skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I feel that this is closely related to the homeless problem. I positively avoid most people who look like they want to approach me on the street because they are almost always homeless. If they can get the point across that they're not homeless or asking for money, I open up quite a bit, but since that's not usually the case, I can be as cold as the next guy.
There were zero weekend newspapers in 1989? That first graph is pretty confusing.
> I'd say that this seems at odds with

Well, to put my thoughts into more clear terms, I felt that presenting the one figure while 'withholding' the others is what made me feel like it was being presented for shock-value.

> Now, in that context, it's clear that the retail price is an important part of the equation. If one of the ways you make money is the sex tourism industry (either globally or regionally), clearly you've figured out how to scale either the movement of your humans or the business of attracting customers to you, and the price of the humans is an important data point; the fact that it's so low, given how much harder smuggling people is than cocaine, is a disheartening problem for those considering where to target disincentives.

1. Don't immediately think that because there is a steady stream of women into brothels as slaves means that they are necessarily being imported. Trafficking in humans is relatively easy (so far as transportation goes), until you have to cross a border/checkpoint.

2. In the context of his Haiti example, he's being slightly deceptive by only quoting the retail price and forgetting to include the hidden fees. Even if he just flew down to Haiti to buy a slave, abuse him/her for a few days and then fly back to New York, the cost of the flights and accomodations are not being quoted there. Sure, if he was a Haitian, he wouldn't have those costs, but how many Haitians have $50 USD to buy a slave? It might make sense if Haiti has a sex-tourism industry, but I've never heard of it. (Of course, I'm not exactly on the 'pulse' of the sex-tourism industry or anything)

> I think that it may be feel that way, but as the facts seem to be solidly behind (essentially) everything he's saying, I'd ascribe that more to the artificiality that comes from other sources.

Like being asked, over and over again (speaking engagements, book tours, countless one-off interviews like this one), to try and squeeze the impact of an important message through the needle-eye of interview questions of variable quality.

If that is the case, I feel he should work harder on his delivery of the message. I know that it might look like I'm tearing him a new one in my comments, but I do feel that his cause is a noble one. I feel that he does have valueable experience, information, anecdotes to bring to the table. I just think that he needs to refine his delivery of the message and his call for action. I could just be getting too picky/OCD over this though.
If you include MUNI light rail in the picture (it does add another ticket/payment to the trip) then SF is covered much better than Chicago. The El is not bad, but the fact that you have to go down to the loop to get anywhere is a major PITA.
The first thing mentioned on this list, raised liver enzyme markers (ALT and AST) also occurs if you measure them shortly after doing the strenuous weight lifting exercises deVany prescribes.
Or you could just go to:

http://top.searchyc.com/users_by_average_points_per_comment

Which, BTW, not only has completely different raw data, but is even more meaningless because it shows that certain famous or insightful, but rare, commenters have very high average points per comment. ;)

If you want raw data on any particular user it's all there:

http://searchyc.com/jacquesm
Agreed. I find that I have a much better time hitting the coffee shops that don't get the yelpers in a twitch than I do hitting the hotspots. I'm not waiting an hour for coffee at ritual. It's good, but it's not an hour wait good.
I'm not sure I get your point in relation to mine, can you elaborate?
Much of the coverage you're talking about is essentially bus coverage, isn't it? Are we really comparing trollybusses with trains? Chicago is saturated with busses, but I wouldn't know how good they are, because nobody I know lives somewhere where you have to take a bus.
Bill Easterly interviews Paul Romer on Charter Cities
Reading the WP article it seems almost frustrating. Even if this doesn't work it still seems like it would be worthwhile to give them some more money and time. I can almost hear Bussard's thoughts.
You make a valid point, which had occurred to me at the time, and after living here a bit longer I fully understand how easy (necessary?) it is to desensitize to those in need. But remember I was well-dressed, articulate and (mostly) sober.

It all worked out in the end, just struck me as a bit disturbing: What if I'd been physically harmed? Would your average stranger be more or less likely to lend a hand?
Super excited about this. Let me know if there's anything you might need help with. ashish.k.kundra at google's email service
SearchYC doesn't scrape the user pages containing the account creation date. We could generate numbers based on days since the user's first post, though.
You know, I recently spent almost a month out near Santa Clara, and I would like to know more about this incredible diversity of food you speak of.
diskchecker by Brad Fitzpatrick: does your storage stack lie about fsync()?
One thing I miss about San Francisco is that if you're bored, you can go out to the beaches south of San Francisco with some beers and light a fire. I have western Michigan for that now, but it's obviously not a spur of the moment thing.
I moved to San Francisco from Boston about two years ago. I really liked Boston (terrible weather though), and I really like SF.

But Bill Wyman article touched on something that jumped out at me when I first came here: the quality of journalism is abysmal. I was really astonished at how much lower the quality of writing is out here - and I'm an engineer, fer chrissakes. I kinda just got used to it, but I also don't read local news here very much.

And compared to Boston, I'm surprised how weak the local rock scene is. I've done a little digging and haven't been impressed. I hear better things out Oakland, but I don't get out there very much. Venues are pretty expensive too.

I feel like many of the complains ultimately have the high cost of living here as a root cause. When it's all said and done, that's probably the only thing that would cause me to leave.
I can't recommend San Jose, especially the eastern side, unless all you do after leaving the office is sleep.
I live in Brooklyn and it's dirty. I would argue that Brooklyn is grimier than Manhattan. The nice parts of Brooklyn are really nice, but most of Brooklyn looks more like Bushwick than it does Park Slope.
STFU, perhaps.

But wouldn't it be wonderful to hack our government to effect change in same (think wikileaks meets The Daily Show). We could have transparency via open source tools and translate public knowledge to public action.

All we need are public records for every public penny spent in an open format. There might be some difficulties in getting that....
Alpaca's can qualify you for certain tax breaks making them a worthwhile investment if you qualify.
Looks like I won't be able to make it on Monday but I'm game to try a meetup on any evening you desire.

Can any fellow Bostonians help suggest the proper bar? I have yet to find my ideal HN Meetup bar in Cambridge: One where I have decent odds of hearing someone else speak, instead of being unable to hear myself over the music.
Clicking on Create Account gives the message:

"Hi! amoebaOS opens for Beta registration soon."
The "held through fraud" part maybe what distinguishes legitimate prisoners from slaves. Although, that part of the definition does seem strange, I'm not sure if we'd always want to require that someone be held through fraud to be considered a slave (someone chained to a post and forced to do hard labor is still a slave in my book, but I don't see any fraud involved).
You are right. This is a very slanted article. The new Pemex CEO has been accused of being involved in 30 illegal contracts when he was Pemex's Finance Director. For those of you who read spanish: http://sdpnoticias.com/sdp/contenido/2009/09/07/484841

The main problem with Pemex is that the Federal Government has "stolen" most of the profits. I am against state owned companies, but in this case I know that the real reason behind the push for privatization is to allow some politicians and their friends to keep on stealing money from Pemex while they reduce the danger of being unmasked (it is practically impossible to audit a large organization where some parts are government owned while other parts are owned by private international corporations).
Nothing wrong with defending your legitimate trademarks, but this sort of shot across the bow...

What is the distinction here? What measure of a legitimate trademark defense does this action not meet?
If you look at his tweets you see that he got miffed over LoveFest this weekend. And that he made a passive-aggressive post about making this post.

http://twitter.com/al3x

He should reconsider living in a big city. Yes, SoMa had both LoveFest and Folsom St. Fair happen within the span of a week, but for the rest of the year it stays relatively quiet. Try Daly City. They don't have any festivals there.
Come to vancouver, and you find the west side downtown eerily clean. (East side vancouver is the most ghetto place in canada, literally)
I suffer from attention deficit disorder, but before I was diagnosed I was self-medicating myself with stimulants – coffee and energy drinks. I started a two-Red-Bull-per-day habit. I found that I was better able to focus in the morning, and could more easily handle the morning's issues, making me far more productive at work.

So, apparently I have Crohn's Disease. I found that out because the Red Bull irritated my digestive system so much that I had my first flare up and ended up in the hospital – twice. That was three years ago, and I'm only just now starting to recover from it. I'm getting my energy back, I can drink and eat more food, etc. Except I have to take immunosuppressant medication to keep the Crohn's controlled, which means I get sick (cold, flu, etc.) extremely easily, and I stay sick a lot longer. Also, I've had a ton of radiation exposure due to all the CAT scans, etc. I've gone through.

So, next time someone tells you Red Bull (or whatever) is bad for you, don't just shrug it off like I did. Our bodies are fragile machines in a delicate balance. Upset that balance enough and the machine goes haywire, and it's pretty hard to find spare parts.
I think Mountain View's one of the best values in Silicon Valley right now. Prices are reasonable, but there's a fair amount of cultural stuff that goes on downtown, and the town isn't quite as suburbany-stripmall as Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, or San Jose.
Notes from Peter Thiel’s Singularity Summit Talk (2009)
After a lot of research, I put this plan into action for myself.

Diet: Lots of plants, ~15% of total kcals from meat (very little red meat, more chicken + fish), ~15% kcals from dairy. I'm not exact about it. Eating a diverse group of foods, getting good amounts of fiber, yogurt, and complex carbohydrates helped shed some pounds.

Exercise: 30-45 minutes 3 to 5 times a week of time spent running at 60-80% of max heart rate. body weight exercises focusing on core strength (a good resource for those here http://www.combatfitness.co.uk/ ). Stretching, yoga, whatever, stretching is exercise too. I also go sprinting and lift weights via dumbbells to get some more in.

Meditation: Lots of different ways to do this. I picked one that worked for me and moved on to other things. I started doing muscle relaxation techniques, since I'm sitting so often. More on those here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/relaxation-technique/SR0000...

I lost 50 pounds over the past year and a half--feels great. :)
Sorry, but I've got the contrasted view. I moved to SF 2.5 years ago from the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area. Other than Alex's comments about the weather, I simply disagree with just about everything else he's said.

I've live all over the country. NY, Miami, and various parts of the Bible-belt. I've visited other cities like Chicago and Montreal. Moving out to SF was different than anywhere else I've lived.

SF is not dirty. I've heard the comments before, from people who have grown up and only lived in the Bay area to those who come from big and small cities alike.

NYC smells like garbage. Any time I've been there, it literally smells like week old garbage. The same thing for Miami, except much more humid. From the times I lived in the suburbs of Ft. Lauderdale to partying on South Beach and hanging out in Coconut Grove, to walking through the streets of NY and Chicago, the streets are dirty with trash and other random crap. And don't even get me started on the homeless problem in Miami. They make the homeless folk here in SF look like suburbanites.

The air in SF is very, very clean. Its largely due to the constant breeze from the Pacific. Down in the valley is a bit different and gets pretty smoggy at times.

Basically, there is no where else that I want to be. The culture out here is fantastic. The people ARE FRIENDLY. I live in Lower Haight and have never been mugged, robbed, or anything. Its pretty easy to stay safe here, just like anywhere. Don't be a fucking tard and walk through bad neighborhoods by yourself at 2 in the morning. Most of the problems people have, they cause themselves.

It is definitely more expensive out here than back east, but the pay for tech jobs is way, way better. I am making roughly 3x the amount I was making in Florida for less work. I'm much closer to the 6 digit salary range than the low 5 digit like I used to be.

I'm not sure what the problem people have with SF. This is one of the best places to live in the world, period.
Living somewhere else where it's quite common to have a homeless person come up to you on the street and ramble on with a muttered 'excuse me madam sorry to bother you but...' low monotone that almost exclusively leads up to 'give me money' - yes. You learn what to say to instantly tell people you're not one of them. And it does lead to a general avoidance of other people on the street. Having said that, I'd like to think that if someone genuinely needed help it would be a little more obvious and they would get it...
The author seems to have a hard time venturing out of tech circles to make social connections. Out of this arises a feeling of alienation and resentment for those who are enjoying themselves socially. I have plenty of liberal guilt, but I don't let it prevent me from celebrating the courage of gay couples or making costumes with friends for b2b (or going to lovefest and dancing until sunrise). Want something to do on a Saturday afternoon? Volunteer at a homeless shelter, if you care about social issues at that level.

On the other hand, don't. Take your resentment with you to Portland and don't let it keep you from enjoying its wealth of cultural offerings, which are sure to dwarf San Francisco's attempt at socio-intellectual relevance.
In my experience, TRAMP is unbearably slow.
I noticed this too. He was also miffed at the Folsom St. Fair. It's very interesting how social media gives you much more context around someone's blog posts.
About Crohn's disease: a friend had it, and her doctor never mentioned the following treatment, which is newish and apparently quite effective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy
Just because there are dirtier cities out there doesn't mean SF is clean (and, like any other city, there are dirtier areas and cleaner areas). Depends on where you come from, I guess. The author seems to come from Washington - I've only visited it briefly, but I definitely got more of a "clean" impression there than in SF.

Coming from Toronto, that was definitely part of my first impression - "dirtier than I expected", and "whoa, I didn't expect so many homeless". I still love the city, but I don't think it's valid to dismiss the criticism just because there are worse cases out there.
> There is, I’ve found, precious little to do here, particularly if you’re not inclined towards sports or the outdoors.

but if you are inclined towards sports or the outdoors, SF is the best place in the country. i went surfing and hiking last week. also went on a couple of double digit bike rides. not too many places back east like that.
Porting Syck to JRuby: Where did all the performance go?
Moreover, his ideal city is Portland

He does mention that his hobbies are beer and coffee. Portland probably beats anywhere in the US in terms of per-capita coffee shops and beer bars (and strip clubs.)
Mozilla Firefox Start Page : reddit.com
Vancouver is cleaner than Chicago.
You are not their customer: realities of the media environment
I second you on Toronto. I lived there for a few months and was absolutely amazed at how clean it was. Recycling, compost, and trash bins on every corner. Whenever I tell people about Toronto, the first thing I talk about is its cleanliness.
That really rings true for me.

I enjoyed my time in San Francisco, but really got a sense that it was not a place in "equilibrium", so to speak. Families can't really live there unless there's a million dollars for a house somewhere, which means that you have to be pretty wealthy, or you're headed out to some other city in the bay area. SF was great for being single, but it just struck me as being a bit artificial. Here in Padova, there are wealthy people, poor people, young people, families, elderly people - a nice mix, in other words. Same with Portland.

Also, he's right about so many people being in tech. Here in Padova, I have more friends who aren't in tech, and that makes me happy - I love to hang out with my tech friends too, and talk about this or that, but sometimes it's nice to get away from that, and in SF I never felt I could, despite trying.

That said, as someone born and raised in Oregon, I just don't think I could deal with moving back to the rainy part of the state. Endless drizzly gray days get pretty depressing. They don't even feel very 'cozy'; winter in Innsbruck was way better; watching the snow fall or waking up to a brilliant blue day with snow covered mountains was much better than sloshing around in the dismal gray day after day.

I'm actually not sure where I'd go if I went back to the US. Southern Oregon is nice in some ways, but not much going on at all in tech. Boulder looks appealing in several ways, but I've never been there, and it looks like they have a strong sense of 'smug' of their own, something I'm not a big fan of.

Edit Let's see... other random notes

* Portland, for me, had better food than SF. This was because I worked downtown in Portland and had a nice variety of affordable and diverse lunch options. Where I worked in SF didn't have nearly as good a selection.

* Portland has Powells. Powells is awesome.

* Portland is closer to more outdoor stuff, although I always got depressed in summer because of the thought of my precious few sunny days slipping by sitting in an office. Even with good technical gear, it's hard to stay warm in 5C and steady rain on a bike.
Future of Music Summit: 115,000 Albums Released This Year and Only 110 Hits.
The consumers are the product -- the advertisers are the media publisher's customers.
Outdoor Gazebo
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What sickens me most about San Francisco is not its dirt, or its large homeless population, or its questionable safety, but that locals and the city government seem to accept these circumstances.

What al3x appears to not know: It's not about passive acceptance. There is a major political force that fights for the circumstances that he finds (and I find) so objectionable.

In this mentally defective "progressive" movement--that can't tell the difference between helping the poor and helping poverty--cleaning up bad neighborhoods is called "gentrification" and fought tooth and nail. Likewise any plan to fight homelessness that isn't some variation of "give the homeless more free money." The result is a massive political deadlock between two sides that can never agree on anything. Perpetual warfare.

The situation is, in reality, both much better and much worse than he understands. Better because we're not a city full of selfish bohemians. Worse because we are a backwards, provincial city with a deeply broken political culture.

But, even though I also hate victorian architecture, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather live. Portland is way too homogenous and small-town for me.

Edit: btw, I love my transit situation. I use a combination of bicycle (mostly), City CarShare (a fleet of cars at my disposal), Muni trains, and cabs. Not owning a car is a fairly high priority for me. And the only city with decent public transportation is Paris.
It's easy to lose sight of how small San Francisco is. San Antonio is bigger than SF. San Jose is bigger than SF. Greater SF-SJ is big (though still smaller than the city of Chicago), but SF is cut off from its surrounding metro area; it takes an hour to get from SF to SJ. The same amount of time will almost get you from NYC to Philadelphia.

High cost of living is related to scarcity and the fact that SF has had itself thrust into a role it wasn't ready to handle.
The Folsom Street Fair is a bit off-putting, and that's not a "big city" "little city" thing --- I'm a city person.
Adobe pushes Flash video on mobile devices
I don't think that's true. You can do everything you just said in pretty much every city in Southern California.

Yet I don't have to contend with massive over population. In fact, I live in a suburb of Los Angeles and am no more than 20 miles away from everything you mentioned. But my city has a population density of only 2,137 people per square mile. While San Francisco on the other hand has a population density of 17,000 people per square mile.

So I wouldn't throw around "best place in the country" so liberally.
Setting Pricing For A Startup
The Evolution Of Technology In Schools
Audience Voting: Not Just for Reality Game Shows
Audience voting is all the rage when it comes to reality game shows. But could that formula work for charity, too? A local dance studio in Florida thinks so.
SF proper is terrible for most outdoors activities: you have to drive at the very least across the golden gate to do much of anything. Maybe it's ok for a Big City, but that's another reason why I wouldn't want to live in a Big City. I like outdoors activities, and don't like dealing with traffic just to participate in them.

Of course if you're comparing with 'back east', sure it's probably not so bad, but if you've ever lived in a place that's really good for outdoors sports, SF isn't all that great.
bicycle riding, healthy marriage, and sometimes whisky instead of IPA, lentil stew w/ turkey sausage instead of hamburgers.
a wise man once wrote, "you don't win friends with salad"
Clear Voice of Bush’s Pentagon Becomes Harder to Hear
Things you can get in San Francisco that you can't really get anywhere else:

* An unplanned beach bonfire at 1AM

* Solid dim sum for lunch on a weekday

* Access to a vast open air drug market

* A day on a 30 foot sailboat in April

* Weekly tech meetups

* Plants from a shop dedicated solely to freshwater aquarium plants

* The drive down CA-85 to Half Moon Bay
This is an awesome idea.

Our application (launching soon!) leverages search heavily, so the DB is almost always just acting as an inverted index. I would love to be able to just query lucene and get a data object in return.

If we could ditch our ORM layer entirely, that would be a giant win for both performance and simplicity.

I hope this project meets its goals. The world needs a tool like this.
From 2005. I wonder if things are better now.

Also, I'm not so quick to blame the disks without knowing more technical details.