skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
On a similar, somewhat-related tangent: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is a fantastic novella depicting rapid change caused by a technological singularity.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
Agree. Once tried to order something from Newegg with a European credit card (I'm in the US at the moment) and after ordering I got an email that I canceled my order. I had to go the customer chat room and chat with one of their guys to find out they do not allow foreign credit cards. Went to Amazon and purchased the same product without problems. That was a $100 loss for them and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
...targeted at the Secret Santa crowd.

The projections for the ammount of money that will be spent [in/on] this little endeavor are astounding, to say the least.
Demo: Create beautiful presentations using SVG
The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With Ustream Live Broadcaster
> I'm a former "AGW denier"

[I'm very similar to you (but a more progressed version)... do i have your trust now?]

> I've seen enough to convince me that the human species is better off

[... this is what I believe. So, you should agree with me.]
Except non-employer health plans rarely cover pre-existing conditions, which ultimately is what ails most people and contributes most to prolonged suffering in quality of life.

There definitely needs to be a solution for those who are uninsurable, but employer coverage is a lousy mechanism for that. I'd much rather have a "public option" that charges a reasonable multiple of what the premium for a healthy person would be. That would ensure that you could always get coverage, and provide a guaranteed ceiling on your expenses.
I think, at this point, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I am actually somewhat optimistic that America will one day have a universal single-payer healthcare system, but I can see I'm rather unlikely to ever convince you that's a good thing ;)
I'd say Access or DabbleDB would be the right way to go. If she already knows how to use Access then it's a no-brainer.
I know Mint has had a lot of success with this style of infographic, but it seems like this took a lot of space to explain not that much. As another commenter noted, it actually makes it harder to find the answer than a simple article.
Time Travel: What Google Wave and Braid have in Common
The word Inherent is, I believe, extremely dangerous to use here because it can easily be attacked. (For example in your statement about hurting people it is fairly easy to argue that hurting someone might not be inherently evil in plenty of circumstances).

Ultimately, though, your example highlights the main problem: hurt is poorly defined. Hurt could mean anything from dumping them through to outright torture and everything in between.

Hence here is my worry in the privacy debate: I think everyone has a huge variation in what they class as privacy and how they feel it is being invaded. As a result we end up with lots of mixed up opinions - and, I worry, the risk that really serious invasions of privacy are passing us by.

I feel like we should be talking about it a lot more from a perspective of; ok these guys want to know about us, so can we sit and discuss how they can do that transparently and in ways that make us comfortable. At the moment I get this odd feeling it is turning into a 3 way combat between consumers, companies (who want data to use to make money: either ethically or unethically) and government who want it for a variety of reasons.

The government thing is the most worrying aspect. Im slightly biased because I count, really, as a consumer of private information - I "invade" peoples computers daily. I have only seen it ever done ethically but there is always the serious worry that someone could play the system or could be using it for their own ends. In the future that risk is only going to get worse; and when you add in the fact that once beurocrats get involved the data is even more at risk from outside attack it is a worrying problem.

How do we fix this? Completely no idea yet. But I do think blaming Google is a bad move; because they have stood up for our data in the past (publicly)... and perhaps it is not too late to get them fully onside?
That's a reasonable statement, and it's supported by parts of his interview. However, most people are complaining about this quote: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." It's really a different sentiment.
My own kneejerk reaction is to fear a $/MB system, but that's only because I trust AT&T about as far as I can throw them, and it would be reasonable to predict extortionate pricing for whatever plan they come up with. (Side note: why does it have to be that you never hear someone say, "I love my cable/phone/internet company, you should sign up with them."?)

If the bandwidth market resembled those of pretty much everything else we buy, most of us paying the requisite $30/month for unlimited data on the iPhone would save money under a $/MB plan.
Oh yes, China succeeded economicaly because it is such a free nation.

And while we should commend China for the impressive freedom of its citizens and the resulting economic wealth, we should forget the humble messenger. Isn't it great that we have such stalwart libertarian scholars like the hoover institution that helpfully point out and commend nations that are truly free. With institutions like these in the US, I bet every dictator in the world is shaking in his boots.
Do you mean the first time he used the word "telephony", or the second time? ;)

This seems to be what he meant the second time. But then what did he mean the first time? What does he think the iPhone should be for, if not for nearly every single thing on his list of up-and-coming technologies?

Meanwhile, I can respect the argument that the iPhone's app store is so crowded or so oddly designed that no matter how good your app is it's unlikely to find an audience. And I can respect the argument that, in many cases, something like Android is a better choice of platform than iPhone because Apple might veto you at various points. These, however, are not arguments that were made by the original submitter.

And I have very little sympathy for the "oh, it's just a passing fad" argument. Our entire field may be a passing fad, every existing mobile platform is a passing fad, people used to claim that the web was a passing fad, and my entire life is, if not a fad, quite definitely passing. If you want to experiment with a portable, location-specific app that has an alternative interface, what should you do? Deploy on a platform with no installed base and make all three of your users very happy? Raise N million dollars to market the thing that you stapled together in your basement, taking on an enormous risk? Sit around theorizing until the perfect platform with a perfectly-sized userbase with perfect demographics is presented to you by your fairy godmother?

Certainly a platform that sits squarely in the middle of your vision for the future of technology shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. It might even be worth working with for a while. Technology careers are all about brachiation: You stick with one thing long enough to spy something else to grab onto.
I think we're actually very close.

How about requiring the states to work it out on a state-by-state basis? The feds could set the standards, define the problem, and let some kind of distributed processing system attempt to solve it (instead of a one-size fits all approach that sits in stone and can't easily be changed)

I've always thought that most people aren't very far apart on most issues -- it's just the politics, emotions, and posturing that keeps screwing conversations up (and I speak for myself as much as anybody else)

But yes, agreeing to disagree is probably a good thing to do. :)
Seems like English has failed here: the word "it" here could mean:

- "the thing you don't want anyone to know"

or

- "typing your thoughts into a search engine"

If its the latter, well, he's right actually.
The topic under discussion is "social pressure on scientists to fabricate evidence towards some sort of ulterior motive". Perhaps I should have explicitly restated that, but I assumed the way our respective comments are threaded implied it well enough.
You can indeed shed the virus without having a visible outbreak. All that is necessary for infection is having sex with an infected partner when they are shedding. Unless you have lab equipment at your disposal, you would never know.
at the least, i think you are misreading the tone and giving a rather generous interpretation of what was said. schmidt could have said what you wrote. he could have something much more critical of the position he was in. he did neither.

also, your definition of "reasonable" is not one we all need share. there is a trade-off between profit and privacy here - the balance google has chosen is not the only one possible.

so twice you slant your argument to suit google. once by interpreting what was said in as favourable a way as possible, and once by presenting the false dichotomy of "google v martyr".
Really?

In order to be outraged about this quote, you have to ignore the fact that ES is a smart guy and interpret the sentence as literally as possible (while simultaneously ignoring the implications of the word "maybe"). Then you have to take it out of context, and apply it to situations that ES obviously wasn't referring to.

People are making Eric Schmidt into the bad guy here, because they want him to be the bad guy. And that matters more to them than whatever his true intentions might have been when he uttered that statement.
How I Make Money Online
Sadly this series will end because Pratchett has been diagnosed with a form of dementia. He will be sadly missed, but his books are chock full of obscure references that I am enjoying hunting down.

It's worth dipping into the Annotated Pratchett File:

http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/

and checking out the reading guide:

http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discwor...
This what what my fact checker had turned up: http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/LIBRARY/mj_overdose.htm

And I was careful not to say THC.
Not really news. The biggest concern for me to go from Verizon to the iPhone was AT&T. And I was right.

AT&T is its own worst enemy. I think Droid is as much psychological pressure as anything else. If Verizon plays it crafty, they can just watch while AT&T self destructs.
Some handy notes from the CDC fact sheet:

Genital herpes can cause recurrent painful genital sores in many adults

People diagnosed with a first episode of genital herpes can expect to have several (typically four or five) outbreaks (symptomatic recurrences) within a year.

Regardless of severity of symptoms, genital herpes frequently causes psychological distress in people who know they are infected -- maybe because of the frightening prospect of giving someone you like, or at least do not hate, "recurrent painful genital sores." And because you have to disclose to every person you sleep with, before sleeping with them, that sleeping with you may cause recurrent painful genital sores.

How in the world is that not a big deal? People who are infected with herpes are sexually cut off from the majority of people who are not. There are dating sites just for people with herpes, because they get tired of meeting someone, getting to know and like them, disclosing their herpes status, and then finding out that their new friend does not want to roll the dice on getting recurrent painful genital sores.

Did I mention that herpes causes recurrent painful genital sores in many people who become infected? You know, that might have something to do with the "stigma."

Check the CDC site for info on herpes. Something like one in 5 people have it, that means if you're even moderately sexually active you probably do as well.

Ahhh, NO. Let's not confuse the population as a whole with the people who have a clue and give a damn. From the people I know, about in five seems roughly right, or maybe a bit low -- for sexually active people around the age of thirty. But then again, I tend to hang out with enlightened sex-positive yuppie types who get tested and disclose their herpes status to potential sex partners. We don't look down on people who are infected -- we just don't have sex across the infected/not infected line. (People who lie about that kind of thing are gaped at with uncomprehending horror.) It isn't a perfect system, but it works a hell of a lot better at preventing recurrent painful genital sores than deciding that we all probably have it so why bother caring?
I realise that Schmidt was taken out of context for media hype purposes but...

Even in context what he says is worrying though. It is not just advising you on how to keep you data out of government hands. It is also making some sort statement about Google's position.
Kerry Howes V Lord Advocate
You're welcome! I plan to design around version differences for the most part; by sticking to core principles, I hope to steer clear of needing big tutorial changes from version to version. Rails 3 changes a ton of things, but it's almost all under the hood; plugin developers will have a new API to learn, but most changes should be invisible to application devs. It may be a pipe dream, though; I'll let you know how it goes. :-)
wait, theres a difference between mini and micro blogging?
Exactly. Lack of licensing details made me wonder what they were trying to hide.
Actually, using HTML strings is quite a bit faster than using the DOM methods in many browsers. Strange but true. (I guess it's because the extra time spent parsing the string is trivial compared to the extra time you spend mucking around in the JS interpreter when you use the DOM.)
I was actually under the impression that was the statement we were interpreting?

I've read it over about 50 times and I think he is giving an example - only a really unclear one, and a really bad one too. I do think it does read like the "worst case" guys are interpreting it: but I also am not convinced that was what he means at all.

Im still in the camp of Assume Good Faith for the moment.
Allow me to assist. How do you think the environmental lobbyists propose that we combat APG? Does 'switch to renewable energy sources' sound familiar, or 'reducing emissions'? Does 'taxing carbon emissions' or 'carbon trading' sound familiar? All of these proposed changes have real economic impact, and they create winners and losers in the marketplace.

If the government subsidizes solar or wind power and penalizes coal, who wins and who loses? The companies who make turbines and solar plants are, generally speaking, not the same companies who make and operate coal plants (or coal mines, for that matter).

I think its quite safe to say that money is driving both sides of this argument.
I almost became an academic, so let me address the first half.

> "It doesn't actually benefit anyone to convince people that anthropogenic climate change exists unless anthropogenic climate change actually exists."

Young associate professors have four years to make tenure. It's easier to get funding and get published if you espouse a cause. It makes your work seem 'important' to reviewers.

Scientists have a significant (10-20%) probability of getting invested in an ideology in the process of seeking tenure.

I agree with the second half.
Eventually, those people who don't upgrade won't be able to just get online and send an email.
1. I resent that skepticism is portrayed as tin-hat denial.

2. "If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future, said Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, when the report was released. This is the defining moment."

Really? After billions of years of spinning around the sun, or let's just say hundreds of millions of years with a climate essentially like ours, with ice ages and hot times galore, we have two years or then we're dead? Gimme a break.

3. Related to 2 above, what makes the current climate configuration special? All the ice ages, all the hot times over millions of years, and suddenly when we get a small amount of data, we decide that the climate we find today is the standard from which we deviate at our peril?

Perhaps a more rational and practical view would be to recognize that climate does change significantly over time, and we should learn to adapt to that as individuals and nations. Because casually looking back over millions of years (casually is all I'm personally capable of, sorry), it seems that we're going to have to live with warming and cooling at some time (as we already have in the past), even if we turn off every light switch on Earth.
Google = totally free lets not forget it => you give up some pricacy for service to be free in a way = not invasion of privacy but maybe price of service? Love to complain but if google does not make money, how can all thse cool apps be funded in practice. Advertising can be seen as privacy invasion too by the way. Money money money it's a ...
> The protocol is not raw TCP because it needs to provide the browser's "same-origin" security model. It's also not HTTP because web socket traffic differers from HTTP's request-response model.

If Websocket has something like crossdomain.xml does that mean we can build p2p applications on that?
It's not the knowledge, it's the power.
Access to intermate knowledge about people by a radical political party using a hate plank to get into power would be death to those at the other end of the plank.

Search queries are pretty intermate knowledge. Who else has searched the anarchist's cookbook or DeCSS?
Surely their position is 100% clear: they cannot deny a legal government request for information.

The point it becomes contentious (and something this doesnt touch on) is whether they need to keep XYZ data in a personalized way, and where holding said data tips over from giving us value into causing us danger.
Carbon trading was invented by Kenneth Lay of Enron. That should give you a pointer into what self interests lie for which groups? There is massive amounts of money to be made in the carbon trading arena : yet another type of derivative contract in which you'll have to pay a percentage for in order to buy/sell carbon credits.

While I think internalising the externality is a fine idea in terms of controlling it, if co2 is so evil and so dangerous, why are we not talking of a finite ban, like DDT or Fluorocarbons?
So somebody has modded me down. Somebody wishes to deny the Chinese people their glorious freedom!

Fine, mod me down, but I should let you know that you are either a communist deadender that denies the powers of free enterprise or a capitalist imperialist pig and enemy of communism (depending on which jurisdiction you currently reside in). Either way, its a bad thing.
How fake sites trick search engines to hit the top
Just because something is inherently evil (evil isn't the best word for use in utilitarian arguments, Jeremy Bentham uses pleasure & pain) doesn't mean you should never do it. If you take hurt as being inherently bad, you could argue that it is ok to do some bad to prevent other bad or cause good (Bentham again).

Besides that, I agree with you on everything else. If we are going to call invasion of privacy evil "just because," we should define it pretty soundly. If we try to define it, I think we find that it's mostly about expectations, so making some clear rules/agreements is important.

Se my comment upthread from here.
Dropbox as a Tool for Design Business
Interesting note on HPV: apparently if a woman has had more than five partners, there's no real benefit to her getting Gardasil at that point because she's probably developed an immunity against most strains of HPV already. Source: a woman I know who went to the doctor asking about Gardasil.
Corporate abuse too. If someone is out-spoken against Google, what's to stop Google from silencing them by threatening to reveal secret information about them (or to plant information about them, like child porn searches in their search history).

Not only that, but it makes it easier for 3rd party groups to try and gain information to silence opponents, Scientology being the first to come to mind.

In general, all of this information will benefit people, but possibly only people that 'keep their head down' and don't 'go against the flow.' For people that have strongly held beliefs that are against the 'norm,' it will make it easier for them to be attacked and (eventually) silenced. It will be the tool used to bludgeon people into becoming a homogenized society.
And I know the focus is on supposed to be on Apple, but the pie chart is hard to read because each slice isn't labeled and the colors are too close to each other. If they wanted to keep it unlabeled, they could have at least put the slices in color order around the pie, so which slice is which manufacturer could be counted out.
Ask HN: advice on the customer conversion rate needed
Hi community, I am looking for some advice on the approach to market analysis.

We are planning to enter the energy saving appliances market in Europe. The idea is that customer purchases an appliance that monitors his energy consumption and allows to save some money on electricity bills. Appliance (and our analytics service) is not free, so there should be an incentive for the customer to start using it. Say, if he spends X USD on electricity every month without an appliance, and appliance costs Y USD while allows saving of Z USD, then what customer conversion should we expect based on those numbers? It's clear that if an $5 appliance allows saving $50 of monthly bill of $100, then few people will hesitate to buy it. What about $20 appliance that allows saving $50 of yearly bill of $1000? Any advices on the conversion expectations here? Maybe something similar to statistics of 1% paying customers in freemium model?

Thanks in advance.
People who believe in AGW don't see anything wrong with those e-mails. They consider it just another part of the "extremely well organized, well funded" PR Campaign. Their argument would be that a bunch of people are taking sentences out of context in order to make standard statistical analysis seem like a cover up.

I don't agree with that but I know enough people on the other side to know that's what they think.
Lessons Learned in the Trenches of Two Big NYC Law Firms
Totally agree. I don’t think I’m a good designer, but I do design things, so I’m a designer. Same for programming and cooking.

The world has enough elitism. Don’t make it worse.
I take it from your tone, and from the first line of your response, that you think "design and marketing" is nonsense. I'd like to introduce you to this cool company I heard about called Apple (www.apple.com); learning about them could be a fun and enriching experience for you.

I also think you must have missed the comment I was responding to, so I'll excuse what sounds like a case of unbridled pedantry as mere ignorance. Take a minute to read the parent comment and see if you can divine the logical connection between my "straw men" and the context the comment came from. Is it possible that "sensible female spouses" might inhabit a household that already has an entertainment center?

I posit that if you can see past your nose, you can see that for people who aren't already burdened with a hoard of physical media they want to continue to consume, Boxee has the potential to stand-in for everything in an entertainment setup except the TV.

And yeah, I'll concede that I should have qualified "literally" with "appears to" - I just didn't imagine that anyone here would be douchey enough to quibble :P
Collider Sets Record, and Europe Takes U.S's Lead
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