skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Paper bags are barely reusable. And they do not come from a renewable resource. The wood does, but there is a lot more invested in a bag.

There is all the energy AKA oil used to make them. From driving the machinery used to cut the tree, then transport the tree, mill it, process it, bleach, then color it, then you have to dry it (heat), and finally transport it. And paper is big and bulky and uses a lot more energy than plastic does to do all that.

Then you have the real problem: water. It takes a lot of water to make paper, and there is a MUCH bigger shortage of water compared to oil.

But even if you want to look at oil alone, paper bags use more oil than plastic ones do.

Some numbers I posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=965694
America did not become the country it is because smart, entrepreneurial people from abroad emigrated to America to join its government. It became the country it is because smart, entrepreneurial people emigrated here to shine as entrepreneurs, and then, often to serve their selfish interests, and some times out of social consciousness, worked to create a government, a system and an environment that is very conducive to progress.

If you emigrate back to India, please, please start a startup. Don't join the government, especially if it is going to be under some long time bureaucrat.

I am sure there will be exceptions to this rule, but in most cases, you will help India (and yourself) more by being an entrepreneur who works to make government more efficient than by being a government official who works to make entrepreneurship (or something else) easier.
Are you kidding?

The problem: they don't openly disclose that it costs $300 - their customers value the cost at free or ~$5 for S&H, while the charged cost is buried in fine-print on another page.

If it was explicitly offered at $300 and people still bought it nobody would be calling it a scam even if it was viewed as "worthless crap to us."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585993
Programming with impossible functions, or how to get along without monads.
Nice idea, but... you're asking for money? That would be a nice thing to put in the headline or somewhere on the page. I thought you were going to tell me about what's in the book. I closed the video when you got to the money part, cranky because I felt like I had been misled.
> if they are colluding to change the results of a study paid for with public monies

What study? Are you referring to the fact that at some point they drew a graph that updated data extrapolated from tree ring data with actual data from thermometers, and that that graph may or may not have actually been published? How long a jail term does that merit?

> destroy evidence requested by an official inquiry

What official inquiry? They talked about deleting emails they considered private. How long in jail for that?

> Criminal charges would send a strong, immediate signal to scientists in all areas of research

On our backward little island we don't yet throw people in jail on the basis of their academic research. I'm sure we'll get there soon.
An Acrobat Scripting Rant
So I finally tried Wave...
"When an Indian leaves the country to go west, he's made to feel like a traitor for leaving his "motherland"."

By whom, exactly? I haven't had a single friend or relative imply that I am a traitor. Yes, many tell me I should come back because they miss me, because it would be good for me now that India is booming and it would be good for the country.

There will always be some people with extreme opinions, but I don't think your generalization is true to any substantial degree.
>> What I didn't expect was for people to down-mod me
>> heavily simply for expressing an opinion that was
>> different to theirs.

> You either need more experience with people or
> to pay more attention to your experience. And
> no, hackers aren't different.

I've only been here just over a year, and one of the things that really attracted me into staying was the way people tolerated opinions that were different, and discussed them intelligently. It seemed (I could've been wrong, of course) that down-modding was reserved for things that were out of place, rather than diagreed with.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe things have changed. Either way, I've learned something. HN isn't as different as I'd thought or hoped.

>> I'll certainly be less open and more wary.

> How does that follow? If you're doing things
> for praise from other people ....

I'm not doing things for praise, I'm doing things in the hope that others will find them interesting, and if they disagree, to use them as an opportunity for at least one of us to learn. Clearly that's not the case as much as I remember it being. The community (in as much as there is one) has spoken, and I will be less free with opinions that might be unpopular. If all that happens is that it gets down-mud, no one learns anything.
Is their return policy really 10 days? For this not to be a scam people need to explicitly know that if they don't return it within that timeframe, they'll be charged $300. Most people surely aren't aware of this, find out once they open up their credit card bill at the end of the month, and are told that their 10-day return period has expired.

That's a scam.
The Imperfect is the Enemy of the Good: Anticircumvention Versus Open Innovation
"Death spiral"?? Nice to see we're not over reacting here or anything.
you mean practitioners?
surely?

Normally I would put aside my Grammar Nazi persona, but you make the mistake twice, so I feel compelled to intervene.
"the rich will get richer and poor will remain where they were before you went to india hoping to make a difference"

If this were categorically true, capitalism as a system should be considered a failure. Let us say you go back to India and start a startup, and create 10 jobs, that's 10 more jobs in the economy that surely will increase some poor but educated guy's chances of getting a job. He will then hire some poor uneducated guy as his cook, driver etc. How can you say it will only benefit the "elite few"?
Why MBAs should not sign the Harvard Business School oath
@timoreilly, @betsyweber,@tstoliker and @bradfeld

I am @Rick_Mason
Try the new and improved Google Search (Beta).
Here are some numbers for you: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7

Paper uses more than 4 times as much energy as plastic. And releases much more pollution, and more water, and takes 85 times as much energy to recycle.

It looses in every way except litter.
If you hear an answer from either PG or justin.tv, I suspect it will have been reviewed by a lawyer :)

The owners/investors of that company aren't going to create any public text that could be used against them later in a lawsuit.
I'd disagree. Just learn to use time better.
When you're feeding a baby, think over problems. When baby's asleep, code them up.

When you have less time to hack, you tend to use it more efficiently (I've worked at home most of the time my youngest 2 were babies).

I can't imagine having had a nanny and missed out on all that bonding, fun, and awesomeness that is baby/toddlers.

(Not to mention things like my son puking up a full bottle of milk straight onto the keyboard of my laptop - I was feeding him and coding at the same time, which was probably a bad idea).
I'm pretty new to programming (like 2008 new) but my mentor is someone who has been around for a while and all his descriptions of Pike seem to show a trait where Pike mistakes bad habits and bad design for tradition. Anything that breaks tradition is bad. Nothing to really back that feeling up, but that is what I see when I read his work.
Human Family Tree: Shallow Roots [2006]
Except that Chrome uses WebKit for rendering. WebKit is used in least one other desktop browser (Safari — talk about a minority on Windows!) and a majority of the mobile web browsers.
Hartford Computer Repair Services
If your kid spilled milk or juice in your keyboard of laptop or computer and your computer got froze, you become panic because you have to wait for weeks to get your computer or laptop problem fixed . Now don’t need to worry, just call us, we will fix issue same day or maximum 48 hours at very reasonable rate.
I would be on the lookout for some sampling error here. I found this survey through HN, which I assume isn't exactly populated by the poor and disenfranchised. how else are respondents being driven to the survey?

also, the answer is yes. Myspace is totally for the poors.
In their USER AGREEMENT (available from the Home page), they only mention there is a "purchase fee" but do not tell you what it is. Once you start to order, they only mention the fee under the TESTIMONIALS section (and also do not tell you what it is).

In fact, the only place I see a fee stated explicitly is in the HOW IT WORKS link, but this is not even available until you are entering your credit card information ... and the hyperlinks pointing to it do not mention a purchase fee!
iPhone upgrades - a one-way control-freak street
The number of H1N1 cases has decreased steadily in the last two weeks. Maybe by "spiral" they mean "spiral downwards."
The street outside my window in Kobe has a name because it's pretty major, but the two running orthogonal to it on each side of my block don't. This is typical. IIRC Sapporo has a western style street system, and is laid out on a grid, but otherwise the video is correct.

Meeting points and directions are generally expressed in terms of landmarks like train stations.

The system isn't really that strange. We (in america) use the same system of space decomposition for states, counties, and (in some places) cities. This just continues breaking it down to city regions (区), district name, chunk of blocks（丁目), block number, and finally house number. It's consistent with the larger scale system, and it handles change pretty gracefully.
Only if it's used casually as a generic term. Keeping it uppercased proper noun (Frisbee) respects the trademark as far as the law is concerned, so that was the Associated Press guideline. Adding [TM] lets the owner emphasize that the trademark was applied for, (R) means it's fully registered, but neither symbol is required for mentioning the brand in print -- just simple capitalization is enough to respect the trademark.
ClickToFlash & AdBlock Plus for Safari. I find the web almost unusable without these tools. I block ads with no remorse. You can only push people so far before they decide to fight back.
But getting to places in Japan is still stupidly difficult, even when you have local knowledge. Street naming is a better system because we walk along streets, not blocks. Unless you're Godzilla ..
You can absolutely do both things: have a nanny, and bond with your infant. Work from home, and use the nanny to keep the kid out of your hair when you need to focus.

Of course, no nanny costs more than the most junior developer makes.

I'm not sure how toddler awesomeness is relevant to the discussion. Nobody's offering a free lunch. But there clearly are jackasses who don't want to hire women because they think maternity leave is going to screw them.
How many problems does this solution create?
I really liked "The Complete Guide to Capital Markets for Quantitative Professionals"
Your site is still ugly. If you're interested, I can make it prettier, NSA. I want to try working on my graphic design skillz. araneae@gmail.com
I love this guy:

If you want to learn more about Wave, I would start there and skip this post

His point that the product must be in a very early stage of development because it apparently hasn't gone though the process where marginal features are winnowed is fantastic orthogonal thinking.
What is your internet connection, and how much does it cost you? Inquiring fellow Palo Altans would love to know.
Won't we all hitting HN's home every couple seconds cause a server meltdown?
You shouldn't need to keep a mental stack since as you say the small functions are aptly named. You just check once whether the function really does what it suggests and then you don't have to throw it on your stack the next time.
Nope. The front page is 90-seconds cached for the not-logged-in people. And by default the program queries the site once every 3 minutes.
Has anyone here played with the bondi language? What's it like?
Ask HN: Is it acceptable not to pay interns?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/your-money/28interns.html?em

Many people who were interview seem to suggest that they would hire paid workers but instead chose to use unpaid workers. Their reasons vary, but many seem to highlight the inherent value in unpaid labor.

Without a structured internship (weekly or biweekly meetings, goals, referrals, valuable introductions, ect) it seems these interns are getting very little in return.

How would you handle an unpaid intern? Would you accept unpaid labor?
I'm not sure if this is because I have an obligation to try all new products, or because my views on the longevity of email will seem hopelessly naive once I try Wave, but either way, I mustn't disappoint the good people of TechCrunch :)

I think what's implied is much worse than that actually... namely that Paul would rather not have Google Wave eclipse GMail. And for that reason, he didn't even want to look at it.
I think is analysis of starbucks in Australia was a bit overcooked. The simple fact is Australia has had great coffee for quite some time, whereas USA had always been known for their shit coffee. Starbucks improved the coffee culture in USA, but of course that was easy to do. They came to Australia thinking they could do the same here, but of course they didn't measure up to what we already had. The only people you see in Starbucks in Australia now are Asian kids who don't know the difference.
Love how a "design" quiz requires JavaScript, but doesn't let the user know.
Physics and math software is usually fine, sure, since the performance and reliability of the code matters in the experiments. I mean traditional biology and the less computer-oriented sciences, where they tend to just use scripts to filter data into a usable form, crunch some numbers, and generate visualizations. There, unless the software is the point of the research, writing code doesn't get the same priority (or respect) as traditional experiments. A lot of those professors just don't care about writing maintainable code; I'm guessing Dr. Briffa is one of those.
I think this is a fairly boring survey.

The bulk of this paper makes the argument that DRM and anticircumvention retard open source development. Of course it does. But while we can all agree that open source is a powerful force for good in general, it's less obvious to me that open source entertainment software is a necessity.

Why are producers of content obliged to support any particular format or venue? While I have to concede that it would be a better world if Linux could natively play BD+-protected Blu-Ray, I do not need to concede that the world would be a better place if that happened because regulations compelled private businesses to make business decisions based on papers by Wendy Seltzer. I'm worried about what other rules would come along for the ride there.

I found the technical content here superficial. The article quotes Schneier, and then compares the "hard but solved" problem of exchange information between two people to the (implied) unsolved problem of securely distributing content. This perpetuates a misunderstanding about the goal of DRM.

DRM schemes don't succeed or fail based on whether they absolutely protect any given piece of content. They succeed to the extent that they recover profit leaked to freeriders. If it takes Slysoft 72 extra hours to rip the most recent BD+ release because of a DRM renewal, it is very possible that the content producer will recover the expense of the entire DRM scheme in that one release window alone.

Furthermore, while it is presumed impossible to prevent bits from being copied, it is less clear that it's Hard to trace them. The CS technology underlying tracing, watermarking, revocation, and renewability isn't very new, but the industry adoption of it --- particularly among slow-witted consumer electronics conglomerates --- is in its infancy. It's still too early to tell whether "modern" DRM is going to succeed.
Agree. I've seen those ads more times than I can count, and never thought they'd be sending 30 CDs, and billing me if I didn't return 29 of them.

The ads clearly lead you to think they'll send 1 CD, possibly charging S&H, and it will prove its merits thereby leading you to purchase further products. I believe he even says as much.
I'm a little confused about his description of linear vs nonlinear. Maybe it's because I haven't tried Wave yet.

P.S. If anyone has any invites available, my email is in my profile ;)
If you're not an expert, please don't claim that it's feasible to cross-check this data against historical reconstructions -- you clearly do not know whether it is or not.
Notepod: The sketchbook for your app ideas
I would not accept unpaid labour but I have had unpaid interns, they simply were only allowed to learn. As soon as someone did something remotely productive we would compensate them for it.
Exactly. Naming and proper design is very important. Tracking state changes through numerous "DoStuff" and "HandleThings" methods definitely represents additional intellectual overhead.
Hard core multicore with TestNG
I have many problems with this point-of-view.

Before any fiduciary obligation, a manager (just like any other human being) has moral obligations towards society. The fiduciary obligation is to create value to your shareholders, but not just the present ones that will dump your stock the same week they bought it. For those long-term investors, I believe the "I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide" idea creates a lot of value in the long term.

As for the oath promoting unethical behaviour, the first promise takes care of that. The ethanol companies... well... They are thriving in Brazil. There must be something in trying to make it from corn that is fatal to companies.

The oath being a misplaced response... I am not sure about that either. It's obviously a response to some less-than-ethical behaviour that had disastrous consequences to shareholder value. But that same unethical behaviour paid handsomely for those who were able to jump ship fast. I wouldn't call benefiting that group a smart business move and many companies that aimed that way no longer exist.

As for people not being driven by pledges, again, I am a professional engineer and I took an oath when I graduated. I have so far been true to it and I take it very seriously every day of my professional life.

If he doesn't like the idea of striving "to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide", that's fine by me, but I think everyone of us would benefit from such a mindset.
Kickstarter.com == raising money for projects, so I knew what to expect from the target-domain.

Kickstarter is a neat implementation of an idea that's struggled in a few other incarnations. I hope they become sufficiently well-known that their links to ongoing fundraising are generally self-evident, like a link to an ebay.com item.
nice response. i didn't realize there were bloggers out there who could be calm and informative.
Sent you one. I have a few more if anyone else wants one - send me an email
yeah....he's just a nice guy and doesn't want to pick meaningless battles.
They only get charged after the trial. I thought it was quite clearly stated that it's a trial! Their pricing is quite odd, because if you click on the offer details, it says it's a a $20 something monthly charge after the trial.

I'm only saying this merits a little more investigation than just a quick glance by Arrington and everyone else being yes-men.

I hate scammers, but it's not a fine line between scamming, and sly marketing.
btw - i think you won't receive the invite until the next "wave" of users. i'm guessing they're staggering users with product iteration.

almost everyone i talk to says: this is cool, but none of my friends are on it. maybe google is addressing this with different circles of folks, but from where i'm standing it seems like they could have forced a better distribution of invites.
You can implement your own unwind-protect:

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/2003/07/5ff66...
DMCA basically gives you 72 hours to take something down. Now that worked in a world where content was intended to have an unlimited lifespan ie- music, youtube videos,etc. With livestreaming video, the damage is done within a few hours or less.

Livestreaming sites have put content fingerprinting technology in place and often respond very fast to takedown notices. Even the fastest of responses will still cause damage. So does that mean JTV puts in a system where content owners can just start taking things down at all like ebay does with auctions? I don't know, that's scary.

I would never cancel cable because I can watch sports on a livestream site. The quality is usually crap with foreign commentary. Odds are the people watching that content don't have cable anyway (like myself).

There are two missing pieces to the content side of things when it comes to shifting people away from cable subscriptions: local news and sports. Local news could be solved in a fairly straight forward manner. Sports is up to each league,etc. If I were the NBA, NFL, MLB,etc. I would start working with livestreaming sites to do test runs of pay per view content. Once most sports games are ubiquitously available on the internet in real time and for replay Comcast should be scared. If Comcast actually had their shit together, they would have purchased JTV/Ustream/Livestream when they were cheap.

Right now, the real value of live video isn't from illegal sports or content, its from real time interaction. If you've ever seen a celebrity or music artist interact with their fans on a live video site, you know the platform is something special. The numbers that Jonas Brothers/Ustream/Facebook pulled in were absolutely mind blowing.
the todo-list with dates product grabbed my interest, but i didn't find the design all that compelling. for scrum-style development i've fallen in love with pivotal tracker (which was recommended via a project management software poll on hn--thx guys!!)

i didn't mean for this comment to sidetrack from the design explorations so much. eit.

here's my review of PT:
http://proudlyprocrasdonating.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/proje...
It took me a long time to come across this: http://news.ycombinator.com/lists .

Are those all the HN "hidden" pages?
welcome: http://news.ycombinator.com/welcome
Steve Wozniak: How I Invented the Personal Computer (Video)
I've found it easiest to focus on things that I would personally use a lot.
I think your message enlightened this apprentice.
Upon reading the article one learns that the "death spiral" refers to the runaway inflammation called a cytokine storm in individual patients.
Bingo.

The US govt didn't export rock, jazz, r&b, soul, country, etc. (The USO did export some big band during WWII.)

Besides, the US already imports culture. It just doesn't catch on (the British invasion being an exception).

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lNFRLrP014 for an example of culture invasion.