skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> For example, Taleb is already measuring earthquakes by the energy released. This is how "magnitude" is defined for earthquakes.

No, as the article notes, the measurement of magnitude (in the Richter scale) is proportional to the base-32 logarithm of energy released (its defined as proportional the base-10 logarithm of seismic wave amplitude.)

Taleb's use of the coffee cup example to suggest a disproportionate impact of large events vs. small events -- suggesting that the real relative impact of a magnitude 6 quake compared to a magnitude 1 quake is disproportionately greater than their size because one magnitude six quake does more damage than six magnitude one quakes -- is vacuous from its structure because you can arbitrarily choose scales of measurement to make the impact proportional or disproportional in either direction, and ludicrous in its particular choice of measurement scales since, well, I mean, who would expect an earthquake releasing 1 billion times as much energy to do only 6 times the damage?

Taleb makes a comparison that sounds significant because most people don't know what the numbers involved mean.
Tracing JITs and Modern CPUs: Part 2
Excellent update on one of the hard cases EFF has been fighting.

There's a link to an interesting law review article on how the CFAA can make it a criminal act for arbitrarily banned users to even browse to a public webpage:
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?...

It's an absurd result and frustratingly unaddressed by the courts.
Pipistrel is also working on an electric trainer [0], but has side by side seating which imo is better for instruction. Like the e-fan it has 172 like performance.

What is truly painful about the 172 is how an inefficient 60's airframe is still the goto choice for flight schools and first plane buyers. A modern 2 seat motor glider / LSA can be 1.5x faster, have double the range with an engine of half the power and fuel consumption. Also, that fuel is unleaded (avgas is leaded).

The lead issue has also spurred the development of turbo diesel aviation engines [1], which run on the more energy dense jet fuel.

There is hope that these next gen airframes and engines will lead to personal two and four seaters with mpg on par with sedans. Unfortunately though in aviation energy density is critical, and whilst there may be an argument for hybrid systems with an electric boost during climb, I don't think we will see electric personal craft in the near future. See Cafe for more on the state of electric craft [2].

[0] http://www.pipistrel.si/plane/wattsup/overview
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilksch_WAM_series
[2] http://cafefoundation.org
Pressure cookers are for pretty much anything you want to steam.

Rice, legumes, vegetables, meat (stews, pilafs, biryani, etc). It saves a lot of cooking time.
Life Is Terrible: Let's Talk About the Web
tl;dr US Hockey league published its players salaries starting in 1989. Over next five years, wages rocketed, importance of team negotiating tactics / prestige vanished and player performance became a major correlation to highest pay.

In short asymmetric data on employee wages (company knows all salaries, employee knows just one) leads to inefficent outcomes

Even shorter - everyone's salary and pay should be published - that will fix pikkety's problem

Even even shorter - how the hell do you measure performance?
The next US response will be gradual de-escalation of its police aggressiveness.

The beginning of the end of the war on drugs, body cameras, attention being cast on asset seizures and minimum mandatory sentencing - it has become obvious to most of the population that over the last 30 years the policing system has gotten out of control. You know it's understood to be bad when the president is openly discussing how much worse imprisonment is in the US than other countries, and becomes the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.
"Further, at this moment at least, the genes that are being transferred artificially are in general not genes that would cause havoc if they somehow became mobilized from the species into which they were introduced"

You are assuming that we have sufficient comprehension of these genes and their effects to make such claims definitively. And while we may have a very high degree of confidence in that, say enough confidence to entrust my life, your life, or hundreds of individual lives - entrusting the wellbeing of the entire planet requires a different scale of rigor.

And that, I think, is the essence of Taleb's argument. 99.99% sure might be enough to get a drug approved, and it well should be, because only some fraction of the population is at risk. But because DNA is inherently self-propagating, a mistake can have extremely far-reaching consequences, and as such the tolerable level of risk must be orders of magnitude lower.

This has been Taleb's essential, consistent thesis throughout his career. That humans are bad at assessing the probability of relatively unlikely events, and that when those events are extremely catastrophic, that cognitive deficiency can be disastrous.
And I would argue that in a trade-off between police or military safety vs civilian safety, civilians are similarly "both more vulnerable and more innocent (in the sense of being less responsible for their predicament)" than the military or police that interacts with them.
I like the subtle clojure bashing.

"Of course there is a bias in the happiness graph because nobody uses clojure and lisp for work, but this isnt true for scala at all."

Totally doesn't feel like an advertisement for scala by the company that sells scala(services).
/s
We really need a non-profit organization that provides a data store with an api for common things like classified listings, sms messages, pictures, likes, etc.

That can help us move away from this sort of chicken and egg problem with user generated data. These companies are basically hogging it because they were able to build the user base.

If we can get the data in a non-profit store with a licensing scheme that basically says you must as a part of using this data add any user-generated data submitted to your website back to this store so other developers can build products on top of it, we could really innovate in classifieds and social networks.

Perhaps something like that can be funded by EFF or related organization... because then we can potentially apply governance to that user generated data which has not been possible with private companies.

The chicken and egg problem can be solved if big non-profit tech and civil rights brands like the ACLU, EFF, Wikipedia, etc. all get behind this and market it.
Heck, what I am posting is unrelated to the specific thread but every time I enter scripting.com and read some Dave Winer post I remember why I miss Userland Frontier. Wonderful piece of tech, my first exposure to RSS and XML-RPC and a wonderful world of interoperability which we basically lost now with mobile being ruled by proprietary silos and secret APIs.
Netflix Doesn't Have a Password Sharing Problem
> My zlib implementation for example is consistently 25% faster than the reference version, despite me simply "hand compiling" it straight from the C source.

Have you compared it to Intel's optimized implementation of zlib, at https://github.com/jtkukunas/zlib/ ?

If you can improve on that implementation, please consider submitting a patch.
>People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it, because it doesn’t fit with what they already know.

This can be true, but I think often, people tend to reject an idea because it does fit with what they already know.

People look for usefulness, and will hastily disregard something that reminds them of a previous innovation that failed. I don't doubt they are sometimes wrong, and perseverance on a seemingly weak innovation can be turned into something wildly successful, I just wonder how many founders wasted much effort trying to succeed when their innovation never really had a chance to be very useful.
The author's recommendation that the police build up community relationships to increase trust and reduce unnecessary confrontation reminded me of a book, Fixing Broken Windows [1], that made a similar recommendation for what it called "community policing".

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Broken-Windows-Restoring-Commun...
We should meet up. Email me
Crowdsource Your YC Fellowship Application
I don't necessarily see that this is particularly relevant. The point of a PhD is surely to show that a student is capable of performing at the very peak of their field. The well-roundedness should come later, and just like an undergraduate degree is not "Job Training" and postgraduate one doesn't instantly make you a leading scientist.

Also, from what I saw of other students doing PhD's in the US, they already take several years longer than us in Europe because of the lack of specialisation in undergraduate degrees - they spend the first few years in effect "Catching up".
sez it all: 'because they were able to build the user base....'
Same in Iraq.
there is more than one way to skin a cat, just because they were able to do it... say like encyclopedia Britannica, doesn't mean wikipedia can't come along and say f-u.
I don't think the problem is with PhDs failing to engage with philosophy, but rather, with the name "philosophy" having been hijacked and turned towards something that isn't worth studying. When you say students should learn more epistemology, I'm 100% on board - but when you say students should learn more "philosophy including epistemology", I suddenly anticipate them being exposed to a bunch of low-quality thinking reflecting long-dispelled confusions.

Most of the good philosophy work has moved to other labels, like "rationality", out of a need to distance itself from the concentrated confusion being taught in universities. If you want to teach good philosophy, great! But please, please don't expose your students to the concentrated confusion that passes for most of philosophy; apply a strong filter and teach your students to apply that filter themselves.
That's an incorrect conclusion.

Check out the historical murder rate of Appalachia in the US.

Extremely high gun ownership, extremely low murder rate. I grew up there, deep in poverty, everyone owned guns, and the murder rate was on par with the best of Europe per 100,000 people.

The difference? Cultural. Where I grew up, people simply did not believe in killing each other, period. Desperation was widespread, yet there were no gangs, there were no drive-by shootings.
At least in the US, I think satisfying the 'purposes' requirement for non-profit status would be difficult. Just providing a free service isn't enough. Here's the IRS brief description:

"The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.

source: http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organi...

UPDATE: I confused non-profit and charitable organizations. Disregard.
A passing reference to Asimov's Second Foundation in a sports analytics article... that was unexpected. Nice.
The torture centre and the 'hooded men'
depends on why you want to do this. if you're an engineer in a good job market, you could probably get more money out of your primary job than a side project (obviously there are exceptions). You could, for example, switch jobs, work harder, ask for a raise (even without working harder). A side project might make more sense if you did it for fun.
Welcome to my new religion... All user content welcome! Seriously though, it does not have to be non-profit. It can be for-profit. Just as long as the cause is served.
> non-profit

Yeah, no. Unless this is done as an institution like Telegram is (it's made by the VK guy, and he's not charging for any part of it) or it's paid for by tax dollars (and then it would only work for some inhabitants of our planet), nothing will happen. Also, that licensing scheme idea is nifty, but it creates a chicken-and-egg problem. I don't think a single company wants to open its silo because of the advantage that it gets, and because they pay money to establish themselves socially (ads and whatnot), so allowing crappier competitors space on your platform makes you suck.
You don't need to poll. One can subscribe to storage events, and that way you can broadcast ordered messages to all your tabs without any polling.

https://w3c.github.io/webstorage/#the-storage-event
Hello everyone, I recently created a section on my website where people interested YCF can post their applications and have them reviewed by others. I will personally respond to every serious application that gets posted as well.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the info!
I'm not sure you can guarantee a great user experience on a free, open web with user privacy and choice on a device you don't have rights to because it's completely locked down beyond your control by the vendor.

There should be a way to run a device that's not controlled by Google, Apple or Microsoft; not just because you're "paranoid", but because you'd like to learn and contribute, and maybe come up with some cool ideas yourself.

Point in case, because it's open-source, you could work on those browser features you'd like to see on mobile systems.
I guess it's really saying "clojure doesn't fare as well in Java shops", which I see as a feature.
So 3taps has to pay craigslist $1M, and craigslist then has to pay that to the EFF. That seems pretty odd.
Thanks a lot. I feel old, both for learning that my information is absolutely outdated and for not .. asking Wikipedia about it, before I posted here. :)
meh. not really religious about it being non-profit. and even then it can be non-profit somewhere other than the US. US is not the be all end all. the world is a big place.
BackseatBarber: On demand haircuts while you drive
same here :) I'm sure I will write about it in a future post or photoset.
Are you saying PG/YC is in the business of being charitable? I think that behavior only emerges when the average payout is larger than what they put in..
You can file as a not-for-profit social purposes organization (to incorporate at the state level) without electing to take on IRS non-profit status -- you just need to pay taxes still.
Do Not Tap the Red Button
You need more specifics to answer the question of whether you spend money on social media tools? Not looking for any advice. I'm just curious about how many people use free tools vs paid tools and how their role affects this.
Wow, since 2013? So you've seen the state of ClojureScript change drastically over the past couple years. Have you stuck with the original tooling as it was back then, or did you try to track ClojureScript as it matured?
Great idea. I used to always just count down so we could start Netflix at the same point, and then sync up after a bit by pausing and restarting occasionally, this is a very elegant solution!
While you are right, this completely misses the point Taleb is making. The earthquake thing is just an analogy to explain the principle of non-linearity. Yes, the analogy is bad because the richter scale is logarithmic, but the principle it illustrates is still perfectly valid and applicable to the discussion at hand.
Using Neural Networks With Regression
who's stopping someone from doing that then? im with you.
I always find it interesting that most people don't realize police brutality, and people being killed by police, was worse 40 years ago than today.

The difference is, today there's a bright spotlight on police brutality, and 200 million smart phones.
You seem to confusing non-profit status with charitable (501c3) status; a charity is a specific subtype of tax-exempt nonprofit (most notably different from most other nonprofits in that, in addition to the organization being tax-exempt, contributions to the organization are tax-deductible for the donors.)
Sadly, when installing it on my computer the other day, the only python that got installed automatically was Python2.

It's still nice to have Python3 be the default as a Python3 developer.
If your goal is to get a PhD you should probably focus on finding some way to do research style work. Research is a lot different than taking online courses.
I've been playing with this for the past few weeks. It's a lot of fun compared to Verilog or VHDL. The implementation is still young, though, and it's pretty easy to trigger an undecipherable crash. But I haven't had anything miscompile yet.
Wow, damning takedown (from a former NYT journalist who happens to really know the industry).

There is one odd line, "Needless to say, it is not like The New York Times to get things so demonstrably wrong,"

It's just odd because Bernstein effectively makes Erika Allen seem like this decade's Jayson Blair. Makes the reader wonder if the NYT is a pressure cooker for this sort of fabulist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair
How do you explain YC investing in Non-profits like Watsi? There is more to YC than the payout. There is definitely a core goal to help good people build better products. Money just usually follows.
Their number one job is not to kill anybody innocent, and they are terrible at it.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...
Commercial software may be getting a smaller piece of the pie, the pie is getting larger quickly.

I basically agree with Donald Knuth: open source (I would prefer it be libre) software will continue to be more important with passing decades. I expect that if the human species survives long term that in a few hundred years the world(s) will be run at partially by very old and very stable open source software.

I have had access to computers since about 1960 (thanks Dad!) and the improvements have been exponential. That said, in the distant future when computer science is a mature science, for many tasks rock solid software will likely be more important than the decade's latest bells and whistles.
My knowledge of the USC is admittedly weak, I know a bit more about EU/UK trademark laws but they do work largely in the same manner, I am just an interested bystander (but have previously worked in IP).

What I meant by "Snow White" shouldn't be allowed as a trademark" is that it shouldn't be allowed to be registered by the USPTO because it contravenes the requirement in the USC that the mark be distinctive. 15 USC 1127 says this about service marks:

>"The term “service mark” means any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof—

>"(1) used by a person, or

>"(2) which a person has a bona fide intention to use [...] to identify and distinguish the services of one person, including a unique service, from the services of others and to indicate the source of the services, even if that source is unknown. Titles, character names, and other distinctive features [...]" (USC, eg from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1127) //

Note that character names are specifically included _when_ they "identify and distinguish the services of one person, including a unique service, from the services of others". In terms established in case law that means a descriptive mark must have acquired "secondary meaning" by use that establishes it as uniquely identifying the services of the registrant in order for the mark to be distinctive and so qualify for registration.

In the real world the USPTO should adhere to the USC as much as in my imagination and failure to do so is contrary to the rule of law. In my book that makes USPTO "wrong, wrong, wrong" but you're entitled to disagree.

You could also plainly look to 15 USC 1051(b)(3)(D) and see that Disney perjured themselves in applying for the mark as "to the best of the verifier’s knowledge and belief, no other person has the right to use such mark in commerce either in the identical form thereof or in such near resemblance thereto as to be likely, when used on or in connection with the goods of such other person, to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive" can not be claimed of the name of a story character that is in common use in other people's products and to refer to other people's products, eg [Grimm's] Snow White.

tl;dr I don't think I'm wrong.
Maybe if she does a second book, it should be about startup founders who are successful with one startup, then go on to do a second startup that fails. That population must exist, and the analysis would be really interesting.
Excellent point. The OMSCS program is entirely based on passing 10 courses in MOOC format. There isn't a research component or a thesis.
In many languages you need a gender to correctly conjugate verbs and adjectives.
Ask HN: Would you hire an agency or a freelancer to create your website?
Was just wondering if people feel more at ease if they hired an agency or a freelancer to create their website. Both has their certain advantages. For example a freelancer would be cheaper and closer to you discussion wise. While an agency would be faster, reliable and professional.

Keep in mind that this is just in general, some freelancers are more professional than agencies, and some agencies are more client oriented
Kinda funny. I was about 10 and after the button was hit, it went on speaker and dispatch was listening for ~10 minutes trying to figure out what was going on.

Second time was less funny.
Do they need setting? I imagined they'd detect one by themselves, without any tunning.

But then, 10^-37 is a very low number. I wouldn't be surprised if that means that all neutrino detectors could catch one, but failed to do so up to now.
Put it on the blockchain! </half sarcasm>
70$ per day is actually listed in the add assuming an 8 hour day that is 8.25 / hour in NYC. Assuming you could actually make minimum wage in most of the country you would be far better off. Which actually supports the idea that wage theft is rampant in the industry.

Further, like many cash businesses it's likely to attract many illegals which are generally highered at risk. For an industry already stuck at minimum wage across most of the country the only way that risk is worth it is if there making less than that.

PS: the other reason to use illegals is if the supply of workers is limited, but that would tend to push wages well above minimum wage. if the rules where actually inforced many nail bars would likely close, until reduced supply drove up either prices or utilization to support higher worker pay.
It may be that philosophy is not worth studying, but this is something a person has to realize for himself. As Wittgenstein said, it is a ladder that must be thrown away AFTER a person has used it.
It's a pretty good explanation.

Part of why the militarization of the police is so scary is because most of that equipment is given under a "use it or lose it" clause. So they have to use their tanks, otherwise the federal government will take them back.

So, they have to find "reasons" to use them even if they aren't necessary. Maybe one day in the far future they might be useful, but in the meantime they're basically toys.
It's not clear why they are shutting down if "the Court has ruled that users—not craigslist—own the copyrights in their postings."

Maybe "3taps lacks the resources to continue the fight" implies that the lawsuit has drained their bank accounts and they are out of money.
Easily explained: TAX DEDUCTIBLE!

Sorry, but I am not buying into the theory that "money just follows". That's a sweet pipe dream and all, but not a reality I'm familiar with.
Sorry but you're going to need to explain why having watermelon soda is a shoot-on-sight offense, and why it matters that it's soda and not ice tea.
I've been looking for a parser generator in C (currently using AttoParsec in Haskell, but looking to reduce dependencies), so I'll check out both Hammer & Nail - right now Hammer is downloading scons and gettext dependencies while Nail is downloading 80M worth of Boost libraries.

Grr, whatever happened to plain C with no dependencies?