skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> [flu vaccines] still save lives for a very low risk.

AFAIK that's not actually been proven. It's clear that someone who got the flu vaccine this year is less likely to die than someone who didn't, all else being equal. But flu shots only confer partial immunity for 6 months or so, whereas getting the real flu confers partial immunity for decades. At least the last time I looked, I wasn't able to find any convincing evidence that someone getting the flu vaccine every year from birth would be in a better place at age 70 than someone who, say, just got the actual flu every year until they started getting the vaccine at age 70 or whatever. Some relevant research/articles:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/08/28/study_raises_re...

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-add...
Anecdotes aside, from a design standpoint, they tend to be significantly more successful than their competitors. There is a maximum to the level of quality that can be achieved in a given amount of time.

For your particular example, look at the outcome: Apple Maps is now arguably on par with the Google data set and has several unique refinements. It's a much more successful product than when it was released.
Actually, the government did create SMTP (Postel was on a DARPA grant) and SMS (CEPT was an association of state-run PTTs, and Hillebrand in particular was a Deutsche Bundespost employee); and the US government in particular worked very hard indeed to stop SMTP, TCP, and IP from getting encryption added to them, what with treating cryptographic software as a “munition” and export-controlling it, plus constantly stymieing working groups in the IETF and other places that tried to standardize encryption.

> People are not going to trust the government less than their random acquaintances,

It sounds like you’ve never met an immigrant, a black person, or a poor person? Because that statement of yours sounds totally absurd to me.
I think he is inferring that just as there are outliers in terms of programming competency, there are also outliers in terms of ethical behaviour.
If you just change job you will typically earn more in the next job. You should factor this in to any change.

I've worked in start ups and large companies. I quickly realized that I could make more money consulting/contracting for large companies, than working for either. This is at the sacrifice of not doing the most interesting work. If money wasn't an issue I'd love to do a start up again.
Usually you get more money by applying to a new compagnie, that's why this question should be more for people changing to a less paid job. Isn't it?
> that it'll never be a good use of resources.

Never is a long time ;)

> Woah! Links?

Any university with a neuroscience department does this. Go to your local university's website and browse what they're doing in that area: more likely than not you'll find something interesting. Basic research on neurons has become very common, and computer-based modeling is a fundamental part of it. The perception problem here is that, say, modeling the signaling behavior of locust neurons seems like a very inconsequential piece of the puzzle - but in reality it's what we need to do to figure this stuff out.

The fundamental problem in neuroscience research is not a lack of complexity, for now we need to move away from complexity in order to observe the behavior of basic building blocks. It may seem embarrassing how we're still at that stage, but it's where we stand.
"Get ready to interact?" I don't think the average human resident of the year 2015 needs to be prompted to think of an information display as interactive. You might need to warn them if your site _isn't_ interactive. Anyway, two main thoughts: first, extremely annoying audio environment; second, chasing the fireball to click it to get a different view is a very odd choice of mechanism. Overall this approach, in my view, doesn't make the information about the event easier to find, view, or understand, and that's the only thing that really matters.
MVP gone wrong
Still doesn't work (for me, osx)

user@host ~/tmp # npm install -g git-stats
/usr/local/bin/git-stats -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/git-stats/bin/git-stats
git-stats@1.1.0 /usr/local/lib/node_modules/git-stats ├── ul@1.1.0
├── ansi-parser@1.4.0 ├── cli-box@2.1.1 (ansi-parser@1.3.0)
├── moment@2.9.0 ├── git-stats-colors@1.0.0 (couleurs@3.0.0)
└── bug-killer@1.0.0 (couleurs@1.1.0) user@host ~/tmp # npm install -g git-stats-importer /usr/local/bin/git-stats-importer -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/git-stats-importer/bin/git-stats-importer
git-stats-importer@1.3.0 /usr/local/lib/node_modules/git-stats-importer ├── gry@1.0.0
├── async@0.9.0 ├── oargv@1.2.0 (ul@1.1.0)
├── bug-killer@1.0.0 (couleurs@1.1.0) └── git-stats@1.1.0 (ul@1.1.0, ansi-parser@1.4.0, git-stats-colors@1.0.0, cli-box@2.1.1, moment@2.9.0)
user@host ~/tmp # git clone https://github.com/IonicaBizau/git-stats
Cloning into 'git-stats'... remote: Counting objects: 414, done.
remote: Total 414 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) Receiving objects: 100% (414/414), 47.08 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (189/189), done. Checking connectivity... done.
user@host ~/tmp : cd git-stats
user@host ~/tmp/git-stats # git-stats-importer
info Done.
user@host ~/tmp/git-stats # git stats
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb ║
║Sun ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Mon ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Tue ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Wed ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Thu ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Fri ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║Sat ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ║
║-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ║
║Contributions in the last year: 0 | Longest Streak: 0 days | Current Streak: 0 days | Max a day: 0 ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
user@host ~/tmp/git-stats # cat $HOME/.git-stats
{}
Thank you ssharp, that's exactly what I was trying to convey.
> A cruise missile with "modern" stealth design would be an incredibly threatening weapon as you'd only need ~100 or so to cripple the retaliation capability of another nuclear power.

You would? Such a thing wouldn't work against nations that maintain a constant submarine patrol, and perhaps not against land-based silos either (which were designed to withstand such attacks, no?) Heck, ISTR some of the Russian weapons were rail-mounted and designed to be hidden in mountain tunnels most of the time.
Nobody should have to deal with this nonsense.
It is not her job to fix him. Her job is making payroll.
I don't think it's hard to believe. There are sleazy people out there. They have guys and gals encourage them over the years by either explicit or implicit approval.

These are the kinds of guys who have been at it since their youth and it has been accepted by their peer group who look the other way. For a few it might be afforded by some new found power that comes from wealth and they feel 'cavalier' enough to express it without fear of repercussions.

Whatever the source, these guys are nothing but lithe predators. And they don't only pray on women, some pray on other men as well -tho they are less common.

In retrospect you want to ask, why didn't I protest at the time? It's hard. You freeze, you can't believe it and you want to give the person the benefit of the doubt, even when you know that there is no doubt.
Boot 2 Docker: How to Set Up Postgres, Elasticsearch and Redis on Mac OS X
I haven't found languages that let you be lazy (looking at you javascript) to be maintainable long term as a server, especially as a companion to a SPA. The complexity of maintaining a SPA is high enough as is. Having things like stronger typing and more enforced patterns on the server help keep it organized over time, where having looser more flexible patterns always leads to a spaghetti server. With a SPA, you really do need as organized of a server as possible.
Mystery Mars haze baffles scientists
If you aspire to Biblical history and secular, it is the city of Jericho with Damascus a close second.
I used an older netbook with a wireless mouse. Super cheap, portable, and not powerful enough to be too big of distraction. Benefit of being "kid sized" and very sturdy. Mostly used it for old Sierra games and such.
How do you find your contracting gigs? Is it from your offline networks or did you find them online?
I take the title to mean that someone has taken time to do some research and share it with me. reading the material will help me fill in some gaps and hopefully dispell or validate assumptions I never took the time to test.
"Just saying this isn't a male-on-female only thing."

My point exactly -- I can't imagine myself allowing any potential business partner, male or female, giving me unsolicited hugs unless we knew each other for years. Note, this includes people I find attractive and might otherwise be interested in.
As far as I understand, this design is based on similar goals as the Meteor/MongoDB project - instead of reading oplog, you listen for notifications.

I wonder how would Meteor be better than this proposal given that both are node based.
I believe that too. Actually it's funny when media reports on how anti-vaxxers, et al. are dumb when it's in big part journalism's fault. The whole business model of media - and advertising, and sales - as it is today is based on frauding consumers. So it's quite a bit hypocritical to audaciously lie to people and then be surprised that they don't trust anyone anymore.
The books point all the arcane points of the language so that the reader can understand them. They're also full of commentary like "never do this".

Rather than most books which gloss over the "bad parts", which prevents people from fuller learning and leaves them to their own devices when they run across that stuff in the real world, YDKJS covers all the parts, and tries to use the deeper understanding as a tool and guide to making better-informed decisions about how to effectively write JS.

I think it's entirely unfair to suggest that covering "technical arcana" is the same thing as endorsing it.
How to Pass the Cloudera Hadoop Developer Exam in One Month
Because it wouldn't accomplish anything productive. At best it makes her feel a little bit better, but at worst it backfires and burns some bridges that don't need to be burned.
Vantablack: The Darkest Material in the World
Ask HN: Scala usage?
I'd be interested in hearing about experiences using Scala in production. I've been looking at statically typed languages lately, and although I don't have any Java experience Scala seems quite powerful, allowing a good mix of FP and OO concepts. Would it be a problem for me to try using Scala without knowing the surrounding Java ecosystem?

I know a little bit of Haskell, but in terms of industry usage it seems that Scala is more common. That being said, I don't hear about it much on HN; there seem to be more articles on Haskell, Ocaml, and Clojure than Scala.

I did find a discussion from last fall where there was a fork, and that has me concerned as the author of the fork seems to have a pretty reasonable critique of some problems in the language: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8276565

In terms of my personal desire for learning this language, besides an expressive type system I'd like to have rich handling of errors (such as Maybe and Either) and a non-callback hell type of async, which it seems Scala (or at least some Scala libraries) offers. Thanks!
Am I reading right that you're sticking up for the abstraction of the person who would harass a woman at a pitch event?
Please, read the article again, the author was the only one thinking about brushing it off while the cofounders were adamant that they should cut off the gropey investor.
Metasynth has been doing this stuff for a lot longer.

http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php

I saw/heard a demo of a Yamaha active concert hall system back in the late 80s, so the Meyer system isn't unique - although I'm not sure if Yamaha ever worked out how to commercialise it outside Japan, or inside restaurants instead of concert halls.
Why is it a surprise that people are having a crisis of trust when they are inculcated by science and Rational Thinkers™ that nothing is to be trusted?

It seems to me that the worldview based on science alone (which is highly prevalent among today's self-described Rational Thinkers™) has reaped what it has sown, which is broad skepticism of everything, including itself.
I would definitely have given this an enthusiastic Yes a few weeks ago, but after reading the details of the Justine Sacco incident (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tw...) I am more reticent to start off with public outing. Of course what he did was unequivocally wrong; not saying anything else here. It would certainly have been appropriate to let the event organizers know, if not YC (if they weren't the same).
John Meyer was one of the first people to analyze contemporary problems in large-scale sound reinforcement from a purely scientific standpoint. For example, Meyer and and his friend and colleague Bob McCarthy created the SIM [1] audio analyzer, which allows sound designers to optimize systems using tools other than their ears.

[1]: http://www.meyersound.com/product/sim/sim3/

EDIT: if anyone has any interest in the topic of sound system optimization, I can elaborate a bit. These days, system tuning can be an incredibly cool and very scientific process.
FWIW I do believe sexism exists in tech. My displeasure seeing stories like this one centers around the comments.

1. Commenters seem to be attributing the actions of the investor to character traits, rather than circumstance (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

2. I don't think the situation is as cut and dry as failing a fizzbuzz (ie there is likely another side to this story)

3. Commenters seem to want the penalty for the investor to be immediate and large (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process.
> I think a lot of people have died in the "low-grade" proxy wars that have taken the place of major wars, as well as the chronic unsupervised regional conflicts.

A lot of people, yes. But far far fewer than died in the major wars that preceded them.
Maybe she's not 100% sure she correctly interpreted his actions. And there's a difference between turning down investment, and actually making an enemy out of him.
Ah, yes, "a single neuron" is indeed a small subsystem of a brain, and it is indeed common nowadays.
If you RTFA, it isn't even Facebook harassing NA users. It sounds like this sort of review is triggered by a complaint, so it's really unidentified people using FB's shitty process to harass minorities.
Show HN: A more secure Passwørd Safe (scrypt, EAX)
Keep in mind that the unspoken context in the preceding paragraph illustrates Ive's tact in passing criticism through a metaphor rather than the Jobsian, "this sucks."
Die Gerechtigkeit und das Recht? Not sure but could be.
My google skills are failing me--I can't find examples of automated creation of them.

Can the scratches be created by a laser cutter? Or is there something special about the etch of a sharp point?
The only time I feel "zen" writing Javascript is when I'm writing it as much like C as possible, without touching the DOM, without using 3rd party libraries (the API of which invariably ruins any "zen" I've got going on) and certainly without using Node. I don't mind it as a kind of toy language for playing with algorithms in JSFiddle.

Real-world Javascript, in my experience, is a constant struggle to cram a dozen call styles for your various npm-fetched libraries in to something resembling coherence, and god help you if you have to dig in to the code of any of those libs, because there are so many different styles and commonly-used libraries serving the same purpose as one another that it's likely to be like reading a completely different language from what you've been writing.

A dozen competing approaches each for making the language suck less at doing useful things, code organization, call chaining, et c., and every goddamn one of them is present somewhere in your stack.

The language is kind of OK. Zen enough in small, controlled doses, once you know about the usual unintuitive (backwards, broken) stuff like variable scoping. The ecosystem, every place the language touches the browser (not Javascript's fault, really), and Node are ripping-your-hair-out un-Zen, IMO.
7 Tips from Top Gamification Experts on How to Boost User Engagement
I think it's everybody's job to take reasonable steps to prevent anyone else from experiencing the type of assault she describes.
That is exactly my intent. I certainly hope the books live up to that vision.
Honest question, but as a male, what can we do to stop this? I've seen much more subtle things in previous jobs that drive me nuts (men overtalking women in meetings, assigning lower tasks, etc..). It's usually not very overt and when I pick up on it, I usually try to help, but never know how far to go.

I'm sorry if I'm derailing the main topic, but after dating a female developer for a while now, I see things in a much different light. This stuff makes me sick; We always talk about how this is a collective industry problem.. but I'm left wondering what I can do about it personally when I see it.
> none of them that big

You sound like middle management weighing lines of code instead of quality of work.
In that spirit, let me take it upon myself to remind you not to heap additional responsibilities on victims of harassment. She wrote it up, which is already more than she owed the world.
I have been a Software Engineer in the field for around 18 years and have worked at numerous companies.. I've been employee #1, and have also worked at a company with around 100K employees across the globe.

I haven't yet been a founder, but I've been at 3 startups which have been acquired. At this stage in my career, if compensation is your primary concern, my opinion and experience is that your best bet is a bigger company who offers stock as part of your compensation somehow. I've definitely made more at a bigger companies than I have as an employee of successful startups with liquidation events.

However, when I was younger, startups were a great place to get interesting experience and network with some great people. I'd recommend working at them if you are in your twenties, or founding one if you have the right personality and backup plans for that. I'm in my mid 30's and would be relatively hesitant to be an employee of startup in its early days now.

You also need to consider if it's a true startup, or just a smaller mom and pop lifestyle type company which is not growing like crazy. The latter is probably better for someone like me, but a quality startup in your 20's is something you'll look back on fondly no matter how much it may have sucked at the time. It's a roller coaster ride but you'll get great experience and have a great network of people to know when you get older.

Keep in mind I'm speaking as an employee-- a founder of a startup is a totally different thing.
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~padamopo/What%20makes%20a%20grea... This paper discusses some of the reasons for low completion rates.
The biggest problem I had was loneliness. Traveling alone can be very lonely. You meet people for days at a time knowing you may never see them again.
Did GCHQ illegally spy on you?
I live on the India/Nepal/Thailand "Digital Hippie" circuit and can confirm the following living costs if you're doing it on your on your own without booking anything else in advance:

Thailand (islands like Koh Tao or Koh Phangan): $700/month. Kathmandu/Pokhara: $300-$400/month. Big cities in India (Pune, Bangalore, Calcutta): $1000/month, small towns in India (Goa, Dharmsala, Naggar, Leh): $500/month. These costs include apartment, food internet. All my luggage is carry-on and check-in baggage under 20kg.

I've been doing this for 6 years with occasional runs to Canada or South Africa to visit friends and family. I'm usually in Nepal for the trekking season, India for the Indian classical music season, and Thailand between those gaps.
Sorry for this problem, I will take care of that.
The other thing to think about: if the author hadn't written a blog post about this, would any man have known about the incident? If a guy puts his hand on your leg under the dinner table, are you going to interrupt the meal to tell everyone else at the table? Are you go back to work and tell all your male coworkers?

It's not just software developers, by the way. A law firm where a friend works had an incident recently where a male partner coerced a young female associate into performing sexual favors. One day she couldn't take it anymore and rage-quit, and he just got sent to sexual harassment training.
$50k for a sideboob ? I mean come on for 50k you get weeklong of model boobs even in nyc. Things people come up with just to have their 5 minutes of fame in social media and some free advertisement of their "new" startup idea... A dating site.

Hey, lady at least come up with a bit better lie next time. This one offends my intellect.
As others have pointed out there is a long anecdotal history of magnetic personalities getting hype and funding based on their empty promises. However, there are large counterexamples and this article clearly contains little technical criticism (another commenter links to a more balanced view).

The Human Genome Project is cited as one such example: simultaneously not meeting the hyped goals whilst also being more successful than imagined in other ways. Perhaps what people are missing here is that the value may not be in simulating the brain but rather having the infrastructure on which to run simulations. This likely starts in parts and on a small scale but the infrastructure alone could be incredibly useful for generating new ideas and shortening feedback time.
I read the wiki entry and still don't get the link. Could someone explain, please?
"People seem to want the penalty for the investor to be very high (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process."

Well this is a tough situation.

I'm not sure she could take this fellow to court for touching her sideboob, so there absolutely will not be due process. With that being the case, he should just be allowed to do the same over and over and the victim shouldn't be allowed to say anything?
The last paragraph debunks your diagnosis pretty thoroughly.
Maybe she's not 100% sure she correctly interpreted his actions.

That is possible. It doesn't sound like it from the way the article was written, though.