skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That would be National Indemnity and Life, p10.

"Let’s look first at insurance, Berkshire’s core operation. That industry has been the engine that has
propelled our expansion since 1967, when we acquired National Indemnity and its sister company, National Fire &
Marine, for $8.6 million. Though that purchase had monumental consequences for Berkshire, its execution was
simplicity itself.

Jack Ringwalt, a friend of mine who was the controlling shareholder of the two companies, came to my
office saying he would like to sell. Fifteen minutes later, we had a deal. Neither of Jack’s companies had ever had an
audit by a public accounting firm, and I didn’t ask for one. My reasoning: (1) Jack was honest and (2) He was also a
bit quirky and likely to walk away if the deal became at all complicated.

On pages 128-129, we reproduce the 11⁄2-page purchase agreement we used to finalize the transaction.
That contract was homemade: Neither side used a lawyer. Per page, this has to be Berkshire’s best deal: National
Indemnity today has GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net worth of $111 billion, which exceeds that
of any other insurer in the world."
Yes, liquid democracy is a cool concept and I'd love to see it applied in a reasonable way, but the OP was talking about local/federal elections, where - I think - online/offline voting wouldn't matter much. Hell, thanks to digital divide I think that making elections online only would actually decrease attendance in Italy!
Former Facebook employee retains Ellen Pao’s lawyer in new discrimination case
Have more contributors to open source such as Scala and Spark. I was at a (Apache) Spark conference yesterday and IBM was demoing a Spark interface to iPython 3 notebooks. Something really useful. Microsoft wasn't even exhibiting.

Mimic the Unix command line environment of Mac that runs the various untilies (eg, homebrew).
Didn't notice that certain words were bolded until you pointed it out.
This is funny, I was just daydreaming about this yesterday during class.

What I was thinking is allowing anonymous SSH access with a VERY locked down shell (/bin/rbash [1]) and let them view that everything is in order with their own eyes.

You still REALLY can't make a system that the user can conclusively see isn't just for show. You could be shoving them into a jail/chroot that provides the illusion of transparency, but be serving them elsewhere.

I think that this might be the closest you'll ever come to user software freedom on hardware that they don't own. There are a lot of security concerns, though, so I think it's out of the question for any type of production environment. I'd love to see a proof of concept from someone though.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/The-Restr...
Lets start a startup for certifying the code running at some service is the same on the public repo.

Small bitcoin fee would be charged to the privacy nuts willing to confirm it.
Sparkfun's Arduino-like boards pay back a percentage to the inventors.
changemoney.org: real-time transaction activity in Bitreserve
Elon Musk: updated Tesla cars will make it 'impossible to run out of range'
> So basically I started wondering if it is possible to implement a way people could verify that the same code they see on the Github repo is the code that's also running on the live hosted site?

If Github wanted to get into the hosting business, they could offer this... you'd be trusting what they say when they tell users that the code is identical in both.

I can't think of any clever way to prove it otherwise. Though, if you could, it would have broader implications... imagine Microsoft handing the code to an app over (for viewing), and then being able to prove that the shipped version of the app was the same. They could verifiably claim that their software has no backdoors (save those that are also in the source code, but obfuscated... those are rare, but exist apparently).

This is an idea worth exploring. Good luck.
> And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility

It's why I've had my parents using Xubuntu for the past 4 years. There haven't been any Big Problems. Calling Xubuntu Ubuntu might be cheating, but it's the same thing minus Unity.
Show HN: Stripe Customer Info inside Gmail
>When I inquired as to what exactly did they improve he refused to answer in detail.

So why didn't you go elsewhere?

His living depends on the commission he earns from selling you the car. If you feel the people are dishonest, why do business with them?
Yes, but these hurdles to overcome are political, not technological or financial. And for that period, the biggest deterrent against Russia is Russia itself, because they are militarily, as a former german Chancellor once said "The Republic of Upper Volta with nuclear Warheads"
That's a totally different story, that's true. My explanation isn't a 90% case.

But if you're experience is building websites and etc.. You have less value to provide then someone who can come over and take a business movie with a drone :)
These are lovely. I like how the informal setting allows for experimentation with really non-standard forms of visualization, the readability of the data varies but they're all beautiful. I especially like all of Stefanie's symbols, and Giorgia's mirror visualization.

You should consider getting a PO Box for guest submissions - I know I'd love to make one!
That is only America, and only ride-sharing.

https://help.uber.com/h/f7fbe4af-c0db-4406-9ee5-59613b38a84e

> There are a number of insurance providers that offer policies for ridesharing. Uber recommends working with your insurance agent to find a plan that works for you.

> For US ridesharing partners only, please note that although the Rasier policy will act as primary insurance while you are using the Uber Partner app, keep in mind that all partners must also carry personal auto insurance.
UBiome – Explore Your Dental Microbiome
This would allow users to verify if a SaaS provider is running unmodified software. Provided of course that they open source all their stack.
What’s valuable in a world of abundance?
How is this "anti-trust?" Best Buy sells Apple computers just like the Apple store down the street. This is the normal sales model. The dealer protectionism we have today is the corrupt exception.
I like that.

I also like the idea of requiring gun owners to buy liability insurance, in the event their gun is used to shoot or kill someone, or damage property; especially in the case of all these "accidental" shootings (which, really, are negligence on the part of the weapon owner).
Narayanan's article is valuable, but I think he's far out in front of public policy. AFAICT the default in policy is that privacy doesn't matter; that's the issue on the table right now. How to implement it or deal with challenging technical issues seem to be far down the road.

My impression and limited experience is that policy makers don't care about privacy; they don't understand it or its implications, they haven't the slightest understanding of technical issues, and they have no motivation to learn because their consituents don't understand or care.

The way it changes is if people who do understand it, such those reading HN, patiently spread the word to people you know socially, in business and to your elected representatives. They need your help; they lack the resources to study every public policy issue out there, especially those requiring technical expertise.
Gates took wealth from many, many people and gave it to the few. It is the inversion of free software. You don't see how he hurt the society and how much more wealth could have been created without his decision.

I don't throw stones because of the mistakes someone made. I throw stones because of the lack of will or understanding why to fix the own mistake when he is capable of it.
Solving the Go Challenge 1 in Erlang
What scares me is Safari's Usage is higher than the Mac usage. Does that mean people are using the old Safari on Windows?
I'm talking about the free software culture.
One way of doing this (for your particular use case, but not for the general case) would be for your "business logic" to be implemented in the client side, which as you said, can be verified easily. Then make your backend be a dumb data storage.

For example, if you want to store people's names and date of birth, you would encrypt those on the client-side and only ever send ciphertext to the server.

The encryption key could be derived via a passphrase composed of a user name and a password. Of course, this means that if someone loses their credentials, they lose their data forever.
Only covers US and only covers ride-sharing.

https://help.uber.com/h/f7fbe4af-c0db-4406-9ee5-59613b38a84e

> There are a number of insurance providers that offer policies for ridesharing. Uber recommends working with your insurance agent to find a plan that works for you.

> For US ridesharing partners only, please note that although the Rasier policy will act as primary insurance while you are using the Uber Partner app, keep in mind that all partners must also carry personal auto insurance.
The only way I can think of is giving trusted auditors periodical access to the server and have them make fingerprints of the code/data for others to compare. I think this is what some bitcoin exchanges do, for example.
I don't believe so either, but you seemed to be confused as to why you are being down-voted.
We wrote this Gmail extension to use internally here at Streak. Super helpful for email customer support so we can see their billing history while emailing them as well as indicators in our inbox so we know which emails are with paid customers.

EDIT: direct download to extension here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stripe-for-gmail/d...
There is a way to map each rational to a specific positive integer.
First, you need to define a mapping between positives and integers, this is pretty simple.

0 1 2 3 4

0 -1 1 -2 2

in c code: if(x<0) ? (x * -2)-1 : x * 2;

(pretend that's fixed width above)

Next, any rational can be broken down into a unique prime factorization. 4/6 = 2^1 * 3^-1, 4/15 = 2^2 * 3^-1 * 5^-1

From the factorization, define a transform where the exponent for each prime is replaced using the mapping above:
so (2^2 * 3^-1 * 5^-1) becomes (2^4 * 3^1 * 5^1) = 240.

Since the original rational can be negative, you'll need to use the first transformation again, so 4/15 = 240, -4/15 = -240, which work out to 480 and 479 respectively.

0 and 1 are left unchanged by the factorization process so 0 maps to 0, 1 to 2, and -1 to 1.
>The "build your car" tools on the websites always represent the "as low as" price.

Wrong. The "build your car" tool is generally the MSRP, since it's on the manufacturers site, which will be substantially higher than price you'll have to pay at the dealer.
Totally agree with the PO box idea. This project somewhat reminds me of http://www.onemilliongiraffes.com/

I understand this is personal between two friends, but if there were a PO Box, thousands of people can participate and it would be a lot of fun
the US has become like a modern stasi. the scariest part is the number of people who remain blind about this fact
Not only is this possible to fake, it's probably easier to fake than to implement for real.
The biggest problem I've seen with remote work is management. You need the right people but management can also make or break the team. If they don't understand how to manage a remote team effectively it's going to be a disaster.
Debugging and backtraces for Drupal 8
Its a financial risk. Germany could today tell the US to be out of the country by a set date and what could the US do? Likely at most point to contracts and treaty agreements and request negotiation. Does anyone really think the US could say no and get away with it?

Germany wants the money the bases bring and likely the perceived protection they present. If they didn't see the latter then the money point is key. How much does the US spend to maintain those bases and do they pay fees beyond that to have them?

As a Libertarian I would be more than happy seeing us out of every country that is peaceful. We have no real need to be there in this day and age with the ease at which power can be projected. I won't go into the question of being in certain other countries because of disagreements which led to war, declared or not.
As interesting as this would be, and even if you found a solution...

> I would like to introduce some level of trust that I'm not doing anything sneaky or unexpected behind the scenes (like storing information I shouldn't be).

All you have to do is take something like OpenResty, use it to proxy the traffic and terminate SSL b/t the App and the rest of the internet, and you can do all the nefarious things you wanted.

The ability to use proxies in such a transparent manner guarantees that this isn't possible, regardless of whether or not you actually succeed in the stated aim of verifiable open source code.

Tbh, the closest viable solution is for a reliable 3rd party auditor with professional credentials to perform regular audits to match your production environment to what you tell the general public. Otherwise, you can simply circumvent whatever safeguards you create by simply using a separate application to proxy traffic.

At this point, you are in the realm of 3rd party software audits and that is an established field.
Ethereum is a distributed virtual machine, based on blockchain technology. It appears to be what you are looking for. https://ethereum.org/
As long as there are jobs, rent will not be the only source of income (typically they are stated: jobs, technology, capital).

Technology is a given for a specific time. And I read your argument as: given enough technology, all will be capital. So I believe you assume no jobs will remain, given sufficient technology.

On that regard, I feel that this "end of jobs" dystopy is not more achievable than the Fukuyama's "end of history" theory.
As long as humans exist, they will have two things: a calling for doing something with their lives (and derive meaning from it) and a need to compete with others. So they will keep on working on new jobs, and money will flow, transfering value among them. Agriculture was once the be all and end all of economy, and now is just one industry. If automation makes some jobs disappear, or be easier, others will appear.
Safari (20.4%) < Mac (9.1%) + iOS (16.7%)

Probably not an issue of Safari for Windows, but not accounting for the mobile users. That sums to 25.8% so around 5.4% of Mac + iOS users are using something other than Safari (the vast majority of that is likely Mac users).
So lets break the trends ...
I love this idea: I think you can extend it further.

I would build this idea on the Blockchain; every transaction is tracked and publicly available while details are secure

PTE: Publicly transparent entities
(like a non profit, without the bullshit)

Also love the idea of having a computerized "gatekeeper"; a dangerous proposition, query-less tables that only computers can read; make it unreadable, and it is truly unhackable
This is a terrible, terrible job description
"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform.

Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies.

Given the Falcon 9 reusability, we're going to see launch costs drop by two entire magnitudes. Instead of destroying an $60MM launch vehicle, each launch just burns $200,000 in fuel. This will open up space in ways we have never imagined.
People who come from the school of Tufte would probably hate a lot of these, because there are much simpler, easier to understand ways to communicate not only the information itself but its significance.

But that may not be the point. The point may be to give preference to aesthetics over clarity, and if so, they've succeeded. Just about every postcard looks like an art print.
As rainmaking said, I don't believe that there is a way you can fingerprint the running code in a non-spoofable way. Whatever protections you put in the design could be bypassed by having a proxy layer dispatch two requests for each request received: one to the actual application, and one to evil_application.

I believe that the best route to take that is most in-line with your goals would be to design it such that the server-side is untrusted from a security standpoint. Have the client process the data, and only give encrypted or sanitary data to the server side. Don't trust the server with anything other than availability.
The middle class has shrunk in every single state since 2000
A few more tips:

Like anything else, have alternative financing lined up before you start that conversation. This reduces the financing issue to one question: "Can you beat this rate?"

Secondly, I'd highly recommend going through internet/fleet sales at any dealership. Typically, these people are paid primarily in total-volume and less in sales-price-over-invoice, which gives them a great incentive to do the deal on your terms (as long as you don't abuse their time). The added bonus is these people also tend to be just fine negotiating the preliminaries over more convenient email. In contrast, every dollar you negotiate the lot salesman down is generally a dollar out of his pocket.
My parents were very strict about me not using knives when I was growing up, and it took me 30 years to finally get mostly comfortable with using knives in the kitchen. Yes, I've never cut myself with a knife, but I also rarely cook as a result.
Your landlord's costs are fixed --- modulo property taxes, which rise with the appraised value of the property --- but the value of the property fluctuates with the market. In San Francisco, that market is skyrocketing. Your rent should be too. It isn't: due to rent control, you capture the upside (below-market rent) instead of your landlord.

Respectfully: you are practically the poster example of the problem with rent control in a supply-constrained and rapidly gentrifying real estate market. Working class families get moved out of the city. That happens; it's part of economic growth. Meanwhile, a policy that should serve first and foremost to protect the interests of the least mobile workforce participants instead protects an elite startup founder at their expense.

Someone who wanted to make a case against SF rent control could literally just point at you. "We're distorting the housing market for the benefit of elite tech workers. We should stop doing that."

I don't blame you for accepting rent control. You're a rational actor, the option was available to you, and if you want to commit charity, there are probably more efficient vectors for that available to you than enriching a landlord. But I don't think your experience is a particularly good illustration of the public policy benefit of rent control.
The parens are the single point of truth, the indentation is just for display and is (almost entirely) mechanically generated.
San Diego Police Department caught editing their Wikipedia page
Ask HN: Best sessionless web stack?
Hi there, working on a project that is built on the sessionless web

Was curious if anyone had recommendations, places to start, for building sessionless web apps?
Unexpectedly amazing customer service
Author here. Great point, I just updated this link to point directly to his comment rather than his HN profile.
> So record every police encounter, always.

Unless you are in a jurisdiction where such actions are illegal...
It is tough. What do you do that's so valuable?
Global Consciousness
It is absolutely not true that there is no tax liability when you exercise your shares, at least for commonly granted ISO stock options.

Here's a site on it: http://fairmark.com/execcomp/isoexer.htm

Basically, there's no "regular" tax liability, but the difference between the exercise price and the market price at time of exercise counts as income for AMT, and so have a great day, you're gonna pay AMT that year if you do this for any significant quantity of stock.
Thought so, uhhhh also, Haxe is open source, need I say more?
Here is an example of one of their games: https://microcorruption.com/login
Love the Cy Yombinator part haha
Reminds me of the "Hopeful Parents" Far Side comic.

http://farside.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hopeful_parents.jpg
He shouldn't have made his software closed source. Too many business men followed him, leading to a vast amount of bullshit software no one can easily relay on to make something better.

The free software culture slowly recovers. But we are still far away from the good old and worthy traditions for commercial software developers.
Wow, impressive article especially considering it comes from (I think) a junior at Princeton https://www.linkedin.com/pub/evan-soltas/29/5/b44

My only gripe is that he thinks that entrepreneurship and investment are struggling. If they're struggling now, then they've been struggling through all of human history.
The answer is cryptography. You need to have the client encrypt everything before sending it to the server, removing even the option for wrongdoing. This only works if the client is a program, app, or browser extension that the users can compile themselves. There's not (yet) a way to verify the client code that is running in the browser.

If the server needs to do stuff with the data, then what you want probably not possible. (It depends on the exact thing that needs to be done, as there are things like homomorphic encryption.) Instead, you should focus on non-technical assurances that you are acting in good faith and that promote trust.

This would include things like having a privacy policy on the site with strong guarantees about what can be changed in the future and having a physical address. You could put funds in escrow that would pay out to the users if you violated the policy. You could have outside auditors come and verify your procedures.

Honestly, you can't guarantee that you won't have a security breach or that the government will give you a national security letter. I'd focus on building your service and making it useful enough that users deem the risk a worthwhile trade-off.
Microsoft Band SDK and Xamarin
Not for me. I've used ORMs for the simplest of CRUD operations from web apps but couldn't imagine ever working without SQL for everything else.
EBS 16 TB
"Will the majority of humanity be enslaved to rent-seekers who own patents on a robot hinge?"

Actually, that's easy: No. Humanity will not be enslaved to a small number of capital owners.

But the reason isn't necessarily a happy one, which is that humanity will revolt and start destroying and probably kill lots of people and even potentially kill the goose laying the golden egg by destroying the robotic infrastructure. Should they fail to destroy it, then you still face questions as to who ends up with the power and how it is distributed after the fact; you can find places in history where there was a lot of blood and violence on a recurring basis to answer the question "who gets the power?" because the matter wasn't settled even after the first victory.

That's the outcome I'm more worried about, not the possibility of somehow getting 99% of the population "enslaved".
"Call us" is if you're lucky. More like drive over to our place and we'll talk about it over stale coffee.
New Salesforce App for Outlook and OWA
Y'know what? You're absolutely right. That's what I get for answering before my first cup of coffee.

I had somehow mentally conflated the "browse our cars on the lot" page that many dealerships have with the "build your car on our site" page.

Thanks for the correction.