skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Somewhat related is "Enlightenment 2.0" - Joseph Heath
Politics professor explains why contemporary politics is becoming irrational by showing how certain cognitive biases in the political atmosphere make political deliberation more difficult.

If you are interested in economics, cognitive biases, and why governance is so bad, it is a must read.
Understood.
You're right, a video is definitely better than the current demo for showing how it works.
I'll look into the Facebook problem too. Seamed to work fine.
Thanks a lot for the input!
Show HN: Accelerate Excel – 100x faster spreadsheets
Black swan Nicolas Masson taleb
It's starting to feel like the animosity towards Uber is somehow coordinated. I get that a bad joke (with the sinister undertone of being not so much a joke) from a C-level hit home with journalists. But there is supposed to be a standard of no-bias from journalists and that should extend to matters that include journalism. Where is his side of the story? Acting like he doesn't have one is part of the problem.

Every article on Uber that I can remember reading feels like a negative hit piece. It's like Uber isn't greasing the right palms or something. It is scary annoying that who you know and how effectively you stroke the egos of journalists still accounts for more than the quality of your service and the soundness of your business.

I just get the feeling someone is trying to send Uber a message. Something like: "pay-up or the hits will keep coming".
The only thing I worry about is while packages will be npm compatible, if they want to take iojs to another level as far as features go you will then have npm packages that either only work on iojs or you will have polyfill libraries for iojs features to work on node.js.

Yeah this doesn't mean node.js is "fucked" but if they use npm in iojs with packages that take advantage of new API calls any node user is going to have lots of issues.

Edit: Having said that I am excited to possibly get newer versions of V8 server-side; I can't wait to start using some ES6 in a place where I don't have to wait for browsers to update.
I don't think this is new

Civilians have always faired poorly in wars, ancient, modern or recent. Rome killed everyone in Carthage and salted the earth. The Mongols sacked Damascus killing everyone, then returning a week later to kill those who had escaped and returned. When the Soviets invaded Germany at the end of WWII 1.4 million women are estimated to have been raped, many dozens of times. Estimates of deaths resulting from rape reach 250,000.

We have seen somewhat of an erosion in the Geneva conventions, which did do something to curtail civilian harm.

The erosion of Geneva convention standards is partly due to a reaction to them. The effectiveness of asymmetric warfare is partly caused by a strategic use of "rules of war" by the weaker belligerent. Basically bringing the war into the civilian sphere restrains the stronger belligerent. Hamas can't fight an open battle against Israel and Iraqi paramilitaries could not fight that way against the US. This forces the stronger belligerent to either forfeit their advantage by using small arms in urban settings and accept soldier casualty rates, shell urban area causing civilian casualties or allow a status quo.

This strategy is completely ineffective against ISIS, for example because they are not restrained by these rules of war.

Rules of war evolve and erode partly with these dynamics. The Geneva conventions are just a modern version this institution and probably somewhere in the middle in terms of effectiveness.

The bloody status quo in Gaza is grafted on to modern rules of war. Israel cannot "win" by applying its full force to subdue or even depopulate Gaza in the way warfare has often been conducted in the past. Gazans cannot fight in the open.

Wars are a bloody affair. The idea that wars should be fought honorably between warriors and leave civilians in peace is not new. Civilians have usually suffered in wars nonetheless. We have never had any kind of deliberate attempt to stop that succeed. We have succeeded in minimizing wars though. The number of casualties from violence is in steep decline. The post WWII period is the least violent in perhaps all of human history.
Their troubles in India may get bigger:
The Indian Govt. is thinking about banning them all across India [1]

Can't come soon enough for a company that heavily advertised itself as being the Safer option in India and conveniently actually skipped the background verification part of the process.
Then the asshat CEO put the entire blame on the "System" in a finger pointing blog post.

"Move fast and Break things" Indeed.

[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/crime/delhi-rape-govt...
People are often wrong when they speculate what caused the dot-com bubble bust of the 90's. For some it was a matter of being too ahead of their time, but for many, it was a case of irresponsible management and use of funds. The whole lean startup concept was basically nonexistent.

I might have been relatively young back then, but seemed to me startups in the 90's went a little too overboard on advertising. Expensive Superbowl advertisements, TV ads, radio and outlandish publicity stunts. Not to mention, the ridiculous parties CEO's would throw. Look around, you can find countless stories of 90's startups throwing lavish and expensive over the top parties courtesy of VC money and high valuations.

A few of the commerce based ideas were ahead of their time. Sadly, the Internet was still this unknown and unsafe looking entity to many consumers in the 90s and early 00's. Not every startup failed though, some did make it through to the other side, but quite a few failed.

I am concerned we are starting to see a repeat of the dot-com boom taking place again. As history has shown, it tends to repeat itself.
StartingBlock, Madison’s Answer to Chicago’s 1871, Hits Crucial Stage
Engineering estimate of college age folk is 20% have a degree and a degree (optimistically) takes 4 years out of the 16 year interval is a quarter, so the contribution due to school is about 5% not employed.

The stats really are that bad.
Show HN: Printify.io – No-hassle canvas prints and posters
Not sure how the market works in Toronto, but in many US cities, the taxi business pays the bills with direct government support (Medicaid taxi) and makes money off of drunks and business travelers whose circumstances prevent rental of a car or use of a hotel shuttle.

It's also a cash business that doesn't benefit from a clear audit trail of work activity.
Looking at the underlying app/data from the Chronicle, it's surprising to me that the presidents of Stanford, Harvard, and CalTech receive comparatively low pay (under $1M): http://chronicle.com/factfile/private-ec-2014#id=13995_24374...
Allow me to paint a picture for you purely from my experience in the Army.

It appears from the article that these were active duty deaths. Alcoholism is rampant in the Army. Alcohol is a downer. PTSD is rampant in the Army which means you're surrounded by people who might have anger issues or might be emotionally withdrawn (hah! understatement). Those same people might be your superiors. So you have a sadistic emotionally detached superior who controls your life. Maybe not, maybe you have great leaders, maybe you're the person struggling with alcoholism, depression, survivor guilt, nightmares, hyper awareness. Also, the Army's answer to psychological issues is pills, some of which can make things worse. There is a stigma associated with needing a hug. Also, "kids these days" (see the other comment about millennials, it is a thing). There was a book I read (forgot the title) that was veteran studies published after WWII. One of the ones that stood out to me the most showed that vets who came from stable homes faired better (emotionally) after war. If you are in the Army you didn't likely grow up in a stable emotional environment.

Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it produces. By system I mean all the inputs. I don't know, when you look at this picture, what would you expect to happen? Also, there's no easy fix.
So I'm going to step sideways here and comment on this: "simply to make sure that the Principal Investigator for the project on this project doesn't take credit for it""

Think about that a bit with a longer view. If it is "fairly trivial" as you mention, the PI could have brought in anybody and had them build it, and had they not brought in you, you would not know anything about this thing you're patenting.

I get that you feel like you have "done all the work", and I think that may be true, but at a minimum I would suggest you put both you and the PI on the patent if it is not something you would have done on your own. It sounds like the "combination" was what got the patent done, not just your own work.

The second thing is that when this patent issues or comes back, if it has only your name on it and not that of the PI, it is going to really piss off the PI. And if the PI has any sort of professional network, they are going to complain loudly about how you "ripped them off" and that story will follow you around and dampen your employment prospects for years. (After all, who wants to hire someone who will sneakily take credit for all the work?). And as the system is set up to allow additional inventors to be added later the PI will probably get themselves added anyway.

The bottom line is this, don't let your emotions push you into making a choice that you may later regret.
Exactly. Yes, "delivering groceries to people able and willing to pay for them" is a great idea, The problem is Webvan didn't have it.

1) How many people were online?

2) How many people had credit card info online?

3) How many people trusted WebVan (vs. Amazon, which built trust over decades)

4) How many people had portable computers in their pocket at all times, with instant access to your service?

Saying "X is a good idea" doesn't make sense without the surrounding strategic context.
Meh. I always assumed mobile game companies ported to PCs just to squeeze more product out of their creation. You might as well complain about your favorite Game Boy game not being ported to the SNES (with 4 shades of olive green graphics).
> Obviously there wasn't Git back then, but did they use some sort of version control when developing C?

I'm gonna guess printouts.
Founder of Vungle + Shyp shows how he automated the hiring process with Craigslist
Uber fresh
You can't assume that development is going to go into the original fork when your core developer set is unhappy enough to create the second fork in the first place. If some hypothetical third party could mandate that no fork took place, you may very well find in your alternate universe that the development effort you are expressing fear may be split may simply go nowhere at all. You can not simply take it as a given that the developers are simply "stuck" with the original fork and if unable to do their own fork would simply contribute to the original.
I can't recommend that first book enough. It's still the best thing I've read for bootstrappers. Sooner or later, it'll date itself, as it's got lots of practical ideas and numbers and things that don't make for a "timeless classic". But then again, you wanted to start a business rather than have a book to show off on your bookshelf, right?
I'm going to preface this post with a note that, yes, there are surely good developers in game development, this is not a universal thing, etcetera etcetera.

Ass properly covered, I'll be real: I'm never surprised to see this because "code reuse" is generally the sign of reasonably advanced developers and I don't know a single person in game development I would hire for a role outside of it. It's not just NIH--that's a problem but one slowly going away. It's more just a fundamental lack of understanding of software engineering and building Good Code. As time goes on I've seen gamedev acquaintances poorly reinvent most of the wheels that the rest of the world takes for granted--even something as simple as serialization for save data and network transport (but no schematic validation, because "schemas suck") was trumpeted to me as this Big Crazy Great Thing. Which contextually it may be, but I kind of feel like the state of the art for stuff not involving pointer munging is about a decade behind everybody else.

So, code reuse? Gotta make good code first.
I've since built a chrome extension, I'll make it work as a bookmark too.
So, it needs to become clear what it does in under 30 secs, preferably in the header. Ok.
Why do you think the website has a B2B design?
That is the definition of "small, self-contained program". Choose any language which supports your database libs.
Yes, its use is pretty similar to super/mega in German.

And you can't mention the German "super" in 2014 without pointing out this viral marketing campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVcgDMBU94 (explanation: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/02/24/supergeil_ede... )
The same reasoning applies to every digit. So almost all numbers contain your favorite decimal digit.

If I showed this video to a friend who particularly enjoys the digit "6", she would not see the connection, as the video is about "3". No matter how many times I try to explain that there is nothing special about "6", she won't hear any of it.

I am quite convinced that the same attitude is rather widespread, and could be effectively monetized by anyone both charismatic enough and unethical enough to exploit it.
"The Circle", by Dave Eggers. Narrowly edging "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan.

I've been in tech a long time. I came up in the early 90's when the Internet was a tool for collaboration, meeting new people, and taking down the evil bastards.

But since the advent of Facebook, Google, and "pervasive computing", I've been haunted by the sense that what was once good is being perverted in ways that are destroying what makes humanity great. It's always been hard for me to explain that feeling in ways that make sense to those who haven't been part of the wave, whose first computer was an iPhone.

"The Circle" is fabulous because it brings this sensation to life in a way that casual readers can grasp. It's great because it captures what's happening. I only wish it offered a proposed solution that goes beyond living in a bunker.

Honorable mention, for similar reasons, to Mr. Penumbra.
you're right. go find a country where producers and true capitalists are rewarded and powerful, instead of just the middlemen and managers, and you'll be a millionaire.

That time will come. And once technology starts being targets are making these SMEs (fishing boats, smallholders, etc) lives easier, the world will make a big shift for the better.
Welcome to IT Business :-)
Frankly I don't envision them in any public-facing role, let alone dealing with kids. However, there are numerous jobs that don't require regular contact with the general public.
Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902-thinking-in-syst...
What, you didn't go to Essaiouira? newb :)
In case there's an interest, here's an article that discusses what is known.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/471410/20130527/steve-jobs-la...
I don't think it was nearly clear enough. Here's an article discussing the design of the notification:

http://startingup.me/post/15141134089/redesigning-the-uber-s...

It might be acceptable if this screen showed up every time and allowed you to get used to it, but when you use the app for months without it and suddenly there's an extra step, it's going to be way too easy to tap "Ok" without seeing the relatively small "6.25x" up above, especially if you've had a few too many because it's New Year's Eve.

When you're suddenly charging people almost an order of magnitude more than usual, you need to make it more clear than that.

Not that I think this is particularly terrible. They screwed up, but it was not a big deal and I imagine they've improved the notification since. But I don't think it was completely fine.
JDK 9 Update
It's interesting that Indian Village, Palmer Park, and Midtown all benefit from a police force alternative to Detroit PD. I wonder if there are other services like this? I would assume private schooling would be common, but what about things like public works?
The cynic in me thinks that this is a highly desired end-state for Docker, and engineering such a situation is precisely the goal plan.

It would certainly be profitable for them.
Peapod is hiring heavily in Chicago after opening a new downtown space.
I think there are ways to understand people using written language that do not translate well face to face. It's a fairly subjective evaluation, but consider the whole spectrum of human writing, rather than the tendency of conversation evoked by the contemporary internet.
The thing we're discussing isn't a law, it's an internal agency procedure. It might or might not be a good idea but it's nothing anyone outside the agency has to follow.
I used truecar when I bought my last car. saved ~$3k no haggling. I don't work for truecar.
Mono runs pretty much everywhere too, for when you're comfortable pitching some performance for ease of use.
Questioning the Longstanding Plan to Merge the Dead Sea and the Red Sea
These numbers are really grim, and considering the job market only gets more cruel a few years after the top end of this age bracket, it makes it hard for young people to have a lot of hope for the future.

Granted, maybe some of them are reflective of age-agnostic trends but still! Start in higher debt then make less than ever! As a young person looking at these numbers I realize I am squandering my blessings as a high paid tech worker.

We are setting up our future for failure while claiming we needed to make these sacrifices for today.
Well I read it. The situation in Detroit sounds remarkably similar to the situation in Memphis. Instead of race riots sparking massive white flight, we had desegregation and busing. Immediately, there was a huge exodus to the suburbs. Within 5 years of busing, Memphis had the largest private school system in the country. .

Interestingly, Briarcrest, which is the private school in Memphis that "The Blindside" is based on, is a Southern Baptist school founded immediately after busing. Its legacy is one of overt racism, which I thought was nicely whitewashed in the movie's narrative of white saviours rescuing Michael Orr.

Additionally, Memphis' first black mayor, Willie Herenton was mayor from 1991 to 2009 and has had much of the city's slide blamed on him. The extent of his influence on that is arguable, but there was certainly a great deal of mismanagement that happened under his watch. We've had some reinvestment in our downtown, but we've still got lots of problems.
You are your own gym, for me.
Who mows the lawns on the empty lots?
Pragmatic Programmer is pretty good, but even better are Steve McConnell's books from the late 90's, "Rapid Development" and "Code Complete".

They're both big and both published by Microsoft. Two strikes, yes, but don't be fooled. These books have so many nuggets that I've gone back to again and again as a programmer. "Code Complete", in particular.

Neither book is a cover-to-cover read. They're both books you dip into for a tip, a skill, some perspective. But they've held up amazingly well, and for my money and time, they're both a step up from the Pragmatic Programmer. If you like what you found in "Pragmatic", you'll love "Code Complete".

I just wish it wasn't from MS, at the peak of MS evil in the 90's.
You've completely missed the point. There are other jobs a driver can do. He can deliver food or packages; transport goods locally; or drive buses or other public transportation.

There is NO way that "cab driver" is the only type of position he is capable of doing. And there are plenty of people qualified to drive a cab that are capable of doing it without raping anyone.
Jobs gave away plenty, he just did it privately.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/471410/20130527/steve-jobs-la...

And in any event, 95% of the people criticizing him for this have not given enough of themselves to be justified in doing so.
If you read any of the technical analysis, those claims are clearly unfounded and the hacker doesn't even understand how REST works: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/11/27/ubers-app-malware-desp...

As an Android developer, the root and vulnerability reporting behavior is pretty standard for bug tracking, and in Uber's case fraud prevention as well.
More than anything this statistic speaks to the overwhelming military superiority of the U.S. military. The number of deaths for the U.S. military is quite small in relation to the numbers involved and the length of time of the occupation.

A very large majority of deaths have been the native populace. Such a disparity of casualties leads to a situation where war does not seem as bad as it really is by the American public. We're supposed to be aghast that suicide is a greater cause of death than the 'enemy'.
> I think it comes from the fact that they want to be seen as "disruptive"

I think it comes from the fact that they need to be fast-moving. Uber is a global first-mover in a market largely defined by local network effects and economics. Not moving quickly risks being boxed in by a global proliferation of me-toos.

The requisite freewheeling aggression reminds me of my prior work environment, the trading floor. Both are high-power, high-pressure worlds. The steam they each produce is hot, and effective. But someone needs to keep a constant eye on keeping the lid from blowing off.

Uber seems to still be evolving this risk-management function. Their long-run success may come down to whether Kalanick can devolve a critical amount of power to someone who can say "no" to him when absolutely necessary, but no so frequently that it prematurely bleeds them into a shop of suits.
[plug] We made our site http://favoriteof.com - exactly for this! To figure out what to read next based on recommendations by celebrities (Executives, politicians, actors). For example check out recommendations by Richard Branson, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg here: http://favoriteof.com/entrepreneurs/books/

Looking forward to feedback, and requests!
You can further break down "the world is ready":

1) are customers ready for it? Will they see it as a weird idea that they'd never spend money on, or as a quality of life improvement? Ten years ago I'd have thought buying kitchen towels on the internet was a crazy idea when I can drive 3 blocks to the store to get them; now I think it's crazy to take a trip to the store for one thing when I can get a better selection and better prices on amazon prime.

2) is the technology / infrastructure you need to implement it in place? Apps related to local travel became much more viable when people started carrying portable computers (with telephone functionality) everywhere they went. Niche resale became much more viable when you could plug in to a pre-existing marketplace (ebay, amazon) with an existing customer base, payment processing, etc. so you don't have to spend big bucks developing those things yourself.
nice :) i've been meaning on reading a historically written book about Jesus (was looking at Richard Bauckham's "Jesus: A Very Short Introduction") and Tim Keller is solid indeed.
Interface Technologies That Have Not yet Left the Lab (2012) [video]
Covering Mars Opened a New World
"After making a few needed tweaks to get libbpg to compile on Mac OS X". What have you done?

I get "bpgdec.c:35:17: warning: png.h: No such file or directory" and lots of other errors.
Sergio Lerner Added to the Bitcoin Core Team
I haven't read the book, but isn't quality something of a continuum dictated mostly by economics? In other words, if you put huge efforts into making quality products that are really more than most customers need, and it costs you do to so, you're likely going to go out of business. That, or you'd do best to find a niche where people really do need that kind of quality.
Chile rethinks its free market experiment