skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> No. Most Germans don't even care for FB (or twitter). Or they use it with a limited purpose. They think it's silly.

Not really, atleast from my experiences. Almost the complete youth & young adults atleast use Facebook and a considerable amount Twitter (more Twitter user, the older they get). Older adults and eldery only use FB/Twitter partially (I'd say 20%) and realtively inactive

Though, yes, in Germany - on average - Facebook & Twitter are less used, mostly because of privacy reasons
I hope they terminated your account for that flagrant breach of your service agreement made in your post!
The study with the maternal vs. paternal twins addresses this somewhat, but it still seems there is the unanswered question of whether or not "deliberate practice" means the same thing for everyone.
Heart attack, respiratory failure, and other organ failure to boot.
Tthe math of determining these "average" lengths of addiction are also troubling. When accounting for individuals that may have been addicted for three years, but died at the end of those three years, are we factoring in 3 years as the length of addiction? Are we weighting it in some other way along a point scale? The very title of that statistic is troublesome too: the length of addiction - it is unclear as to whether the lengths being measured and averaged share the same initial and final endpoints: The length of time elapsed between having no drug problem and recovery? Or, having no drug problem and death? Or, as I suspect a combined average, which renders the statistic useless.

I find troublesome that the author of the article (renowned neuroscientist and addiction journalist as cited) suggests that addiction is akin to a habit. The behavior itself is certainly habit, but the addiction lies moreso in the etymology and function of the habit than the actual repetitive behavior. For some, the addiction is distraction, for some escape, for others a sense of identity, and so on and so forth. To prescribe "outgrowing the addiction" as a solution is awfully simplistic, almost suggesting that if an addict could only replace that habit with something else, then all would be hunky dory. Well, in theory, sure. Maybe we can start designing rehab centers like they used to do traffic school - Improv Traffic School, Comedy Traffic School, Bikers' Traffic School - maybe Knitters Rehab: "We'll help you put down that needle, and pick up this one!" or Foodies Rehab: "Stop smoking that joint, and learn to smoke these ribs!" The possibilities are endless. But not likely.
It is always very dangerous and misleading to argue about abstract categories as if they were real things outside of the minds that make them. "Addiction" the label we use for a category we impose on the objective reality we observe. The OP is questioning the utility of that categorization based on more extensive observation of that objective reality.

In particular: there is evidence that the population we now group into the category "addicts" may in fact include two sub-populations, one of which "ages out", one of which does not. We currently have a "lumped model" of addiction, which associates certain additional features with the phenomenology we use to assign something to the category.

For example, if we find a person who is a chronic user whose use is negatively impacting their lives and who seems unable to stop, we are going to label that person an "addict". But the members of that category also get assigned other attributes for free. In particular, the current model of "addiction is a disease" says that anyone who fits the external phenomenology is also never going to get better without "treatment", or at best is very unlikely to do so.

But that association of "uncontrolled harmful use" and "its a disease" is a purely theoretical construct that may be wrong.

For comparison: I once worked on the genetics of a particular type of cancer that had two very distinct outcomes but which presented identically in a clinical setting. A physician I worked with described it as being incredibly frustrating, because she could literally see two patients in the same day who were apparently in the same condition based on histology, stage of the disease, everything, but ten years later one would be watching his daughter graduating from high-school and the other would have been dead for nine years. Simply because the diseases looked the same by some measures did not mean they were the same thing.

So it could well be that the same external phenomenology is present in two quite different conditions. It would be extremely silly to argue that one is "really" addiction and other is not, because "addiction" is just an abstract category we created to subsume different instances of similar phenomenology. We could call one grue and the other bleen, for all the difference it would make.

The possibility of two quite different underlying conditions presenting similar symptoms is one that has been realized often enough to be worth taking seriously, and when it occurs in things like the cancer described above no one ever makes the argument 'well X sounds like it is really cancer type Y to me'. Yet when the question of addiction comes up, many people say precisely that, and I am at a loss to understand why.
Ad seems a tad optimistic given the examples you can view are kind of awful. I get that not everything is going to be professional and polished when it hits the real world, but this can't be one of your three "sways we love" at product launch: https://sway.com/red_panda
... except that in a lot of cases apps'll see "Windows 6.4"
It's yours for the taking: http://www.krakenrumstore.com/products/the-kraken-umbrella
on the UI front, you could make it as simple as a 'swipe left/swipe right'.
Plus they had to catch up with OSX.

I imagine future versions will be Windows 10 II, Windows 10 III, Windows 10 IV, Windows 10 V, etc.
SEEKING WORK - remote or NYC

http://aakilfernandes.com

I'm a full stack web developer based in New York City. I'm currently looking for contract/freelance positions.

Skills:

HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, Javascript, jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile, Underscore.js, JSON, AJAX, Backbone.js, (getting started with Angular.js), PHP, mySQL, Laravel, Cordova/PhoneGap, Git, Photoshop
What you're saying is that performance constraints are often part of the business requirements.

Business requirements are not the same thing as program correctness.
I am not going to argue that it isn't BETTER to have your heart invested in a cause you believe in, there are going to be a lot of people who just don't want to spend that time or effort, for whatever reason. In addition, even if a person has the time and effort available, not everyone in the world is capable of effectively researching and vetting a charity; in fact, I think most people will probably not have that ability. It makes sense to choose to place that decision making responsibility to a group who has the proper training, time, and access to vet a charity properly.
They've also used them to stop underwater oil leaks. If we had done that with the last BP spill things would have been solved a lot quicker!
It definitely is CenturyLink. Their Level 3 interconnects have been saturated for awhile, longer than March.
... as well as once in 1968, twice in 1972, and once in 1981. 0.o

The USSR had a whole program to investigate peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), called Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy. [1] Sadly, some of these experiments went rather wrong, unexpectedly releasing lots of radioactive nasty near populated areas. The US also did this sort of thing from 1961 to 1973, and the program was cancelled in '77. [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_Nati...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
There is also the problem that not all 10,000 hour blocks of time are equal, because there are efficient ways to practice and there are inefficient ways.

Everyone (non-piano-players too) should read C. Chang's book "Fundamentals of Piano Practice".

http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book

There is a free PDF here:

http://www.pianopractice.org/

It is quite fascinating reading. One of the main points is that to practice effectively, do not waste your time playing pieces over and over again. A 50 bar piece might contain only one bar that gives you trouble. If you play the piece over and over again, you will only encounter that bar 1 in 50 times. If you just play that bar, you will be practicing the difficult part nearly 50X faster.

You can use a metronome to identify "stress points". These show up when you gradually increase tempo. Perhaps at 80 beats per minute, you can get through the piece, but around 95 b.p.m. there are places where you start to fumble. Those are the stress points to focus on.

Another fascinating observation or insight of the author is about speed. You can play a run of several notes infinitely fast with ease: namely, just strike them at the same time as a chord. There, infinitely fast! So it's actually the in-between speeds that are troublesome; it's not true that difficulty strictly increases with speed.

In fact, insanely fast phrases are actually played as chords, with staggered timing. The hand comes down to play all the notes, but they are offset so they start at different times.

He regards this backwards: start at infinite speed (playing the chord) and then it's just a matter of slowing it down from there: stagger the notes so they sound individually.

Pure genius!
> If you tell someone that, despite their initial lack of talent, they can be "superb" at anything they want, and 10,000 hours later they are still mediocre at best, don't you think it would be frustrating to have wasted that much time?

Who are these mediocre people who have put in 10k hours of deliberate practice? I can't recall anyone I'd call mediocre who's put in more than a thousand hours at something.
Give your suggestion for algolint via Twitter
> Spock being impressive DSLs, very natural/readable

The Spock syntax isn't a DSL, it hacks the ossified restrictions of the Antlr 2 based Groovy syntax to pull off tricks like overloading the | operator to give the appearance of tables, and the break/continue labels via an AST plugin to replace function calls with sections, as in this oft-quoted example from their website:

expect:
Math.max(a, b) == c
where:
a | b | c
1 | 3 | 3
7 | 4 | 4
0 | 0 | 0
That is very scary...
Your name would also imply some level of cannabis use. Also, cartoon racism.
Even if I wanted to subscribe, I can't see anywhere obvious on the home page of how to do it.
Yea--they make it too confusing, and expensive. Offer a reasonable price for access to Everything--including archives. They emailed
me so many times with pop up ads, or low introductructory
access; I don't even bother to read their ads anymore. I
don't think they realize just how fast people will look for that x box, it's like swatting an insect away from your face.
> It's better for my product

I think that's it. Asking me for free advertising for a product I haven't even had the chance to use feels like you just want to use me to promote your product, no one wants to feel used even if that means getting something out of it.
Can someone explain this? Does this really have anything to do with why they are calling it Windows 10? Is there really any known rationale for skipping?
Here is a TEDx talk right about this topic.

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-First-20-Hours-How-to-Lea...

In short it says that you just need 20 hours to become "proficient" (not master) at something, anything. It's really worth watching.
So, by this versioning logic, Microsoft would also have to skip Windows 70-89, and many versions after 99, since 10-69 and 90-99 would be used by that time. They'd also have to skip 95 and 98, of course.

Am I missing any other versions, or can we expect 11, 12, 13, etc (all the way until 69)?
How Google Works (by Eric Schmidt – not an affiliate link)
I don't know about whether they were joking or serious, but I think their point was that for any person, there are probably some charities they'd object to funding. I know people who won't donate to Habitat for Humanity (US charity that builds houses for poor people) because of their religious proselytizing. There are Catholic charities; there are charities that distribute birth control; there are even white supremacist charities. Aside from religious considerations, while charities in the US generally can't directly engage in political activity, there are lots of charities that are connected to political organizations, all across the political spectrum. Pick any controversy (climate change, gun control, religious freedom, reproductive rights, etc.) and I bet you could find charities aligned with either side of the question.
Software Engineer (also hiring for devops and data engineering positions)
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Type: Full Time
Min. Experience: Entry Level
About Us:

Email me directly: cgoldberg at findthebest.com

FindTheBest is a research engine that collects, structures, and connects the world's data -- 60 billion pieces of information to date -- to give people all the information they need to research with confidence. The company's desktop site, mobile site, and embeddable widgets let people thoroughly research thousands of topics on one intuitive interface. Launched in late 2010, FindTheBest has quickly become a leading research destination with 22 million monthly visits. FindTheBest is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.

We're backed by two VC firms: Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and New World Ventures. Our founder/CEO previously started DoubleClick (sold to Google for $3.1B). Located in Santa Barbara (“Silicon Beach”), we're fast-growing, and best of all, fun. Employees enjoy snacks, a game room, quick access to the beach, and daily classes with a personal trainer.

About the Position:

As a software engineer, you will join a small team of elite developers working to build the fastest, most comprehensive, and most user-friendly data platform living on the semantic web. You will commit code several times a day, and your work will be immediately seen by millions of users. We launch fast, and we iterate quickly and will rely on you to build killer products (not features) at mind-numbing speeds. And occasionally, you will debate with your colleagues about how best to quantitatively rate Pokemon Cards (http://pokemon-pokedex.findthebest.com/). Still working to crack that problem...

Please include your GPA (cumulative, and Major/Minor) and your graduation date (if you are still in school) on your resume or cover letter.

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Expertise in at least one major programming language: JavaScript, PHP, Java, Python, C++, Ruby, etc.
Command of a server-side programming language (PHP on Apache preferred), and a solid understanding of the HTTP protocol, and the DOM (CSS, HTML)
Proficiency in SQL (MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB) databases
Comfort working in a UNIX environment (or excited to learn)
Desire to build and prototype new products and features
Pluses: a love for optimizing even the fastest code, minor delusions of grandeur (Napoleonic complex acceptable)
Olympic-level-proficiency in ping pong (strong kick-ball skills acceptable)
Start Date: As soon as possible

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All Positions: http://www.findthebest.com/careers/explore-opportunities

Email me directly: cgoldberg at findthebest.com
Google has a bunch of non-profits, and you are suggested one each day, and can choose to donate to it (or any other). It doesn't pool all One Today users into a single donation recipient per day, and there's no pre-commitment.

Dollar a Day looks great, but it basically boils down to you donating to a non-profit that grants to other non-profits and sends you a daily report: they direct the funds and curate the recipients.

One Today also has a nice challenge-match feature.
Might be the CPU too. My previous laptop with a first-gen i5 made quiet, but audible screeching noises sometimes.
I really like the design on desktop, it is crisp and very clear.

It's nowhere near as nice on mobile though which is a shame.
You can deactivate one of them if you want it in the "admin" section.

Thanks for your feedback!
Not unprecedented. They skipped Office 13.
I was just going to look for something to backup my photos... I was thinking OneDrive but I'm not sure about its security...
This is true. I am a moderator for /r/mildlyinteresting and two weeks before we became a default, we were asked if we wanted to opt-out. It was hotly-debated between the moderators for about a week and any one of us could have answered the admin, but we put it to a vote and ended up becoming a default.
You also need to take into account QUALITY of practice. 10k hours won't do much good if you don't have really good teacher, if you are not challanged enough (e.g. by not having money/time/parent's support to join country-level or international junior competitions)
It's not impolite to ask - I don't mind answering questions about it. "Congenital Anosmia" is the correct term. It's fairly serious when someone loses their sense of smell, and can cause weight loss and depression. It can also be a symptom of some fairly serious conditions (e.g. Parkinson's).

For food - I prefer strong flavors (smoked salmon, capers, onions). Subtle flavors like spices are lost on me - basil, spinach, and mint all taste the same. Cheeses can be strong - I think I could tell the difference between blue cheese and provolone, but I haven't done an experiment. I'll have to try that sometime.

It is possible I have a very week sense of smell. I can kind of smell coffee, and there are a few times I've smelled an orange, but that hasn't been reproducible. My dog got sprayed by a skunk one time, and I couldn't smell that, so I think it's accurate to say I don't have a sense of smell.

I can "smell" things like vinegar and bleach, but I think that's the trigeminal nerve. I can't tell the difference between white vinegar and balsamic vinegar, however.

My mom can't smell either - nor could her dad.
Lockharts Lament (https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....) applies equally well to programming. People in general are smarter and more adaptable than HN seems to believe. The real obstacles to more widespread programming are a) showing people that it can make their lives easier and b) smoothing the learning curve so that it provides rewards before their patience runs out. We know this because many people do build amazingly complex systems with Excel and Access and VB6. They are clearly capable of computational thinking. They just don't have the time or inclination to invest thousands of hours into learning bash/emacs/python/js/html/css before seeing any results.
It has nothing to do with it, although it may have been part of their plan to spread this rumor to the programming community, which would really make it be part of their calculus. how big corporations pick names is actually quite interesting: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/title-tk/
What are the odds of a random child to become a chess prodigy? The thing about the Polgars is that they decided to raise chess prodigies before their kids were born. I think Polgar even advertised for a woman to carry out the experiment with him.

It's strange how little is talked about that experiment. I think it holds an inconvenient truth for many.

(I don't know how much she had trained by the age of 5, so I don't know it it has actual bearings on the 10000h rule. But it certainly shows that high skill is not necessarily inborn).
Ask HN: Hiring a Rails developer for a PHP role?
Hey everyone - I'm the CTO of an early stage startup with me as the only developer right now. My go-to language is PHP, and so far the product is built entirely on PHP/Laravel.

We're looking to hire a developer, and it will just be me and him/her programming for the next 6 months or so. It's been tough finding a solid PHP developer. However, we have found a lot of Rails devs who appear pretty solid.

So, my question to the HN community: is it advisable to hire a non-PHP developer even though there will be some learning time spent? How long would you expect it to take to "switch" languages? The reason I ask is that we're on tight timelines.

Thanks in advance!
I can't seem to understand why people are making such a big issue out of this? Its just their name, not like end of the world!
I used Dropbox switched to G-Drive and haven't changed ever since. This doesn't change my situation.
The internet has been decimating traditional news journalism's profits – whether online or offline – for more than a decade now. What do you mean they weren't "pushing ad revenue into the information age?" What were they supposed to do differently? The only news providers I hear about doing remotely well off of online advertising are ones with click-bait headlines and viral content, quite a different style from the NYT.

And how are they "crying that it's everyone else's fault they are losing money?"
From http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/new_windo...

"Microsoft dev here, the internal rumours are that early testing revealed just how many third party products that had code of the form

if(version.StartsWith("Windows 9"))
{ /* 95 and 98 */
} else {

and that this was the pragmatic solution to avoid that."
Worked with an Elancer actually and got it done for $1k exactly. Quite the steal :)
What the article describes applies only to public universities. It doesn't apply to private universities, which do require tuition in some cases comparable to what you would have to pay in the UK or the US.

However there are not a lot of private universities in Germany and they have a bad reputation in general.
Religious Hack? This “Shabbos App” Aims to Let Orthodox Jews Text on the Sabbath
I dropped Dropbox at the end of 2011 when the NDAA passed. I felt that 3rd-party cloud storage was no longer private enough or secure enough. After Snowden, seems I was correct.
I get friend requests from fake accounts several times a year, and every German I know on Facebook uses a pseudonym. "Likes" can be bought for a cent. One of my longest standing friendships is with a pub (it's outlived the friendship with David Beckham, someone impersonating one of my lecturers, and a flatmate's cuddly toy).

I didn't have too many qualms about giving a P2P loan to someone with a real looking Facebook profile under an obviously jokey pseudonym.

I'm not convinced Sister Ray and her extravagantly dressed friends who actually use their identities are really in danger of bringing the system to its knees.
I'm afraid not. I worked remotely for a few months before getting my visa and it was tremendously unproductive. We're dealing with a lot of new and unfamiliar ideas and it's hard enough communicating about them in person in front of a whiteboard, let alone over slack.