skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is not what you are asking but a market with more inefficiencies and less transaction costs is Betfair. There is a simple api and free historical data.

I spent a bunch of time with Neural Nets and SVM and that data. Sadly I didn't find a profitable strategy. I would love to hear about anyone else who is looking in that area.
Only real empirical data will really solve this mystery (and coming up with good tests for this problem is surprisingly difficult) but I'm willing to bet the only thing that 'wakes up' is in the mind of the violinist. Violins all have unique and very recognisable sound and most serious violinists play their instrument every day, often for several hours. When they first pick an instrument and until they've played it for a while (regardless if it was after not playing at all or playing a different instrument) their perception of the sound of the violin will be slightly influenced by the particular sound of that violin. Because of paying attention to the sound of the violin they process the nuances of the sound influenced by their playing less, but since they are not aware of that, they simply perceive the sound coming out of the violin as less nuanced. In other words, tired. After playing the same violin for a while the mind of the violinist gets used to the instrument and cancels the unique features for that instrument. The player starts perceiving more of the effect their playing has on the sound, and with the added detail the sounds 'comes to life'.
A vibrator has a pretty good form factor for insertion into a loaf of bread =)
This seems like a very useful service. I think that you may be losing quite a lot of business by jumping from free to $49 directly.

There is probably a sweet spot at around $19 for say 250 pages and login support that would attract a lot of hobbyists/developers who work on one web app or a couple of sites and wouldn't pay $49 a month for something like this.

Perhaps you should try it out.
A possible future for Chrome OS
iTunes Connect (Contains sales, payments, reviews, ratings for publishers with products in iTunes)
The magic rule of 7 in online forms
Apple: Can it stop the Android menace?
Ramp up entrepreneurship education, training
Close enough is good enough.

Given a (lat,lng) of (A,B) and another of (X,Y), each in degrees, the distance between them is (roughly)

sqrt( (A-X)^2 + (B-Y)^2 )

in degrees, and to convert to miles you use 360 degrees is 25000 miles.

OK, now that's not quite right, because as your latitude increases the distance between the lines of longitudes decreases. You need to multiply by cos(lat). So your answer in miles is:

sqrt( (cos(A)*(A-X))^2 + (B-Y)^2 )/360*25000

Again, close enough is good enough because if you're more than a mile or three then the errors are really small.

There is a more exact formula using dot products of 3-space vectors, and then another that takes the non-spherical nature of the Earth into consideration, but the above is good enough to start with.

EDIT ...

To get the more accurate version, for a (lat/lng) you convert to a unit vector:

X = cos(lat)*cos(lng)
Y = cos(lat)*sin(lng)
Z = sin(lat)

Given two lat/lngs, convert to (a,b,c) and (x,y,z). Now you can take the dot product:

dot = (a,b,c).(x,y,z) = a*x+b*y+c*z

Compute the angle between the vectors:

angle_in_radians = arccos(dot)

Finally, the distance is

distance = radius * angle_in_radians
= 25000 * angle_in_radians (miles)
= 40000 * angle_in_radians (kilometers)

As a comment about accuracy and appropriate formulae,

... if the points really are close together then the arccos comes out as highly error-prone because of limited accuracy. The dot product is very, very close to one, so the arccos is unreliable. This is because when theta is really, really small then the value of cos(theta) is very, very close to 1. If you subtract it from 1, you get very small rubbish. Multiply by a large number and you get big rubbish.
What type of analysis did you look into? i.e. what were your input vectors / output?
Reality begs to differ.
The guy seems like a quantum fanboy who does not understand what he is talking about. Isn't data management separate theory from the hardware - ie: using smaller objects to make computers does not change the management of the data.
I like the "Old Man's War" series about as much as I do Weber's and Ringo's books - they are interesting stories but the science is seriously hand-wavey. Unlike Heinlien who had military and politics in serious science fiction, these authors produce primarily military and political stories with science-fictiony backdrops.
It's selfish to me to think that Artists want to work for free. I've heard the same argument with software piracy. The only reason people here don't care that much is because most of them have SaS (software as a service) businesses/startups, which can't be pirated.

Actually, now that I think about it. I don't know why I even care about artists not making sales. I don't see too many of them fighting it, so, I guess I will download their music illegally too and join the fun. They will soon see that anything that can be digital, will be shared, and they can't make money on it. Hopefully, they enjoy having a 9-5 the rest of their lives and never being able to go full-time as a musician. Then, the will see the error of their ways, but I doubt the selfish people in this world will even care.
You could probably cobble up an arduino with an input system and attach it to your smart phone. That's probably the fastest way to get a prototype.

The hard part is designing the method of translation that's efficent enough to rival QWERTY in speed.
I don't mean to brag about it, but I wrote a strikingly similar analysis on the day that Android was announced. It's in portuguese and the piece even got published by a larger portal in Brazil. I feel like I should translate that.
In general, machine learning would probably not be a great approach to day trading. There are several problems:

1) Limited market data: As an individual, you have limited access to market data. At best, you probably have real time top of book data but without paying for it, you almost certainly aren't getting a real time depth feed. Going off of only last trade data gives you even less to work with. In most cases free quotes are delayed making them worthless to day traders (although not longer term investors).

2) Limitations of market data: Even if you have a lot of historical data with a full order book, that is still of limited utility for simulations. The problem is that everything you do affects the market so any trade you simulate needs to be doing small enough quantity to not make your simulation unreasonable. How to deal with simulating market-affecting trades is a complex problem and the only way to truly know is to run your trades in the market.

3) For day trading, there is a lot of profit to be captured simply from the microstructure of the market (its moves back and forth, etc.). To capture much of this it helps to be fast but you won't be able to colo boxes at an exchange with only 10K.

Machine learning seems more suited to longer term investments and trading on a slower platform than making a quick profit arbing or scalping. You may want to consider this rather than day trading since not only does day trading require much larger amounts of capital, but its also extremely risky.

Also, if you plan to trade equities, enjoy all of the ridiculous SEC regulation (order marking, etc.).
To put numbers in perspective, IQ is generally defined as a normal distribution (also called a gaussian curve, bell curve, etc.--it's a "normal" distribution because it's extremely common in nature) with a global average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 points. What this means in practice is that, roughly, about 2/3 of the population has an IQ in the range 85-115.

So, assuming each country also has the same shape of distribution but different averages, a difference of 15 points means that an average person in the "smart" country is smarter than 83% of the people in the other country. An average IQ difference of 30 points would be more like 98%.

Which, to me, seems like a pretty extreme difference. Without knowing more about their methodology I don't know if I trust these numbers much. On the other hand, looking at the countries at the lower end, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the difference was due to environmental factors such as poor nutrition.

Unfortunately, IQ is a field of study that's far too politically charged for there to be much in the way of reputable research.
Police can track your emails without permission
In India the police can now read your emails first and later on inform the relevant government officials about the interception.

Once the sanction is approved, it can take up-to two months to review the sanction.

In the age of emails and mobile phones- there seems to be something deeply flawed here.

Any feedback from people who have dealt with privacy and security issues at the government level?

update [Link to the news article]:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Police-can-now-track-your-e-mails/H1-Article1-478921.aspx
brass instruments are a different game. String instruments apparently get better with age. Brass instruments get worse with age. Lifespan of a pro brass instrument is less than a decade - the sound really does drop off. As the sound drops off (for whatever reason), the player adapts to it, since it's not an even drop off across the frequency range. This is reflected in the resale value of the instruments. Most pros replace their brass every 3-5 years, if not less.

Picking up a brand new brass instrument for a top player and playing it perfectly is totally logical. The big surprise would be for the trumpeter to pick up an old instrument and play it just as well...
I really liked this article. The other thing that could be added to his reconceptualized bookstore is alcohol. There was a time (briefly) in the early 90's when bookstores were considered a good place for singles to meet. That was probably an overhyped media story de jure, but some sort of hybrid bar/coffeehouse/bookstore would be my ultimate fantasy nerd/intellectual hangout. I'm not sure how to address various logistical problems, however (spilling beer on books, inventory control in a porous social environment, etc...)
"One or two layered perceptron taught with back-propagation has just as much to do with how brain works as anything."

I understand by the above that they are not related. I agree.

"Why don't people just build network of simplest possible silicon based components with bounds that remember whether they were recently active, and strengthened if a moment later it occurs that reaction of a network to a given stimuli was proper but weakened if it was improper."

Your proposal dismisses just about all we know about neurons, and ignores all we don't yet know about neurons. That we neuroscientists make preliminary simplifications (as a sort of working hypotheses) and that some computer scientists run with them and find use for them in a variety of signal processing situations doesn't mean we have the faintest idea how neuron ensembles compute. Reproducing such simplifications in hardware, as you propose, may result in products that find a technological application, but don't advance our understanding of brain computation.

"I bet you could teach this kind of network anything if it consists of enough elements and density of connections is sufficient and you can counter in period of random component discharges to simulate sleep and thus avoid overlearning."

You'd be hardcoding a battery of special cases. While we expect the brain to be hardwired in some regards, its agility and flexibility are mighty. Your model falls short of emulating even our current limited notions of brain computation.
I would generate a back or lay output signal for 'Correct score' bets for soccer matches before the game started. Input would be everything you can pull out of the the data set especially including the odds on other more standard bets like the match odds and the over / under odds.

There are also arb opportunities between the various arcane bets, but that involves speed more than ML.
They're shedding the social-network image and trying to become a "professional society". Smart move, and helps their image with advertisers.

Extreme personalization is not good for advertising. When everyone customizes their online environment and interacts with a tight nit group of friends, the polite conversation goes down and everyone is back to sharing lolcat images and inane chatter about their day. Then, any advertising that appears in one's "personal" space will either need to conform to one's tastes, or risk looking like a billboard in someone's living room.

A cozy friendly environment would be LinkedIN's undoing, so they need to force a cold, uniform corporate image throughout.

FWIW, if I am appraising[1] a site for CPM, along with traffic data, overall CTR and demographic data, I would also look at the image of the site. A high-end magazine-y website with staff graphic designers, quality content, and general "posh" atmosphere will get higher CPM than an spartan, community-den of a website that's entirely UGC driven. Advertisers prefer sites with strict editorial control with minimal UGC, both for brand-safety and also for improved perception of advertising (not only are ads taken for granted in print publishing, but they also constitute a good portion of the content; when people buy magazines to see ads and keep up with trends, the advertisers can count on being seen and their brands recognized, even if there is no immediate conversion, it's the brand-awareness that counts.)

--

[1]Boutique niche ad-networks need to manually vet websites; if you think your CPM is computer generated, you are either wrong or using crap like adsense (or a bottom-feeder, 2nd-tier network with lousy inventory; web hosting ads on your finance blog ;-)
Doesn't work for me. You have assumed no loss of sound in the recording and playback process. There is a great deal of difference between a live instrument and a recording.

What's needed is a mechanistic ability to distinguish the important sounds. This might be a computer analysing a microphone signal and saying 'this is the same sound'.
indeed, a maker I worked with put a cam on a motor on the bridge of his instruments, and then swept through all the notes, for a bout a week or so. He reckoned it was about the same as a year's worth of playing. Many little tricks they use to age their instruments...
haliax,

If you want more information on this, there was an IAMA on Reddit about 2-3 months ago, on a guy who claimed to do exactly this. It was incredibly informative, and went into a lot of the details that you ask for here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9s9d7/iama_100_automat...
I love these types of posts, they remind me to close my HN browser window and get back to work on my startup :-) I love browsing the links and discussions on here, but sometimes I just have to get down to brass tacks and move my project ahead.
> I'm willing to bet the only thing that 'wakes up'
> is in the mind of the violinist.

Really? When was the first time you heard of this? Today? And so based on zero first hand experience, and having never heard about this before, you're willing to be it's all in the mind. The three professional musicians I've spoken to about this - all violinists - say it's absolutely real.

I'm not in a position to design and execute a suitable experiment, but I'm interested to know: just how much would you be willing to bet that you, in your near complete ignorance of the matter, are right?
I don't think that Android is actually a menace. Just a competitor. And really different (yeah, maybe Apple will lose a % of market share, but they still have a very well-profiled group of potential users)
Crippleware, drm'ed publications are a small subset of "ebooks".
Or you could apply Occam's Razor and conclude that, in a game dominated by chance he simply had a lucky run. There is always a lottery winner, it's just that you can't predict who it will be. The early comments on Isildur's play were that there was nothing special about him but that he was aggressive---precisely the kind of player who would best leverage a run of luck.
hurrah, a very good point made at last. Strings do go off, and at different rates. Typically depending on the amount of playing. A pro will change strings around every 6 months, and get the bow rehaired annually - some will do it more frequently, depending on the strings. E.g. Evah Pirazzi strings will go off and sound really really dull after 3 months (for me anyway) - and they're pretty much the most expensive. They do, however, sound ace when new.
I don't think anyone who uses Linkedin gets it confused with the informality of say Facebook. I'm guessing I'm not alone in separating my contacts such that personal ones are on Facebook while work related ones are on Linkedin being a more public face. That said, as Fred Wilson points out, shouldn't I (and my contacts) be in the best position to judge how I portray myself to the outside world?

How is having an avatar necessarily inconsistent with a "professional society"? I have difficulty imagining how advertisers would object to Fred Wilson's avatar. I've seen photos which are less professional than his avatar - but why shouldn't this be in the control of the choice of the user who almost certainly recognizes and differentiates between an informal network like Facebook and Linkedin (and wouldn't it be even more in the interest of the user than Linkedin to choose an image that furthers their career)?

While it ultimately and obviously is their prerogative to do what they want, personally, I think it seems a bit arrogant and heavy handed.
Strand Books in NYC I think offers a model that is ideal for bookstores. They feature a large used selection that is often price competitive or sometimes even cheaper than Amazon's used selection. Especially when you take into account the fact that Amazon Prime often does not work with third party sellers.

However, I know some people are totally averse to used books.
I messed up. Statistics 4th edition is the current edition (the one to get), in this case there is no content related reason to deliberately seek out the older edition.
Im told by several pro's this is an old wives tale. Apparently a brass instrument does change tone over time because of the corrosion but it is something a good player can adapt to with, say, an hour or 2 practice (my Brother owns a very old Cornet which is considered quite valuable and an extremely good instrument - his colleagues often ask to borrow it for concerts etc.)

It's also been well tested that string instruments don't appear to get better with age :) at least not subjectively to expert ears (in various double blind tests).
Make that 4th edition (sorry about the mistake).
"people are capable of deluding themselves in to having the ability to hear things that aren't there". I agree totally. I was assuming a mechanistic way of testing for sound similarity attached to the microphone that would give an objective result. This mechanism needs to be calibrated against human experts.
A place to look for innovation is in the shadow of the fears of earlier (or original) innovators.

Most of the would-be inventors of flying machines were afraid of instability, so many of the failed attempts at heavier than air flight were encumbered by very large stabilization surfaces. It took the Wright's insight that dynamic stability could be provided by the pilot to make it work.

The same insight resulted in highly manuverable fly-by-wire fighters like the F-16, which were a departure from aircraft with huge stabilizers for high-speed flight like the MIG-23. (Versions of the MIG-23 actually has a vertical stabilizer that extends below the aircraft, which has to fold-up prior to landing.)

If you're seeking to innovate, think: "What were my predecessors afraid of?" Find those rocks and look under them!
Keep in mind that this is about the future of ebooks, that is, those without the limitations of today's ebook readers.

Nevertheless I won't give up my physical books soon. I borrow friends' books, mark my own with all sorts of scribbles not easily reproducible on a computer, focus clearly and read much longer on paper, marvel at the wonderful construction of books, and singularly enjoy the sensation of turning page after page when reading. Yes, I'm ascribing a healthy dose of romanticism to reading physical books, but maybe it is for that reason I will be still reading dead tree editions of books when ebooks are ubiquitous, like those who view "Henry V" in the theater even though Kenneth Branaugh is available in the cinema.
In what other ways is Android splintering?? This post talks about the sort of splintering I thought everyone was talking about when they talked about splintering: multiple devices, different hardware capabilities, different versions, carrier and manufacturer-applied customisations.
Another potential business synergy: Laundromats and beer

Suds and suds

Do your laundry, put it in the dryer, and mingle. For when are we at our most unglamorous yet approachable as when we are folding our underwear? I believe Portland or Seattle had one of these.

I've looked into this and there a lot of not-insurmountable hurdles (zoning, licensing, insurance, smells, food safety, and, most importantly, noise/sound proofing)
of course, get MetaTrader4, open up a demo account on FXCM, Alpari, dbFX or whatever and write your own software and backtest it without losing any money. Boston Technologies has a free expert advisor, maybe you can build up on it - http://www.bostontechnologies.com/expertadvisors.html . I am not keen on automated trading though, since I do a bit of TA and FA, no software I know can do this - and where is the fun in it.
I don't know much about stock markets, but I did a consulting gig for a large currency trading company a while back where I was doing a bit of work on their algorithmic trading platform. I learned that unless you are trading at least a million dollars a trade it's very unlikely that you will make money.

The reason for this is that the large companies won't talk to you unless you're trading at those volumes since they charge pretty high transaction fees. The smaller companies that will talk to you all have accounts with the larger companies and make money by increasing the spread between the bid and ask price they receive from the large companies. The expected return on a trade is usually somewhere in the region of 1-10 pips (where a pip is one ten thousandth of a dollar), with 10 pips being a really good return and 3-4 being more realistic. The smaller companies usually increase the spread by up to 3 pips in each direction on the price they get from the larger company which swallows up your return.

While millions of dollars per trade might sound like a lot the leverage in this market is also very high at 50-100 times meaning that with your 10k you could trade 500k-1M though on a sum that low you might get less leverage. However if you lose money on a trade you could eat substantially into your capital. So if your $1M trade goes against you by 10 pips you'd lose 1k.

I'm not ruling out making money on that market, but I'd say it's very unlikely unless you have a lot more money to start with. I am not an expert in this area though. This is just what I learned from the small amount of time I spent working with the company.
I love that you went out of your way to create a new account named HilbertSpace to provide such an insightful response. Well done.
Wow, cool. I was wondering when these would show up here on HN. For a more thorough treatment, you may want to read this series of posts by Adam Martin :

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-are...
If you're interested in reading more, take a look at the message board http://www.nuclearphynance.com.

And $10K will almost certainly not be enough. You'll spend all your money paying commissions or bid/ask.