skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
LESS short-sighted?

Quite so! I fear you overestimate biological evolution.

Imagine a market with the same kind of behaviors you describe, only a million times larger, and where not only do markets fixate on 3-month returns, but if any executive tries to do otherwise he isn't just fired but summarily executed along with all his senior staff as a lesson to others. Oh, and management at all levels make Dilbert look optimistic: no one actually even knows how to maximize 3-month returns, or how to do anything at all in particular; they just stick with what they're currently doing and sometimes randomly try new ideas (and if 3-month returns don't improve, even for unrelated reasons, everyone involved is also executed). Oh, and sometimes the government introduces arbitrary new regulatory schemes with no reason or warning, and any companies that (by means of trying random new ideas) don't find a way to make decent 3-month returns also have all their senior staff executed. New companies get started semi-regularly, but they're managed just as incoherently. And the system has been running that way for untold millennia.

That's evolution. A chronicle of blind stupidity and senseless mistakes, unfathomably vast, written in blood.

Makes our silly human affairs look positively cheery in comparison, doesn't it?
Honestly, his accent in German is hilarious. I dug up some old YouTube footage of him in German a while back and he sounds ... cute. Definitely not hard-core like he does in English. ;-)
(sum (range 1 365))

assuming you defined these already; I have them in my utils library ;-)

(defun range (start end)
(loop for x from start to end collecting x))

(defun sum (sequence)
(reduce #'+ sequence))
How quickly can you generalize the plain math formula to these sequences: http://www.research.att.com/njas/sequences/index.html
but Google thinks its MVT.

http://www.google.com/search?q=django+mvt

http://www.google.com/search?q=django+mtv
Hash operations not sufficient to protect data assignment in Active Record
As a matter of fact a Mac is the worst of the three options I could imagine to give to my mum. I keep saying to Mac fans, first try to explain it to your mum. Have you tried it?

It's all the small unintuitive things, like "x" doesn't close the application. There are no hints for accomplishing basic tasks like renaming a file or moving a file (Finder doesn't do cut, only copy). And so on... I consider myself experienced with computers, but on OS X I have to google how to accomplish the most basic tasks.

Really, please try it. You know, explain it to the kind of person who has to write down every step on paper. (Not that my mum is that bad - actually I have her on Ubuntu and she is doing fine). So that person has to write down "don't close the application with x, use cmd+q" - it's ridiculous.

Gestures look great in presentations - but how do you learn them? There are no hints in OS X as to what to use (OK, I can remember pinching and scrolling - but I don't resize pictures much, so guess what, it is not THAT helpful after all).

It's fine if people love their OS X (for whatever reason), but the claim that OS X is simpler is definitely not true.
How "free market" something is is a continuum, not a binary distinction

Even worse: it's a multi-dimensional continuum, where the function mapping points from the space "all possible markets" to the space "quality of the resulting health care system" is almost completely unknown, but probably has lots of local maxima and minima distributed throughout the space.

The task we're faced with is "maximize the value of the quality function by making semi-blind guesses, while hopefully not landing in a very bad local minimum". I don't think they covered an algorithm for that one in my CS classes...
Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away
This seems to make the ludicrous argument that because the mistakes are consistent they are not mistakes.
This could make sense. In a sufficiently complex language, a single "VM" instruction translates to many native instructions. If you compile a program in such a language into native code, the size of the code explodes, resulting in really poor cache utilization. A tight interpreter on a modern processor (heavy cache fault penalties + branch prediction) can very well perform better than a natively compiled program. Performance is a very tough problem, unfortunately it's very difficult to find a "superior" solution - it just depends on far too many variables.
Apart from the obvious (webdev bar, firebug, adblock, etc), I find HTTPFox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6647) to be invaluable.
They did. Rock on!
If memory serves me, there are also cases where information available at run-time can allow better optimizations than could normally be done at compile-time--I think the JVM has some tricks along those lines for JITing bytecode into native instructions, but I suppose the same principle could apply elsewhere.
It is also sad when the poor farmer meets a man in a business suit.

"You seem to be growing our patented plants."

----

Also. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
If an African-American speaks African-American Vernacular English to his friend at the barbershop, it's probably not a mistake.

If an African-American speaks that dialect to a hiring manager in a job interview, it probably is.

(Obviously you can imagine exceptions in both cases.)
A key point buried here: the aging population cannot use iPhones because the fonts are too small. Give an iPhone to someone older who needs reading glasses, as I have (with my parents, in-laws). I find they understand the natural affordances of the iPhone interface pretty quickly, which is a testament to the good job Apple did there, but they often just cannot read the screen.
What is any dialect or derived language but a set of consistent mistakes with respect to the ancestor language?

A dialect that lacks prestige is no less a dialect for it — that was one of the points of the article.
Regarding the keypad issue:

9. It's almost impossible to get the right letter without being able to see the screen. Because you have to place your finger, listen for the right letter, then "lift it off" and place it again. Trying to slide your finger inevitably results in it thinking you're "holding" the wrong character and "pressing" the one next to it.... which then causes the phone to input that first character. Of course, you don't "know" whether it just inputted the wrong character, or whether it just announced that you'd re-selected the same wrong character, because there's absolutely no difference in the audio cues.

Is there a market for making some sort of Braille screen overlay for the iphone, similar to something like http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/11/your-iphone-can-also-feat... ??
Technically this is already true, since OS X is a FreeBSD variant and is more popular than Linux (at least in the desktop world).

But I know what you mean. I actually host two development servers for FreeBSD and employ one of the core devs (laszlof). I'm trying to help! :)
I'm not deaf or hearing impaired but I enjoy watching TV shows and movies with subtitles.
Historic documents in computer science and engineering
Great! Just in time for me to build my new ZFS-based file server. =)
The kernel is different, and the userland is different. OS X may be FreeBSD-derived, but it has moved a long way from its roots since then.
Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Graphs
You just read my mind. I've got a Dell 2100 with Arch on it, and I was just looking for a freeBSD usb image.
FreeBSD 7/8 are really starting to feel like the decisions made in 5.x are starting the pay off. Between the ULE Scheduler, ZFS filesystem, DTrace (even if not as good as on Solaris) and the new Jails, Its a pretty sweet technology packed release.

Hopefully we will be upgrading some of the apache.org server soon :)
No, the iPod was in development outside of Apple but Fadell had trouble getting investment.
I was trying to point out that that is a bad way of framing it. To call it a dialect may be technically correct, if you're merely arguing semantics.

However to accept it as a legitimate dialect is another thing. If your child spoke that way you would constantly correct them, for their own good. It'd be much better for all involved to redefine "dialect" to not include something that devolved from another language via mistakes made by dumb rednecks who can't understand the concept of a double negative.

If we call that a dialect, then the very word "dialect" is broken.
However, as its an UK English newspaper, it's likely appropraite. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic
Banks are running out vaults to store gold
Thanks for the correction to the last paragraph of my comment (parent to your comment).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle

I appreciate your attention to detail.
How SQL access path and execution analysis was implemented in a SQL server
My mum is dead now, but she happily owned a succession of iMacs for about ten years prior to that. My elderly father does just fine with the iMac too, though I actually had to turn off the right click to keep him from getting confused.

By the way, the "unintuitive" things you mention aren't unintuitive, just different from Windows. It's no less "unintuitive" than whether or not you set your parking brake with a pedal or a hand lever (so better not get your mum a Toyota if she has a Ford).

By the way, OS X is good enough at multitasking and memory allocation you don't have to actually quit your applications. It's sufficient to just close the window. That way it starts up faster when you want to use it again.
Chess Generates Silicon Valley Wealth?
CSS3 And Its Adversaries
Listened to a great series of lectures on the story of human language a while back: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=1600

I learned two things that are equally true and somewhat self-contradictory. 1) Language is a continuum, not a rigid thing. There is no right or wrong language. If you are communicating you're doing it right. 2) Most all societies have a "high" language and a "low" language. Sometimes there are multiple layers. People who want to move in better circles learn to conform and work fluently in the "high" language.

The continuum question was especially interesting. Is Old French just bad Latin? Or is it a different language? What about those languages that have one spoken form and two written forms? The same language with different names because of political considerations? Lots of neat history and trivia here. I really enjoyed the series.
If we call that a dialect, then the very word "dialect" is broken.

Then, I suppose, the word dialect is broken. :)

There's a long history of vernacular dialects lacking prestige and casting aspersions on their speakers. Shakespeare, notably, wrote his plays in the vernacular to connect with his audiences. [1] Chaucer did the same with Canterbury Tales. [2] Of course we forget that now because we revere those authors as purveyors of great literature.

To call it a dialect may be technically correct, if you're merely arguing semantics. However to accept it as a legitimate dialect is another thing. If your child spoke that way you would constantly correct them, for their own good.

Matt, I'm a young, intelligent, black male in America: I would never let my kids grow up speaking AAVE exclusively. Trust me. But neither I nor the author are arguing the prestige of the dialect.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_influence#The_c...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernacular_literature
Android and Palm Need Their Own iPod Touch, Fast
Perl: Love it, or hate it, but don't ignore it
Renal Cell Cancer
Are there any examples of such requirements in the real world.
Does this work in Firefox? It didn't in mine, version 3.5.5.
"Pilog -- PicoLisp Prolog"

I see it obeys the law that every Lisp implementation must have an implementation of Prolog embedded in it.
The average life expectancy of a multinational corporation-Fortune 500 or its equivalent-is between 40 and 50 years and they have been around for 500 years or less (in their current form). Compare this with the time humans took to evolve. The vast time involved more than compensates for the slower rate of change.
I like this idea a lot more. There is some subtlety about 'public' vs 'government' involved. As a rule, I don't think governments should be out to make money on behalf of the public. They should be out to convert money into public benefits. Freely available intellectual property is definitely such a benefit.
West-covina-computer-repair
If you are looking for computer repair service that can help you out in your emergency and also prices are reasonable then call us, We Geeks mobile computer repair have efficient knowledgeable expert who can fix your computer problem same day.
The other side of that coin might be that this risk free piblic funding should be used to for the type of blue sky research stuff that won't get funded by corporations, not stuff that corporations might fund anyway.
No, because the source language isn't in UK English. If it was, then sure.
java is slower than C, so is java not good enough? Also, by saying that both have fewer programmers that know them is saying that you will try no new language.

Earlier you talked about trade-offs. There are trade offs, and java's big win is that it's so widely used. From a language perspective (programmer productivity, etc) both are far better than java.
How is the $5 subscription working out for you? A lot of people signed up yet?
Perhaps I got to the party late, but I've read some dynamite analysis of the problems of healthcare by commenters and articles on HN. Most all of these are able to lay out the drivers of the problems and suggest concrete, simple ways to fix things.

However when I look at the current proposed solutions, they are neither simple or concrete. Instead (to me) they look byzantine, obtuse, and obfuscated.

This leads me to believe that either lots of really smart people have vastly underestimated the complexity of the problem, or that the people currently charged with fixing it are unable or unwilling to work in a direct manner.

All three of these are interesting conclusions.
When the truth is found to be lies,
and all the joy within you dies.

If these e-mails are true this looks like it’s going to be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of people.

Many people have invested a lot of money and time into this issue, from buying new tiny fuel efficient cars to investing a lot of money in green energy businesses. Plus many have their reputations at stake here too.

Now that it is starting to look like this whole issue was some kind of hoax, I see two separate groups that may surface here. Those who intended to profit from this politically and financially, and those who are into it for purely environmental reasons.

It seems if there is no real causative environmental impact happening, the pure environmentalist should be happy to embrace the truth at this point whereas those who were into it for other reasons may still attempt to spin and re-spin facts and push for further legislation and increased taxes.

Another thing to consider is now that it has become a political issue and is at the global center of attention a lot of people are going to look like they were participating in something that was a fraud and a deception. Yet I’m sure many of them had no idea they were being mislead and should not be lumped in with the perpetrators of the deception, if it ultimately proves to be a deception.

When the truth is found to be lies,
and all the joy within you dies...

(Jefferson Airplane--San Francisco, CA 1967)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5Rc5LjOsM&feature=relat...
The Community Reinvestment Act encouraged banks to make risky loans and if banks didn't make such loans the government would start snooping around in their business. The understanding has always been that the government would bail out massive losses in these loans. Some of the deregulation made things easier for this to happen but the recession would have been regardless of these factors. Job growth over the last ten years has been almost entirely focused in housing and related industries.
If you count underemployed, discouraged workers and the U-2 figure then we're at about 18% unemployment right now. If we're still in this situation after ten years despite all the artificial stimulus I think it's just a joke to call it anything less than a depression. I'd argue we've been in a depression since the tech bubble burst and that we've just been papering over the mess for the last ten years. Considering that job growth has been basically zero for that period I'd say we've been kidding ourselves with statistics for awhile now.
Trying the simple hello world example = Cannot call method 'update' of null :(
"Do you want to be the first in a store on Black Friday or the last? Do you want to be the first in a gold rush or the last?"

For business, being the second to do something is often a nice position to be in.

Google was not the first search engine. iPod was not the first digital music player. Microsoft was never first at anything, as far as I can remember.

Of course, once the market has a clear Google, iPod, or Word, probably time to try a different idea. But a product category with no clear leader can be a great market to enter.
You know that we actually did invade Canada right?

"if there was ever a front with Indonesia or China, 10 million redneck Americans will be flown in to help us."

The South Koreans believe this too, as do the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Poles, the French, the British, the Italians... hell the whole world. And someone comes a long and indignantly asks why Ameria spends more on defense than all other first-world nations combined? It's to make up for their slack!
It's not ludicrous, and you're being ignorant. Additionally, using words like "legitimate" and "devolved" illustrate perfectly the concept of high-prestige versus low-prestige language dialects.

People don't speak AAVE because they're lazy or dumb. They speak AAVE because they grew up where everyone else speaks AAVE.

If the South had won the Civil War you might not think using double negatives, double modals, etc. were a sign of stupidity -- AAVE and Southern (white) English share many common syntactic and morphological features.
I loved perl for a long time before I started using python and, quite frankly, I don't intend nor see the need for ever having to use perl again. I respect perl for what it is and what it has enabled me to do, but when better tools come along I don't hesitate to move on.
Yes your comment is irrational. The percentage of funding spent on the offices is likely small. This made you worried about their prospects, and not recent (hard to measure) stats about flat growth?

[imho, they're doing fine, but had a bad few months. As far as execution, they are releasing a lot more a lot faster than they used to - but is it the right stuff?]
Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying
And once again, Founder Pie Calculator to the rescue:

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/35%20Founders%27%20Pie%2...
Mac OS X is already UNIX. In fact, OS X implements more of POSIX than Linux.
"Now that it is starting to look like this whole issue was some kind of hoax..."

Or maybe, this is actually a small piece of erroneous data within a larger body of evidence. Meaning; yes it's awful, but it's not as significant as some would like to think.

The idea that these goings on invalidate the research of thousands of independent groups is _ridiculous_.

People need to look at the bigger picture, not just the parts that validate thier preconceptions. That goes for anyone, within _any_ debate.
Maybe it only works for some people - fair enough. It doesn't work for me. I had to google for renaming a file. On other OS I just have to remember one rule: try the right mouse button. Instant expert.

As for not closing apps, I find that hard to believe. Maybe if you only ever use 3 apps it is OK. Otherwise, why even have a mechanism for starting and stopping apps? Could just start them all upon booting. (Actually this will probably be the future, but not yet).

Also it is very confusing if you have closed all windows of an app, but not the app itself. Because then if you click the app icon, nothing happens (it is already started, after all).
Strictly, the algol family.
Clearwater-computer-repair
If you are looking for computer repair service that can help you out in your emergency and also prices are reasonable then call us, We Geeks mobile computer repair have efficient knowledgeable expert who can fix your computer problem same day.
Except you would say "no hablo espanol" with italics to indicate use of a foreign language (and you'd use the correct accents!).

Also how do you know which English variant that copy of the work is in? Emphasising the apparent mis-spelling may also be a way of highlighting that the source material is North American.
Yes. For example, the NIH requires research to be published in open-access journals, many of which also now require data to be made public. These requirements look like they will be everywhere sooner or later. (Don't know of any restrictions about commercializing results, though.)
The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that embodied mistakes and others that didn't. I can't imagine any linguist who would.

What I'm saying is that all vernaculars have consistently observed (surely you don't literally mean well-specified) grammatical rules. Their speakers couldn't understand one another otherwise. So if your definition of mistake = inconsistency, then (by definition) you'll never find a vernacular that embodies mistakes.
I suggest using mailchimp for mass-email. They track link clicks etc and also support templates so that you can send "Hello Jack, here's the beta link you asked about" to a many people at once. Make sure to enable google analytics integration as well. I didn't try personalized beta code, but more information is always better than less information.
Saying, "I will do X", is pretty important for general efficiencies sake though. It gives other people who have done X a chance to give advice and people who were thinking of doing X a chance to avoid doing it or pitch in.

Informing people when and where you'll give a talk is also pretty critical to actually having people show up.
Don't criminals tend to fit the same profile though?

Benevolent dictatorship ftw.
An act which may encourage banks to lend is not regulation. The belief that gov't would bail out the big players does not indicate over regulation, or even appropriate regulation. Quite simply it was the regulation exemptions that were provided which made this thing far worse than it could have been.. and far more widespread.
The idea that large financial institutions would conduct themselves responsibly without regulation, and not give way to greed, is complete rubbish and has been proven so, even the most conservative on capitol hill admit that these days.
Er, no, he doesn't say that the main climate model is useless, or that "it's rubbish and doesn't work". He doesn't say anything even slightly like that.

It doesn't make any difference what judgements he pronounces. What matters most is his factual observations. At one point he notes that a sum of squares routine sometimes produces a negative result(!). He also notes that they are not able to reproduce their earlier results using the model. Reproducibility is one of the foundations of science. Not only can others not reproduce their results, they can't even reproduce their own results.

This raises a further question that I haven't seen mentioned: was this code and data under version control? And was that lack of version control considered a bug or a feature? We are talking about billions of dollars being spent based on models that apparently had no source control . If they did, they should be able to reproduce.