Hacker News Reader

steve_bon Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

I'm just going to compare murder rates between Canada and US. Murder is harder to fudge. Using data from different years. Maybe that invalidates the conclusion, but I'm guessing it holds in general.

> Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost the same proportion of violence with guns, despite fairly hefty controls.

Firearm homicide in the US per 100k: 3.55 [1] Firearm homicide in Canada per 100k: 0.51 [1] Homicide rate in the US per 100k: 4.7 [2] Homicide rate in Canada per 100k: 1.6 [2]

Proportion of homicides from firearms in the US: 3.55/4.7 = 76% Proportion of homicides from firearms in Canada: 0.51/1.6 = 32%

Not sure what to make of the numbers. But it doesn't seem like Canada has "the same proportion of violence with guns".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

steve_bon Timesheet.js

Thanks Jonas. Unfortunately I think vog is right. It was be awesome if you FOSSed the original source.

steve_bon Timesheet.js

This looks great, have you ever thought about open sourcing it?

steve_bon The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

What, in your opinion, is the best research/study showing the benefit of competition in a high school classroom? Most of what I'm finding online are essentially opinion pieces.

steve_bon Ask HN: What's the most creative use of IFTTT you've seen?

My friend and I built a thing that alerted me when my dryer was done, called Toasty Knickers. We hooked up the dryer to an Arduino. Our first attempt was Arduino->wifi->email->IFTTT->SMS but it was pretty flaky. We finally got it down to Arduino->wifi->Pushover. It worked out really well!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xd1zputlwz10d72/2012-12-19%2000.57...

steve_bon Automated License Plate Readers Threaten Our Privacy

I don't see the EFF campaigning against mobile telephony or credit cards.

The EFF is concerned about privacy matters involving mobile devices. https://ssd.eff.org/tech/mobile

steve_bon First Teleportation From One Macroscopic Object to Another

I have a rework station but almost never use it for SMT. I find a good pair of tweezers and chip quik makes working SMT easy and fast.

http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/EROPAASA/EROPAASA-ND... http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/SMD4.5NL/SMD4.5NL-ND...

steve_bon Sample from book about the periodic table

I preordered this a while ago and got my pdf copy yesterday. It's the first book about chemistry to make me giddy.

steve_bon $100 to Fly Through the Airport

On my flight last week, I asked for two cans of Coke, and I got them. It was part of my rejection therapy, and I failed.

steve_bon Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About Global Warming

Gapminder has some good data on this, and it doesn't support your claim. It shows that population growth decreases slightly as income per person increases.

Gapminder link: www.bit.ly/AiTWsG

steve_bon Remarkable Trio of Young, African-American Chess Masters

I misread your comment. I thought you said "my three hopes for my kids...". I thought: that sounds like a good strategy for any parents to have.

steve_bon Father's homemade machine helps disabled son to walk (video)

At the moment only US residents can create projects on Kickstarter. It's going to be awesome when they expand to other countries.

steve_bon AI are taking jobs

For simple-to-digest stats I usually turn to www.gapminder.org. Always useful when arguing with someone who thinks that everything has gone to hell.

steve_bon Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

That's pretty harsh. I bet you Huxley's original notes for Doors Of Perception were probably jumbled too. But both DoP and Mark's notes allude to the same thing: without a valve on our consciousness, we'd just sit around all day and be blown away by the creases in our jeans.

Edit: oh ya, and thanks for sharing Mark.

steve_bon The Wealthiest 5% Grabbed Most of the America’s Gains

Wealth != income as pg says in http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html.

I think wealth is more equal to total free time left on the planet. So total time minus time spent working to provide things for survival minus time spent surviving (like cooking, sleeping, running from lions). The washing machine is invented, lots of peoples' wealth skyrockets. Food gets cheaper, people's wealth goes up.

Looking at income is a short-sighted definition of wealth.

steve_bon Hacking Christmas lights

You will not be disappointed by the Saleae logic. Almost everyday I'm amazed by how beautiful and useful it is. My Logic16's in the mail!

steve_bon JavaScript Web Apps by O'Reilly

Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey

Good quick read.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-English-Opium-Eater-Pengui...

For an extra $5 you can pick up this which is fantastic: http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Relativity-Fourth-Dimension-R...

steve_bon Official enrollment for Stanford's online AI class has begun

Is there a way to buy a pdf version of the text? From the links at http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/ I got:

CourseSmart: eTextbook rental. Amazon: Kindle version. Nook: eTextbook. not sure if I can download pdf cause you have to sign up to find out. Cafe Scribe: cafe scribe format. Kno: format only works on iPad.

Edited for formatting.

steve_bon Official enrollment for Stanford's online AI class has begun

I signed up. I'm guessing that we don't have to write the exams in person. Does anyone know?

steve_bon Try the A* pathfinding algorithm with HTML5 canvas

I recently learned about the A* algorithm from the book Eloquent Javascript. Makes it very easy to understand. http://eloquentjavascript.net/chapter7.html

steve_bon Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free

Damn, that's a good anecdote to counter my argument. So I'm going to have to provide my own. I took electrical engineering. In third year I was doing a lab, and the guy next to me didn't know that capacitors are used in analog filters. I would have asked him how he got to 3rd year knowing so little, but I was too depressed.

steve_bon Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free

I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.

steve_bon Google Should Publicly Oppose Software Patents

"even if 90 percent of them are "bogus" (which they probably are)"

Don't make me send this to unnecessaryquotes.com

steve_bon Evernote Peek, The First iPad Smart Cover App

I find being able to report right/wrong answers makes flashcard programs much more effective. Once you try a program like Mnemosyne or SuperMemo, you'll never go back to paper flashcards.

http://www.supermemo.com/english/ol/sm2.htm

steve_bon Divine By Zero

I was confused about the "php" == 0, until I found http://php.net/manual/en/types.comparisons.php. So "php" == 0 is true and "php" == true is true, but 0 == true is false. Yikes! It seems like comparisons in PHP are as bad as they are in JS.

I have a hard time believing this is real. Does WTF do any verification?

steve_bon Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts

"When crime rates go up, the police say it is because they are encouraging more victims to come forward, Mr. Silverman said, 'but when crime goes down, it’s the work of the police.'"

I find that sentence really confusing. Does Silverman believe that a decrease in crime is the work of the police, or is he still quoting the police?

Also, I'm curious: did I quote the quote correctly?

steve_bon How I Deal with Sexual Discrimination in a Positive Way?

"Never speak ill of the wrong or negative person. It takes you down to their level."

If someone is trying to force you into sex, and you stay silent about it, they're probably going to do it again. At some point you have to speak up.

But being a guy, I have no idea how hard it would be to come forward with such allegations. I've never done anything comparably brave.

steve_bon BankSimple: We have cards

I've always wondered why after winning something (or in this case, getting 50k sign ups), people say "I'm humbled." I think the truth would be the opposite: "Wow, looks like I'm pretty awesome after all."

steve_bon Creator of "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe testifies to Congress

I'm curious how schoolteacher salaries affect salaries in other occupations. Could you explain what you mean by that?

steve_bon Google Tasks API Released

Taskforce does collaborative tasks really well. It's already integrated tightly into gmail. Soon I think they'll have gcal integration and phone apps.