mousa

That has been edited (maybe corrected) since I posted

Great news unless you are living in a village near the tigers. These are not animals I would want living near me. There are an estimated 270 tigers in Sunderbans National Park. They kill 100-250 people a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundarbans#Fauna

> You need to have multiple copies open at the same time if you want to refer to different parts at the same time.

That's true but that's a huge advantage to ebooks. Having two copies of the book open, one for the "Diagram on page 240." Can't do that with a book.

From what I've in the finance industry, there aren't enough standards.

It seems like every bank/broker/data provider stores and sends data in its own format and has different procedures for clearing. It's like the priority is to make sure people can't switch easily.

Those blocks with one or two houses are so weird. Looks like sim-city.

That may be the effect but I doubt that is what is going through the minds of individuals making these decisions. This is just a misguided attempt to give Europe's tech industry a shot but another American company will fill in any space lost by Google.

Probably.

It's tough. I get where they really do stomp out European (and any other) companies that can't compete with a company that has tons of cash/data and offers all its services for "free," but also I think there are lots of futuristic interesting things Google is working on that might not be economically possible outside of Google.

It's not that interesting. Yahoo is under a lot of pressure to grow and just got a windfall of cash from the Alibaba IPO. This is an easy place for them to grow their revenue.

Yahoo has a ton of cash it didn't have until recently and a CEO who wants growth and is willing to overspend.

You can't see how a company with a bottomless pocket and the most computing resources can help them achieve their goals?

They're great but its a matter of time before their reporters die. The one in Mali was filming the front line of a gun battle.

I fail to see how the French kids' ability to write would be hurt by their being introduced to programming. Maybe you think the solution to their not being able to write is to sacrifice all other subjects to focus on writing. Though I doubt the writing is that bad, if it's the case I'd probably axe history before programming.

Most professors I know are not professors because of the money. These are usually the people who were the best students and as such could have found nice jobs in other sectors.

And do you really think they would have difficulty getting funding for climate research contradicting the current consensus?

"and a US citizen (born in Denver) "

I've never understood the emphasis on this point.

You're either for or against drone attacks on presumed terrorists, I can't understand how US citizenship plays any role in it. If his father was involved in terrorism and you think drone strikes are OK, why would you have extra sympathy for him because he's a US citizen?

I don't think the US citizen aspect is worth mentioning, in fact I think it just makes people who are against drones seem a little unhinged. By the way I am against the use of drones (on Americans or otherwise).

They have been getting much more complex. For example many stat geeks have been trying to make one that takes the +/- stats (how well the team does when the player is on the floor in terms of point difference per 100 possessions) and adjusting it based on the +/- of the teammates and opponents that have shared the floor with them. It's definitely more challenging than baseball, but there are a lot of interesting things to try.

NBA media and fans are much much more resistant to empirical stuff than baseball. I think it's because the appeal of the game is more about emotions and hype than baseball. There's this feeling that things can't be captured in the numbers, but what they use instead is so inferior for judging players. I mean the Knicks acquired Carmelo Anthony at the cost of all the efficient players on the team. All of the stats guys were very skeptical the media blared on and on about how they would be contenders and they were terrible until this undrafted rookie came along.

Another example, what I've found interesting reading some of the NBA statisticians blogs is this argument about "clutch". Most fans and media insist that Kobe Bryant, a player who shoots a lot of shots at the end of games and makes spectacular shots sometimes is the best closer in the game. Meanwhile almost all statistical evidence points to Chris Paul, a player who runs boring routine plays down the stretch, as by far the best closer in the league in terms of actually winning close games.

Until the NBA stats can predict winners like baseball, the public will always go by the "look." The teams themselves however, are almost all hiring statisticians now.

As quick as you're willing to pay for it because prefabricated stuff can be done in parallel.

How about employment? It will make millions of jobs disappear. Truckers/taxi drivers/bus drivers/etc. make up a pretty huge group of people.

It's not really that big a deal for them to this every year. It's just something you have to live with like NPR's fundraising drives, except much less grating. I don't hear people irl complain about it. I know it really irritates many of the entrepreneur types on here that one of the biggest sites on the web is asking for money, but it's perfectly fine for them to have fundraising drives every year.

Those numbers really aren't bad at all. Obviously wages are going to a main expense of a nonprofit that's a giant website.

Probably the whole process of bidding for any of these reduces the pool of potential contractors to a couple of these giant government contractors who have bidding down.

I know there are bidding procedures for everything to fight corruption but for little projects like this they should come up with a procedure to use odesk or similar services.

I don't believe the ai class profs have mentioned it yet. The db professor sounds like she is going to do it again next year same time, but hasn't said so definitively. ML class is happening next semester again.

Yes the db and ml class websites are outstanding. The video and in class exercises are very smooth, but the best part are the exercises in both classes. The db teacher said some students threw all of it together over the summer. Very impressed.

Add to that it's all being done by an ex-convict entrepreneur and it looks to me like the only reason this is a story is because it's a story. He did a good job hyping it.

There is a small but vocal subset of people on HN who find it hard to believe anyone cares about anything besides money. I think some people just want a simple way of deciding how good they are doing at life.

It was hypothetical if someone with that kind of ambition could make just enough that he accomplished all these great things even if it left him middle class, he'd take it. I agree it would take a huge amount of cash to get there, but the point is the end goal wouldn't be money.

I've noticed by your responses you think everyone who thinks any entrepreneur wants anything besides profit is "muddle-headed." The world is "muddled." Not everyone is playing the same game in life, for some people, money is the game, for some people, money is just something you need to play it. I've noticed some of the former types really want everyone to be playing the same game so they can measure up.

"he has to have profit as his main motive or he would fail"

Obviously it has to not go under but I bet he'd be happy driving on Mars in his solar-powered electric car if his companies made just enough to get by.

If by "main motive" you mean a minimum requirement then we agree. But for some that's just to get leeway to do the things they really want to do.

I wish people would stop trying to paint their own motives on other people. There is no reason for him to trumpet that he loves profit if that not his main motive. These guys have money and successful companies it's possible they would make some sacrifices to the bottom line to impact on the world if it if they have that disposition. You think someone like Elon Musk is only thinking bottom line when he has poured all his money into three industries that haven't ever been profitable?

I doubt people will back off of malaria at this point in the past it seems like once it starts getting under control in a region it keeps going down. There is a lot of anti-malaria momentum building up with awareness and malaria education only increasing.

The last few years have been success after success with the Global Fund and the Gates Foundation pouring in money.

I don't think there is any reason to encourage saving money. Living within your means, yes, investing, yes, but saving under your pillow, especially if you had a non-inflating currency, isn't good for the economy.

Even if it should be encouraged, it doesn't matter the logic of it, people won't accept making less and less money over time. Non-fiat currency + population increase makes that inevitable.