iamjeff

Really neat solution.

Is this in any way based on Amazon Polly?

The reliability of demographic data across Sub-Sahara Africa is a significant problem for a multitude of research disciplines.

But there's been a host of severe famines since World War II across the Sahel. It is possible that the reliability of birth data would have improved over this period to a degree sufficient to support research techniques.

In fact, there's been research along these lines in SSA already, especially regarding the impact of malnourishment on intellectual development among other factors.

Still, important research that goes to show that famines have generational effects that extend all the way to the genetic level.

It would be equally worthwhile to see the impact of famines in Sub-Sahara Africa on genes of Africans (especially across the Sahel).

What a bloody delight!

It would be quite a joy if there were a way to curate/aggregate in-store music playlists and then serve them such that visitors could search by store.

I wonder what if there really is a significant difference between streaming a song in a store vis-a-vis placing it in a TV ad.

That said, of the two playlist selection companies that I have only just read about, the charge for streaming in-store is between $34 to $199 per location per month.

[1] Soundtrack Your Brand, a ‘Spotify for B2B’ nabs $22M for expansion - https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/17/soundtrack-your-brand-a-sp...

[2] Restaurant music emerges from the background - http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170807/ENTERTAINMENT/...

What a delightful discovery, this playlist selection vertical.

Going down that rabbit hole, I discovered some gems:

[1] Restaurant music emerges from the background - http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170807/ENTERTAINMENT/...

[2] Who Picks The Music You Hear At The Mall? - https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/11/28/165947927/...

[3] Gap In-Store Playlists 1992 to 2006: The Monthly Playlists at Gap - https://gapinstoreplaylists.blogspot.com

Thank you for letting me know...avoiding dupes...tragic that I failed this time. Timely study on an existentially important topic.

Also, might be of interest to head over to the supplemental information: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2017/07/25/1710519114.DCSu...

...p. 4 esp: 1) Analysis of ME/CFS Cases vs. Healthy Controls (case versus control means comparisons): We employed pseudo-likelihood ratio testing (8)2 to compare pMFI means between a) each disease severity group versus control and b) the equally-weighted average across all three severity groups versus control.

The comment sections (Alas1, this is Youtube after all), on the other hand, are depressing.

Thanks for the heads up, essayist. Will be much more careful not to flood the forum with duplicates next time.

Hi paradite.

Pardon the late reply, I have set up fairly aggressive noprocrast settings which means that I am not always in a position to reply immediately.

Pageflow is especially neat: the pages load fast, the pricing is friendly, and the company can self-host the page. Thank you for taking the time to reply- will be checking this out with my buddy over the weekend.

PetitPrince also provides appealing options, some more noob friendly than the others... I will take the time to download the git repos and see just how successful I can be installing/deploying the code.

All in all, thank you guys for reaching with helpful suggestions.

This is totally off topic (and may even be taken to be insensitive considering the plight of the Syrian people), but I had to ask: is there any way that you/anyone/HNer could offer suggestions on how to deploy such a site for a non-developer...are there free/self-hosted themes and/or frameworks whose installation and use is noob-friendly enough to lend themselves well to interactive storytelling...? Any help/pointers would be immensely appreciated.

President Trump cares little about protecting the Office of the President...his administration has a well-documented history of putting the thumb on the scale regarding the investigation of collusion between his campaign and Russian agents/agencies...this is damaging the credibility in the office...this firing was also clearly decided on and then the rationale was secured afterward...it baffles the mind that Trump rationalizes this executive action by claiming that Comey was "mean to Clinton" when only a few days ago Comey had his trust...the reasoning cited, and involvement of Sessions in interfering an investigation that he recused himself from, is bogus... It is not unreasonable to claim that a cover-up is in full swing!

Lengthy excerpt: Advances in manufacturing software are allowing the likes of Deutsche Post, Google, and start-ups to tap suppliers to design, engineer, and test new vehicle concepts without hiring thousands of engineering staff or investing billions in tooling and factories...Streetscooter used a software program made by PTC to talk to a network of 80 suppliers including Bosch, which provides the electric drivetrain, and Hella which makes the headlights. PTC’s Windchill software, which costs 300 to 1,000 euros ($330–$1,120) per user per year, is used by 90% of the top 50 automotive companies including Continental, ZF, Volkswagen, Audi, MAN, Hyundai, and Ferrari.

This Windchill software enabled a firm with 15 engineers to develop an electric vehicle from scratch and deploy a fleet of 20 vans within 2 years [1, 2]. This milestone led Deutsche Post to partner with the company in question (Streetscooter). The latter has plans to roll out 10k EVs over the next few years.

The level of efficiency is remarkable. If an open source or cheaper software toolkit were available, small-scale production by individuals (building a car company from your own garage) and regular businesses (I want an electric car for my business) may become infinitely affordable.

1- StreetScooter Builds Electric Vehicle from Ground Up (http://www.ptc.com/product-lifecycle-report/streetscooter-bu...)

2- StreetScooter Customer Stories: www.ptc.com/case-studies/street-scooter

Hopefully, a sci-hub link to the article is acceptable.

Greenwald, A.G. (Apr. 2017). An AI stereotype catcher. Science, 356(6334), pp. 133-134.- http://sci-hub.cc/10.1126/science.aan0649

Wasn't sure whether to take you literally, but the quoted cost does not include the cost of tours/etc bundled up as the Kitty. However, the price for the overland tour over Eastern and Southern Africa (the Safari route) are comparable to a round-trip plane ticket from Nairobi to Johannesburg and a 3-day stay in Jo'burg. The overland is about 73 days long and, from past testimonials, adventure of a life time.

As an African (hardship implied), this hit hard- indescribably heartbreaking.

There is an element of adventure to these pictures. Some of his pictures are clearly illegal, disallowed, or uncomfortable in the North Korean context. There are examples of these especially in the second instalment [1]. Having spent some time in small-town Russia, I could almost taste the soulless architecture. The sense of adventure is further heightened when watching vlogs from Jaka Parker (noted elsewhere here), including this one video of him travelling almost 200km outside of Pyongyang along North Korea’s major highway [2]. There are remarkably few cars on the road and at several points, it felt like B-roll footage from a movie set a-la The Walking Dead: the desertion in the roads of this nuclear power is simply astonishing.

On a related note, several tour companies across Africa offer overland tours including a 73-day journey across 10 countries in Eastern and Southern African countries [3] and a terrifying 27-day trip across the western edges of the Sahara Desert [4, 5, 6].

[1] 100 Photos Inside North Korea – Part 2 (http://www.earthnutshell.com/100-photos-from-north-korea-par...)

[2] 100kms outside Pyongyang - North Korea (https://youtu.be/zCjpxZDTyqs)

[3] Nairobi to Cape Town Overland Tours (https://www.absoluteafrica.com/The-Absolute-Safari/AS71)

[4] (http://www.overlandingwestafrica.com/trip-overview-availabil...)

[5] Mauritania 2013. Exploring West Africa by expedition truck (https://www.flickr.com/photos/128667255@N04/sets/72157649867...)

[6] Overland West Africa - MAURITANIA - 2013-2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRHiAXjyHTk)

This video also caught my attention. The camera looks like a Canon EOS 600D and its priced at about 100,000 Korean Won. According to the XE Currency Converter, that is about USD765 [1] compared to USD400 at Amazon [2]. Looks like capitalism is alive and well in the heartland of Juche-ism.

[1] http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=100000&F...

[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-18-55mm-3-5-5-6-discontinued-...

Yeah, success of this entire pivot relied largely on this intern's audit report. I imagine that the intern had a massive list of 12,000 URLs and would click through them, taking care to note why the site passes muster or otherwise so that management can add a layer of justification to the final decision. Even at an average of 3 minutes per URL, that still amounts to >600 hours of repetitive and sometimes traumatising work. Remarkable that they only selected a single (unpaid?) intern to deal with this...truly remarkable.

Any way we see this new development, this weakening of privacy is a big win for telecoms and its sustained and vast efforts at lobbying Congress. Bluntly, Congress sold out the American people...anywhere else (I believe) and the ability for entire industries to buy votes would be called corruption, especially when elected representatives remove consumer protections (whoever gave them that mandate?!) in favour of (a paying) industry.

[0]- The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them (http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-...)

This brought me to tears, literally... There is a beauty to the words that is hard to describe other than to say it gives "meaning" (for lack of a better word) to life on this rock.

While I am far removed from USA politics (and politics in general), this does seem like a nifty tool that promises to have a real-life impact on legislators (depending, of course, on adoption). Considering the deluge of apps/tools to email or tweet legislators, it is a welcome relief that someone did spend the time to create this. In case you missed it (like I did), here is a link to the TechCrunch feature [1]. In spite of the creators' explicit politics, I think the effort in itself (and the motive to make governing more two-wayish) is commendable.

1- 5 Calls debuts what may be the easiest way to call your reps yet [https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/5-calls-debuts-what-may-be...]

That was quite a difficult story to read. While there is an expectation of accountability for gifts/donations, it was still a little discouraging to find out that this expectation was not clarified beforehand. This was in no way empirical and the reporting feels anecdotal, even the repeatedly suggestive mentions of the liquor store purchases (can't the poor get drunk too...). But I find it difficult to accept that researchers are the only ones encumbered with ethical responsibilities.

However, it is worthwhile to know that he did disclose that he is a reporter, although the fact that he gave them free credit cards, but could not bring self to find further assistance leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

That said, OP reminds me of two interesting DEFCON talks [1] [2] [3] re similar issues. In the contexts delivered in the talks, it seems permissible to say that the crooks were fair game.

1- DEF CON 18 - Zoz - Pwned By The Owner: What Happens When You Steal A Hacker's Computer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwpg-AwJ0Jc)

2- DEF CON 23: Confessions of a Professional Cyber Stalker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVJGY2bZ-Ko)

3- bonus resource on how to set up something similar to Zoz's Inspired by the defcon hacker who found his stolen laptop... how to update for present day routers? (https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/2428pf/inspired_by_...)

Judging from the article, it seems that it is up to the programmer to manually find and update the bot's database of impersonator accounts...are there no means of automating this process or is the pool of impersonator accounts small enough to "police" manually..?

Really interesting toolbox. Really weird the sort of information you can infer/recreate from mobile phone communications metadata including demographic information and hundreds of behavioral indicators. Seeing the toolbox in use really crystallizes the imperative behind privacy, mobile security, and a curtailment of the Surveillance State. Regardless, looks immensely useful.

1. Luc Rocher - bandicoot: a toolbox to analyze mobile phone metadata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fb7ttS43GE)

2. D4D-Senegal: the second mobile phone data for development challenge (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1407.4885.pdf)

3. Using Deep Learning to Predict Demographics from Mobile Phone Metadata (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2225/04e1217e79304e725fcc5a...)

NarcoNews and Narcosphere (and Giordano) are unrepentantly activist in both tone and aspiration. I think it would be a great disservice to label the outfit(s) as anti-Trump; there is a lot of thoughtful criticism of Sanders, Hillary, Obama, and left-wing movements in both sites. As for intersection between narcotics and politics, note that NarcoNews is perhaps best known for its coverage of the reach of narcodollars in the politics of LatAm and corporate motivation behind the War on Drugs. The pages are littered with this sort of coverage (in fact, it is mainly how they started out).

The 3-part installation can be found here [1] and here [2]. Be warned, it is about 2-3 hours worth of your time, but makes for a really shocking read. [3] provides exhaustive coverage of the aftermath. Giordano's recount of Webb's memorial service just a month after the latter's suicide and his eulogy of sorts is especially moving [4].

1. The Dark Alliance (http://www.mega.nu/ampp/webb.html)

2. San Jose Mercury News (https://longform.org/archive/publications/san-jose-mercury-n...)

3. Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/6/inside_the_dark_allian...)

4. The Life and Times of Gary Webb. His Journalism Was Vindicated, Yet the Industry Kept Him in Exile (http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1154.html)

There may be some truth to your assertion that recent Trump coverage has become more negative. This is primarily for two reasons.

Admittedly, coverage during the primaries hailed Trump as the anti-establishment political maverick that would redefine the GOP. At the time, the coverage was nauseatingly positive and, at the very worst, ambivalent. The media coverage on Clinton, on the other hand, was clearly confrontational (perhaps because she was the "incumbent" candidate). This sort of coverage has elicited some soul-searching among journalists and mass media based on the logic that the media infatuated with The Donald and gleefully collaborated in his political ascendance (yes, Trump is a colorful man, but, truth be told, he is far worse things as a person, a subject that has been prominently covered).

And this brings me to the second point. The recent turn in Trump's media coverage (in terms of tone at least) is also fueled by his numerous scandals, mistakes, and missteps. It is beyond me when the tone really became adversarial (perhaps after the nomination when the attention shifted to him and there was a long overdue re-calibration in how the media engages with his campaign). In truth, this is a referendum for or against Trump and this argument is further compounded by the fact that staunch and prominent Republicans are abandoning their party's flag bearer in support (more or less) of Clinton (this is unprecedented considering the vitriolic opposition that the party and its supporters have for the Clintons.

While it can be argued that media coverage has shifted in Clinton's favor (mostly due to Trump's own fault as an individual and presidential candidate), the same cannot be said of Wikileaks whose agenda from the very beginning has been admittedly pro-Trump. Wikileaks is partisan and this, while not a disqualifier in of itself, says a lot about its motivations in releasing leaks that paint a non-flattering picture of the Clinton campaign.

That said, these transcripts do not reveal a lot that is new about Clinton as has been noted by other commenters here (except, perhaps, for the fact that she says political leaders need to have private and public positions on policy matters) and her campaign has already been vindicated by the administration's admission that there is a political motive behind the leaks. The political ramifications of these leaks may not be as dramatic (the fodder that they afford her opponents has been unsuccessfully utilized by her foe-turned-apologist Sanders) as Trump's recent bombshell video leak of supposed "locker room banter."

1. News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences (http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential...)

2. A deep dive into the news media’s role in the rise of Donald J. Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/2...)