skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There is an open alternative - http://identi.ca/ - it hasn't really taken off.
Dawkins does try to educate people, in fact from his book output he mostly tries to educate people - see for example "the greatest show on earth".

I think he has a specific reason for attacking religion, and it isn't to de-convert people. His intent is to break religion's special status as immune from criticism in polite society. There is this assumption that religion always does social good, is always well-intentioned, and even if it turns out to be mistaken about reality, it's harmless. This lets religions get away with all sorts of rascally behaviour - see the Catholic church in Ireland, for example. He wants them to be held to the same account as any ordinary organization, and not placed on a pedestal.
In my area of America, atheism is a lot more socially acceptable than it was before it became such a topic of controversy. Things have noticeably improved because of all this arguing. If Dawkins is squandering his talents arguing with idiots, he's doing a remarkably effective job of it.
I think he's referring to the sidebar, which is what I noticed right off the bat as well.

I disagree -- the sidebar looks and operates in a similar manner to Bing's. At the very least, they separate the categories of content just like Bing does (All results, images, videos, etc.).
hmm, really really interesting. kind of the pay by the drink model. the credits could be pooled for the entire family. eventually could be used for things such as virtual gifts. give credits for incentives such as inviting your family, sharing an item,etc. make credits purchasable in $5 packs and give a few for free to start.
Inventors Seek a Better Bagel Cutter
I find Dawkins' remarks on religion tiresome because they usually seem so obvious that I can predict what he's going to say before he says it. When he gets interviewed about religion, he sounds like someone playing Tetris at a moderate difficulty level: mostly acting on reflex, because what else is there to do? My heart goes out to him.
Taking an Open-Source Approach to Hardware
The article is a joke.
Amazon of course allows 64-bit.
In general it all depends (big time) on the app you benchmark:

http://php-app-engine.com/static/cloudbench.html
yep. as good as 10x better.
the article is a joke.
Smartparts SP1200
Classic styling and modern convenience combine in this 12.1? wide-screen digital picture frame. Pictures are sharp and vibrant thanks to the 800x480 pixel LCD panel. Photos can be viewed in an automatic slide show or one at a time with the use of the built-in control buttons or the supplied remote control. Slideshows can be enhanced with music. Video clips can be shown as well. Updating the internal memory is easy with the help of the included OptiPix? Pro software for Windows. In three easy steps, OptiPix? Pro helps you display photos, Power Point slides and PDF files on the frame. For Details...
For the comment issue, why not just visibly disable the add comment button until the text field is changed?
In the US, it appears that you cannot be compelled to give up your password. Even if you could be, it is possible that the obstruction of justice charge would carry a lighter sentence than whatever is on the disk would get you.

(But of course, if you are at the point where your hardware is being seized, it's possible that the government already has enough evidence on you.)
Playing Funny Games For Girls
10% is optimistic. Below a certain funding level you are not Ramen-profitable for a multi-year contract. Expected value meet empty cupboard.
About 5 years ago, I noticed that links in my Google search results one day were being forwarded through Google before sending me off to the desired web site. I hypothesized that if I visited a search result, then clicked the back button very quickly, then visited another page in those same results, but this time didn't return to Google, that it would cause Google to think that page wasn't useful for that search query, while the second page was. Turns out I was right, because a few days later the first page moved down in the results, and the other one moved up (I had searched for an obscure mathematical concept, and my professor's page was the top result, and it had later swapped places with the second place result.) Thanks for letting me know Google still incorporates how much time a user spends visiting each search result into their formulas.
Rent-a-wife – a woman who cleans, cooks, does laundry,
picks up dry cleaning, mail, etc but without the emotional
relationship.

Really?
Looks nice, who does your graphic design?
A construction migrant worker’s notes
I'd suggest you know the difference between

selling software &
selling consulting
A good read, thanks for posting.
Doesn't matter what the police chief thinks the law is. It matters what the courts think.
The Wikipedia article has more info on that case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Boucher

In February of this year, the judge required him to provide unencrypted access to the drive.
It didn't affect all hosts.
Good luck with that. It wouldn't be the first time that a court spent a lot of time on a lawsuit where the outcome was absolutely clear beforehand.

Analytics will not be banned because it will lead to a mass exodus of hosting from Germany. And they need all the FTEs they can get so.

Nice to see someone take a look at googles' privacy issues though.

Next stop the massive copyright violations ?

The Swiss have for the moment halted streetview.
ALICE: 17 TByte/s signal right from the Wonderland
We never ran out of ideas in the first place.

We don't need 999 startup ideas. All we need is 999 startup founders.
Droid Doesn’t: It’s Not Ready For Prime Time
There's an Australian business - http://www.hireahubby.com.au/ - where you can hire a "hubby" to do all the handyman jobs around the house...
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." --Einstein
hiring is obsolete http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
Check out http://theamericanapocalypse.blogspot.com/
I agree and I think relevant Govt regulation can boost Open source software sales.
"But the full hypothesis is 'Given the data, are girls better than boys at this exam?' and clearly, the prior probability is relevant."

No, prior probabilities have nothing to do with it.

We state our 'null' hypothesis that the boys and girls do equally well. This hypothesis has nothing to do with a belief of prior probabilities or belief of any probabilities at all. Instead, we state this hypothesis as something that will give us some mathematical assumptions to do some calculations to reject it and, then, conclude that it was false.

Generally in hypothesis testing we don't believe the null hypothesis as prior probabilities; indeed, likely we don't believe it at all and are stating it to reject it and conclude it is false.

In more detail, we assume that 20 boys and 18 girls are 38 independent samples from some one distribution. It turns out, we don't need to say anything about that distribution because we are being 'distribution-free'. In particular, we get to ignore the Gaussian distribution. GOOD.

Independent? Okay: Suppose we DO give you the true distribution of the data and the first 37 scores. Now you get to guess score 38. Do the 37 scores help you beyond just the distribution? No. Same for any subset of the scores. Then, we have independence.

With this null hypothesis, the average of the scores of the 20 boys and the average of the scores of the 18 girls should be 'close'. How close? Well, under the null hypothesis and with the values we observed, we have a way to proceed: The distribution of the difference in the scores, with everything we do know given and fixed, we can find. For this distribution, basically we look at all the 33 billion or so differences obtained by taking all combinations of 38 things taken 18 at a time. Justification? If work at it mathematically, then under the null hypothesis can show that each of those 33 billion cases was equally probable.

Then we pick a small number, say, 1% for the size of our Type I error, that is, the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true.

Then we find the differences in the 1% tail of the 33 billion differences.

Then we look at the difference from our actual data. That difference will be one of the 33 billion. We see if that difference is in the 1% tail.

If the difference is in the 1% tail, then one of two things is true:

(A) The null hypothesis is true, the boys and girls are the same, that is, independent samples from the same distribution, and with our actual data the difference is relatively large, out in a tail, and we have observed something that happens only 1% of the time.

(B) The null hypothesis is false, that is, in some way the boys and girls are different. That is, we still believe the independence assumption, so what is false is just that the mean for the boys is different from the mean for the girls.

If the 1% is so small we don't believe (A), then we conclude (B).

Variance has nothing to do with it.

Welcome to distribution-free 'two sample' hypothesis testing 101.
Isn't this actually useful to everyone not an expert in or associated with these subfields?
Locally I version control the theme using git so the files are being versioned. I choose to deploy using rsync to keep things simple.
well, actually, the hackerspace is located in a building that is rented. The rest of the rented space is used for various of things, i.e. reparation of bicycles, cheap/free restaurant (mondays), concerts etc. The space is not a squatt.
I'm working on a Thor (http://github.com/wycats/thor) version of this as well, because I ran into the need to pass options to a task. Plus, Thor is basically writing a Ruby class.
Ask HN: Advice for seed-stage startup funding firm in India
HN Folks,

I am reposting this thread from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=964957

I am looking your thoughts on what all went right with YC, other than PG and team being there. I mean I see a lot of potential in India. A lot of good talent can be used internally to work on problems more relevant to Indian landscape. What you think should be done to get this rihgt.

If you would like to discuss this via email, you can email me at chiragchamoli@gmail.com

Info: I am planning to launch a seed funding company which takes the YCframework and applies it to Indian Markets, as YC is not yet present in India. My firm will emphasize on more non-internet based companies eg: Agriculture, Education, Medical Research, and Rural Innovations.
Last.fm interview: Behind the music
Isn't that a maid/servant service?
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Every time someone says something about ideas being less important than execution I feel like he/she is oversimplifying it (I'm not saying the author of the post is missing the point though) and someone out there is missing the idea.

Initial, untested ideas are worthless. The list of 998 ideas are probably all things they just came up with on the spot, unexposed to the effects of evolution.

But let's say we took this idea, "Prepackaged school supplies based on the lists from the school districts," tested it. The test would have to consist of some sort of execution. Now we let's say we found out that no one gives a shit about school supplies and don't buy it anyways. Well now we amend our original idea. We have a new idea, it's still an idea. We executed to determine what works and what doesn't. This new idea is worth slightly more. After many, many iterations, we'll still have an idea in the end. If it is carefully documented and proven with a history of execution. This idea is worth something, and I would buy it. The idea, only after execution has value because the execution is factual proof.

Therefore, ideas can be worth something and can be sold. In fact, the idea, plan, knowledge, whatever you call it, is what's worth something in the end. What's worthless is an untested idea, because it is grounded only in imagination.

Also every time you execute an idea, it becomes exposed. It loses it's value because it is free (unless you patent it, but that's just some artificial thing we invented to force value into ideas after they are exposed). But the idea, before anyone else knows about it, and in the instant it is executed, has value.

Of course this means that more important than any single idea is in the ability of the person to come up with innovative ideas. We can all follow the model of evolution and improve our ideas, but who can iterate faster, and predict more accurately what works (guiding evolution), will ultimately dominate.

Execution is simply how well you predict what works, and how well you don't lie to yourself. In this sense execution may be more important than any single idea, but an idea can still have value.
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Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good. If this list was vetted, I have a feeling it would be significantly shorter.

For example, #2: "Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded." Unless you franchise it, this isn't scalable at all. It's an idea, perhaps even a business idea, but it's not a startup idea.

Or, #9: "Herbal Flavored Gum. MMM...rosemary." I don't know much about the flavored gum industry, but I would imagine their margins are razor thin. It's not really a startup idea as there is no innovation here, and no opportunity to improve the margins (well, may be there is an opportunity, but it's not at all evident from the description).

Coming up with this list in such a fashion is definitely an interesting exercise and I applaud Seth for doing it, but the quality of the ideas is a bit underwhelming. Perhaps if they had to elaborate a bit on the descriptions and do some basic analysis, it would be a lot more interesting.
Hi Guys,

My name is Luke Venediger, I'm the author of Erlang for Skeptics. Thanks for visiting my book and for the comments. It's very much a work in progress and has a long way to go, but I'm excited about getting the community involved early on. I'm working on a public feedback mechanism, but for now please post feedback below this comment.

I've been using Google Wave to build the plot and outline, together with my friends TheColonial (http://buffered.io/) and StackingIt (http://www.blog.stackingit.com/). Wave rocks as a real-time review system, and has definitely improved the quality of my book.

I'll have a more substantial website up in the next week or so that will have a comments section and an RSS feed for updates. In the mean time you can follow @erlangforskeptics or myself @lukevenediger on twitter.

Thanks again,
Luke Venediger
Isn't it also somewhat important for pattern matching?
"The meme idea is interesting, but it has been discussed elsewhere in more depth with less intention of starting a flamewar" - While this is true. Dawkins did INVENT the concept (or at least the name) meme so this article surely has relevance if you are interested in memes. I agree with you on his religion bashing. He created this concept mainly to attack religions by equating them with viruses. It is interesting though that he overplays the beneficial part of computer viruses while downplaying the beneficial part of religion. The line between parasite and symbiosis is fuzzy. Even organisms like dwarf tapeworms can help people by reducing allergies so surely religion has done some good.
First, never confuse schooling with education

Second learn stuff thats in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-General-Systems-Thinking-...

Third,The general idea of good education is to prepare you for the future rather than learning about the past
Just goes to show that the startup idea isn't worth a thing, but that it's all in the execution.
In my first (now trashed) version of the book I had started writing an introduction, but it got long-winded and verbose because I didn't know what I was introducing! Better to add the introduction in at the end, as you've mentioned :)
Heh, #9 is baked, rosemary and all: http://thinkgum.com/

His angle is to sell the flavor as a memory aid (for students).
I think 'mindless' is unfair. I flag them because I have seen that these articles/topics regularly degrade into junk and so I do not want to see them on this site. So I have a strategy based on my own observations of how sites like this work.
Debugging with VMWare record-and-replay
The code listing are "Program Listing" sections in Lyx (http://www.lyx.org). Unfortunately Elyxer (http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/), the Lyx->HTML converter, doesn't yet understand these sections and so skips them. I'm going to patch it to allow for these, and I'll also provide a PDF build next to the HTML export.
I don't buy the implication that voice has to be glitch-free. First, many people who buy smartphones are light voice users, and use the web most of the time. Second, many cell phone users have imperfect voice calling anyways, due to coverage issues or network glitches. Finally, if a product really shines in some important areas, there will always be people who are willing to put up with poor performance in other areas.
dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=966412
In Japan, an Odd Perch for Google - Looking Up at Yahoo, the Leader
How do we know CO2 is causing Global Warming?
Folks, also see the graph of CO2 in the atmosphere over time: http://mathburritos.org/Atmos-CO2.gif
I've used my droid for a month, and most of the time it has been flawless. It doesn't have the dialing issue my blackberry tour had. I have only had to force quit a couple of times, and usually when I was exiting the app anyways. My only complaint is the keyboard and sometimes the phone comes out of sleep (setting a lock pattern prevents this) and dials people that I didn't want them to. Other than that, the phone has been great. Fast as I would expect, and plenty of apps to keep me busy.
I don't think he will break religion's special status by attacking the beliefs of people. The likely results from his offensive tactics is hatred and opposition against science and more religious fanatics - simply because most people are religious and attacking their beliefs won't make them less religious.

And really, even if he breaks religion and removes it, then we will still have skin colors, nationalities and different cultures - - things that will still split people up in tribes and things that will still cause wars. What we need is to respect each other, respect our differences and cherish our similarities - we will never be the same, so respect and understanding is the only way to go.
Anatomy of Our Modest but Successful Black Friday Promotion
The "force quit" thing is real? How do you "force quit" on a Droid phone? Does it lock the whole phone up, or just a single app?

(I've never had my iPhone reach a state where I couldn't make or answer a call immediately, but I might just be lucky).
> Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good

And you can't prove/know they are good until they are executed. Harder in this sense would just refer to the work required to iterate until it becomes good.

So all ideas you just "come up" with will all effectively be of uncertain value.
Agreed though it might not be a completely fair view.

Siezed computers would need to be held on to till after any trial - which could be years away. Otherwise the defence can call any computer evidence into question.
This was the same excuse people used for Windows Mobile. Because of it it became a niche player and not taken serious. Blackberry gets it, Apple gets it, Microsoft didn't get it until too late.

Seriously, how we use phones hasn't change much in a hundred years. The damn thing should be bulletproof at this point. In a smartphone the dialer should be absolutely simple and absolutely work 100%. And the markets don't think like you or I do. They'll put up with something for so long, but if your competitor gets it and you don't you become branded as a failure. It's very hard to recover from that. Ask GM.
Yes, but once your computer is siezed, you're screwed. It only takes one link in the chain to think it's a good idea.
They meant comedy.
Basically the phone detects that the app is locked up, and brings up a dialog asking you if you want to Force quit or Wait. If you force quit, it kills it (probably something along the lines of kill -9)
Indeed, the title is linkbait.
i've started playing with Compojure saturday and I have to say I really enjoyed using it. I had never built a web app with a functional language like Clojure, and I was impressed by the tiny amount of code I had to write. Next step is try to deploy something real on GAE.
Build Your Business By Promoting Competitors | Small Business Trends
Everything is a feature. So, the iPhone can always make or receive a call. And what does Droid have to make up for that? More pixels? A keyboard that many people find inferior to the software one? A replaceable battery that no one will ever replace? Most people would take the bug-free OS.
Isn't that called a maid?
Here's another one, btw .. Netriver, this small datacenter I know up in Seattle is touting that they peer with Amazon :)

http://www.netriver.net/pages/hybrid_computing
The Boxer's Puzzle
The essay is well written and has historic base. Nevertheless I did not like the pessimist conclusion.

1) I believe that a economy with an increasing number of startups in the long run is going to grow.
2) The people that try but fail, is going to have entrepreneurial experience that is going to be attractive to the successful startups and companies in recuperation.
In wired:

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/n...

Chris Anderson wrote broadly about the topic.
Automated trading by itself is of course feasible for almost anyone determined enough.

...as well as a healthy bankroll to start with. If you can't maintain at least $25,000 in your trading account, you can't day-trade anything but currencies, so you can't really bootstrap from nothing. And if you don't have a lot more money than that to play with, you're never going to make enough to replace a salary. Even if you're actually able to beat the market.

Which brings me to: don't underestimate the market. That doesn't mean it's efficient, but it's very difficult to beat it by a large margin or without considerable risk. A 51/49 edge can be very good if you can get enough trades that offer those odds (forgive my putting it in those terms, I know it's not completely accurate), but that's still going to mean that you can have huge swings either way, even over a large number of trades.

And please, please, PLEASE don't assume that because something worked on historical data it will necessarily work in the live market. There are so many ways to arrive at faulty conclusions here, not the least of which is bad data or analysis (no, your vanilla backprop network is not predicting daily S&P 500 returns, even if it looks like it when you compare it to the training data...), so even if you've got a rock solid strategy that you're sure will continue to work, make sure you could actually make the trades before you get too excited. Don't assume highs, lows, or opens mean anything, pretty much ever, because weird trades that you couldn't have made sometimes show up in those. If you can, deal with bid/ask data (tick by tick, ideally) instead, and make sure the things you want to trade are actually there long enough to get them given your latency.

Needless to say, use a decent broker that charges low fees and lets you have programmatic access to their trading platform. Most fail on both counts, so beware.