matthjensen
Re:Privacy: One of the Most Fundamental Human Rights, yet Constantly U...
on Thursday June 01, 2023 @01:03PM (#36154088)
And big government, which demands information in many cases by law, is terrible at keeping that info "safe" in its hands once it's been collected.
Taking the U.S. federal government as an example, by my count we've already seen over 60 notable breaches in just this young decade: https://github.com/MattHJensen/US-gov-info-losses. Certainly many others have gone unreported or unnoticed.
Re:the US Post Office Is Spying on the Mail. Senators Want to Stop It
on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @07:35PM (#35982574)
An interesting aspect of this is that any information that USPS collects is also likely to be available to foreign governments now or in the future. The U.S. government has a terrible track record of keeping its own information secure. See, for example, a list of notable federal breaches (2020-present): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGVHO6BDZzGnB3l3j3hy...
Re:Explore how Biden's tax proposal could affect you
on Thursday October 29, 2020 @03:07PM (#24934294)
I did a calculation where the taxpayer earns $40k/year, single, 2 kids.
You see Biden vs. baseline in the tables.
Individual income taxes fall from -$3,370 to -$6,570.
On economists jazzing up numbers between peer review and the book seller's stand
Show HN: Tax-Calculator for policy decisionmaking and individual planning
Re:Show HN: Tableau-Like Data Visualizations in JavaScript
on Thursday October 11, 2018 @04:09PM (#18196669)
I associate "product" with something that is sold, so when I saw Muze described as a "product," but I didn't see a price, I was somewhat wary that the price was hidden or forthcoming.
"Project" is also a fairly common term to refer to open source tools and the community around them. See the nav bars for linuxfoundation.org or numfocus.org, for instance.
Re:Show HN: Tableau-Like Data Visualizations in JavaScript
on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:47AM (#18194469)
Cool. You might consider describing Muze as a project rather than a product. E.g., On the homepage: Our first product, Muze... -> Our first project, Muze....
Re:Show HN: Tableau-Like Data Visualizations in JavaScript
on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:21AM (#18194229)
How do you plan to support the team and project, financially, over the long haul?
Re:Transparency for Congress's Scorekeepers
on Thursday January 04, 2018 @05:59PM (#16074918)
I write based on my experience working on Tax-Calculator and the Open Source Policy Center. Tax-Calculator was used extensively by the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and Senate/House/Administration staff during the tax debates.
Transparency for Congress's Scorekeepers
Re:A Hacker Writes a Children's Book
on Friday December 08, 2017 @03:14PM (#15881632)
This critique underestimates the value of language and concrete diction for learning concepts.
If a child learns the definition of key words, she'll carry the concepts they represent with her forever. Once she know knows "map", "value", and "key", she will own the concepts, Map, Value, and Key.
Definitions give a child the opportunity to learn -- and a parent the opportunity to teach -- valuable concepts that will enrich her world.
Re:Show HN: Tax plan impact calculator
on Thursday December 07, 2017 @02:18PM (#15873072)
If this interests you, I would also recommend checking out http://open-source-economics.github.io/Tax-Calculator/ and https://github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator.
Re:Show HN: Moocha.io – A search engine for MOOCs
on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @09:02AM (#15347329)
The course information in the coorsy results is valuable, but stock photos are a waste of space on a search results page.
Re:FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise quest...
on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @10:20PM (#15300114)
I imagine FedEx thinks of the drivers as partners rather than "temporary commodities". It's a franchise model or close enough. McDonald's calls their analogues, "owner/operators." That's no slur.
Re:Criticizing Google got me fired
on Thursday August 31, 2017 @05:22PM (#15144053)
I direct the Open Source Policy Center at the American Enterprise Institute. We contribute to open source economic modeling tools. Check us out. I think we do good work, and I have never felt as if a donor biased our work -- this is probably because I state our values and objectives clearly when we raise money.
Suggestions: Todoist
Allow users to toggle whether comments are displayed in the project view so they may scan all tasks and comments at once. Also, allow line breaks in tasks.I keep track of life with a notebook and a computer. When I am away from the computer, I write my ideas and thoughts in the notebook, as they come to me, in as much detail as I feel like setting down. When I am in the flow, it feels like I am...
Re:When Government Rules by Software, Citizens Are Left in the Dark
on Thursday August 17, 2017 @11:23AM (#15037545)
I am equally concerned by the application of secret simulation models by organizations like the Congressional Budget Office for fiscal policy decision making. Our legislators rely on models that even they do not have access to when writing spending and tax laws.
Re:A new report on a basic income scheme launched in Iran
on Thursday June 01, 2017 @08:32PM (#14466428)
Here is a new working paper on implementing a budget-neutral UBI in the US. We use a suite of open source models.
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/UBI-working-p...
Re:What Comes After SaaS?
on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @05:19PM (#14456014)
I expect many of the experiences will involve community.
More and more SaaS products offer Facebook groups, Meetups, Slack channels, conferences, and more for their users.
Community is a way for SaaS co's to create network effect, and it may lead to consolidation.
Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming?
on Friday May 19, 2017 @10:35AM (#14376013)
https://www.github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator
Open source tax-calculator for tax policy analysis. Used by many policymakers to inform their decisions about tax policy via the TaxBrain GUI (https://www.ospc.org/taxbrain). Influences decisions that affect hundreds of millions of lives.
Re:U.S. Senate staff can now use Signal
on Tuesday May 16, 2017 @09:37PM (#14354913)
We need to incentivize people running for public office. Taking away privacy is not the way to do that. And I'm a complete advocate for openness in government where it matters, like in policy analysis--that's the field I work in (https://www.OSPC.org)
Re:Forecasting with Julia
on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @04:34PM (#14303576)
Primarily Python.
See, for example, https://github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator. We also make many of the models available through webapps like https://www.ospc.org/taxbrain and https://www.ospc.org/ccc. The source code for those is available at https://www.github.com/opensourcepolicycenter/webapp-public
Re:Forecasting with Julia
on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @10:35AM (#14300342)
The Open Source Policy Center, where I work, is focussed on this issue. www.ospc.org Most of OSPC's work is focussed on fiscal policy rather than monetary policy.
Re:Forecasting with Julia
on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @10:31AM (#14300302)
That's for workshop materials. Here is the model itself https://github.com/FRBNY-DSGE/DSGE.jl
Cracking Washington's Black Box (2016)
Re:Forecasting with Julia
on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @08:56AM (#14299561)
Most policy decisions these days are heavily influenced by proprietary forecasting models.
Just look at the fuss that was made because the House passed a health bill without a Congressional Budget Office score. The CBO score will certainly play a large part in the Senate's rewrite. The problem is that the CBO and other organizations like it are quite secretive about their modeling. Most of the time they only produce point estimates, and they don't publish many of the assumptions behind their modeling. When there is a bill that contains both taxes and spending, the Joint Committee on Taxation models the tax part, the CBO models the spending part, and they just smash the results together because even those two organizations aren't willing to share and integrate their models.
The NY Fed is serving as an important leader in this field. Policy analysis should be transparent and scientific, and that's what the NY Fed is moving the field towards.
Forecasting with Julia
Re:Trump Administration Proposes 'Massive' Tax Overhaul and Tax Cut Plan
on Sunday April 30, 2017 @08:29AM (#14231234)
Public policy is not politics. I was happy to have an opportunity to comment about some open source tax modeling resources.
Re:Trump Administration Proposes 'Massive' Tax Overhaul and Tax Cut Plan
on Sunday April 30, 2017 @08:12AM (#14231184)
ospc.org/TaxBrain is an open source platform for analyzing tax policy. You can forecast revenue and distributional consequences for most of the individual and payroll tax provisions in this reform and others.
I am happy to answer any questions about the TaxBrain interface or the underlying models.