number of the one you selected?
You objections seem to spring from an incorrect tl;dr. I quote:

"The way we move our bodies further changes the nature of our thoughts, and vice versa"

"Because we don’t have to devote much conscious effort to the act of walking, our attention is free to wander"

"Where we walk matters as well."

The validity of those claims might be up for debate too, but the article in no way claims that it is "simply" increased heart rate. The answer only "begins with changes to our chemistry".
They're going to pivot and introduce a suite of new services which use the same underlying engine to share pictures across a variety of social media sites:

Googpic: share on Google+
Facepic: share on Facebook
Instapic: share on Instagram
Tumbpic: share on Tumblr
Pinterpic: share on Pinterest

When interviewed, the founder stated "We plan on filing trademark applications for these new service names and anticipate no further legal issues. It's regrettable that Twitter is acting so unreasonable by taking reasonable steps to protect its mark."
It already is! Reno has changed quite a bit over the past few years. There are more and more small tech companies springing up.
To nitpick: 'phylogenetics' isn't exclusive to using molecular data; the field of phylogenetics was well established long before the advent of sequencing. In modern usage, the term is nearly always referring to molecular phylogenies, but in this context it's a little confusing.

Also, taxonomy is a distinct discipline from phylogenetics, more devoted to classification and naming. The ultimate goal of taxonomists is to assist in communicating about organisms via well-informed classification schemes. To wit, most naming is focused on morphology (e.g. monocots vs. eudicots), but based on molecular phylogenies (hence eudicots (true dicots) vs. the polyphyletic dicots).
imgur is a good service even without Reddit, though (and I often use it just to send nice, short, copyable image links to people). TwitPic without Twitter is almost worthless, like a worse imgur. Its single defining characteristic was 'put pictures on twitter automatically!' but as soon as Twitter supported posting photos directly their entire business model was gone.

Honestly I'm surprised they've lasted this long; they had no differentiating factor other than being new, and they had no real features that anyone cared about. I haven't even seen a twitpic link in years, let alone clicked on one.
"Most international meetings are held in English. This is a foreign language to most participants such as Americans, Germans, Italians, etc."

Zing.
An Open Letter to the President: Why We Need Immigration Reform
Lots of assumptions there mate.

"some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets..."

That doesn't mean anything. That barely even makes any sense.
This looks pretty cool:

http://gcanti.github.io/resources/tcomb-react-bootstrap/play...
I didn't mean to leave out credit to Archive Team :) But last I checked they don't need more help, whereas most of the data they grab ends up on the Internet Archive who really could use the money.
Url changed from http://gizmodo.com/the-funny-backpack-to-google-uses-to-map-..., which points to this.
They broke ground on the gigafactory's pit and foundation a few months back.
I... think this articles applies a degree of analysis that the work in question simply doesn't stand up to. I don't mean that as a criticism of Star Trek per se, just that when you really get down to it, it is a work produced for mass consumption over the course of decades, in several shows, by many many dozen authors, written for the needs of drama to fit into an hour, targeted at a mass audience.

For instance, is the fact that Race = Culture actually a statement that Star Trek is trying to make (on any level you like, cultural, deliberate, accidentally revealing, whatever), or does it reflect the belief of the authors and producers that their audience is not looking for a lot of nuance out of the various races of Star Trek and the viewer's "novelty budget" was already spent just on having lots of different races for the viewer to keep track of? Sure, I'd contend that the last 10 years of TV have shown that TV viewers are able to deal with more than producers in the 60s-90s thought, but most of Star Trek took place in a time where TV was just... simpler. That simplicity can still lead one to conclusions about what simpler thing was chosen, but I don't think it can be used to complain in general about a lack of complexity... if that complexity had been there we probably wouldn't be talking about it because it would have just died, or at least so the producers probably believed.

Oh, there are things you can draw out of the details of Star Trek, but I think a lot more care is needed to ensure that the message is actually something the show is trying to convey, and not something that lives in the constraints of the medium (including its multi-author nature), or the modern mindset of the viewer.

(For instance, in particular, the Sisko example where he masqueraded as a Lieutenant instead of a Captain doesn't stand up to that analysis. Obviously, he expects that everybody in the area knows who all the local captains are, and walking around decorated as a Captain on the Enterprise is going to be a huge problem. The analysis that he didn't do it because he was black doesn't stand up to the fact that nobody except James Kirk, personally, could do it. And not just "a white man", but, James Kirk, personally, whom everybody would know.)
Can you post a video of this in action? I think I understand what it does but a youtube video of you showing it off would be appreciated.
Number 56: "The first sign of trouble comes from the schedule or the cost curve. Engineers are the last to know they are in trouble."
That has always been my thought when someone makes ad hominem attacks on political figures who have industry experience.

If there is evidence of bias, then we should attack them, but until there is, I would prefer someone with actual industry experience as opposed to a layman with less probability of bias.
I use Avira, it's free and pretty solid!
http://www.avira.com/en/index
Back in 2009, I met the first US CTO, Aneesh Chopra, and without a doubt he was a smarmy politician who met every political prejudice one might have.

I am happy that they have appointed Megan SMith, who appears to be a real technologist, because the meeting with Aneesh was so "political" that I had zero faith that position would be doing anything of merit going forward. That it was just another political office.

It was the same when I used to meet with Tom Ridge. That level in politics is really a bizarre world.
Novels are not cannon.

More importantly, Data referred to them as analogous to the 'Yankee Traders' of the 19th century. It's pretty clear they were not based on Jews.
Probably a poker move to put pressure on Twitter... If the company is doing well, they'll do what it takes to keep it running, even if it means changing its brand.
I personally find the following low tech method effective for me:

o All home calls go to voicemail without exception. We pick up if we recognize the voice or the caller. No one seems to mind except my mother-in-law. She's gotten used to it though. I've also noticed everyone below a certain age rarely uses voice.

o I've added every number with which I regularly interact to my cell address book. If a call comes in from an unknown number, it goes to voicemail without exception.

YMMV.

Being both a math and a tech person, I would like to do a cost and effectiveness study comparing the purely technical solutions from the contest with solutions like the above.
UPS Mail Innovations beats out USPS First Class for us in price and accountability. Because they push through UPS's system all the way to regional facilities, we're seeing less package claims.

UPS SurePost also can be competitive if you put them through the wringer. From 1-9lbs we're saving between $0.08 to over $22.00 across the Contiguous US.

USPS almost retained our business from 10-15lbs, but we got UPS to match them.
HuffPo Stands by Its Completely Bogus and Debunked 'History of Email' Series
I'm all for walking and find it does help my thinking, creative and otherwise, but the line in the article "On average, the students thought of between four and six more novel uses for the objects while they were walking than when they were seated" is an example of extremely bad faux-science writing.

There is no mention of how many uses either group thought of, so that number creates the impression of meaning while actually being completely meaningless. Was the average number 5? Then doubling it is probably meaningful. Was the average number 25? Then it's barely a one sigma effect.

It's also worth asking how representative the various tasks mentioned are. I have never personally been faced with a problem where thinking of many novel uses for an every-day object has come up, and I can't offhand think of any real-world creative task that such an exercise maps to (although maybe if I go for a walk one will come to me...)

Likewise, finding a word that unites a group of terms is something I've never done, even though I'm a published poet.

There's nothing in the article that suggests walking is particularly special, either. Canoeing and sailing are also things I find helpful for thinking. I can speculate as to why (something about engaging the body and mind in a way that is just distracting enough to free the mind and let it see alternative paths forward?) but on the other hand, my cat often wakes me up a bit before I'm quiet ready to get out of bed, and that ten or fifteen minutes of lying in bed not quite awake are also very productive, mentally.

Talking to people about such things, or even reading the comments here, these are not rare phenomena. So studies of this kind should not confine themselves to walking/not-walking but look at a wider range of activities and ideas.
Of course you don't have to follow these. They are the kind of lessons world-weary managers/nerds like to pass around for fun and possible enlightenment.
Additionally, the Ferengi were initially conceived as a militaristic enemy, worth of sparring with the Enterprise crew. Their orcish appearance was meant to evoke malevolence, brutishness and aggression - not greed or "Jewishness". It was only later that they were re-imagined as a parody of unfettered capitalism.
What other choice do they have? They're not going to hire someone right out of college and there aren't a ton of people already in government that have the qualifications for that job. It's difficult to blacklist people who have former employment at a company when that company hires the best in the industry.
That's a very good point, but I think that would double or triple the length of any episode to delve into such details. Which is not exactly bad - one could just have less species introduced and more over arching story lines.

But for their episodic style, I don't think it would have worked. I suspect any cursory mention of their alien multculturalism would be lost on the viewer, unless they always explicitly point it out.

And, really, many of us do the same. People are pretty familiar with the subcultures of their own country, but many are not very familiar with the subcultures of other nations. Chinese food is a simple fast example. I suspect most people could not tell you what comes from which area/subculture. It's all just lumped together. Or when people refer to foreign government policy, and blame all the people for it, instead of just the government. Blah blah blah
I understand that everyone wants to make oracle money, but cassandra isn't an alternative to oracle db, right?
It always amazes me when a future where everyone can make a good living, but where there may be reduced opportunities for insanely extravagant wealth concentration, makes people scoff, but I see it often. Since technology has solved the problem of distribution - the main product that companies were invented to solve - it only seems natural for centralized companies to dissolve entirely. Aside from solving distribution (both of work and of product), everything companies provide can be provided for nearly no cost by software. And companies today have tremendous overhead, doing unwise things like maintaining offices. They do nothing but drain resources and subtract value. Physical co-location of workers is worthless thanks to technology in most every industry.

And it always seems to be the people who are most dedicated to economic ideals and capitalism who refuse to see that capitalism dictates that the current system of megacorps will be defeated by capitalism itself because they are radically inefficient when compared to swarms of freelancers coordinated by and through software. Simply because we may never see another 'Goldman Sachs' strangling the wealth out of millions and putting it into the pockets of a handful who did nothing to earn it, they ignore the fact that most people only need $72k/yr to get to a point where more money won't even make them happier.
Very interesting:

"The sauropod's neck became what the hook-and-ladder is to a firefighter: a means of extended reach that could be critical. It gave these animals an ability to graze a much wider radius of ground vegetation without moving a step."

Also, I never knew that sauropods didn't have molars. They quickly bite and swallow as much as possible, and let their immense gut break it down over many days.
The value Shyp really provides is taking the guess work out of rate and service shopping. I'm heavily involved in the logistics of my company's shipping and dimensional weights, speed of delivery, and volume all play a huge part in keeping your shipping costs down.

My company was leaving a lot of money on the table until we got shipping costs under control. I could very easily see startups making catastrophic decisions in this area of fulfillment that another company could help with.
"Having recent wage and salary income in the same industry as the non-employer business has a large and positive impact on the likelihood of transit- ing to being a non-employer business." - isn't this capturing the typical Silicon Valley story?
> To my mind, the single greatest challenge our species has faced in our brief history on this planet is how we minimize our impact on the finite resources available to us.

Despite that this doesn't look the greatest challenge to my mind, conquering aging and death might actually help rather then hinder meeting it.

I think it's safe to say that 'think of your children' has proved to be less effective a slogan and we might as well try 'think of yourself 100 years down the road'.
Better that they did what they could, certainly. I expect a modern study would take into account DNA, molecular, and even RNA analysis where possible, which were not concerns at the time.

(Modern sample preservation techniques have to consider about half a dozen different types of analysis. Drying, freezing, alcohol, formalin, bleach, are all used for different things. The best all-purpose preservative is high-percentage ethanol, which is okay for DNA for 5-10 years and also preserves structure reasonably well. A NOAA publication on corals suggests you procure some Everclear in an emergency.)
I don't use AV and never have. I've never gotten a virus, or anything worse than a driveby exploit that hijacked my browser's home page, and that was years ago. I do semiregular malware scans, and they always come up clean, so I don't worry about it on a regular basis.
Twitter being dicks... As usual
I seem to recall reading an article about healthcare.gov (maybe the time article) specifically mentioning that the CTO was kept separate from the project until things started to go wrong.

edit: well, it sort of says that, but doesn't offer much explanation:

> Zients, who is not an engineer, was teamed with Park, the White House chief technology officer. "On Oct. 17, I went from White House CTO to full-time HealthCare.gov fixer," Park says. The two were charged, says Zients, with "finding fresh eyes who could decide whether the thing was salvageable."

> ...Early on, Lambrew, highly regarded as a health care policy expert and advocate for medical care for the poor, kept Park off the invitation list for the planning meetings, according to two people who worked on the White House staff prior to the launch. (The White House declined to make Lambrew available for an interview.) The only explanation Park offers for his exclusion is that "The CTO helps set government technology policy but does not get involved in specific programs. The agencies do that."

http://time.com/10228/obamas-trauma-team/
That's still the kind of thing we wan to prevent. Seems like a good argument for adding some kind of range enforcement to BGP routers, similar to HTTPS certificate pinning.
Carmelo Anthony Taps Andreessen Horowitz to Score Digital Brand
Like it would hard to set up 10-20 cheap OVH servers to serve all photos accessed at least once last 6 months...
Pay for them for 2 years and leave with a dignity.
$15-20K spent, all happy, you are an exit hero.

But yeah, there is barely any honour in exits like that lately...
I just posted this comment on the blog post itself. It's awaiting moderation:

---
Could you explain more about this:

> A few weeks ago Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API.

Why not abandon the trademark application but keep the service online?
These are largely a list of "best practices", yes. Influence and budgetary conflicts between projects and centers can happen from the "shop floor" all the way up to the capital building. NASA's is one of the most earmarked budgets in the federal government, usually shaped by a few key congressmen with centers in their districts. So a budgetary struggle usually ends in some equilibrium between the deemed "core competencies" of a center pitching new work, and the ability of their congressfolk to direct work or facility construction in spite of technical considerations.

(I should probably say that despite the politics involved, I really like what I do. Still the best job I've had by a long shot)
If you read the way tutorials pitch CQL, you will assume it's replacing SQL. But once you understand how it works, no it's not replacing SQL.

Edit: We actually use Cassandra and have found it to be an outstanding solution for our use case. But I feel like CQL's superficial similarity to SQL leads many to confusion until you dig into how it works.
A better title would be "How Caffeine-producing Plants Evolved to Survive and Help People Wake Up". Caffeine itself is just a substance, it's hard to say it evolved by itself.
They could always go back to twitter and propose dropping the lawsuit if they change their name?

Yes I know Twitpic is the brand, but if they were to simply DNS redirect Twitpic.com to ickleimages.com [1](available!) then twitter wouldn't be littered with old broken images, and the company could work on pushing the new brand.
They do now support more than twitter after all.

If it's a viable business, it seems crazy to throw it away to prove a point that many probably saw as an issue from the outset (That is the use of twit* for a service that leeches off twitter's success).

I'm sure changing every single link to serve twittermademedoit.gif would be frowned upon.. but then the company isn't going to exist any more..

disclaimer. I've never used Twitpic before, nor posted on twitter so may be missing something..

[1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ickle
That's true. I imagined more on the lines of a talent acquisition.
As day jobs expand and expand, expecting more and more hours worked for less and less pay, and carrying a cell phone and checking email 24 hours a day, it seems quite implausible that maintaining a day job and ANYTHING else, whether it be a hobby or a fledgeling company, is not a wise move.
How do you know that? Anyway, Show HN is for people to show off something they've built.
Netflix suspends Big Bird
"External reviews are scheduled at the worst possible time, therefore, keep an up-to-date set of business and technical data so that you can rapidly respond. Not having up-to-date data should be cause for dismissal."

If you read 'external reviews' as 'fundraising rounds'...then no disagreement there.
True. It would probably kill to do full time job and work on side business as well.
It's sad that this behavior is unusual enough to be noteworthy.