skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Oh good point, I hadn't considered vararg promotion!

Do you know if casting to a function also make objc_msgSend_stret and objc_msgSend_fpret unnecessary? I haven't yet worked with any methods that return structs or floating point values, so I haven't had to deal with them yet.

Edit: Oh, nope, my bad, objc_msgSend_stret is the one where you definitely have to cast: http://blog.lazerwalker.com/blog/2013/10/12/the-objective-c-...
Ask HN: How to solve a major economics problem with our startup
We are a team of two part time guys and one contractor who built an application that does data analysis for complex protein folding problems.

Our basic workflow is like this:

1.Customers send us very large and complex files

2. We break them apart manually

3. Feed these parts through our compressor/parser algorithm

4. Parser sends the customer an analysis of the protein

Our contractor is the one who does the manual handling of the file and costs between $50 - $150 per protein depending on how complex it is. The two of us spend our time building the technology and finding clients, so the two of us taking on the manual handling isn't an option. Realistically we are paying the contractor about the lowest you could pay someone to do this work already.

When we have talked with some pilot and beta customers, the consensus is that they want to pay about $15 per protein.

As the parser improves, it is easier and easier to do more models in the same amount of time, but I did some financial modeling and even if we scale the number of contractors, without some big increases in parser efficiency the price points stay the same and the numbers still don't add up.

Obviously the goal for us is to automate the whole process, but there are actually hardware limitations keeping this from being possible right now.

We have a huge market in sequencing, a validated product and there is demand there. We would like to scale to take this full time but I am not sure how to make the math line up. I know that we can automate probably 80% of it within two years but that is a long time to go without making any money.

We have investors that want to talk with us but I don't know how to explain to them how we will scale and make money.

Any help is appreciated.
I've been considering moving from holding Vanguard ETFs (one of their Total Retirement funds) over to Betterment or Wealthfront to take advantage of their automated tax loss harvesting.

Does anyone have any thoughts about whether automated tax loss harvesting is worth the 0.15-0.25% fees that the robo-advisers charge?
> I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years.

When you say "now," are you referring to the period from when financial markets were discovered until the present? Or some more specific period? As far as I knew, boom and bust are not exactly new developments.
Ezra Zygmuntowicz has died
Ezra Zygmuntowicz, a founder of the rails hosting company Engine Yard and original developer of the web framework Merb, passed away Wednesday, November 26th. No details yet, but what was a rumor on twitter has been confirmed by Stuffstr.com's VP Steve Gutmann, the last company Ezra work at as their CTO.

Will update as more information is known.
Absolutely! We have seen many startups veering towards real estate agent model. Always helps to keep that in mind. No repeat businesses, less viral effects, urge to turn to brokers/agents and become a lead generation engine for them are all difficult issues to surmount. Thanks for the reminder.
>reasonably fast DSL connection

Yeah, I have a question. What's your definition of reasonably fast?

In Romania, on average connection, the Wired page would load during 1 second.[0] That is my definition of reasonably fast.

The monopoly of ISPs is why the web is slowing down.

Oh, and I have another question. Why don't you consider caching of resources that will make every consequent Wired page load much faster?

[0]http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/
Ask HN: Do you use a CDN for your API delivery needs?
Usually CDN is used for static content without doubt but I want to know if people use it for their apis

Specifically because:
- Rate Limiting is involved
- Token Checking/Basic Auth is somehow involved
et

If you do use a CDN let me know which one is used
Or do, and cut from other areas/don't get on the hoighty-toighty daycare/lessons/private school treadmill. But kids are definitely an expense.
How to Build an Empire, the Netflix Way
I knew someone who died aged 20 because he was drunk, tired, and decided to go to sleep at the side of the road. It rained. He drowned in a few inches of water.

A sober person has reflexes that would have prevented that.
Ask HN: What can you do as a software engineer who has lost their passion?
Quick background: I started with TI-Basic in high school math class and things snowballed from there. I'm about to graduate and I've worked constantly since I started college. I've either been coding part time during the school year or full time during various internships. I woke up today and realized that the spark that started it all is dead and has been for longer than I can remember now. I'm competent at my job and I don't dislike it, but I feel like I just go on cruise control completely devoid of interest or passion. I also don't really have the energy or excitement to start a personal project.

My question(s): Can anyone relate? Does it matter that I don't feel passionate as long as I don't dislike my job? What steps can I take to reignite the spark that I once felt?
How and why buyers from China are snatching up Bay Area homes
I recall somebody (can't recall who or when) gave this definition: a scripting language is one where most of the work gets done by invoking programs written in a different language. So sh and bash (etc.) are definitely scripting languages, Python (etc.) can be used as scripting languages, even if that isn't their typical use.
Unfortunately, we are not able to be certain about the quality of the drug we are taking. We buy from the Silk Road (well, Agora now I guess - still waiting for things to calm down), where we read reviews and base our decisions on the gossip posted by other users.

Something about our current batch seems off, everyone's been having weird trips. Despite this red flag, we've taken over 2/3 of the batch. You can't be 100% certain doing testing-at-home either, because there are inert compounds that will test positive for LSD - a careful dealer can fake the test results.

And it's a damn shame, because if you are uncertain about the quality of your substance, those doubts will amplify throughout your trip (that is the nature of psychedelics), and every little effect that you aren't expecting will cause a flurry of uncertainty.
FYI, if "tax loss harvesting" is something you'd like to consider, there're companies out there which (for a fee), would do it for you. Their entire business model is to lose money for you, in a smart way. That said, if you need to use this method, you're probably wealthy enough to know how/where to use it.
sorry, the desktop Intel SIMD ISAs are generally not something I use on a day-to-day basis, so I get them mixed up a lot. (LRBni was the last one I looked at for any serious length of time.)
Probably not worth it unless you have a very large portfolio and you're too lazy to do the tax loss harvesting yourself. It's especially not worth it if you're correctly holding most of your retirement savings in tax-advantaged accounts (401k/403b/IRA/HSA). You are, right?

Also, it's worth noting that Schwab is launching a free robo-advisor service early next year[0] so that may be the nail in the coffin for startups like Betterment.

[0] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/us-charles-schwab-...
Attended his defense of this, it was a ton of fun! "Defending the thesis"-slide had Joe, sword in hand, defending the thesis against a comic-styled dragon.
yes, My email is willwang4202 at gmail.com
Obama administration continues to strongarm journalists into revealing sources
Thank you for your suggestions, I will try it.
So if enough people do it then it's fine? That's a broken framework for, well, anything.
My thoughts on VCs in

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640126

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669232

can be used to respond to this OP.

Mostly the posts are for entrepreneurs, but the
second one tells VCs how to start getting
decent ROI values.
Model of a zombie outbreak in Python
'Working Backwards' Product Management Philosophy of Amazon
Seems like interest in potential beneficial effects of hallucinogens has been rising. It's certainly true for ketamine, as it's being studied as a therapy for treatment resistant depression. The results look promising but the jury is still out re: satisfying FDA approval requirements.

As the article says, psilocybin could have favorable effects in depression, possibly resembling results with ketamine. Other hallucingenics are often mentioned in this regard, like LSD or mescaline. There have been reports of utility of low dose THC for depression.

In discussions of potential value of any drug the pivotal issue is the risk/benefit ratio. Hallucinogens have unmistakably caused adverse reactions. Panic, psychosis, dissociative states have been observed often enough to warrant a high level of caution in using such drugs.

Part of the problem is the randomness of bad reactions. It's usually difficult to predict which users (or subsets of users) will endure adverse effects at a particular drug dose. Drug interactions is another concern. A great deal of study is necessary to sort out the parameters of (relatively) safe use.
Using a CDN for an API is also a good idea if the CDN allows large content uploads to be faster than commodity/cloud hosting. Cloudfront speeds up uploads to S3 in some circumstances on some networks (looking at you FIOS), because in some cases Cloudfront edge locations have direct connections to the various S3 regions instead of going over the commodity internet. This is why Cloudfront charges 0.02 a gig for uploads.

Furthermore, using a CDN in this way may be a good idea because you don't have to worry about front end server noise/internet traffic. Cloudfront does have a good record of keeping up to date with SSL, and other various upgrades. By using Cloudfront's behavior rules I can have some requests go to backend servers via an ELB, others go to S3 and still others to go to other places. The end user has no idea, the simply see the same URL that they always do. It is nice to have everything all neatly wrapped under one URL structure and not to have to worry about DNS or cross domain antics.

And if I wanted to do access control I can easily use Cloudfront's support for signed requests[1]. That way if a request comes into to a particular URL path I can require that it be signed or not. Hence eliminating requests to resource intensive parts of the application.

[1] - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/Developer...
Mean is what we perceive to be a quality of a great leader. We spend half our adolescence dealing with mean people and mom says we will have to for the rest of our lives. We are built on the principle strive to be a better person, strive to be honest and truthful and strive to the best you can be but often we do nothing of the sort. We focus on the unnecessary and not on the real. I’m not sure if its intentional that there is a perception that mean is something that needs to be there to be successful or if mean is the bilateral issue created by the humans we are and perceive to be a part of a strong leader.

It is not what we choose to become but who we are as a person that determines our success. Mean people do fail all the time morally and point proven they fail as founders too. We can continue to discuss what we think is mean but really we should be discussing character. Mean people will fail at least that’s how its supposed to work from a karma standpoint sadly it doesn’t happen. But as a founder, success does depend on the person you are and the environment and culture you create. Fighting is only a force but time and acceleration you are able to go the distance even from zero. That distance you create eventually leads to momentum, which then leads to transcendence. It is changing. For us improving the world is an advantage and for us having a moral standard is advantage. At this point we have an advantage do we become the mean people or the good people. Are we building good character or bad character? To overcome adversity create ingenuity that is unbelievable.
Having kids doesn't change the math. That's MMM's point in the post. It's all about savings rate. Kids mean it is harder to save 35%, but the math doesn't change.
One of the nice things about Vanguard is that the fee structure is much less than 1-3% for many of their funds. I invest with them in some of their index funds and pay no more than 0.4% in fees; usually much less than that.
(\sSAI) is a group, not a character class. It matches the fixed string " SAI" and stores it in a group. If it were [\sSAI], you'd be correct.
Well, that sure cured me of the intuition that these square grid regexp crossword puzzles were inherently easier than the original hexagonal grid version!
Mark Pincus and a few hundred million dollars of liquidated post-IPO Zynga stock beg to differ.
Elsewhere in this thread, a commenter points out that the square grid regular expression puzzle can encode 3SAT instances, so I was wrong to call these easier than the hexagonal version.
Came across same thing.
I did: Cmd + F; "O".
Mitigating the Security Risks of Implantable Medical Devices
I'm not talking bear markets, I truly believe there will be 50%+ drops every 7-10 years, which is something that you wouldn't expect pre-2000, except 1987. I think the stock market is a battle ground for amoral participants who are willing to break the stock markets in order to make as much money as they can, and the NYSE and NASDAQ don't seem to care.
The way I will always remember Ezra: https://www.flickr.com/photos/adelcambre/2932034431/in/photo... (MerbCamp, 2008)
I've seen more than once that in a acqui-hire situation employees are left with very little value in their options and lots of value in their retention package. Not always the case, but it adds to my opinion that equity is really impossible to value.
Can you combine your skill in software development with another interest? What other areas interest you?
Thank you for the advise, I believe that you are right. I will try it myself first.
I added a comment on Matt's blog post but it's waiting moderation so I'll post it here to hear other folks' input.

"Hi Matt, I usually enjoy your posts but I felt this one lacking in a major way.

Investing is something that has huge potential (ie., 100 fold). This is something that I’m sure you’re aware of as an early Google employee (you were invested in the company via stock options, etc). On the other hand, investing has huge downside as well (you can lose all your money).

Many people are advocating people to take a mindless approach to investing by investing in low-cost index funds. I personally think this is decent/good advice for most people who don’t have the time, energy, experience, skills to make investing a lifetime passion. In other words, for the typical person who just wants to focus on his 9-to-5 job and other hobbies and not deal with the world of investing, then sure low-cost index funds are the way to go.

However, there are some people who can benefit in huge ways by becoming experts in investing (whether this be in stocks, real estate, businesses, etc). A few disclaimers first… becoming an expert investor is extremely difficult and most people underestimate what it takes. It’s not about “picking” stocks or getting lucky. Rather, it’s about accumulating the skills, experience and expertise to evaluate investment opportunities in a wise and discerning manner, and to do it exceedingly well. I think it requires an immense amount of time and dedication. And I don’t think 98% of the people out there practically have the time, energy, motivation or focus to develop such skills. But for the 1-2%, I think it’s a possibility if they treat it as a serious lifetime endeavor."
Thanks for the tip about Schwab, looks interesting, especially the 'free' part.

Thinking about it, basis points feel too expensive for something that's done entirely in software. I suspect competition from existing players will drive the price right down.
I met Ezra back at RailsConf (2007) after a talk he gave. Scary smart, yet friendly and humble. The man left us way too soon.
Interesting idea, and I hope it works in the both short term and long term.

As an outsider (and just overall uninformed about politics), since CounterPAC is transparent, is it an additional incentive for politicians to be associated with CounterPAC? And an "anti-incentive"(?) to refuse it, since people will know that they (likely) took dark money?
Have target date funds been successful? The last time I checked, their historical performance (admittedly for only 6-7 years) seemed underwhelming.
That may be, but his opinion of his wife's "ability" isn't exactly unbiased. And if she came to the startup world from investment banking, she was also meeting the founders as either a peer or as someone who is beneficial to the founders access to money. Of course the "nobles" would be polite to each other, the question is how they treat the under classes.

And I'm sure he has access to vast more amounts of evidence about founders than I do, but that doesn't mean he knows how to correctly analyze the evidence or won't look at the evidence with partisan eyes. This country is still filled with climate change deniers, even ones that are intelligent in most other parts of their lives.

Just look at history to see how wrong PG is about mean people failing. Zuckerberg by many accounts did not treat his partners fairly, that was mean of him. Gates tried to screw over Paul Allen numerous times, not a nice guy. Steve Jobs denied the paternity of his first born (one example of many negative Jobs' stories), what a lovely fella. Both Uber and Snapchat are prime examples of companies being led by less than noble morality and Github epitomized how to do it right, until they were an example of sexual harassment. Is any of this enough for PG to categorize these founders as mean? If not, how many acts of meanness make someone mean (and vice versa, how many acts of kindness makes someone kind)?

Paul Graham is a very intelligent man and by all rights, seemed to have earned his success and reputation. But if PG was always right, especially since he has all this evidence about SV and startups, there wouldn't be any failed YC companies, they'd all be IPOs and massive exits. PG is not infallible.

PG does make some good points, I really like the last paragraph.

"So I'm really glad I stopped to think about this. Jessica and I have always worked hard to teach our kids not to be mean. We tolerate noise and mess and junk food, but not meanness. And now I have both an additional reason to crack down on it, and an additional argument to use when I do: that being mean makes you fail."

I've seen a lot of mean people succeed, but that is a great lesson to teach, even if it is a bit faulty. Maybe if we all teach our children this, one day it would actually become true.
When you ask any VC how it is going you always get the same answer: amazing. Company XYZ is a home run!

The writer is in the UK. Silicon Valley VCs don't say that. Startup entrepreneurs do, but not VCs. VCs expect about 1 in 10 to be a big success and pay for all the other losers.
I'd add that even if you aren't able to live on 35% for 10 years straight you shouldn't fall into the mindset that it's not worth aiming for at all.
... Stop us if we have all heard this one before. When will music publishers learn, suing gets you nowhere? I hope all ISP's band together and get behind Cox Communications on this one, suing an ISP just because a music publisher tells them that one of their customers might have infringed on their copyrights.

While we are at it, lets sue car manufacturers for car crashes caused by drunk drivers and lets sue companies like HP for providing the computers that infringers are using to download pirated material? The madness just does not yet. The entertainment industry has far more overreach than it should. People getting their homes raided by SWAT teams because a publisher thought someone downloaded and shared a movie or music album.

Your tax dollars hard at work, people.
Show HN: Typora -- A new Markdown writing app on mac
I love the details in this film. Things like the winged people flying on Titan, possible due to its dense atmosphere. There are things on these other worlds that we could never experience here.

Even the title has multiple meanings to it:

In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Ancient Greeks called these lights πλάνητες ἀστέρες (planetes asteres, "wandering stars") or simply πλανῆται (planētai, "wanderers"), from which today's word "planet" was derived.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
HA! I had completely forgotten about that familial link.
San Francisco Crime Represented as Elevation
Actually, I believe there is precedent for laws being struck down for pretty much exactly this reason. I think prohibition and the newly changing attitude against marijuana and the laws surrounding it are examples of this.

If the majority populace is committing illegal acts it's often because they believe the act should not be illegal. I believe that many/most laws exist for the exact opposite reason. Murder is illegal because most people believe it's wrong. So we created a law saying so.
This is a really fun simulation, but I'm bothered that I can only see half of the "sea" since it is 1.5 times the size of the screen. I changed the SCALE value to 1, but fish still disappear offscreen as if I'm not viewing the entire field.
What about rent or mortgage? In most major cities low rent could be easily 35% of after tax income already
I'm not convinced that you know what game theory actually is...
This is really cool. I'm working in systems research, but I'm fascinated by mathematical research in CS. Did you continue with similar work after your PhD, If I may ask?
Lesson number 1 is unequivocally wrong and contradictory with the start of the article. He says you shouldn't invest your money in single stocks, but then advocates for you to invest your money (by way of forgoing salary in favor of equity) into a start up company with (by definition) no track record of success or guaranteed future. Not to mention that when the start-up tanks (which it will do statistically) you will both lose your salary and your investments/equity will be worthless.
Nope...took me a long time to figure out it's a separate company.
The second and third (FAQ and defining the customer experience) are aspects of what McConnell describes as creating a minimal specification. McConnell lists: a short paper spec, point-of-departure spec, user manual as spec, user-interface prototypes, paper storyboards, vision statement, and product theme.

The first, the press release, is an interesting addition to the mix.

You can perhaps infer from "work your way backwards until you get to the minimum set of technology requirements to satisfy what you try to achieve" how Amazon deprioritizes human requirements, contributing perhaps to things like Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, which stands before the Supreme Court.
The Postal Clause is in Article 1 of the US Constitution.

I'm honestly not sure if that constitutes the US government supporting it as a human right, but I can't think of a more direct way of going about it (aside from waiting to later add it to the Bill of Rights).

To be fair, Congress could have been crap at setting the postal service up and been completely negligent, but that didn't really happen. Most of us hope the Internet is eventually entrenched similarly. Somehow.