Hacker News Reader

zxyzzxxxon Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

Lower is what I meant, it was a typo. And that is not what I'm referring to in my parent comment, which is still valid.

zxyzzxxxon Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

I don't know what are you quoting me, and then talking about something I never wrote. ( rhetorical q. )

zxyzzxxxon Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

Developed countries offer alternative life goals. This, education and entertainment provide enough reasons not to have a family. Lower birth rate is a good thing in the long term, and getting non-developed countries into developed stage will accomplish that. See Gates' yearly letters.

zxyzzxxxon “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

You can always start collecting it back.

zxyzzxxxon “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

DDG is the fastest of all the privacy-respecting engines, but it consistently gives me the least accurate results. It works if you search for mainstream keywords, otherwise it mostly doesn't.

zxyzzxxxon “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

For most people it is just search and email. Replacing email is easy, but search is harder since only Google has really accurate and relevant results( besides other giants that also snoop ). The best way to replace search is to use engines that respect privacy and if you need relevant results, those that convey Google's results to you.

zxyzzxxxon “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

We've designed app graph to exclude apps that appear to be especially sensitive, such as ones dealing with your health, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.

I was alarmed until I read this. It is really nice of them to choose to keep our sensitive private information private. Thanks Twitter!

( Of course I completely trust Twitter to make the right decision on which apps are considered sensitive. )

zxyzzxxxon Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

I was assuming the sentence was spoken during the trial.

zxyzzxxxon Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

Jurors probably aren't experts in rhetoric so such statements have a huge influence on them.

zxyzzxxxon Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

The quote( not your comment ) is a logical fallacy. Even if was not accepted as hard evidence in the court, it was spoken, and has influenced the jury.

zxyzzxxxon Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]

Perhaps a longer version would have more character development, but then backers would say it was boring. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a maximum limit on the number of lines spoken before a special effect or an action scene must be played.

zxyzzxxxon Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]

That is clearly C with macros.

zxyzzxxxon Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]

Surprisingly similar.

zxyzzxxxon Origami Robot Folds Itself Up, Does Cool Stuff, Dissolves into Nothing

Given that it is externally powered, where would such a thing be useful today?

zxyzzxxxon Psychohistory

Could you elaborate, while keeping it spoiler-free?

zxyzzxxxon Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

I think the incentive to keep the income would greatly reduce minor crimes. Just imagine what positive effect would that have on the society

zxyzzxxxon Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

People that wouldn't work wouldn't have to live in highly contested areas with a high rent. Workers could afford them, others would live outside of those expensive areas, keep their guaranteed income and decide what to do with their lives.

zxyzzxxxon Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

The planet offers basically unlimited resources. Assuming the population stops growing, as it is predicted, and settles at some reasonable number, then only limit is the expiration date of the sun.

zxyzzxxxon Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

I imagine the idea is great and most people are not like you. But that is just my imagination. On the other hand, the article presents very good arguments for the system and why would it work.

zxyzzxxxon Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

Good point. The percentage also caught my attention. The article didn't mention any percentages of stage 1 cases versus later stages where long term problems can occur.

zxyzzxxxon Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

I was disappointed over the lack of links in a web(!) article, so I did some research over this comment: Poland notes that since then, Lyme has become more widespread and is now the most common tick-borne disease in the country.

Dr. Gregory Poland works in Mayo Clinic which is based in Minnesota. Here are statistics for Lyme disease in that country:

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/stati...

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/cases...

And for the entire United States: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/chartstables/casesbyyear.html

Looks like the number of cases is slowly growing. Charts don't seem to be normalized. The increase in cases could be due to increase in population.

zxyzzxxxon Russian, Japanese and Chinese Take Top Spots in ACM Programming Contest

In what units is the time or what does it represent? I though they had only 5 hours available.

zxyzzxxxon Russian, Japanese and Chinese Take Top Spots in ACM Programming Contest

The problems: http://icpc.baylor.edu/download/worldfinals/problems/icpc201...

They solved this in 5 hours, using one computer, one calculator and no other help.

Does anyone know what was the team size limit?

zxyzzxxxon Light-Years of DNA

I remembered from school that the cell division limit is about 50 and evidence ( read: Wikipedia ) suggests that as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit

A tenth of a light-year is still impressive.

Even more interesting is the fact that the single cell organisms living in a human body, outnumber human cells by a factor of 10.

zxyzzxxxon World without end

Thanks for that.

There should be more games like this. The technology obviously isn't the limitation here.

zxyzzxxxon World without end

Surprisingly it is very similar to Minecraft, even more advanced in some areas, for example more diverse lifeforms and gear. I think Minecraft is more interesting simply because it is in 3D and you can actually build real things in it, in contrast to 2D where you only get to do cross-sections.

I wonder if you could make a 2D procedurally-generated exploration game interesting.

zxyzzxxxon Reid Hoffman on the relationship between employers and employees

For me the biggest "lie" is that companies want employees to settle at their company and at the same time they don't offer contracts that don't expire.

zxyzzxxxon The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks

But how will you find that needle in the haystack that works. This is effectively producing random code samples that look syntactically correct.

There is no need for to produce readable code, it makes it easy for humans, but computers have no problems with generating and subsequently understanding unreadable assembly.

zxyzzxxxon The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks

The code is nonsense. Their method is good for fuzzy logic like recognition, but this approach with code will never work for anything other than an art project.

zxyzzxxxon LightSail Sends First Data Back to Earth

I'm guessing they will measure the increased rate of orbit decay then the sails are deployed?