skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I worked with TellMe (a voice reco company) right after they were acquired by Microsoft. My job was mainly to work on VUIs (voice user interfaces) for the Windows Phone, Xbox, and Cortana during its early days.

There are two things blocking voice interfaces from being more prevalent. The first is an action word. As you said yourself, all voice systems today require the user to enter in to a voice mode before actions can be recognized. It's sadly a necessity as devices today can't differentiate between when they're being talked to and when a user is talking to someone else. Even if you only allow voice commands within a specific context (i.e. an alert pops up, the user says "ignore", the pop up goes away), you're playing a very dangerous game. Take this scenario for instance:

Bob on his computer: "Have you seen this cat video? Look at how the cute kitty cat will completely..."

Phone: POP UP WITH ALERT ALL YOUR ICLOUD NUDES ARE BEING STOLEN

Bob on his computer: "...ignore..."

Phone: pop up goes away, never seen by Bob (unlike his nudes, which are now everywhere)

Bob on his computer "...everything around him! I would never ignore things that were important."

See the problem there? While it is a slim chance of happening, the effects of misinterpreting a command can be dire. The potential negatives outweigh the convenience. Maybe if everyone actively used voice commands, the net sum would be positive despite it destroying a select few peoples' lives, but that brings us to our other problem:

Voice commands are socially looked down upon and are rarely used by most people aged 25-50.

This group of people have two things in common - they typically know how to use a keyboard and trust its input, and they've all used the terrible voice commands from old phone systems in the past, which leads them not to trust voice. The lack of trust means few people use it, making it seem weird to do in public. This is getting better, and certainly more people are using voice commands now than they were five years ago. But it's still an extremely small percentage of users that are voice power users. Ask yourself this: how many people do you know that send text messages with voice? What percentage of your friend group is that? I know two people - one of them was a voice engineer who had to test voice input on phones constantly.

Voice will get better, but it's going to take time. More people need to use it before we can take more risks, and we need to develop systems that know when they're being addressed before we can get rid of action words.
I believe the ideas of containerization used by docker actually cam FROM Google. I remember listening to a speaker talk about how it was based on what Google uses for their production server and is docker is a way for them to share that technology without actually sharing their own proprietary stuff. So I doubt Google would be interested, and I think most other big companies should already have solutions to this problem (at least Microsoft and Amazon for sure).
Metadata+ Is a Drone Strike App, 'Whether Apple Likes It or Not'
> It's more likely we'll see domain experts in X learn sufficient programming (possibly leveraging custom tools and DSLs), rather than see programmers mastering X.

Depends on the domain. Are most of the Watson developers medical doctors? It already diagnosis cancer at a better rate than a second year medical student.
JamKazam streams all musicians audio to each other and mixes the streams from other musicians with each musician's own stream back into his/her headphones. So you hear everyone, including yourself, mixed together. As long as latency is reasonably low, it feels like you're playing with others in the same room with your eyes closed. If you check the videos of various bands on the JamKazam YouTube channel, that's what they were all doing.
You were late for mobile – Don't be late for IoT
Pulse app on ios.
is android kitkat 4.4.x safe from this bug regardless of whether chrome browser exists (not installed or uninstalled) in the phone or not? please enlighten. thanks.
Show HN: Dust – Creating Ephemeral Gestures on iOS8
With the exception of the light bulb query, these work just fine with iOS too – the thrust of his post is that these actions should be available without having to specifically request a voice interaction mode to be turned on, which Android requires as well.
You don't need a lot of bandwidth, but you do need a solid connection. We recommend uplink bandwidth of 1Mbps to support a session with 4 musicians. You definitely want to connect via an Ethernet cable to your home router, as WiFi routers tend to bog down due to packet rate, not bandwidth. And cable and fiber broadband works best. DSL typically has too much packet loss, and satellite too much latency.
The point is they have the capability and because of your government's secret court system the general public very well may never find out whether or not the capability has been taken advantage of.

I can guarantee you that the "automatically add purchased content to this phone" check box does absolutely nothing to protect your phone from downloading and integrating data from Apple silently if they should choose to target you. And you would likely never know if they choose to target you.
So according to this law, you cannot practically drive in a lane beside a bike lane because you will be less than 3 feet? If there is a lot of traffic somewhere and a bike lane, will you slow down the entire road to 10mph around you because of this law? It will have the same traffic effects as a rubbernecking accident on a highway.

"
Will the law apply when passing a bicyclist who is riding in a bike lane?
We were originally told that it does not, but upon closer examination there is some grey area in how the law was worded which will probably not be worked out until a case goes to court and a judge rules on it. However, there is no language in the law which specifically says that bike lanes are not covered, so for now we are advising drivers to always pass bicyclists with at least a 3 feet buffer in every situation"
We use Opus.
The astrobiological implications of life's early emergence on Earth (2011)
On-Page SEO Is the New Off-Page SEO
"A long-standing law required drivers passing cyclists to maintain a safe distance, but it failed to define just how big that space had to be...[The law] allows a driver to pass within 3 feet if he slows to a safe speed, said CHP Officer Mike Harris."

Now we just need to define "safe speed" and the law might mean something.
I'm still not sure why you bothered incorporating Jekyll at all. What is it doing that you couldn't do with Angular?
Is this the Amazon prime for travel?
1. YES! Definitely would love to see #AppleMoonshot
>The problem is about losing yourself to a video game for months on end, even having it take over the other parts of your life when you're not playing it.

I could use a script for this, and a variable. Here, let me try:

>The problem is about losing yourself to a job for months on end, even having it take over the other parts of your life when you're not doing it.

> The problem is about losing yourself to military training for months on end, even having it take over the other parts of your life when you're not doing it.

> The problem is about losing yourself to a scientific research project for months on end, even having it take over the other parts of your life when you're not working on it.

> The problem is about losing yourself to [INSERT MANY OTHER PERFECTLY HEALTHY THINGS] for months on end, even having it take over the other parts of your life when you're not [INSERT ACTIVIVTY VERB] it.

The root of the problem is that you single-mindedly see "video games" as something unhealthy to focus on, without any evidence that it even is unhealthy at all!

Where have you heard that video games are unhealthy? Was there any research done? Did you perform long-term experiments? How large was the sample size? What control groups were there?

In short, YOU KNOW NOTHING, and are doing this based entirely on your general impression that video games taking over one's life is more unhealthy than having something else (like school, or work, or surviving in the jungle, or building a tree house) occupy your thoughts.
While I hesitate to augment core functionality with something before its untested, I do think this looks pretty awesome and is exactly what I want 'ls' to perform like. Nice work, looking forward to future versions.
Why Prioritizing Social Responsibility Will Strengthen Your Startup
Does anyone know why all of a sudden this post got to the 2nd page?
Rubbish[1].

The idea that Apple is in the market to sell these things, and specifically, to sell more, isn't a leap of neurological fortitude.

To suggest that Apple isn't analysing your purchasing to augment sales in some capacity is akin to clinging to the fallacy that they avoid market research[2].

There is no myth of constancy here; Apple is not strictly a hardware vendor any longer. However it is spun, it would seem entirely plausible that they leverage past purchases and other such metrics of data against future purchases.

I apologize for not abiding by your definition of thinking “critically” in an “honest” way.

[1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/08/21/apple-talked-healthkit-with-in...

[2] Apple vs. Samsung debunked this myth entirely.
I am beyond jealous. That instructor list is unreal. Students at Stanford get another peg up on the starting ladder...

(Also there is only 90 universities signed up for watch parties, yet copy lists "hundreds")
One of the clearest frameworks to make those 3 (G, E and D) a core part of your product. Thanks!
General Mills buys Annie's for $820M
> Will the Ebola virus go airborne?

> Experts say the possibility remains remote.

Seems like the article is acknowledging Betteridge's Law of Headlines in the subtitle. Very convenient!
Interesting read. The frequent visitors to gentlemen's clubs are probably dancers rather than patrons.
Hey, thanks for being the first well thought out response. I don't have much time right now but let me give a few quick thoughts regarding your analysis:

I don't know what you mean by the fact that the source doesn't work - the website works fine. Here's a google cache of the page: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... And yeah, most LCAs are approved but not every approved LCA turns into a visa. The visa itself can be denied, or the company can decide to not file for a visa, and in this regard we don't know what we don't know in terms of how often this happens.

I am skeptical of the table you show from computerworld.com, but it is top /approvals/ not applications. Which points to the endemic issue even more of IT consulting firms doing the spray-and-pray approach of making a billion applications. But even then, facebook being #25 means nothing - they account for approx 1% or less of all applications, even when you count approvals only.

And again, 31 to 35 is not the young part of the software engineer group. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc have a HUGE presence in college career fairs, especially in top schools, where they poach 22 year old new graduates. That's the young end of the market likely to be willing to work for cheap, not the 30 year olds. And besides, there's exogenous effects - why would an old person move to a different country? Of course it's the youngsters that leave their country to move to silicon valley, the mecca of tech. You could hypothesize that, for example, youngsters in the US don't need to move as much because they already live near other tech centers like NY, Boston, Boulder, etc. Whereas when foreigners move to the US, they tend to move towards a place with a brand name like Silicon Valley.

PUMS is an interesting source for this - I think recently Web Developers are being classified separately in NAICS - have you accounted for that?
No, Cisco's NX-OS, which runs on Nexus-series ethernet switches and MDS-series SANs, is based on MontaVista Linux. These are not niche products.
EMOTION-DRIVEN GOALS FOR UX AND BUSINESS SUCCESS
It's not just voice input that's severely neglected by UI designers—it's text-based interface in general. Consider his example of choosing "California" from a list of states—most people would find it way easier to just type "CA" than to scroll and hunt for "California" in a list—but how often do you see an interface that prods you to do this, or even makes apparent that it's possible? (In some web apps that use custom menus, it isn't!)
Why, when I want to apply a 10px blur in Photoshop, can't I just type "blur 10 pixels" instead of digging through 2 nested menus and a modal? WIMP interfaces are great for _discovering_ what an app can do, but terrible at letting you do a specific thing fast.

Things like spotlight and wolfram alpha are a step forward, but we're still light-years behind where we could be if we took text-based UI—or hybrid WIMP/text UI—seriously.
Yet another non-law that will there will be no enforcement.
I don't understand why this is only an app, or even an iOS exclusive app. Maybe I am no longer the norm, but I do most of my shopping on the web. So even if I had an iOS device, I wouldn't be into the idea of needing an app to buy a T-shirt from a band I like.

Edit: I came off more negative then I intended. I really love the idea, I am just a bit confused and number about it being locked up as an app.
StartX (Stanford's Accelerator) Demo Day Live Stream
And almost any language, Java included, can be used in a platform-dependant way. Like Minecraft does. It depends on native code.
Hiring a Startup Lawyer
That won't be a problem as there are no bikes on the highway.

3 feet is the minimum passing distance. It doesn't particularly matter if there's some white paint on the ground, that doesn't magically make it safer. Of course few sane people cycle in the bike lane, because its really more of a 'car driver exit' zone.
Also we need to define what a narrow road is, as you're only allowed to pass within three feet at an ambiguous speed if you're on a road that's narrow.
Next cycle, there will be a new question on the YC application: "Have you taken YC's course, or followed along online?"
In general, I think it's a good idea. The specifics leave a bit to be desired:

Since bicyclists want to own the lane, they'll ride to the outside, which means I have to be three feet from the outside line - which puts me into the other lane at times. Great time to be a police officer.

Occasionally, one cyclist will be in the lane and their partner will be in the car lane, riding beside them. Thus, I am stuck driving 15 mph while they merrily tool along. If I pass them, well, another great time to be a police officer.
That may be true to some extent, but would be blindsided to a very large potential upside for an affordable risk (you think $100 mio spent on U2's album forced on everybody is a better investment that shareholders approve of?). Google is pursuing several 'Moonshots' that may or may not pan out. It is a matter of assigning SOME resources to the cause that will lead to patents and discoveries on the side that make the difference in the long run. Apple has--at least on the outside--not shown any efforts similar to Google X. I am an Apple shareholder and would certainly vote for assigning part of the research budget to screened approaches of such longer shots.
Hi Gary, curious as to what freelance service you use?
This is a ridiculous article based on completely illogical assertions. It states that Boeing and Blue Origin are the "low-risk option", when the Boeing CST-100 and the Blue Origin BE-3 rocket have had precisely zero test flights, zero completed missions, and zero qualification tests.

Conversely, the Falcon 9 and the Dragon have flown numerous successful missions for both NASA and commercial customers.

This is just nonsense, and I doubt NASA would be stupid enough to give the contract to an undeveloped vehicle vs. a vehicle with a proven track record. Ironically, this is the same argument Boeing and ULA have used against SpaceX for years.
I really see the strong, immediate pushback against this idea as mainly an attempt to calm the lay audience. Ebola has been airborne in other species before, and it's very nearly airborne in humans - this is certainly not a virus like HIV where even unprotected sexual intercourse has a low infection rate - we've got a huge number of infected doctors and healthcare workers, and there are calls for this to be treated like SARS:

"Infection control concerning EVD is not working, especially when more than 240 [now 300] healthcare personnel have been infected, and more than 120 workers have died. Guidelines used to control SARS in 2003 should be used, not "contact and droplet protection of 1-2 meters," as is still recommended by WHO.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) for contact and airborne infections should be used because of
a) respiratory symptoms,
b) a big distance -- up to 9 meters -- for droplets when coughing and sneezing (Bourouiba et al. J Fluid Mechanics 2014;745:537-563.),
c) re-aerolization from the environment, bed clothes etc.,
d) long survival of the virus outside the body, and
e) high lethality.

Healthcare workers (HCW) and helpers should be protected with PPE as they were during the SARS epidemic."

http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20140914.2773490

The real question is more like, will Ebola mutate to be more airborne than it already is?
One thing that I think people are unaware of with respect to America vs. Europe is the implementation of the precautionary principle[1]. While it is discussed most often in environmental circles (probably one of the key differentiators in international environmental policy/law), it really has become a pervasive cultural difference in governing perspectives. While it is not officially ingrained in all aspects of EU law, it is certainly present in quite a few decisions.

Personally, I think there needs to be a balance, and you can find examples on both sides of its implementation being heavy-handed (GMOs in Europe), or its absence devastating (some Superfund sites or adverse long-term health impacts in the USA). Of course, I'm speaking in general terms here, as you can find counterexamples in both cultural spheres, but that general policy distinction does exist.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
Says who? What law mandates profits?

Amazon tries very hard to not make a profit, they channel so much back into R&D, expansion, and other operations. Are you saying they could be sued?

If you don't like the performance of the stock, sell it or participate in shareholder votes.

Companies can and do get sued for all kinds of things including bad business decisions or mismanagement. You could sue Apple for not selling ham sandwiches in their stores if you wanted. Just because they get sued doesn't mean they're doing anything wrong.
Most lanes on modern streets are 12 feet wide, most cars are in the 6-7 foot range. If you're all the way over on one side of the lane, you're going to be ok, even if the cyclist isn't completely in the bike lane. If they're right on the edge, you've got about a foot of bike, 3 feet of buffer, and 7 feet of car.

Another way to look at it is that if there's no bike lane, the car is probably going to have to go outside the lane to be safe and legal.
In Canada we have both the traditional direct debit (where you provide online or written authority to a company to deposit/withdraw directly), but also Interac Direct Payment, which I suppose is network similar to Maestro or Girocard, except all/most payments clear same-day, since it was an extension of the ATM network and PIN pads were installed across every merchant in the country.

I believe the vast majority of retail transactions in Canada use Interact Direct Payment (over physical cash or credit cards).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac
The repeated use of "his kids" and "my kids" (in cases where the poster is imagining being in his situation) in this thread is quite fascinating.

They're her kids (as far as we know) at least as much as they are his.

Also, the story used the word "girlfriend", not "wife". They're not married, so he has no legal claim to them.
> But now I'll add to it - I much prefer the YC approach, where my comments are free to sit there, and get ranked accordingly.

Sure, assuming you haven't been shadowbanned for some arbitrary reason years ago, in which case your comments are free to sit there invisible to most without you knowing.
> which is allow to receive driving assignments via radio (which I am sure also covers an app)

Not necessarily. According to Wikipedia ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mietwagen_mit_Fahrer_(Deutschla... ) the livery car driver must not wait outside of the office for customers, but has to return to the office and wait there for new jobs. If he happens to get a job while driving, that's fair.
Probably one with 10 foot lanes, instead of the standard 12 foot.
> f[x] = x^2` and `f[x_] = x^2

That's a really good example: you'd have to find the tutorial [0] to know what to do. And we could make that job easier by detecting your probably incorrect use of = instead of := and giving you a "I see you're trying to define a function" kind of deal. Of course people hated Clippy, so we have to tread carefully with that kind of thing :)

> This is important, I think, but I also think the problem's less in your documentation than in how I "learned" Mathematica.

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head with this paragraph. It is possible to 'accrete' tricks in a way that potentially blocks you from having a holistic knowledge of the language. The workflows for symbolic manipulation, which involve lots of global state and symbols representing variables, is probably a prime culprit.

> My problem was in setting up the matrix to be diagonalized. The state space had something like seven degrees of freedom (four two-dimensional and three with arbitrary dimensions), so I was calculating matrix elements for up to something like N = 10^5 basis states.

That makes more sense. There might have been higher level ways to do this using functions like Array and Table, but perhaps not. And Julia is a really interesting language, I think we can learn a lot from them.

> I can't shake the feeling, though, that I'd want to run away very quickly from a large Mathematica/WL project like Wolfram|Alpha.

Huge codebases in any language get hairy. I'd say we're on a par with C++ in that respect (meaning: not very good, but workable).

Modern languages have had some innovations with clean package systems and API boundaries (though the ML family showed the way), so it's perhaps good we're still waiting to modernize our package system. Plus, I think we have a chance in the next year or two to really leapfrog other languages with some amazing static analysis tools.

Still in the lab, though :)

[0] http://reference.wolfram.com/language/tutorial/ImmediateAndD...

[1] http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Array.html, http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Table.html
I write a lot of little vb.net applications for troubleshooting/repairing software for our helpdesk. Sometimes if I'm writing something that only 1 specific person is going to use I'll do something like every 3 days set their homepage to that david hasslehoff speedo gif that zooms in on his crotch over and over. Totally inappropriate at work, but I get a chuckle out of it. Since it only happens every three days they haven't figured out what's causing it.
The concept is that even if Ireland continued to have a low tax rate, the country where the business is making their money could tax them when they try and send the money there.

As the article puts it: If you're ONLY money moving to avoid tax, then it can be taxed.

So if a company made tons in the US but then tried to ship it to Ireland, they would just get taxed by the US government at the normal rates instead of Ireland.