skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Vaguely similar currency-expiring policies have been suggested for the US, as well. See this column from Harvard's Gregory Mankiw in April of this year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/business/economy/19view.ht...
and "give your friend's address to a monopoly corporate entity without their agreement". This is another scary chapter for privacy.
I couldn’t stop myself from writing a review-Jade Rock Enterprises
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Probably to get address data (nicely linked in social relationships).
Work out the numbers and you'll see why it isn't. The variance in health care payouts over a pool of N people is proportional to sqrt(N), whereas the mean is proportional to N (see the central limit theorem).

For a family of N=1 to N=4, sqrt(N) is of the same order of magnitude as N. This is bad, since you can't reasonably predict how much you need to pay. This is why insurance makes sense for me (N=1) or a family of N=4.

Once N=10,000, sqrt(N) = 100, so the variance is only 1/100 of the mean. At N=100,000, it's only 3/1000 of the mean. Every factor of 10 increase in the insured pool lowers the standard deviation by a factor of 0.316=1/sqrt(10).
It's of interest to me mostly because of all the people here rushing to defend a spam site.
What does Google have a monopoly over?
Indeed. If it's so much better, why doesn't anyone want it?
As a beginner just grab the XML lib which is easiest to install and looks comfortable to use. If it doesn't work out try another one.

I really don't get all the complaints in this thread about the lack of a central library repository. How hard is it to use Google? Libraries aren't suddenly bad because they're not from Lib Grand Central.

In other languages, Perl specifically, I've tried libraries from CPAN that were total shit and then I googled around and grabbed a better one from someone's homepage.
Strongly agree with this comment. The "wounded indignation" tone is very familiar to me, as the online SEO community is full of these stories which don't seem to go anywhere and which hamper real discussion. Reminds me of alcoholics who are deep in denial - "I don't have a problem, you should have ducked when I threw that TV at you!"
Wouldn't they disclose that? Also, if that were the aim, why limit everyone to a single card?
The nationwide direct costs of arthritis are within 90% of the direct costs of cancer. Matt wasn't saying "withhold chemo".
> making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes.

Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if not the rule of law?
I'm not so sure if set notation is higher level, but for the example in your longer comment, map/filter/product is not that bad if you use it wisely. Here is my version:

map(lambda (w,s,l): {'widget': w, 'sprocket': s, 'location': l}
filter(lambda (w,s,l): l.hasInStock(w) and l.hasInStock(s) and w.isUsableWith(s),
product(widgets, sprockets, locations)))

Well, I agree it is not any conciser that its list comprehension (about the same I guess?). Nothing is perfect, like you said, know you tool :)
No it's not. The majority arrived at its conclusion by coincidence. The minority arrived at its conclusion by research and thinking. It is much easier to convince the majority, as the minority is not going to be receptive to your argument.
Yes. I think it is something about the air control or "braking" that makes me feel this way. SML2 is way more direct.
She might be talking about clbuild.
I sent a card to my kids telling them that Google has searched the global index of nice/naughty kids and they were found on the nice list.

I haven't told my wife. I want to see how much she freaks out when it comes in the mail.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - nevertheless, there is always a cause and effect. Admittedly, in complicated systems it can be hard to find either.
You guys can have a big long emotional conversation about cancer care, but cancer isn't where all the cost is in the system, and cancer treatment may not even be where all the cost is in cancer care (tests, many of which have been demonstrated to be ineffective, may be the major component instead).
Ask HN: Review My Weekend Web App
It's "probable" in his mind because it's his theory.
Yeah, I'll just take my business elsewhere... oh wait.
This'll be perfect for precalc next semester
This hardware just screams: "run erlang on me plz"
Quite - and there's lots of literature to say that negative interactions are the ones that have the most impact on customers. Smart and responsive branding at failure points strikes me as one of the most valuable investments you can make. Of course I'll be annoyed if a page doesn't load, but if you can put a smile on my face, reassure me about the temporary nature of the problem, and offer me a useful path back in, I'm far more likely to follow through rather than go elsewhere.

It's quite astonishing that a large company like Borders would be unaware of this and fail to communicate it to their web staff.
Interesting that this is separate from Intel's Larrabee project http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU). Larrabee also has the potential to put 48 x86 cores on one chip but provides a fully coherent cache and a ring bus instead of a mesh network with message passing.

The other major difference is that Larrabee includes a wide vector processor in each core to run OpenGL/DirectX shaders or OpenCL kernels.
Bookmrk is a simple web application that allows you to easily save and orginize your bookmarks via tags. You may choose to make your bookmarks public, which allows other to enjoy what you have already found.

It is an experiment to play with redis. I'm using the phpredis extension as well. It's pretty basic but was a fun little weekend project.
>information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card.

This might actually be purely benevolent, or at least not bad, just your every day cheap marketing project. Some designer's 20% time project that had no reason to not be approved.
That's what I thought too, but on the page they state:

"Cards containing inappropriate content will not be mailed, and information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card."
Maybe it's just me ... Every time I see something like

[fn(x) for x in xs for xs in xss if cond(xs)]

I always think it's a loop, then an inner loop (and loops -> procedure ... then get confused which is inner and which is outer :|
As mentioned in the comments on the article, this is a vulnerability that exists not just on Windows, but any system that makes snapshot backups (OSX Time Machine, for instance). I would even argue that this is a vulnerability with any un-encrypted backup, especially automated ones.
Django/Python and Ruby/Rails present their own (sometimes very significant) opaque complexities. Being complex, they actually hide their deficiencies for a long time. Enough so that sometimes rolling your own thing is not a significant time sink in comparison.

This also alludes to the popularity of do-it-yourself microframeworks. If you're planning on using a microframework anyway, I'm not sure your argument really holds up. You can pretty much use whatever not-completely-marginal language you want and be just fine.

Honestly the only valid argument that I come up with is that you can't find enough programmers that know or are excited to know that language to join your team.
That's exactly how I'd expect Christopher Alexander's house to look. The buildings he praises in his work include few cathedrals, and many folk houses in traditional villages around the world. He wrote that the clean, sterile lines of Modernism were designed to enhance the egos of architects, not the lives of their clients. The houses he built in Mexico (The Production of Houses) were made cheaply, using community labor, from handmade local materials.

He also believes that a building is never finished, and should be continually modified by its inhabitants. (Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn is another book that should be read by both programmers and architects.)
That's a good point.

But you've ignored adverse selection. Many of the people commenting here have no insurance coverage, because they're 22 and it is irrational for them to pay for coverage they're not mandated to have.

I see that if people were i.i.d., the difference between BCBS's risk pool and Medicare's risk pool would be irrelevant. But they aren't.
Ajax.org - The real-time collaborative application framework
My thoughts exactly... I was hoping I could be a cheapo and send a card back home to the family in Australia! :-p
[NOTE: copied from another branch for easy reading for others]

A saner map/filter/product version:

map(lambda (w,s,l): {'widget': w, 'sprocket': s, 'location': l}
filter(lambda (w,s,l): l.hasInStock(w) and l.hasInStock(s) and w.isUsableWith(s),
product(widgets, sprockets, locations)))
The only “value” of currency that matters to me is my ability to give it up in exchange for the things that I want and take it in exchange for the things I have. In this sense, if I don’t trust government-provided statistics, all I need to detect changes in the “value” of currency is to keep a budget. If my currency-denominated expenses have gone up and my standard of living has remained constant, that’s an obvious sign of inflation.

By contrast, if a supermarket cashier gives me a handful of coins in change and I want to know which are 90% gold, which are 95%, and which are 99%, what am I supposed to do? Carry an analytic balance into the grocery store? That would make me real popular with everyone standing behind me in line....
Biased nonsense.

Just look at the wording:

> Google believes the amount of money they make is
proportionate to the number of people online. Google
believes it can monetize that traffic better than anyone
else. They're great at leveraging the community.

> Microsoft believes in developing and "restrictively
licensing" a platform to generate revenue. Believes in
"devaluing their partners." Builds an ecosystem instead
of a community, "which means they get a bunch of people
around them, and then they kind of suck the value to them
from the work those people do."
> Tort reform. Cap every state as has been done in California and Texas.

Most studies show this claim to be specious at best. Tort reform has almost no impact on quality of care or cost of that care. The only real impact of tort reform in the realm of medical malpractice is to transfer money from the pockets of wealthy litigators to the pockets of wealthy insurance executives.
In the context of the conversation at hand, "regulation"=="government regulation." So, your counter example isn't really relevant.

Note that Google is not a monopoly. You are free to use whatever search engine or ad network you want.

That will always be the case unless Google is given some sort of government-granted monopoly.
It sounds like you have some misconceptions about Baumol's Cost Disease. I'm absolutely not intimately familiar with it, but the principle is clearly:

1) Effectiveness increases in one industry.
2) Wages increase accordingly in that industry.
3) To remain competitive, other industries increase wages.

The article clearly states that this means artists also receive higher wages.

I do not have a specific quarrel with your conclusion that an artist must be very successful to make lots of money, but your arguments so far have not shown any reasonable negative causal relationship between wage increases across industries and the lifestyle/wealth level of the average artist.

It's entirely plausible that the situation artists face in being successful or failing is due to other factors, some of which are technological and some of which are cultural.

It's also plausible that this situation is merely imagined. There are likely many failed artists across the world, and there are certainly many successes, but the number of musicians who play medium/small gigs, the number of artists who sell commissioned works on a small scale, the number of architects and sculptors and 3D artists who do work for regular wages -- and so on -- is probably not miniscule. The number of writers employed by the television, film, commercial, music, and theatre industry must be enormous.

There are regular dayjobs for artists too, you just have to look for them.
10 gifts from SkyMall.com for wealthy business execs (humor)
If you even want to call it a "vulnerability". What it really is, is a weakness in encryption software and the way it integrates with the OS.
That first 80% always takes only 20% of the time, and that's the first month for you. Some languages seem to let you do that month of work in three weeks, or two weeks, or with a framework it might take a week. But that last 20% is the part that always takes 80% of the time, and it often seems like whatever language you use, there are always the same, small, insidious errors and tweeks that need to be done.
Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all.

The FCC that would enforce "neutrality" also enforces "indecency" rules and has in the past required a minute-for-minute accounting and balance of political expression -- the "fairness doctrine". There is reason to doubt whether neutrality laws would be freedom-promoting or welfare-promoting, in the long run.

How well did "rail neutrality" work, in the long run? See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html
HealthFinch at Y Combinator – What YC thinks about Healthcare
Consultants sometimes provide a Google Webmaster Tools verification file to the site owner in question. Once the site owner uploads this to the site's root directory, the consultant will be able to access Google Webmaster Tools data on the site through their own Google account. However I've never tried this with a banned site- It is certainly possible that Google will see the domain name and refuse to show any data. Also if the site has been banned for a period of time which is longer than Google's expiration date for stored data (I forget what the time increment is... 1yr? 6 mo.s?) there might be no data to speak of. This is still ok; assuming Google makes GWT available to banned sites, all we would be looking for is a reasonable description of the problem above and beyond "we banned you for some cryptic reason".
Yes. Fire them.

When you do contracts next time, include a clause that says subcontractors aren't allowed without prior approval. That's standard in the industry I work in, and subcontractors are a fact of life here.

Meanwhile, it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong. It is a sensible business decision to work with firms who will staff projects predictably and, preferably, with their own people. There are enough good web design firms in the world that you shouldn't be compromising.

In some cases, you might benefit from being staffed with a sub; maybe the sub was a former partner, or a rock star they're actively trying to recruit onto the team. In those cases, that benefit should have been sold to you at project start. The fact that you didn't even know who would be working on the project until it kicked off tells me you could find a better firm to work with.
New to this. how do i create account?
Hi. How do I create an account to receive news?
Unfortunately, I don't have a citation on this. I'm just appealing to common sense.

If there are no regulatory barriers to providing some service, someone will do it, when they are able to do it profitably. Which means that they'll do it when it's actually worth doing.

If there were no regulatory monopoly on creating telegraph lines, WU wasn't really that bad, and it wasn't really needed/worth it. (After all, the article does not make a case that WU successfully manipulated the election.) However, I think it's far more likely that there was a regulatory monopoly, as there is for modern telecoms.
AKA "I'd rather be popular than be right"
If there is a "concomitant concentration of power," people are hosed, and you're exactly right.

The point is to make sure there is NOT a concomitant concentration of power. In other words, you have to have limited government.

In a free market system (capitalism), only government /actually/ has power. Corporations must compete.

In our mixed economy, corporations do gain power, but that is because we do not have limited government.
"Freedom is not a zero sum game, where taking it away from some gives more to others. Taking away freedoms of some takes away freedom from all."

I wonder how he'd feel after we make murder legal, and then I shoot him in the face. Have him see how much freedom he has when he's dead.

My point is that it's a gray area. It's not all freedom or nothing.
Spread some holiday cheer, one card at a time
Right, the specific code that he wrote he claims ran as fast as C++. What type of code is this? Benchmarking program language speed is a very, very tricky thing because it is so multidimensional.

- Were they both multi-threaded or Single-threaded?

- What libraries were each one using?

- Was it mostly IO, network, or user interaction?

- Is he measuring load times, processing times, run/wait ratios?

- What level of compiler optimization where they both using?

- Was the program large or small?

There's a reason they call it the "Computer Language Benchmark Game": http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/
Artists face inverse-BCD. They aren't qualified for other jobs (primarily because of their lack of a resume) so they lose out on the options that someone with 5 years' experience as a corporate grunt would have. This makes them poor relative to the corporate grunt.

We, as entrepreneurs, are also facing inverse-BCD with the bad economy, as everyone familiar with the phrase "multiple liquidation preferences" is aware. VCs aren't issuing shitty term sheets because they're in trouble-- the money they're investing was raised before Sept. 2008-- but because entrepreneurs have fewer options in traditional employment than they did 3 years ago.
How To Increase Your Productivity with Project Bubble
There have always been ways to cheat at basic school work, if nothing else by grabbing someone who did know how to do it and copying theirs. This does add one more way, but it can also be constructive if struggling to learn something.
Even if you don't have the "no unapproved subs" clause in your contract --- which, put it there --- it's still a marketplace, and not knowing who's going to staff your project, or even that they're FT employees, is a major misfeature of a consulting firm.

Nobody owes "working on crappy terms" to any consulting firm. Pick one you trust.
Is this suitable for HN?
WTF? - "North Korea's official news agency, TV station and major newspapers, which are monitored in South Korea and Japan, by late Wednesday still had not announced the currency exchange. Instead, authorities continued to transmit information through a closed-circuit system that feeds into speakers in homes and on streets but can't be monitored outside the country."

Can we just buy the country and let the leaders go into exile?
Didn't they buy Postini? I think they may be leveraging their stuff for this.
I've worked with 1-person shops and with large, well known firms, and this notion that creative directors are calling the shots on projects doesn't square with my experience. The person who's performance you care about is the one giving you comps and taking your feedback on them; in firms with "directors", that person is almost never the director.
I've been thinking about what would happen if I decided to work on my startup full time in NYC, where I live now, and I always end up thinking that it would be pretty hard to live in that "extremely low income" category. Does anyone have any tips on how to really cut costs? Besides moving somewhere else of course.
Land rights are more important than property taxes. I don't think that private property rights can reasonably be called a regulatory barrier.
I think it just seems that way, because it takes effort to explicitly pull all those arguments into our consciousness, to explain a decision that was taken subconsciously. The subconscious is often equated with the emotional or the irrational, but there is no reason to suppose the subconscious is incapable of rational decision making.

Looking at it from that perspective, you are not rationalizing an irrational decision when you explain your reasoning: you are simply remembering/recreating the process that lead to the initial, perhaps even rational, decision.
I don't think that's a good analysis. Anti gambling laws does indeed push the hardcore gamblers into underground gaming halls. But the important thing it does is stop lots of people getting hooked in the first place. Same with drugs etc.

Having said all this, it's clearly extremely lucrative to setup games like this.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."

There's a critical difference between nationalism and patriotism. What that quote is talking about is nationalism.

Here is what the quote should say:

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is good because its people, culture and government are fundamentally moral."

By "moral," I mean "good for human life."

It's right to be patriotic about America. In this country, more than anywhere in the world, people are free. Free to live their own lives, to generate wealth, and to generate happiness. And we have a culture that supports reason, productiveness, and life in general.

Of course there are lots of exceptions to that, like protracted and pointless wars in the Middle East, but those are not fundamental artifacts of the conception of America; they are side-effects of bad culture today.
They don't pay nearly as well, from what I've heard.
Commercial disk doesn't necessarily mean DRM, but major movie studio does.
You'll be thrilled (lol) to know that the lambda-tuple syntax isn't in python 3 (!); it does make my examples more concise.

The argument in favor of set-notation being higher level is it's less specific (it doesn't explicitly provide a sequence of operations, just an outcome).

List comprehensions look like set notation but have an implicit procedural translation you have to keep in mind to use them well, so it's a toss-up.

I prefer map/filter/reduce when sequencing has large performance implications but for simple filtering or raw-data-shaping comprehensions read more smoothly.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RvY5BM0Xt1wC&lpg=PT367&...
This Entrepreneur's Company Went From $78 Million To Nothing
It's something to think about. That's HN in a nutshell, as far as I'm concerned.
Didn't the same situation exist in Neuromancer where all governments had abandoned paper money but criminals continued to use it?
How to Monetize Your Blog Without Irritating Your Readers
Wow! Normally every time I hear about a music service, I skip it because I just expect it to get sued out of existence. This looks intriguing enough to try, particularly since they already have deals with the majors that match their price structure.