skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's not the cost. The problem is electrical planes. Helicopters are known for their agility, coming at the cost of extreme energy use (and, imho, extreme danger. Any mechanical failure in any part of the helicopter WILL result in contact with the ground in 2 minutes or less. Redundancy (in your standard helicopter craft) is effectively zero). Getting a normal plane to fly electrical is a huge challenge. Getting a helicopter to fly electrical is a bigger challenge.

In 2011, for the first time in history, a manned helicopter took flight. More than 1/4th of the flight mass was batteries and that afforded the craft ~2 minutes of powered flight (hover, not maneuvering). [1]

We just don't have the electrical storage solution to pull it off easily. It's not impossible at these efficiencies either, but it's bloody hard.

It's not just electrical power that falls short. For the longest time, planes were quite picky fuel wise and gasoline also fell short. Even today, it's not gasoline that's used, even though most planes will fly fine on your car's gasoline (not diesel though), even corn ethanol, but less efficient (range reduction of ~20-30%).

The answer to most of the "can we do X with electricity" is simply : find a way to store 4 times (or more) the electrical power in something the size and weight of our best batteries (take lithium-polymer), and it'll work. Without that, it's barely possible.

We do have things that store electrical power more effectively than a battery, but you won't like them. Plutonium batteries would easily allow for an electrical helicopter and would allow it to remain flying constantly for 40 years straight (or more if you like, thousands of years wouldn't be out of the question, really). There are a few other nuclear options that would provide similar performance. But I don't think I need to explain why this isn't done. Plutonium batteries have the advantage that they do direct electricity generation, making them very, very small and efficient. Also, in space, temperature is supposedly -271 degrees celcius, but because there's no gas colliding with the craft, heat will take weeks to leak away from the spacecraft. So anything with a heat based generator (which is nearly everything) is out. Which is why plutonium batteries are pretty much the only answer.

[1] http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-first-electric-powered-hel...
Given the difference in both OOP and FP, I agree it certainly would be an interesting contrast to explore. Especially now, as FP is becoming more mainstream.
Thanks for letting me know. The data's there, it's actually just a UI fail.

The autocomplete turns language names into ISO 693-3 three-letter language codes. Language names themselves are a large kettle of fish. "English" is ok, but "Chinese" is a whole language family, with about maybe 15 modern members.

I'll provide some more useful error messages, to point people in the right direction.
I hope ITER reaches CERN success
> For what it's worth, e-voting isn't verifiable directly,
> unless it's done in a way linked to voter identities

You're missing out on the last 20 years of crypto research. I'd say we're not there yet, but people have been thinking hard about things such as verifiability (with vote confidentiality of course!), coercion resistance etc, and have come up with really cool ideas. As with his other work, David Chaum has some stuff that makes you go "WTF?!? oooh", check out things like Pret a Voter or Scantegrity.
The passcode and the pin is not the same thing, most people don't have a passcode.
Ok, I'll probably get downvoted to death (therefore new account), but I am really interested in your opinion on this:

Things like "Try being the only woman over 40." for me sounds like desperately looking for an excuse for not wanting to work there without really having one - similar to "I'm the only tall guy with black hair and blue eyes - I can't work there".

Next, the "Halle Berry" thing: I'm not really into the specifics about her, but I'm not aware of anything negative. I only think of her as being really successful in her job. There is nothing about being a woman in there - when a guy with a huge beard would break the server there would be jokes like "Oh look, Gandalf broke the website today" which isn't bad either.

I do not understand their problem about "being different" - I think of it as one of the biggest reasons for having people to do the job instead of 1000 equal robots (only second to "robots are not that far yet"). In addition to this: Isn't the diversity thing one of ideas a lot of "feminists" preach to convince people to look for "women who could do this job" instead of "everyone who could do this job"?

And the last thing: In the article they complain about not getting a baby leave, which is totally valid, but doesn't that contradict the the other "we want to be treated equally" stuff?
Lobbying and what seems to me to be unchecked flouting of the law is utterly disgusting.
Each time I've been conned was due to me wishing things beyond what I know is real. I was conning myself. Conman was just there to take my money.
While it is a multi-copter instead of a quad, this thing looks promising:

http://www.e-volo.com/

Video of first flight is on this page: http://www.e-volo.com/ongoing-developement/vc-200
It sounds wrong to me as well. I would think you would want the center of lift as close as possible to the center of gravity, and that you would also want the flight controllers accelerometers and gyroscopes in the same spot.
That would only catch messages sent to the target, not messages that the target sent itself. For example if I send a iMessage to a friend on my Mac, I won't see my sent message on my iPhone later.
I saw John Barry speak; had no idea he had a doctorate. Brought down the house, a real barnstormer.
Just checking what you are saying in your last paragraph: do you mean to say that shallow NN's don't overfit?
An example of a company working on this issue is monetas.net, which has announced launch for December. Their solution is based on OpenTransactions, which adds a layer on top of Bitcoin (or any other payment system) that allows to perform much smaller and cheaper transactions.
The affordances and biases of social networks
I'm sure Google is much more, that's likely SV. $130K, btw, probably isn't enough for you to buy your own house - so it's not great wages.
Since I'm also based in Germany, may I ask how you do marketing, where you get your gigs? Agencies, word of mouth, previous employment?

What technologies do you do, do you cover the whole tech spectrum in that area, how many years experience, are you in Bavaria (where rates are a bit higher than elsewhere)?

Most advertised job offers seem to be only through agencies, and over here hardly any freelancers work without agencies. Plus 100€/hr is pretty high (for a non-company rate), so you must be doing something right.
Re: "The passcode and the pin is not the same thing, most people don't have a passcode."

On iOS I believe this is incorrect, the Passcode is another name for PIN on the iPhone.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4113

You can have complex or simple passcodes, but everybody I've ever seen who bothers to have a passcode (myself excepted), sets it to a 4 digit code (aka PIN). To make it worse, it's usually their ATM PIN.
" one of the most interesting points, though the writer didn't spend much time on it, was how the serialised nature of some of the famous older novels meant everyone was much more likely to be reading them at the same time"

Hmmm… I thought that the point being made there wasn't so much the serialisation, but the delivery mechanism. The newspaper then, and the television now, is in everybody's home. It's not something special that needs seeking out.
This was 2013 and he never heard of the CLOS arguments against traditional objects as he describes it, and he attributes Alan Kay with generics and method based OO dispatch, the functional approach?

All these arguments were already cleared in the early 1990's, and people still don't get it. CS scholar's shouldn't care about the popularity of certain languages, or do they wanna teach VB or PHP?

Objects are of course evitable, functions can do more, can do it better, and functions can represent not only scoped blocks (variable hiding), but also objects easily.

http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic... talks a bit about this mindset, mentioning also Kay's simple dynamic message passing approach.
This is a Fortune article and lasted a couple minutes through HN's filters. The white CEO author appears to be oppressed along just one obvious axis, unlike some she discusses.

It's going to be flawed and lacking. If you want something more serious, use teh internets and IT Startup Revolution and look for it.
> And that's definitely not something that can be done silently.

Can you link me to a technical analysis about this?

It would be one of the few phones where the baseband/SIM couldn't make changes to the system.
"The really capricious part is when 'regulators' try to figure out what constitutes a cause for which volunteering is OK."

The article states that SXSW, Inc. - the company that puts on SXSW - is a "privately held, for-profit company". That's a business, not a "cause".
Trains require a HUGE engine, yet they relay their power via electrical linkage. This is actually more efficient than other systems, because it allows the engine to run at its optimum power generation cycle, without worrying about converting RPM down to the appropriate amount via mechanical linkage.

An electrical linkage would be relatively straightforward to split in to 4 components.
If you like more frontend graphical stuff, start playing around with frontend frameworks like AngularJS [1] or Backbone. Also, take a look at websites like Codecademy [2] that can give you more of a run down of concepts.

If you like the backend stuff, I would probably not go for PHP (though it is a fairly 'easy' first language) and try learning something like Ruby on Rails [3][4], Django or ASP.NET MVC if you are on Windows.

[1] http://campus.codeschool.com/courses/shaping-up-with-angular...
[2] http://www.codecademy.com/
[3] http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0
[4] http://railsforzombies.org/
I think you have to distinguish reasonable self-doubt from unreasonable self-doubt. If you genuinely don't have the skills required to do a job, it's reasonable to doubt your capacity to do it.
Perhaps ask a friend or tutor who is familiar with your skills to help determine whether you're up to a particular job?
Do you have any mutual contacts? I'd try to get in contact with him every way I can.
Out of these 4 categories, marketplaces is the one that I think has the most potential for a breakaway change.

Micro-payments, micro-incentives and any kind of a scaling down of transactions is something I'm not exactly sure about. Maybe there's some cool stuff here, but I would be surprised.

Marketplaces though are a different story. Marketplaces have been developing into giants since the internet began and the financial infrastructure for running them is terrible.

Ecommerce, native or not, will also be impacted. Anti-fraud & payment verification colour the world of ecommerce enough. Solving friendly fraud (mostly chargebacks) could enable a lot of otherwise transactions and serve underserved markets (EG shipping goods to high risk countries like most of Africa).

ATM though BTC is still in a shaky place. Even bitcoin owners don't use it much. Most people don't have bitcoin wallets so unless a service is important enough to make people use it, BTC cannot be the only option.

Marketplaces are the kind of thing where users can be forced to use the payment method available. EG, if Uber paid driver in BTC, drivers would accept BTC.
Note - that this sort of thing usually lasts while a company is profitable. Once things get tight (if they do), then everything is back on the table, and Security Guards, Cleaners, Kitchen Staff, Groundskeepers - basically anybody who doesn't have proprietary knowledge, training, or skills is replaced with a contractor.

I remember when my University (SFU) fired all their cleaning staff - some of whom had been working their for 20+ years and replaced them with contractors (who (ironically?) actually did a much better job for a lot less money) - students went on a mini strike, but, at the same time, the University was being forced to raise tuition to cover the bills - so they were trying to find every way they could save money possible.
I shouldn't even get involved in discussions about sexism or racism on HN. It always turns into a 3 page meta-meta-meta debate with no resolution. The whole tech scene needs to collectively take a sensitivity training course to regain its humanity.

1) >>"Try being the only woman over 40.... similar to "I'm the only tall guy with black hair and blue eyes - I can't work there".

The fact that you see those 2 things as anything approaching remotely similar is an error in social perception that I cannot begin to explain.

2)>>Next, the "Halle Berry" thing: I'm not really into the specifics about her, but I'm not aware of anything negative.

Halle Berry is a black woman; that's why her co-workers are using it. Calling her that is pretty much equiv to saying "Oh, the black woman broke the build this morning." Yes, she's black, she's a woman and it may very well be the fact that code she pushed broke the build. But, in the context of American history... and being the only black woman in an office of white males... that kind of phrasing is a problem and it's a subtle reminder that she's not "one of them" and they probably haven't accepted her. It's not at all the same as a bunch of same gender, same race people calling out one guy with a beard. Context is important.

3)>>And the last thing: In the article they complain about not getting a baby leave, which is totally valid, but doesn't that contradict the the other "we want to be treated equally" stuff?

Humans are not computers. It's not 1 or 0. You can treat someone as an equal while also gracefully resolving particular situations. What this article is probably alluding to is the vibe of an office where you're made to feel guilty taking care of your own child. For a mom, their are real biological things like recovering from child birth and choosing to feed the child naturally. If, say, a man broke his leg skiing he'd probably get some time off and the guys would joke about it and smile. The typical vibe of a tech office won't make him feel guilty. If a woman needs some time off for a new child... it's not usually the same vibe.

______

P.S., I won't be replying anymore in this thread because I already know someone will come along with specious meta-debate and the thread will become like 3 pages long splitting hairs and debating the nature of the universe. I'm just posting here for the other HN readers who never post to let them know there are some in tech who do get it and understand what these women are expressing is a real issue and not something just made up in their heads.

EDIT:....and boom, off the front page in like 5mins. HN itself is an example of these problems. Someone should write an article about how HN can't handle any discussion about racism or sexism in tech and really shine a bright light on it. I use to collect examples; I might have to start that up again.
> Incentivized social software. Up until now, social sites have had to rely on non-monetary currencies such as likes, followers, karma, upvotes, etc. With Bitcoin we can add actual monetary incentives to the mix. This is happening organically on Reddit where users are tipping each other using Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

Incidentally, this is a pretty bad idea, because of how the way people think about things changes when money gets involved. Someone said it well in a recent thread, so I'll defer to them -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8392883

(AFAIK, most Reddit tips are only for a few cents, so the only real value is the acknowledgement that someone appreciated your post enough to tip you. This sidesteps the issue, but means that it isn't a good reflection of what would happen if you tried to make a real incentivized social network.)
Open Sourcing ml-ease
It's a step towards becoming more secure. Having control of your operating system (that is, preventing other programs from taking control prior to the operating system starting up), is clearly a desirable behavior if you want to prevent applications like keyloggers, data sniffers, etc...
This implies that there is a version of 1Password for windows phone?

https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/12133/1password...
This is very similar in style to IBNIZ: http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/ which also does audio.

There used to be a JS implementation hosted at http://ibniz.asiekierka.pl/ibniz.html but the domain seems to have expired. The Wayback Machine has a copy though: https://web.archive.org/web/20120121060156/http://ibniz.asie...
Sorting algorithms explained by folk dances
There is already a functional system for distributing basic vaccines across the world, reaching 80% of babies.

It would not be difficult to distribute the vaccine, and we don't have to get everyone - we just have to get the viral rate below 1.
iMessage syncs the sent messages across the devices as well. The might be some conditions on the sync (e.g. messages sent before the device was added to the account, or message older than x months during which the device was offline, etc..) but I'm looking at my mac app and I definitely my iPhone messages.
Couple of points: ( If there are any downvotes, please provide reasons for downvote, Thanks.)

1. I understand this is an article about the impact of Ebola virus. But why does the article highlighted the religious beliefs of the doctors/persons involved? If we remove that religious aspect from the article, how the integrity/message of this article's content will be impacted? I think, there is subtle religious propaganda in the article which is unnecessary to convey the virus, its impact and required global effective response.

2. Effectiveness of Govt. organizations (excluding armed forces who are trained) in majority of nations, especially in developing countries is doubtful.Organizations like WHO, UN, World bank, IMF also have similar characteristics on effectiveness, unfortunately but with no other alternatives.

3. I am not sure about testing arrangements at US airports. Since US hosts people from majority of nations who may have travel plans to other nations, i.e. some sort of hub, virus can reach other nations quickly, if US authorities fail to respond properly. Hope arrangements are made to test people who are coming into US. My guess is, testing doctors/nurses, checking customs/security officials ...etc i.e. all employees at the interfaces i.e. shipping ports, airports need to be wearing spacesuit sort of dresses as mentioned in the article so that they themselves won't be infected and become carriers of virus. This applies to all other countries including in Europe, China ...etc. Is it happening?

4. What about the effectiveness of other forms of medicine like Homeopathy/Ayurveda ...etc on this virus? I think we need to have alternative options of medicines/treatments, given the danger and magnitude of the problem to humanity ...etc.
You don't need a new protocol, you could do this by putting stuff in smtp headers and validating it with a mail filter.
As long as you can lawyer up for 48 hours, the iPhone will time out and require a passcode, and ignore your fingerprint.
Right now the protocols aren't nearly strong enough, hopefully we will close air travel for anybody who has been in west africa, which should prevent people from escaping.

Right now the excuse is that they can't infect anybody while one the flights, but that is not really the concern - the concern is that they end up infecting others after they land.
Everyone reads these papers from different perspectives, so it's quite easy to say someone missed something (fair or not).

My criticism is that an analysis of OOP is incomplete if you avoid looking at...objects. It's like saying, we are going to ignore the objects themselves, and just focus on the technical features of the objects to see what the technical advantage of these features are. It is very reductionist...while objects favor a more holistic manner of thinking.
My goal is "as fast as C (TM)". Clojure is not known for being a speed demon.

I didn't say you couldn't do arrays with Haskell, I said Haskell doesn't make it easy. Here are the actual array docs, BTW: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Arrays
A quadcopter changes direction by spinning up or down the appropriate set of propellers. The smaller the propellers, the less energy (time) it takes to slow them down. Meaning a huge quadcopter is increadibly unstable and can't change direction fast enough for anything. They're uselessly inefficient other than the smallest ones (flying circuit board, ~4cm long) and the bigger ones just use bigger batteries and have the same flight time (mainly for lifting cameras, but they too are slower or use much more energy to go the same speed as the small ones).
I'm guessing based on my observations of 40-50 people entering Passcode, that north of 90% of people who bother to use a Passcode (or care to) - use a 4 digit pin.

Even those who are super security conscious tend to just use numeric PINs. It's the very, very rare individual who enters an alphanumeric passcode.
>It seems pretty simple to me: it's stupid to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) to satisfy "their inherent wish to be 'normal'".

I have two issues with your attitude.

1) The 'waste' here is money spent on scientific progress. The most expensive part is probably caused by the leading word in the headline: 'First'. It's probably a safe bet that this will become cheaper with time.

2) You're again calling these people (I assume you target both the couple and the people that made this possible?) stupid because .. you seem to feel different?

>There are many couples who don't have any kids.

Those are obviously not related/not the couples I was referring to.

>This doesn't mean it's not OK to want to have children if you can't; it just demonstrates that it's probably pretty silly to waste a ton of (public?) money and risk your life just for the sake of having children, particularly when you can acquire them in other ways.

That just shows that you're talking about things you aren't familiar with (no offense: I used to be there right with you). Let's just ignore the part where you call others silly again or the part where you judge for others what is worth risking your very own health/body/life for: Getting kids 'one way or another' is not the same thing. It's not like a random gadget and whether you're soldering it at home or order it from Alibaba is really just the same (and .. people _will_ probably disagree with even that statement, deeply caring about some perceived difference in that case).

The mother in this case was able to carry a baby inside of her body for 32 weeks. I (father of two) cannot begin to imagine what that means to a woman and by your comments you're even further away from understanding any of this.

I guess it's fine if you "don't get it". But it seems you attack that report without any clue on that matter AND you seem to imply that this is a stupid thing in general, for everyone. That's the most arrogant thing I've read on this site for a while.
Toptal(http://www.toptal.com/) could fit your bill. The average quality of developers is much higher there.
eureka moments and plateaus make it non linear. I think it's more like a repeated S curve at different scale, Fractal-like.
Accepting plateaus and going on nevertheless is one of the most important thing for a project.