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Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best? | I think I am in quite a similar position to you: after secondary school here in Ireland, I didn't consider any universities outside of my home town (pretty much because I didn't know a single person who was considering bigger and better options, so it genuinely didn't cross my mind to apply to Stanford, CMU, MIT etc.) so I ended up going to a fairly average and not very well known university to study electronic engineering for my undergrad.<p>I went on an exchange for a year to UCLA and this was when I started to feel something similar to the sentiment you're expressing here.<p>I'm now in my 3rd year of undergrad EE and for the last year I've been trying to fast track myself into the AI / ML field as I've been increasingly regretting my EE major and becoming more and more interested and passionate about ML (particularly the intersection of ML, altruism and design): I got Norvig & Russell's textbook and read it in outside of my engineering classes, read less technical books like Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence for motivation / food for thought, made a simple collaborative filtering recommender system using the movielens open source dataset, moved away from the web dev stuff I'd been doing in 1st and 2nd year and tried to hone in on improving my algorithm and pure CS skills, watched a load of AI / ML videos to try and get a better sense of who's who, where's where and what's going on etc. in the field. The "dream" (I use that word loosely) is to do the google brain residency program instead of a PhD, or the U Chicago data science for social good fellowship, so I've been trying to figure out how to get myself into good shape for either of them.<p>It's been overwhelming at times, largely because I feel like 1) I'm not in the "right" major, 2) I've had a taste of but no longer "go to" UCLA (or an equivalent high ranking university) and won't be graduating from there so will need to work hard to stand out against the competition for placements / fellowships / internships 3) I don't have mentors or peers who can help me navigate the field (I have a great relationship with a lot of my engineering professors but again, it's not ML). So I'm sort of trying to make sense of it all myself. It's reassuring to hear there are others feeling similarly and it's great to hear all that you're doing!<p>On a positive note, I suspect you may be overestimating the educational superiority of the top tier schools (I know I certainly did before I went to UCLA) but at the same time I don't think it's fair to completely disregard the big unis and just say "circuit theory is circuit theory" and forget about it. While I was there, I really didn't notice all that much of a difference in terms of course content or even teaching quality - the biggest difference was there were an awful lot more high achiever students in my EE classes compared to in my home uni in Ireland, and there was a much more impressive "career fair" and internship opportunity scene than at home (think Irish Cement vs Hyperloop One).<p>You seem to be doing everything right. I think I was edging down a "burnout" path a couple of months ago with fretting over what you're saying and over my own EE vs CS major "challenge". I've tried to take a step back and remember that there's no one enforcing a particular pace or path for me, hopefully you won't let the fretting get in the way of your passion which almost happened to me.<p>Just wanted to comment this to warn you about the burnout thing, reassure you somewhat about top schools and throw in a few links you might find interesting for good measure!<p>You mightn't find any of these links below helpful, you very well may be much more well read than myself but I thought I'd link these here anyway. The first is a reassuring AMA on reddit from the google brain team (particularly the comments where the team talk about all the different backgrounds everyone has at google brain). The second is a list of programmes, fellowships, resources and random AI / ML related pages I've encountered in the last year (amongst a lot of other stuff ). The third is a playlist I made for a friend on interesting AI / ML videos which you most likely will have seen before but you might just enjoy anyway. The quick interviews are cool if you haven't seen them already.<p>Anyway - best of luck!<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/4w6tsv/ama_we_are_the_google_brain_team_wed_love_to/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=comment_header" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/4w6tsv/ama...</a><p><a href="http://sharedli.st/cvigoe40g9" rel="nofollow">http://sharedli.st/cvigoe40g9</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxB_QX9z7BFSc7VRmy5ztmFzthfr96bmC" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxB_QX9z7BFSc7VRmy5zt...</a> |
Ask HN: With such fast changes in technology, how do you update your skillset? | Here is how it's going for me. For background, over the last few months I've very quickly become adept in deep learning, being able to understand current research papers, read through textbooks, implement my own models with Tensorflow and other libraries, and train real models on remote servers (e.g. AWS). For reference, I have an engineering background but no formal schooling passed an undergraduate degree.<p>The situation: my early-stage startup is fundraising right now, which can be kind of a time sink. Lots of accelerator/grant/angel applications. There's a good chance we hit our seed round, but also a good chance I'm unemployed next quarter when/if runway runs out.<p>In either case, I decided that AI, specifically deep learning, would be incredibly important to my career. The startup will need the expertise in the future (so I'll have to understand how to hire people with it), and should I need to find another job in a few months, this is a pretty cool field to learn and I find the work enjoyable (previously was a data scientist but foused more on vanilla regression and convex methods).<p>Therefore since November I've portioned out 20 hrs/week to the startup focusing on its fundraising and BD needs, which leaves a whole lot of other hours for skills development. Here has been roughly my curriculum:<p>- Mathematics review, and basic neural networks. For this I went over multivariable calculus and lin alg, which I've always been fairly strong, by essentially trying to derive the backpropagation derivatives for simple vanilla neural networks. Then make sure I understand derivatives and matrix data organization for convolution, which is a key component of modern ML.
Sources: pencil and paper, and lots of Google to answer any of my questions.
Time: 1-2 weeks.<p>- CS231n online course: <a href="http://cs231n.stanford.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://cs231n.stanford.edu/</a>
Great summary of modern methods in deep learning, plus more foundational level stuff. I read through all the lecture content and made sure I could work through derivations, because for me at least this cements technical understanding. Some of them are sort of tedious, e.g. manual RNN backprop. Also this course has great and simple software examples, I read through the code to make sure I understood the numerical computation and data organization parts. I also ran a few software examples and played around with parameters for fun (and learning).
Time: 1 month.<p>- Reading research papers (and online lectures) on applications that interest me. For this phase, I found 10 initial research papers that interested me. The topics for myself included image classification (starting w/ classic 2012 Hinton paper), reinforcement learning, robotics applications, video prediction. This step was harder, can be like learning a new language. Not every paper is going to make sense at first. But go through enough of them and you'll build up familiarity.
Sources: can start by searching through reddit.com/r/machinelearning
Time: 2 weeks.<p>- Learning software frameworks. From the above step I came up with my own small sample problem related to stuff I read that I could test even on my weak laptop (remember, training these big networks requires big computing power). So in this step I started researching different frameworks, and settled on starting a small project with Keras.
Sources: google around for deep learning libraries, read up on them, see what you like, and most importantly, have a motivating sample problem that you wanna code up.
Time: 2 weeks.<p>- Harder problems, more software, more papers. This is where I'm at now, it's sort of like an iterative research loop where I 1) come up with new problems I want to solve, 2) learn more about the software I need to implement it, and 3) search more prior work to gain insights on how I can solve the harder problems. In particular, I've switched over to learning and using Tensorflow, and also learning how to use AWS for stronger computing. So I had to dust off some linux scripting and command line skills too. Like I said, this is fairly iterative and probably closer to "modern research" where learning from my (virtual) peers and experimentation and production are closely linked.
Time: from the last month to present.<p>Overall, in the last 3 months or so at about 30 hrs/week I've added an extremely powerful new skillset to my arsenal that I've been meaning to do for quite some time. I can understand 90% of all modern research in the field, and create useful software to solve data-driven problems. Completely for free as well, aside from the $0.81/hr I pay to AWS for training some networks overnight. This is the type of thing I'd have wanted from a Master's (or even PhD) program, but who wants to go back to school...<p>Hope this helps someone :) Remember, AI/ML is more approachable than most people think, you just need to start with a solid mathematics background. After that you'll be flying, the field is relatively quick to learn, especially if you like learning through doing. |
Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt? | I'm currently working on a project that hasn't died yet, but has gone through a lot of pain in the last couple years partly because of technical debt.<p>I ran the project for the first four years. It was my first large project and the first time I had run a team of any size. I made a few mistakes that might be worth learning from, but my mistakes weren't the only ones responsible for the debt.<p>The largest driver in the technical debt issue was the timelines. My boss was new to software development, and his expectations were not in line with reality. We frequently had to ship ad hoc features under tight deadlines to keep him happy. When I pushed back on the timelines he became unhappy. So we acquired debt in the form of 1) hastily designed sections of code that don't lend themselves to scalability or refactoring 2) a lot of small code smell issues that by themselves don't amount to much but in the aggregate form a kind of surface scum that makes future development and more importantly testing difficult and thus brittle.<p>The debt, and the accompanying bugs and delays it caused, eventually led to enough dissatisfaction that I was taken off the project (I am in a weird outside position now, sort of half on half off, supporting a tangent of the software but not working on the main branch or involved in architecture discussions, planning, or execution of the new replacement). A new manager was hired. We disagreed over strategy, so I was taken off the project.<p>He wanted to start over from scratch, which is what they are essentially doing now. The plan is to pattern the new solution off the old one by incorporating all the business rules (which they want me to document), but they have very different implementations in mind. They don't want to reuse existing libraries (some of which is driven by a lack of familiarity or understanding of those libraries, how they work, why they approached the problem the way they did).<p>They face some significant challenges:<p>1) their coding velocity is slow. more than 60% of the original team has left and been replaced, so a large part of the team hasn't been on the project for more than 2-3 months. this means that there is a significant dearth of institutional knowledge. i think a decent pace is good for development of software, but they aren't starting from scratch, and there's a lot of expectations to meet.<p>2) because of the dearth of institutional knowledge when they do start implementation, they are going to end up repeating many of the mistakes made by the old team. I have limited insight into what those are, but based on what exposure i do have, i can see planned missteps all ready.<p>3) my boss, the owner of the company, has learned some patience, but they've been at the rewrite for nearly 6 months and have little to show for it. in terms of feature parity with the old software, they are severely lacking. i don't expect he is going to be willing to wait another full year to get an app that does essentially what he already has only differently, even if that architecture is more flexible.<p>In all honesty, I hope they succeed. My boss is a good friend and this experience hasn't ruined that. I have and am dealing with some resentments, but I don't want him to fail. And because this project was my baby (so to speak) there is a part of me that wants it to live.<p>----------------------<p>In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure what I should have done differently. Had I ignored the requests for adhoc features, I likely wouldn't have made it as far as i did, because without those features he would have pulled the plug. The company grew at an exponential rate the first 2 to 3 years of that project, and part of what fueled that growth was the adhoc, fast turn around times of my dev team. We were incurring debt, but we were also making big gains.<p>If I was going to do this all over again here is what I would do:<p>1) I would push back more, in smaller increments, placing more emphasis on getting the details right before shipping.
2) I would push back more on requirement creep. My boss would frequently have these "great" ideas that he would insist we work on, which would get half done then discarded leaving the code base littered with dead ends that needed cleaning up later. Part of the debt we acquired stemmed from the fact that in order to keep a lot of those activities from impacting ongoing efforts, i built an architecture that was somewhat disjointed. the lots of little islands approach meant we had apps that were reinventing the wheel, taking different approaches, etc...
3) Place a greater emphasis on automated testing (fewer human testors, more test engineers).<p>The other aspect to this is the fact that when you are creating software to solve problems that don't currently have software solutions, you spend a fair amount of time going down trails that don't pan out. The R&D aspect left us with bit and pieces of code in the code base that were incomplete or incompatible, but that were relied upon by one app or another.<p>We lost time discovering that certain approaches didn't work.<p>I think thats it... I hope someone finds the story useful. |
What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn | I am just an engineer. I don't understand a lot of the terms and concepts necessary to understand the linked article. I tried going through the Wikipedia articles for the terms I was interested in but I don't think I can make sense of it all without a kind teacher to help me out. So here I am turning to you, HN, to be my teacher. Here are the questions I have. If one of you could answer just one question from this list, it would help me a lot. I am sure it would help other people like me.<p>While answering, please quote my entire question with the Q<number> so that people don't have to scroll up and down to correlate the answers with the question.<p>Q1. Quote from article: "Your options have a strike price and private companies generally have a 409A valuation to determine their fair market value. You owe tax on the difference between those two numbers multiplied by the number of options exercised." My question: What is strike price? If I have accumulated say $30K worth of options, but I can afford only $10K, can I buy only $10K worth of options while leaving the startup?<p>Q2. Quote from article: "Due to tax law, there is a ten year limit on the exercise term of ISO options from the day they're granted. Even if the shares aren't liquid by then, you either lose them or exercise them, with exercising them coming with all the caveats around cost and taxation listed above." My question: Say I get buy ISO options for 30000 options for $30K from a startup while I leave the startup in 2017. Say, that startup still remains private in 2027. What are my options? Am I going for a total loss of $30K? If the startup hasn't gone IPO, how can I possibly exercise my 30000 options in 2027? What does the article mean by "exercise them" in this case? Does "exercise" mean buy the 30000 options for $30K or does "exercise" mean selling the options for a possibly larger price after the startup goes IPO?<p>Q3. Quote from article: "Some companies now offer 10-year exercise window (after you quit) whereby your ISOs are automatically converted to NSOs after 90 days." My question: How is NSO different from ISO? When the article mentions that NSOs are "strictly better" does it mean that I don't have to pay a penny to buy the NSOs but they remain in my account for free?<p>Q4. Quote from article: "Employees want some kind of liquidation event so that they can extract some of the value they helped create" My question: What are the events that count as liquidation events?<p>Q5. Quote from article: "Even if you came into a company with good understanding of its cap table" My question: What is the cap table? Why do I need to know this number? Can you explain this with some examples?<p>Q6. Quote from article: "New shares can be issued at any time to dilute your position. In fact, it's common for dilution to occur during any round of fundraising." My question: How does additional funding dilute my position? If I bought 30000 ISO options at say $1 per option, and I can sell it one day for say $2 per option, I am still making money. Why does it matter if additional funding occurred between buying and selling?<p>Q7. Quote from article: "If the company sells for a more modest $250M, between taxes and the dilution that inevitably will have occurred, your 1% won't net you as much as you'd intuitively think. It will probably be on the same order as what you might have made from RSUs at a large public company, but with far far more risk involved." Can someone show some approximate calculation for this? This is what I see: 1% of $250M is $2.5M. Say I lose 30% in tax I am still left with 0.70 * $2.5M = $1.75M. Can one really earn $1.75M from RSUs? The RSUs I have got at large public companies are of the order of $10K to $50K only.<p>Q8: Quote from the article: "Tender Offers". Can someone elaborate this? Can a startup force me to return my options in exchange for tender offers? Or is it a choice I have to make, i.e. to keep the options or go with the tender offer?<p>Q9: Quote from the article: "How many outstanding shares are there? (This will allow you to calculate your ownership in the company.)" How? Can you provide an example to calculate my ownership? Can you also provide an example of what that ownership means for me, if the company is sold for say $200M? Can you also provide another example of what that ownership means for me, if the company goes public and the price of each stock option is $10 after it goes public?<p>Q10: Quote from article: "Have there been any secondary sales for shares by employees or founders? (Try it route out whether founders are taking money off the table when they raise money, and whether there has been a tender offer for employees.)" What does this mean? How does it affect me? |
Ask HN: Leaving my job to boostrap my projects. Advice? | I recently quit my job to start a startup, but this isn't my first go 'round. The first 8 years of my software development career I freelanced while I "bootstrapped my projects". I'll give you one guess as to how much money I made on my projects vs how much money I made contracting.<p>I took full-time work after it became clear my startup ambitions weren't panning out and suffered through that for 3 years. That was, however, enough time for a lot of very important lessons to solidify in my head. This time, I'm taking a far different approach, which is as follows<p>- put off coding for as long as possible. Every line of code you write before you validated that someone actually wants to use what you're writing is time (read: money) that you've thrown down the tube<p>- your big idea sucks by default, so don't come up with a big idea. Get as many meetings with as many people as you can (preferably decision makers) and ask them about the sources of pain within their organization. It won't take long to find a real opportunity.<p>- speaking of opportunities, be wary of anything that you're initially excited about solving. If you're excited about it, that means it's fun, and if it's a fun problem to solve, that means there are more people who are willing to solve it, which means it's less valuable to solve. Find problems that are painful and tedious to solve to guarantee your competition is minimal. After all, that's what people really pay other people money for - to avoid pain<p>- do the hard things first, which for engineers, is <i>talking to people</i>. The majority of your time should be spent learning about your potential customer. By the time you actually write a single line of code it should be painfully obvious exactly what needs to be built.<p>- Use old, proven tech. The biggest enemy you will contend with is your own desire to use shiny, cutting edge technologies. You want to use tools, languages, and techniques that have no "unknown unknowns". Use proven tech, but more importantly, use tech you're already comfortable with. You don't want to be finding and fixing bugs for other people's software on top of writing your own.<p>- If you don't trust yourself not to over-design, over-engineer, or in general turn your minimum viable product into a maximum viable product, pay someone else to write your code. Because you're not paying yourself when you write your own code, the tendency is to devalue the work, which leads to a higher likelihood that you will work on the fun but less important parts of the project first. If you're paying someone else real money to do it, you will make damn sure they only build an <i>actually</i> minimum viable solution to the problem you identified.<p>- Design comes last. There's such hyper emphasis on UX and design these days that it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's the most important part of solving someone's problem. If craigslist survived for as long as it has by using the native web ui toolkit, your product likely can too. "Does it solve the problem" comes way before "does it look good doing it". The only exception is if you're making a carbon clone of a software solution that has a proven market but severe problems with design and usability (e.g. IRC being cloned by the more usable and pretty Slack).<p>- B2B, not B2C (but it sounds like you already know this)<p>- Avoid empty room problems. If your solution's effectiveness relies on a critical mass of users you will likely run out of money and patience before you get there. Only try solving these types of problems if you're willing to stick with the community building aspect for a sufficiently long period of time or are independently wealthy to begin with.<p>- You can freelance to pay your bills, but avoid relying on it too much. There's no greater motivating factor for creating a product that people actually want to pay for than <i>actually needing them to pay for it in order for you to survive</i>. Deciding which modern framework to use, how you're going to scale to a billion users, or tweaking your designs to pixel perfection will suddenly seem a lot less important when your rent is coming due.<p>- Find a co-founder. I know you think you'll be fine going about this on your own, but Paul Graham is right; there's almost no better measure for success in a startup than the presence of a co-founder. Running a startup can be likened to willingly accepting a bout of temporary insanity because it requires you to believe in a reality that doesn't exist... yet. It's easier to prop up that reality when you have someone with you to reinforce it. The goal is to turn that insanity into sanity by making that fantasy into a reality. Momentum, morale, and faith in the unproven are the most important and hardest aspects of a startup to maintain (again, not the code). You're building a cult, so find your first adherent.<p>Good luck! |
Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background? | PM @ Canonical, I'm responsible for the Ubuntu Operating System.<p>Great thread! Your responses have taught me quite a bit about our industry!<p>My background:
* I earned a B.S. from Texas A&M University in Computer Engineering and Mathematics (2001).<p>* After an internship, I joined IBM's Linux Technology Center in Austin, Texas -- a key part of IBM's billion dollar bet on Linux, working mostly on security technologies (including eCryptfs, still co-maintaining), and eventually becoming an IBM Master Inventor creating 75 patents, which I mostly disavow, except for QWERsive (aka Swype) which I still love :-)<p>* I spent one of those years for IBM, staffed on site at Red Hat in Boston (2005), building bridges between IBM's strategic initiatives and Red Hat's Linux distribution. This was 100% travel, somewhat lonely work, "in the field", but extremely formative in understanding the integral relationship between "kickass open source engineering", and "meeting business objectives". I learned, "never turn down a combat mission". Field experience is super rewarding.<p>* After 7+ years at IBM, I joined Canonical in (February 2008), at the formation of the engineering team which created The Ubuntu Server. Canonical was less than 100 people at the time, and we didn't have health care insurance or a 401(k) plan. Everyone worked from home; it was a scary, fun, exciting, thrilling time, no doubt! Besides helping bring Ubuntu into the public and private cloud, I also got to create some really cool technology, like Ubuntu's Encrypted Home Directories, Byobu, and a handful of other open source utilities. The lesson here was how important it is to get useful code into the hands of as many people as possible and then iterate quickly!<p>* I resisted moving into an engineering management role for way too long, but eventually did, and loved it! I came to learn that managing software engineers is fundamentally an extension of hacking code all by yourself, except your colleagues are your functions and libraries and compiliers and monitors and IDEs and test suites and so on. It's amazing how much more a well run team can accomplish, than a single lone engineer.<p>* I left Canonical after 4 years in (November 2011) to become the CTO of a venture funded startup called Gazzang. Gazzang's key technology (encryption of big data for health care companies) was largely based on the eCryptfs encrypted filesystem and utilities that I had co-authored and co-maintained for several years. Let me tell you, that it's amazing when a hobby, or an open source project that you enjoy hacking on, presents job opportunities. The wonder of open source. Your github/launchpad/stackexchange is your resume. I designed and implemented a key manager for Gazzang, which was eventually acquired by Cloudera.<p>* And finally, that brings me to product management... In July of 2013, I re-joined Canonical, reporting directly to the head of product management, Canonical's own founder/owner/billioniare/afronaut-space-tourist, Mark Shuttleworth, who invited me back to Canonical to lead product and strategy around Ubuntu itself, and design how Ubuntu fits into the world of containers (Kubernetes, Docker, LXD), cloud (AWS, Google, Azure, OpenStack, baremetal) all the way to the world of connected devices and IoT.<p>Product Management, for me, sits in the cross-section of engineering, sales, and marketing. I'll describe, in my opinion, a Product Manager's must-have skills in this way:<p>* 8am, from your hotel room, join a conference call with a journalist, explaining the intracasies of a press release announcing a new product offering<p>* 9am, lead a video conference with your engineering developers, diving into a shared screen session command line environment, looking at code and design, sharing insight from your experience in the field<p>* 10am, mic up and take the stage to deliver a conference presentation (keynote, if you're lucky) where you live demo some crazy risky beta features that probably won't quite work perfectly, in which case you recover gracefully and confidently move on<p>* 11am, spend some time with really sharp people, after your talk, where you answer the really tough questions some people were polite enough not to assail you with on the keynote stage<p>* Noon, lunch with the bizdev director of a collaborator/competitor in your market, and negiotate a partnership that works for both of you, send your 3-key asks by email from your phone before the end of the meeting<p>* 1pm, help your sales VP in the big meeting she scheduled for you, with the CTO of a Fortune 500 company who literally wrote the book on Internet Security, and sell them your encryption product (true story)<p>* 2pm, interview a potential new-hire, this particularly critical in a startup -- A players hire A players, while B players hire C players<p>* 3pm, write a thoughtful blog post, with unique insight on a real problem, demonstrating both the "how" and "why" around a solution, in well-written English, with a catchy title and clean graphics (demos, examples, etc)<p>* 4pm, create a slide deck that your sales engineering team uses to sell the new product you briefed the journalist on earlier today (should have been done weeks ago, but hey....)<p>* 5pm, competitively analyze the competitor's product in your space, actually using their product (or browsing their code) and document your findings and share with your team<p>* Flight home, hack on some code from your ~/ideas/* directory, that you've noodling over all week. Critically, get it into some minimally working state, by the end of the flight, or else you'll never come back to it<p>Hope that helps.<p>Cheers!<p>@dustinkirkland |
Chrome will aggressively throttle background tabs | I would like to see Chrome utilize what I think is the right solution for loading background tabs; I would like it to let you (when you want to) rather than OPEN a background tab, only ENQUEUE a background tab -- opening it only when that tab becomes active, meanwhile keeping it in the status of an "enqueued" (i.e. barebones) tab with that URL in the tabs menu until you actually make it active or it becomes active the way any other tab would, at which point it loads - in other words a lighter kind of background tab that does not load at all until it becomes active.[1]<p>If this were implemented then finally I could open 120 tabs in a window for a detailed query (and they're not all loaded, there's zero overhead), then after 11 minutes of reading a few of those tabs, closing the ones I've read and having others load in their place if they weren't already loaded, be left with 87 unopened tabs with which I could close, since I've learned everything there is to know about that subject and I don't feel the need to read the rest anymore: I feel I've found the answer.<p>As it stands I can become an expert in any subject accessible in a day or two, in twenty minutes - unless, as sometimes happens, Chrome gets in my way. I can do it by opening them in background tabs today - but Chrome will both slow down and also be at high risk of crashing completely, not just in the window I'm in but all windows. Because at the moment even the 99th background tab, which I want to open so as to potentially glance at, actively, fully loads even if I close that window before I ever want to glance at it.<p>Along the same lines, I strongly feel there needs to be a way (not necessarily the default way) to open private (incognito) windows in a way that opens them privately <i>"Except for crashes"</i> -- meaning that these tabs remain open until <i>I</i> close it, by clicking the X button, not whenever Chrome crashes - which usually happens when it's done using all my memory.<p>If you fundamentally <i>disagree</i> that there is a distinction between the user actively exiting and you crashing unexpectedly, then you might as well change the Incognito greeting text to "Pages you view in incognito tabs won’t stick around in your browser’s history, cookie store, or search history after you’ve closed all of your incognito tabs <i>or Chrome crashes unexpectedly</i>".<p>But that doesn't make much sense. So please make the functionality match what was promised to the user, and keep pages open until the user has closed closed all incognito tabs. Not you.<p>I feel that these changes would improve people's experiences drastically. Chrome's developers surely care about their users and want to give them the best possible experience, and in addition this would get Google more clicks, more traffic, more ads from Google search results, by letting people open more pages with abandon on a lark, or on some thread they want to explore. By letting people keep more pages and searches open or queued for opening.<p>For the second point (about keeping incognito tabs on disk until they are actively closed with an X, at which point deleting them) - this also gives their users what they've just been promised. Whereas, at the moment in Incognito stuff just disappears whenever Chrome decides to crash -- which is often, given that at the moment it aggressively eats memory for any tab anyone might want to follow. This <i>substantially</i> increases the cost of exploring the web by opening background tabs. It makes people really weigh whether they want to open a background tab: it adds friction.<p>The web is about links. I hope Chrome will start letting people follow more of them and not lose their trail if they don't want to keep it in their history. This would be a positive change for all users, but, especially, the heaviest and most thorough users of the web, who load and visit the most pages. Now they could open even more in a browsing session, without having to think about whether they really want to risk opening another tab. (In terms of resources.)<p>For all of these reasons, I hope Google will implement enqueued tabs. Separately, at the user's option, I hope tabs status will be kept on disk until the last incognito tab is closed manually by the user (at which point it's scrubbed with random data), so that upon a crash it can be re-opened unless the user presses an X to <i>that</i> window. It would improve the experience of using the web for anyone who wanted it and not deprive users of the reading they worked hard to assemble for themselves. And it would increase the velocity with which users could explore the web.<p>Thank you.<p>--<p>[1] Functionality. Right-click a link, click "enqueue", this should be the same as "open in background tab" except the tab is really kind of like a placeholder, just consisting of a URL. It's not a full background tab that opens, gets its window name, etc - instead, it is not loaded until you actually make the tab active.<p>Right-clicking the tab bar should give you the option (in addition to normal options) "Close all enqueued tabs", leaving just tabs you've fully normally opened.<p>Example usage: say I'm searching for an article. I can start by doing some obvious Google searches in a few different tabs. I can go through the results and enqueue each one. Then I can go through the first (when it becomes the active tab, it is loaded) and enqueue any links that might lead to what I want. Then I close the now full-fledged tab when I'm done reading and following links, the next tab becomes active (which might have been an enqueued tab in which case it becomes loaded for the first time) and I can keep doing my search. Eventually I've found the page I'm looking for and can close all of the enqueued pages, or perhaps drag the tab into a new window (as you can today) and then close the old window - disappearing all the enqueued pages but also the normal, fully loaded tabs, per the normal behavior closing a window. (An enqueued tab is just a semi-loaded tab, just a URL that never loads until the tab becomes active. If its window or itself is closed in the way you usually close a tab - by right-clicking and clicking "close tab" or by middle-clicking on it, before it was ever the selected tab, then it simply wouldn't have even loaded a single time.)<p>This is exactly what I do today: except I have to be careful that Chrome doesn't crash while I do it, because it doesn't do it gracefully. I would like to manually specify whether I want the background tab to be actually loaded. |
Ask HN: Are engineers biased to over-engineer solutions? | It's a problem with a fractal shape. It's not really specific to microservices or SV big tech. To elaborate:<p>1. An individual software developer might bias towards feature delivery, performance optimizations, extension hooks, tests and static analysis, or some mix of those. A more experienced developer, all things equal, is more likely to strike an appropriate balance for the problem they're working on. A wrong balance might be overengineered because it took too long for the results. A wrong balance that is underengineered, on the other hand, might fail to deliver altogether by making critical-failure assumptions that go untested until it's too late.<p>2. A team of developers holds all the same biases as the individuals, only now they have to collaborate. This produces a team-internal political structure that enacts some compromise depending on management's goals. The compromise may not be good engineering, and it is likely to overdo things in at least some aspect. Managers often seek solutions that tame development and allow it to proceed at some predictable rate of change, or to report a metric of progress with person-hour linear scaling properties.<p>3. Multiple teams of developers across a larger organization also have to engage in political compromise, and at this scale, they are beholden to build and share substantial infrastructure, because management tends to act competitively, and infrastructure projects are politically useful.<p>4. Across different organizations, shared formats and common data interchange is desirable, and the chiefs of each organization have to satisfy their internal political structure while simultaneously coming to an agreement with the relevant standards groups. This causes the standards to bias towards a kitchen-sink featureset.<p>These various factors all contribute to the "enterprise" mindset, and unless you have a visionary of the Steve Jobs type at the helm, who will happily come down from the heavens to throw lightning bolts at hapless managers and force them into compromise for the good of the company, it's more likely to appear as your org gets bigger: In the default case, nobody is incentivized to take a risk on simplification or bold, radical changes. Incremental accretion of code looks good for everyone, and allows sub-par developers to blend into the background. The middle management fights localized battles over headcount and budget, and flashy projects that covertly create large engineering dependencies give them political leverage. When a new standards proposal comes up, everyone rushes to get their fingers in it. So the systems that get built, in the end, tend to express everything while doing almost nothing. Every one of these companies has layers of crushed dreams sitting in their repository.<p>Because Twitter is funded at the assumed ambition level of "become Google" or "become Facebook" their organization was staffed up in anticipation of achieving that scale. That inherently creates the kind of conflicts resulting in enterprisey code. The code reflects the organization, and the organization is big, so the code is big.<p>At the other end of the scale, where individual developers do whatever they want as they think of it, without business interest, none of these scale concerns arise. The code can be direct and to the point. Where it has to solve larger problems, it necessarily leverages the open-source ecosystem, creating a "bottom-up" pull where the developer is more likely to submit to the restrictions of the ecosystem and in turn extend that ecosystem outwards, than to attempt a bold infrastructure project; as such, off-the-shelf options, including cloud deployments, become more and more attractive as your organization gets smaller, and for solo developers, they approach "no-brainer". But, being based on self-absorbed whims, the code is much less likely to be of value to anyone else - it doesn't answer to clients, or future maintainers, or possibly even the original developer. It's less likely to have coherent design or documentation, even if the developer aims for their best try at quality, because there isn't any real conversation around it, any probing of biases or testing against the real world. A solo coder is most likely to be guilty of coding up a fantasy, which can be good if they happen to be making a game, but is less viable for a lot of other lines of software.<p>So the best results tend to have a pattern of: Small, experienced teams - more eyes on the design, appropriate challenge and dialogue about process and features, but nobody getting lost in the crowd or submerged in political maneuvers. Projects with some business interest, but relatively lower pressure from the top, so that feature accretion and testing is guided by well-defined business needs, not deadline pressure, bells-and-whistles, or whimsy. Management that can define a healthy lifecycle for the software and allow it some time to mature, but also be deprecated and incrementally replaced as the surrounding software ecosystem changes.<p>When projects fall outside of those boundaries, bad software - of the over or under-engineered sort, or the non-valuable sort, or the under-maintained sort - tends to get made. |
Why We Hear Voices in Random Noise | Hearing voices in sound (1 temporal + 1 pressure) reminds me of a random article I read a few days ago about finding patterns in images (2 spatial). I mention the dimensionality to just reflect that these are perhaps two instances of the same phenomenon:<p><a href="http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/995095" rel="nofollow">http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/995095</a><p>Also, here's a more casual/fun post I happened to read earlier today, coincidentally:<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3280816/What-photos-s-faces-suffer-facial-pareidolia.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3280816/What-photo...</a><p>> “I thought I was going crazy. When my air conditioner is on, I wake up and hear light conversations. I would go to the window to see if anyone was outside, or I would turn the air conditioner off [and] it would stop. Sometimes it sounds like a radio.”<p>I have been sleeping with a fan on for six years, to provide background noise so that any outdoor audial perturbations would not disturb me as much. When I have housemates, or I am visiting family, I will often be disturbed so much sometimes, that I will get up and silent my fan because I am very sure that a conversation or break-in is happening downstairs. Every time, I realize it was my imagination, followed by wondering if I am developing schizophrenia or if I am just a hypochondriac, and then I go back to sleep.<p>> “I would hear faint voices—whispering, conversing, singing, or chanting! It sounded like a crowded room, full of people at a party in a distant room somewhere in the building. After a while I came to enjoy the sound, as they seemed to be enjoying themselves at the ‘party,’ and it helped lull me to sleep at night.”<p>> If you hear a symphony in Manhattan traffic, thank your auditory pareidolia for relieving your stress<p>Sounds like the better part of a great LSD trip. Good to know I am not alone in experiencing pareidolia, I thought I was going crazy, too. I can't help but think the background fan is not perfectly consistent background noise. Jitter in the wires due to external forces would lead to variable rotation speed in the motor, which would lead to ups/downs in amplitude and pitch. Our ears are sensitive enough to capture these distortions, and our brains are powerful enough to amplify or attenuate our perception of these distortions. Even if our ears can't capture these perturbations, I would think that the mere innocent thought or knowledge (or, more ominously, paranoia or suspicion) of these distortions is enough to create such a perception by the brain.<p>Initial Reaction: If you form a vector of time-convolution of the output of the fan with respect to all of your internalized sounds (fragments, phonemes, words, etc.), over all of their possible phases (accents, volume, pitch, etc.), you could see which sounds the fan is most likely to resemble based on how big the corresponding matrix element is compared to the others. Even if the overlap is .01% with a certain sound, if the next leading overlap is 1,000 times smaller, I bet our brains would pick up on that relative difference. I know it does with visual field (e.g. optical illusions), and there is reason to believe that the brain has a grand unified learning algorithm for all data[0][1] (data is normalized as electromagnetic input anyways)<p>After reading this, that view is challenged:<p><a href="http://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/sws/swssentences/sentences.html#" rel="nofollow">http://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/sws/swssentences/senten...</a><p>Researchers at Haskins lab have gotten rid of the Fourier components in regular speech, in which case the inner products mentioned above would be zero, and the synthetic sound <i>should</i> be orthogonal to your internalized sounds. Nevertheless, I listened to some of this SWS, and could understand it with 90% accuracy. So, this is very strange. But does it make sense? If you apply a high frequency shift (e.g. gerbils effect) to some function, you can still understand the speech, even though it's effectively orthogonal to the original function. Reading more into the OP paper:<p>> “spill-over from parts of my auditory system that recognize the air conditioner, or the shower or the sound of the kettle, into areas of my nervous system that are responsible for processing speech and language.” He went on, “And that spillover doesn’t require similarity. It just requires some kind of shared activity.”<p>I am starting to like this theory, and reminds me of an earlier conversation on HN about corpus callosotomy not getting rid of spillover from other parts of the brain [2]. But that
"spillover" resulted in useful information transfer, whereas the quote here would suggest it is much more random. Also, it would suggest that the frequency might not be as important as dA_i(t)/dt, for all i, where A_i(t) is the amplitude for the ith frequency, like in Haskins lab.<p>> But much of our perception of the world also results from the interaction between what we might expect to happen in a given situation, given our beliefs, and the processing of incoming sensory information<p>This explains why I imagined the sounds as my family or friends talking or someone breaking-in.<p>> minds impose on random noise, influenced by our idiosyncratic beliefs and predispositions, can also be harmful<p>Yes, it is important to take action to ensure you are not going crazy. E.g. get up, turn off the fan, and listen: did the conversation/robbery stop? If it did, try it again tomorrow. After several times, one should realize that it is unlikely that the robberies and conversation are happening, and that it is more likely due to brain perception mechanics.<p>[0] <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-shows-brain-s-adaptability-112639" rel="nofollow">http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-study-shows-brain-s-a...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=rewire+optical+nerve+mice+rats+audial+vision" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503186" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503186</a> |
Ask HN: Is a master degree in CS worth it | Note: these thoughts are intuition based and are not refined. I'd need 20 hours at least to make a text like this refined.<p>I'm a CS master student in Amsterdam. I feel I have more similarity to you since you're also from Europe. The US system is nuts, I don't get it. My current debt is <i>gasps</i> 3000 euro's! If I finish my master degree it will be <i>looks in horror</i> 300 euro's! When someone from the US thinks about giving advice, please know that educational systems are different everywhere. So you need to disclaim where your experience is based upon. Mine is based upon the Dutch educational system, where the whole experience was (back then) funded by the government.<p>Furthermore, the idea of a university and also the idea of getting a master degree (in The Netherlands) have different cultural connontations. In The Netherlands it is kind of a given to do a master degree after a bachelor. No one knows why, but I feel that a lot of children were raised with the idea to "finish school," and most people feel that getting a master degree is what "finishing school" is like (there are exceptions of course).<p>Should you get a master degree? I'm going to give you a <i>very opinionated</i> answer. I'd be delighted if people countered me, because my story might be dangerous to take at face value, though less dangerous than having no or not enough information.<p>I'm a programmer teacher myself right now and one thing I've never realized is that you need to keep pace. Some students fall below the pace, others above it and to some it's the right pace. Chances are high that you're either above it or below it, since I can literally divide my students into 3 equal groups.<p>Furthermore, my Dutch curriculum gave me a many <i>many</i> obligatory courses during my bachelor. It gave me some freedom in my master. <i>This is bad.</i> Get as much freedom as possible. I've noticed that -- on average -- obligatory courses teach me less useful things. In some cases, I did need to learn certain basics that I didn't want to learn, but more often than not: I learned some academic arcane wizardry that I'm never going to use again (or at least, chances are a lot lower).<p>By the way, good obligatory courses are everything that's involved with how computers work. So distributed systems, computer systems and the like. Other good obligatory courses are theory of computation, algorithms, etc. You're not necessarily going to use that knowledge but they teach you a certain way of thinking.<p>Bad obligatory courses: anything that has to do with ontologies (as an optional course it's great, as an obligatory course, not so much), research on Multimedia Systems (too in-depth), software engineering courses (if they don't have a practical/pragmatic basis and emphasis), basically anything that focuses too much on science and research. They're all great as optional courses, but having them as obligatory courses, no. Also, obligatory courses that only show powerpoint slides and academic research paper assignments are a no go. Even as optional courses I'd be wary to take these (from a pragmatic computer science standpoint, go ahead if you want to be more broadly educated).<p>The next thing that is really important is the student body. You want to be in a student body that suits your goals. If you want to overachieve during your studies, you need to go to a university of overachievers. If you just want to go solo at it, you need a university that's not getting in your way when you do that.<p>These 3 things:<p>- pace<p>- ratio of obligatory courses and optional ones<p>- the type of students that are here<p>Are all metrics to answer one single question: to what extent does this study program fit your learning goals and your learning style?<p>Anything below 80%, don't do it. Everything between 80% to 85%, meh. You'd want at least a 90% fit or higher to consider it to be worth it. Remember, if you have an 80% fit, that means that you'll most likely waste at least 20% of your time on university, time that you could otherwise spend on self-study and creating an amazing portfolio. Also, when the fit is 90%, then you'll most likely at least waste 10% of your time there, which is twice as less compared to at least 20%.<p>If I could do the uni thing again, I'd aim for a 95%, personally. Otherwise, I'd do self-study. Why? Well, self-study means that I need to create an eco-system for myself (support group, learning the right material, having <i>discipline</i>). When that eco-system is up and running it's very hard for any university to beat that. You know better what you need than any university program out there for most cases.<p>That's one thing I want to leave you with (another realization since I began to teach): there's no perfect university program for you. It's impossible, since it needs to cater to different needs for different students. I'm noticing I cater to the lowest performing students, otherwise they won't get anything out of the programming bootcamp I provide. This bores the better students. My 'duck-tape-style' solution is to give them a codeschool account (like fixing with duck tape, it works but.... yea I think you see how this is a quick fix). So by nature, study programs have to compromise. The only thing that could be a perfect fit is when you design your own curriculum.<p>The advantages of a 95% fit with a university program is in the synergy it provides. For a slightly lower learning rate you get:<p>1. contacts<p>2. experts who you can bother with questions<p>3. various incentives to study<p>4. a proof that you know this stuff (your degree)<p>5. a broader view<p>All these advantages elude to the point of: you don't have to setup your own eco-system (remember that discipline thing? Or finding outside help? It's pretty hard for most). If you're really good at doing that, then I'd say university is not going to help you. Consider the advantages of setting up your own ecosystem:
1. you have contacts with more work-experience
2. you know experts in more specific/niche fields
3. clients will give you a strong reason to know more
4. your portfolio is your proof
5. you'll have a more real-world view<p>The advantage of uni: you don't need to set it up. Most of it is already there. The advantage of doing it yourself: more tailor-made, more real-world experience.<p>To wrap this up, you need to ask yourself the question: what educational system (uni, work experience, self study or otherwise) will give me the most alignment to my learning style and learning goals? How do you progress the fastest, and can you have some sort of showcase (i.e. degree or portfolio or blog -- like Scott Young with his MIT challenge) of that progress?<p>Goodluck<p>Disclaimer: I finished psychology (bachelor + honours courses), business informatics (bachelor) and information science (master). I'm working as a teacher for a programming bootcamp nowadays and am in the final phase of doing computer science. I also didn't finish some studies, I dropped out of business school, twice (don't do business school, it's only powerpoints and some writing but nothing pragmatic). I'm recently beginning to learn how well I stack up to self-learned individuals and the answer is: about the same (since HN keeps me up to date with the real world). |
How to Unlock Netflix Hidden Categories | Quote because link is broken:<p><pre><code> To access any hidden category you need to log in to your Netflix account
and click on browse then click on any existing category it shows. You
will see the URL on your browser “http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/1365″
if you clicked on “Action & Adventure.” The last number “1365” is the
actual category, in this case being “Action & Adventure.” To view a
hidden category simply replace the number with any from the list below.
I won’t be listing the entire 76,000 category list (for obvious reasons)
but here are the more popular categories:
Action & Adventure: 1365
Action Comedies: 43040
Action Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1568
Action Thrillers: 43048
Adult Animation: 11881
Adventures: 7442
African Movies: 3761
Alien Sci-Fi: 3327
Animal Tales: 5507
Anime: 7424
Anime Action: 2653
Anime Comedies: 9302
Anime Dramas: 452
Anime Fantasy: 11146
Anime Features: 3063
Anime Horror: 10695
Anime Sci-Fi: 2729
Anime Series: 6721
Art House Movies: 29764
Asian Action Movies: 77232
Australian Movies: 5230
B-Horror Movies: 8195
Baseball Movies: 12339
Basketball Movies: 12762
Belgian Movies: 262
Biographical Documentaries: 3652
Biographical Dramas: 3179
Boxing Movies: 12443
British Movies: 10757
British TV Shows: 52117
Campy Movies: 1252
Children & Family Movies: 783
Chinese Movies: 3960
Classic Action & Adventure: 46576
Classic Comedies: 31694
Classic Dramas: 29809
Classic Foreign Movies: 32473
Classic Movies: 31574
Classic Musicals: 32392
Classic Romantic Movies: 31273
Classic Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 47147
Classic Thrillers: 46588
Classic TV Shows: 46553
Classic War Movies: 48744
Classic Westerns: 47465
Comedies: 6548
Comic Book and Superhero Movies: 10118
Country & Western/Folk: 1105
Courtroom Dramas: 2748
Creature Features: 6895
Crime Action & Adventure: 9584
Crime Documentaries: 9875
Crime Dramas: 6889
Crime Thrillers: 10499
Crime TV Shows: 26146
Cult Comedies: 9434
Cult Horror Movies: 10944
Cult Movies: 7627
Cult Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 4734
Cult TV Shows: 74652
Dark Comedies: 869
Deep Sea Horror Movies: 45028
Disney: 67673
Disney Musicals: 59433
Documentaries: 6839
Dramas: 5763
Dramas based on Books: 4961
Dramas based on real life: 3653
Dutch Movies: 10606
Eastern European Movies: 5254
Education for Kids: 10659
Epics: 52858
Experimental Movies: 11079
Faith & Spirituality: 26835
Faith & Spirituality Movies: 52804
Family Features: 51056
Fantasy Movies: 9744
Film Noir: 7687
Food & Travel TV: 72436
Football Movies: 12803
Foreign Action & Adventure: 11828
Foreign Comedies: 4426
Foreign Documentaries: 5161
Foreign Dramas: 2150
Foreign Gay & Lesbian Movies: 8243
Foreign Horror Movies: 8654
Foreign Movies: 7462
Foreign Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 6485
Foreign Thrillers: 10306
French Movies: 58807
Gangster Movies: 31851
Gay & Lesbian Dramas: 500
German Movies: 58886
Greek Movies: 61115
Historical Documentaries: 5349
Horror Comedy: 89585
Horror Movies: 8711
Independent Action & Adventure: 11804
Independent Comedies: 4195
Independent Dramas: 384
Independent Movies: 7077
Independent Thrillers: 3269
Indian Movies: 10463
Irish Movies: 58750
Italian Movies: 8221
Japanese Movies: 10398
Jazz & Easy Listening: 10271
Kids Faith & Spirituality: 751423
Kids Music: 52843
Kids’ TV: 27346
Korean Movies: 5685
Korean TV Shows: 67879
Late Night Comedies: 1402
Latin American Movies: 1613
Latin Music: 10741
Martial Arts Movies: 8985
Martial Arts, Boxing & Wrestling: 6695
Middle Eastern Movies: 5875
Military Action & Adventure: 2125
Military Documentaries: 4006
Military Dramas: 11
Military TV Shows: 25804
Miniseries: 4814
Mockumentaries: 26
Monster Movies: 947
Movies based on children’s books: 10056
Movies for ages 0 to 2: 6796
Movies for ages 2 to 4: 6218
Movies for ages 5 to 7: 5455
Movies for ages 8 to 10: 561
Movies for ages 11 to 12: 6962
Music & Concert Documentaries: 90361
Music: 1701
Musicals: 13335
Mysteries: 9994
New Zealand Movies: 63782
Period Pieces: 12123
Political Comedies: 2700
Political Documentaries: 7018
Political Dramas: 6616
Political Thrillers: 10504
Psychological Thrillers: 5505
Quirky Romance: 36103
Reality TV: 9833
Religious Documentaries: 10005
Rock & Pop Concerts: 3278
Romantic Comedies: 5475
Romantic Dramas: 1255
Romantic Favorites: 502675
Romantic Foreign Movies: 7153
Romantic Independent Movies: 9916
Romantic Movies: 8883
Russian: 11567
Satanic Stories: 6998
Satires: 4922
Scandinavian Movies: 9292
Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1492
Sci-Fi Adventure: 6926
Sci-Fi Dramas: 3916
Sci-Fi Horror Movies: 1694
Sci-Fi Thrillers: 11014
Science & Nature Documentaries: 2595
Science & Nature TV: 52780
Screwball Comedies: 9702
Showbiz Dramas: 5012
Showbiz Musicals: 13573
Silent Movies: 53310
Slapstick Comedies: 10256
Slasher and Serial Killer Movies: 8646
Soccer Movies: 12549
Social & Cultural Documentaries: 3675
Social Issue Dramas: 3947
Southeast Asian Movies: 9196
Spanish Movies: 58741
Spiritual Documentaries: 2760
Sports & Fitness: 9327
Sports Comedies: 5286
Sports Documentaries: 180
Sports Dramas: 7243
Sports Movies: 4370
Spy Action & Adventure: 10702
Spy Thrillers: 9147
Stage Musicals: 55774
Stand-up Comedy: 11559
Steamy Romantic Movies: 35800
Steamy Thrillers: 972
Supernatural Horror Movies: 42023
Supernatural Thrillers: 11140
Tearjerkers: 6384
Teen Comedies: 3519
Teen Dramas: 9299
Teen Screams: 52147
Teen TV Shows: 60951
Thrillers: 8933
Travel & Adventure Documentaries: 1159
TV Action & Adventure: 10673
TV Cartoons: 11177
TV Comedies: 10375
TV Documentaries: 10105
TV Dramas: 11714
TV Horror: 83059
TV Mysteries: 4366
TV Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1372
TV Shows: 83
Urban & Dance Concerts: 9472
Vampire Horror Movies: 75804
Werewolf Horror Movies: 75930
Westerns: 7700
World Music Concerts: 2856
Zombie Horror Movies: 75405</code></pre> |
Make America Hate Again | We are having the wrong discussions. I hoped this community could be a place to have the better ones.<p>First, I didn't vote for Tump, and am not a fan. I also am not a fan of Clinton.<p>The brief versions of the points are as follows.<p>- The executive branch has aggregated too much power, and not enough people are talking about the amount of chaos one person can do to the country.<p>- Trump has gone to war with the media, and the media is fighting back by making everything "the worst thing ever". This is going to lead to crisis fatigue.<p>- The country, a significant portion of it, has wanted to break up the calcification that has formed in our government. Due to the machinations of our two party system, Trump was the only option to vote for that on election day.<p>Longer Form:<p>There has been a conversation in this country that the government has ceased listening to, or being concerned with the population at large. There was a study that hit the front page here at least once. There is also a feeling in a significant portion of the population that the country is going the wrong direction.<p>The duopoly that has strangled our elections needs to be broken up. Both parties have ways to try and nudge certain types of candidates through their primaries. Not for conspiratorial reasons, but to try and have the best chance to win the elections. In both parties there were dark horse candidates that broke through, gathering their strength from disenfranchised people who wanted something other than the status quo. If Sanders was president, the right would be losing their minds as bad or worse than the left is. They accused President Obama of being a socialist who wanted to make America the next "insert country that tried socialism and wound up with an autocrat". Sanders is a self proclaimed Democratic Socialist with the outspoken goal of pushing the country to the left.<p>Two parties cannot represent the spectrum of beliefs and preferences that exist within the country, and the things that the two parties agree on (spying, war, trade, giving a pass to wall street) has made the majority of the country feel that they have lost their voice.<p>On election day there were only two choices to pick from. The status quo, and Donald Trump. I know a lot of people who didn't like trump, but voted for him anyway. Trump was a rock they could throw at the government.<p>The best thing I can hope for from the Trump Presidency is that the republican party splits, and the Democrats follow suit.<p>Trump believes in bullying his way through things, and holding nothing back. He's going to use every power that congress has ceded to the executive office to get his way.
Trump is the first president in my lifetime who is systematically going through his campaign promises, and doing what he can to force them to fruition.<p>The executive office has far too much power, and needs to be brought into check. We are supposed to have 3 branches of government with checks and balances. The branch that's supposed to pass the laws has two house so that the people's representative's have the most power, as well as an internal check system.<p>Congress gave the executive office the ability to spy on Americans, if those Americans were communicating with foreign targets of interest.<p>President Bush signed an order making it okay to spy on all Americans. The excuse was it wasn't being looked at, or used for domestic issues.<p>President Obama signed in order allowing that data collected without cause or warrant to be passed to all of the other domestic agencies (FBI, DEA, IRS, etc.)<p>This is far too much power for a single person to have. These types of laws need to be discussed and voted upon by our representatives before being put into action. The president is not a King, his word is not law.<p>My opinion is that the media has a bone to pick with Trump, and is highlighting everything he does in the extreme negative. If a democrat had won the media leaning right would be doing the same. We no longer get any context with the our news. We get headlines and highlights, but never any backing information on how things got to that point. The media has been reduced to supporting one side or the other and as a result there is no longer any room to say "I was wrong", "They other side has a good idea", "Let's here the facts and opinions of experts and debate the issue".<p>My concern is our country is too entrenched in the us vs them mentality that the duopoly has caused. We will not be able to make adjustments to fix the issue and our nation will barrel into the same wall that so many nations throughout history have crashed into.<p>How can we break up the political parties to allow for more options during an election?<p>How can rein in the overreaching powers of the executive office?<p>How can we drive more intellectual debate that provides some context on the current issues into the news organizations?<p>Thanks for reading |
Read the Trump administration's draft of the executive order on cybersecurity | Some thoughts, sorry for the long quotes. Start with the second-to-last quote for what I personally find to be the most worrying.<p><pre><code> As a result of these changes, cyberSpace has emerged
as a new domain of engagement, comparable in
signi?cance to land, sea, air, and space, and its
signi?cance will increase in the years ahead.
</code></pre>
This raises the possibility of hacking being treated as an act of war, and the resulting actions. I'm not sure if that's the current status quo – I know there was discussion about it a few months ago.<p><pre><code> The term ?critical infrastructure? means
systems and assets, whether physical or virtual,
so vital to the United States that the incapacity
or destruction of such systems would have a
debilitating impact on security, national economic
security, national public health or safety, or
any combination of those matters.
</code></pre>
This does notably seem to exclude anything related to elections.<p><pre><code> The term ?national security system? means any
telecommunications or information system
Operated by the Federal Government or any contractor
on its behalf, the function, operation, or use of which:
[...]
is critical to the direct fulfillment of military or intelligence
missions (but does not include a system used for routine
administrative and business applications, including payroll, finance,
logistics, and personnel management applications).
</code></pre>
This seems to go out of its way to exclude "personnel management applications", which is curious considering exactly such a system was at center of the second-largest hacking scandal involving the government last year.<p><pre><code> Review Participants. The Secretary of Defense
shall co?chair the Vulnerabilities Review with
the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of
National Intelligence, the Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, and the
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism.
</code></pre>
The last three are Dan Coats, Michael Flynn, and Tom Bossert, respectively. It's a bit heavy on the military brass and leans towards the political side to the exclusion of anybody with technical credentials (I'd think someone from the NSA or even the private sector could possibly be useful). But I've always been critical when, for example, judges have been accused to be inadequate to adjudicate technical issue – smart people can and will get the information they need to make right decisions. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt.<p>Possibly relevant: it's two cabinet members vs three people reporting directly to the president. I don't know if these committees ever vote on anything, but that could be intentional to allow the President to keep full control over the direction of the investigation (Cabinet Secretaries being traditionally more independent than anyone in the West Wing)<p><pre><code> [..]the Secretary of Defense and Secretary
of Homeland Security shall
also gather and review information from the
Department of Education regarding computer
science, mathematics, and cyber security
education from primary through higher education
to understand the ?ll] scope of US. efforts to
educate and train the workforce of the future. Th
Secretary of Defense shall make recommendations
as he sees ?t in order to best position the US.
educational system to maintain its competitive
advantage into the future.
</code></pre>
I feel a bit uneasy about Secretary of Defense being authorized to change the primary school curriculum, especially considering the basically limitless scope of "maintain[ing] its competitive advantage into the future". It sounds like they want more math in school. But what if he concludes that the US has plenty of hackers, but they're just not patriotic enough and rather work for Apple (which is actually somewhat true)?<p><pre><code> [A review shall find ways to incentivice
private enterprises to] invest in cyber
enterprise risk management tools and services; and
adopt best practices with respect to processes and
technologies necessary for the increased
sharing of and response to real-time
cyber threat information.
</code></pre>
This is once again pretty broad, but I thought it warrants inclusion because any sharing of data collected by private entities with government agencies has the potential to violate individuals' privacy.<p>Overall this isn't really specific enough to scare me, yet. The bit about education is what most effectively raises my blood pressure, while the focus on military systems at the exclusion of anything election-related is somewhat curious. |
An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster | I joined Gigster mid-November 2016 and had similar concerns as the OP regarding specific clauses of the contract. This is definitely a tough situation for a developer going through onboarding-personally I wanted the first impression I left to be that I'm a "team player," as opposed to starting a legal battle on day one.<p>Unfortunately, these interactions always seem to favor companies over individuals. People in general don't enjoy bickering over legalese so individuals don't want to ruffle feathers by pushing back, while company employees are able to take cover under the umbrella that they're just following policy. Truthfully though, it is most often companies-not prospective employees-that initiate legal discussions by presenting contracts and individuals should feel justified in verbalizing any concerns they have. I think this is possible while still remaining professional and courteous.<p>The first thing I did was look to Google to see if any other developers in the past had similar concerns as me, which brought me to this Quora post - <a href="https://www.quora.com/Is-the-contract-for-Gigster-reasonable-for-the-developer" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Is-the-contract-for-Gigster-reasonable...</a> Richard's response was helpful and thorough (if you're reading this, thank you!) and although he had additional issues with the contract, my main concern was with sections 2.1 and 2.2 (assignment of IP to Gigster for work not specific to the customer and the exemption of pre-existing IP from being assigned to Gigster including only that which is explicitly outlined, respectively).<p>I actually discussed the contract language with my family and got some good advice from both my father and brother. They agreed I was within my right to voice my concerns so long as I did it in a productive way. For example, instead of presenting problems by just stating language I didn't like they told me it would be better to provide solutions in my response by offering amendments that I would feel comfortable with.<p>To this point I had interacted with three individuals: 1. The person who had reached out to me about joining Gigster 2. The individual that emailed me the DocuSign link containing the contract and 3. The individual that sent me a (possibly automated) response after my application was submitted to their website. Let's call these individuals Peter, Paul, & Mary.<p>I emailed my concerns to Paul and Mary, not knowing which would be better to handle this sort of thing. I received word back from Mary saying that Paul was more familiar with the contract so she'd let him handle it. After two days I received an email from Peter asking for an update on my onboarding process. I explained that I had emailed Paul about the contract and hadn't received word back but that I'd ping him again. Peter told me he would also follow up through other channels. I never did get a response from Paul personally, but after another two days I received word from Peter that he had spoken with Paul and the Gigster legal team and was wondering if I could hop on the phone.<p>Peter was very open to my concerns and explained the reasoning behind the contract language. I said that I understood, but that admittedly I still took issue with it. Peter seemed to understand and honestly that was pretty much that. He offered to share a Google Doc with me so I could highlight/tweak language I was uncomfortable with and afterwards the contract was promptly signed by both parties.<p>I also reached out internally to Peter, Paul, and Mary over slack before making this post so they could have a heads up. Paul explained to me that he was not really involved with the Gigster contract or its hiring policies, just that his role involved setting up the onboarding tools and this automatically attached his email to a lot of the communications; which would explain the lack of responses I saw. Paul told me he was “neither encouraging nor discouraging [me] from posting,” but Peter and Mary responded in support of me posting my experience to HN, which I thought was pretty cool.<p>For future reference here is a portion of my email to Gigster containing the changes I requested, which were accommodated:<p>I am a little uncomfortable with some of the language in sections 2.1 & 2.2 and was hoping we could revise:<p>a. Section 2.1 assigns ownership to Gigster not only of all Deliverables, which makes total sense, but also of all source code "including but not limited to source code developed or created by Contractor that is not specific to Customer and is generally applicable to other Customer projects and deliverables ("Community Code")." This language seems quite broad and what constitutes "Community Code" seems a bit difficult to define; I'd prefer to remove the last part of this sentence so the section instead reads "...or any Confidential Information (as defined below) (collectively, “Inventions”). Contractor hereby makes all.."<p>b. Section 2.2 exempts any of my pre-existing IP from being assigned ownership to Gigster, but then seems to require all such pre-existing IP be disclosed in writing. This seems difficult and probably unnecessary so I'd like to remove "in each case ((a) and (b)) that are expressly set forth in writing to Gigster prior to delivery of the Deliverables to Gigster." and just end the sentence after "any intellectual property rights therein." |
Ask HN: We've all been there, what was your big stuff up? | Got another long story. This one wasn't me personally, but affected the team I was in at the time. The responsible party has moved on (left for another company).<p>Background: I work for a company making business expense software - yes, it really is as dull as it sounds. I used ot be a SQL dev, now a DevOps engineer. At the time, I was still a dev. Our software does all manner of expense tracking, including requests and procurement. As a result, the customer's individual site is usually seeded with a dump of their HR data. The team I worked for managed the importers to deal with all sorts of weird home-grown HR files.<p>One thing the company did right was building a very powerful generic import engine - for something built in-house, it's very flexible, easy to use and works with just about every format I've ever seen. We'd define the rules for transforming the data to our systems and let the import engine chew through it. Obviously this sort of thing lends itself to automation, and we built exactly that. The system defined clients, file drop locations and the import rules to use, then would check regularly for any files to import.<p>One of our clients spotted a bug with their HR importer, so that got switched off in the config table while we worked through it, but the client continued to send us regular HR dumps via SFTP. Not a problem.<p>Fast forward a couple of weeks. We have a new starter who's being trained on the stuff our team manages. The person doing the training, himself the previous most recent joiner to the team (something of a tradition, and hasn't resulted in too much Chinese Whispers) demonstrated the automation engine by creating a new job. In doing so, he manages to commit the dreaded forgotten-WHERE-clause boner. He accidentally switches every single automation job ON.<p>By coincidence, the aforementioned client is alphabetically at the top of the list. And the bug with their importer is unfixed. Nonetheless, the importer starts up, spots 2 weeks' worth of HR dumps for this client, and gets to work.<p>6 hours later, I spot that clients further down the alphabet haven't had their automated runs start. At the time, the import engine ran single-threaded; I'd complained about it as inefficient, but it's probably this fact that let us realise what was going on. These are big HR dump files, so the importer is taking upwards of an hour per file to process them, but it's not moved past this job. We as a team piece together what's going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately, the client had been using the site at the time, and had run through some very large/expensive procurements, of which we as a company take a cut (our business model).<p>The bug in the HR importer? It was incorrectly closing people's accounts and trashing their records. So while the client has been merrily been ordering expensive stuff on an unaffected account, the importer was inadvertently corrupting the rest.<p>Now, we do have very thorough backups in progress - daily full backups and 15-minute incrementals for production. And they work. Unfortunately, this is where the CTO stepped in. Rather than just roll back the site to the point six hours ago before the import ran, he directed that we fix the HR data instead. The reasoning being, the requests linked out to third parties and couldn't be copied - new requests would have to be made, stopping us replaying the valid data in those 6 hours. Personally I don't know how accurate these claims are, as I wasn't directly involved in what happened next, but the net result was that the guy who committed the booboo, another of my colleagues and my immediate boss were given orders to fix the HR data, writing scripts by hand.<p>It took 3 developers one and a half days to write the scripts to massage the HR data back together. I have to wonder if our cut of this client's bill actually exceeds the daily cost of 3 devs. And there was much frustration along the way, when they started using an internal-only dev site to test the scripts on, only for one of the support personnel to unknowingly overwrite it while troubleshooting an unrelated issue and nuking all their work for half a day. It was a total farce, done purely to save face with the client. Rather than rolling back to a known-good state, we spent a lot of time and effort trying to take a known-bad state back to a might-be-good one. Idiocy.<p>And of course as a result I have to sit through meetings where my boss describes how we can't let developers have direct access to tables in case this happens again, so there's now a suite of stored procedures managing all the config and triggers on the table to stop any other queries. There were no repurcussions for the guy who made the mistake because it was a genuine mistake, but strikes me as a typical knee-jerk overreaction.<p>It did affect me indirectly, because for that day and a half, I was the only one able to work tickets!! |
We don't need Google | I just finished most of this transition for my own purposes, with the main difference that I decided to self-host most of the services I was previously using Google for. Some highlights:<p>* Android: if you really want to divest yourself from Google, Android is going to be a showstopper for any but the most committed people. I'm running LineageOS (nee CyanogenMod) without gapps, using microG as a collection of play services API replacements. While that keeps me from adding a google account to the phone (which is the main thing I'm trying to avoid), I still end up needing something like Yalp Store (available from F-Droid) to download and update Play Store apps, because there are a few I actually can't get by without a huge level of inconvenience. I did all this because I enjoyed the challenge of it; for normal people who aren't intrinsically motivated by this stuff, I suggest buying an iPhone and saving yourself the headache. Seriously.<p>* Email was the easiest thing to move, and the hardest to get right. I remember when I originally moved my email to Gmail, and noted a marked increase in spam; the same thing happened when I moved off of Gmail last month. A combination of postfix, dovecot, spamassassin, and a lot of tweaking has me mostly back to the point where I was when I was with Google. I've been using Rainloop for a use-anywhere web UI, although I've used Roundcube in the past and was pretty happy with it. On mobile, I'm actually using k9mail, despite how dated it is, because it actually gets IMAP right; both the stock "Email" app and Gmail had sporadic issues with IMAP that I got tired of dealing with.<p>* Meanwhile, calendaring was the messiest part of the move, mostly because CalDAV is a bit of a mess, and both client and server implementations leave a lot to be desired. I ended up using sabre/dav on the backend because I could tweak and extend it quite a but to do what I need, and because it had baked-in support for CalDAV scheduling, which is something I can't really live without. I'm using DAVdroid on Android for both calendar and contact sync, which is great <i>except</i> for scheduling, which I can't really use. (A combination of what looks to be some misbehavior in davdroid, and android limitations in the calendar API.)<p>* More calendaring: are you used to having your calendar invites just magically show up in your calendar? Yeah, that's probably not going to work anymore. I'm been writing an itip milter that scans for text/calendar mime parts in incoming email and shoves them in an appropriate caldav store, but it's going to be pretty hacky even if I finish it. ;) If you're looking for better integration here, look at something like Zimbra; it's a huge pain in the ass to run, and it's resource-heavy, but when it's running well it's amazingly polished from the end user's perspective. Or give FastMail some money, because they've been doing this for a long time, and do it really well.<p>* Docs, photos, file syncing in general: There's a bunch of options here. I almost ended running an instance of NextCloud (nee OwnCloud) for this, because it would cover a few different use cases (document storage, photos, calendaring, contacts, etc), but settled on Syncthing as a general file synchronization tool. I'm hosting a cloud instance that my laptop, mobile devices, etc. can all talk to, as well as an instance on a machine at home, giving me pretty good coverage for on-demand backups. I try to avoid working in heavyweight document formats for personal stuff (markdown and a text editor works for my use case most of the time); for things I have to share or where I need more powerful tools, LibreOffice. I don't have a good photo management solution right now beyond "directory full of photos synced from my phone and camera".<p>* Books: I had bought a bunch of books on the Play Store. This was a painful lesson in how bad the state of DRM in ebooks is, especially if you don't have a Windows machine lying around. I ended up having to install Adobe Digital Editions under Wine, then used a Calibre plugin to automatically convert DRM'd ebooks via ADE when I have it import them. I share the Calibre collection to my tablet via syncthing, so changes, read positions, etc. sync nicely. (I don't mean to pick on Google on this one; the DRM issue seems to be a mess with every bookseller right now.)<p>* Music: Exported my music using Music Manager, sync with Syncthing, and access streaming music with Spotify. Done, easy.<p>* Maps: I use Google Maps, logged out (it's one of the few Google apps that continues to function properly even without a Google account on the device). OsmAnd~ is a great idea, and I use it as a fallback when I'm outside of cell coverage, but I find it almost impossible to use in a day-to-day context (if you have it open gmaps links/intents, it almost never figures out the address I'm looking for, and I've had terrible luck relying on it for navigation). Note that without logging in, you cannot save Google Maps data offline, because apparently gmaps engineers are a little bit spiteful.<p>* Search: I've defaulted to DuckDuckGo for years. Yes, sometimes I hit "!g" to search Google, but I don't default to them, and haven't for a long time. Also, shock of shocks, bing is getting pretty good.<p>* Android Pay: I opted out. I have credit and debit cards, and I have cash. Some people might find this to be a deal breaker, I find it hasn't changed my life in any significant way.<p>* Browsing: Firefox. Not really a change for me.<p>There's a bunch of smaller one-off services that I've used over time, but those are the big ones from a personal perspective. For some folks, a large chunk of these can be handled by running an instance of NextCloud, and you'll get a polished, fairly integrated experience for the parts they can cover.<p>At some point, I should probably write this up with more details about the tradeoffs I made with each piece. |
Why Don't We Have a General-Purpose Tree Editor? (2014) | Because the use case of "edit all graphs" is too divergent to be solved by one program.<p>For simplicity, let me start with just trees. What kind of trees have we got?<p>Well, we've got programming language ASTs. In these trees, nodes tend to have only two or three children, each of which is probably a short word or a number, but they can easily extend hundreds of levels deep, or even thousands. (Before you disagree with this, go take a look at the dump of the AST of a modestly complicated Python function or something. Many programming language grammars are not optimized for this representation and end up with <i>way</i> more intermediate grammar nodes than you'd expect, which all seem like they'd be really easy to "just" collapse, but that causes its own problems.) The naive and obvious representations of all of this are difficult to navigate and consume the vast majority of the screen with whitespace. It rapidly becomes clear you need a specialized mechanism for dealing with this... then after a few iterations, if you do it right, you discover that you've reinvented... the original textual representation.<p>(This is not proof that textual representation is optimal in general. You can correctly argue that you end up there because the entire language was designed with that in mind in the first place, and that a language designed to be graph-based in the first place may work better. However, your tree viewer doesn't have any of the latter <i>that doesn't already have a special-purpose viewer</i> built for it, which your putatively generic code isn't going to compete with.)<p>Database rows are just a graph, right? Well, that's one top-level node for the result that contains the rows, and then, oh, let's say 25,000 identically-structured children. How are you going to navigate that? Are you going to introduce a "paging" concept? If so, you're going to complicate the other uses of this generic editor that don't need it.<p>How about rich text? Rich text is just a tree. But is your generic tree editor going to require sub nodes for "bold"? For that matter, how does your generic editor handle either of "text <b>bold</b> more text" or "text <span class='arbitrary_class'>span</span> more text"? There's a lot of different rules that people may want to apply to tree nodes; do those look like one, two, or three nodes in your editor? I can make a case for all three, for instance, for the first one (imagine the word bold is bold in the first one, it's a rich text display):<p><pre><code> * text bold more text
* text
(bold) bold
more text
* text
(bold) bold
* more text
</code></pre>
(Note the new asterisk on the third line of the last one; it's a new node. In the first one, we have "special" nodes that can be embedded, whereas others probably can't be; that's a heck of a concept to write into your generic editor and will have huge ramifications in all sorts of other places, not least of which is the graph data representation and API. In the second one we somehow have "embedded" nodes, which has the same problems, except it has <i>different</i> massive effects on the graph data structure and API. The third is conceptually simplest in a lot of ways, but maps neither to HTML nor to the human's internal representation very well.) Now, how do your choices that you made for this rich text application map back to the other types of graphs you may want to support? Because each of those three choices will have different implications if you then try to support RDF graphs in the same visual layout.<p>Speaking of RDF... have you considered the visual differences between ordered trees and unordered trees? Box & line graphs naturally represent unordered children, outline views impose a view of order even if one doesn't exist, other layouts may have other consequences. You can't just let the decision about outline vs. box & line be determined by the orderedness of the nodes either, because there may be other properties of the graph that may be unsuitable for.<p>And then, of course, there's the graphs that you want to view as box & line diagrams, the ones you want to have fully manual layout for vs. the ones you want some degree of automation. And you've to deal with the boxes that are way too big for the display because they contain several dozen kilobytes of plain text. Can your boxes contain subgraphs within them? And under <i>any</i> display methodology (graphs, outlines, whatever), what does it look like when you have a node with 25,000 incoming links? Does that work well with graphs that have only a few nodes like that? What about graphs like friend networks on Facebook that consist almost entirely of nodes that have hundreds of links? Note that when you've seen graphs of Facebook, they never much resemble, say, LabView diagrams, they're always these very zoomed-out representations with only entire regions colored and being discussed. How is your generic graph editor suitable for use on programming languages doing with this graph?<p>The theme here is not "unsolvable problem". The theme here is "unresolvable conflicts between different use cases". In an individual context, these issues are solvable, and have been reasonably solved. But trying to create a generic "graph" editor is, well, given the genericness of the term "graph" basically trying to create a generic "editor". |
CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf] | This is the best Russian joke/story I have heard, it's not political:<p>During the conversation among the newly found friends one of the teachers (lets call him Dmitriy Petrovich) mentiones that it is a medical fact, that it is impossible to take a light bulb out of ones mouth once it was inserted there. This meets active disbelief of his two opponents who start questioning him as to what kind of light bulb he means and how come you cannot take it out, if you can put it in. Dmitriy Petrovich replies, that he is talking about a standard 100 Watt light balbs such as the one lighting their room, but lacking medical education he doesn't know the reason for not being able to remove it. Discussion heats up, and at some point one of his opponents desides that an experiment is necessary.<p>Mind you, that all of the teachers in the room are PhDs in various fields of exact science. Obviously not one of them is a medic. The light bulb is then removed and the most loud opponent (lets call him Vladimir) puts it into his mouth. In a few seconds it becomes clear that Dmitriy Petrovich was right, and it is quite impossible for Vladimir to remove the light balb due to peculiar clenching of jaw muscles.<p>After a short discussion the three friends decide to get Vladmir to a doctor. They get out of the hotel, and stop a cab. They drive to the hospital where they have to relate the story of the accident to the night nurse, who, after almost choking herself with giggles, calls the ER doctor. The doctor carefully examines Vladimir, and unexpectedly hits him with his fist in the back of the jaw. Vladimirs jaw falls open and the doctor returns the light bulb to Dmitriy Petrovich, explaining that Vladimir is not going to be able to use his mouth for a couple of hours due to the over stressed jaw muscles.<p>The three teachers get back into a cab and start driving home, when the third teacher starts complaining that the other two are playing him for a fool, that this is medicaly impossible for such phenomenon to exist and that he is about to prove it. He puts the light bulb into his mouth, the cab makes a U-turn and speeds back to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurse starts giggling when the three men enter the emergency room, and after hearing their new story falls of her chair laughing. After a little while she calls the surgeon, who chuckles, hits the 3rd teacher in the back of the jaw and removes the light balb.<p>The cab has left, so the three friends catch another one. Dmitriy Petrovich gets noto the front seat and puts his mute friends with their jaws hanging open in the back. Cab driver is mildly surprised by the unusual company of an obviously drunk giggling man and two others looking ilke village idiots, and asks about it. Dmitriy Petrovich asures teh driver that the other two are not idiots, but most educated people and the problem is their small argument about a light balb. After carefully listening to the whole story the driver asks what kind of light bulb is he talking about, and Dmitriy shows the hotel light bulb saying "this one". "Impossible" says the cab driver and in a few seconds the cab turns around and goes to the hospital.<p>When the nurse sees these guys the 3rd time inside 2 hours, she starts having rather serious breathing difficulties trying to laugh much harder then mother nature designed. After getting her in shape Dmitriy Petrovich makes her call the surgeon who, promptly hitting the cab driver in the jaw takes the light bulb and smashes it on the table saying that this should put an end to the story. The four men get back into the cab and drive to the hotel.<p>On the way they are stopped by the road patrol police unit. The policeman (militianer) is very surprized to find that the only person able to speak in a car full of people is a rather drunk man who tells him a wierd story about light balbs. "I will be right back" replies the policeman, goes back to the road side station, Dmitriy and companions whatch the ligh go off inside the station, and in a few seconds the policeman appears again. Using gestures he asks people on the back seat to move over. A metal end of a light bulb is sticking out of his mouth.<p>The cab goes back to the hospital. The nurse becomes hysterical with joy. After a few minutes of recuperation she goes to the cabinet of the surgeon to call him. She opens the door and falls to the floor unconscious. In the doorway appears the surgeon with his jaw hanging wide open.<p>see also:<p><a href="http://diaryru.com/blog/funrussia/man-light-bulb-his-mouth" rel="nofollow">http://diaryru.com/blog/funrussia/man-light-bulb-his-mouth</a><p><a href="http://englishrussia.com/2011/08/23/how-to-get-a-light-bulb-out-of-the-mouth/" rel="nofollow">http://englishrussia.com/2011/08/23/how-to-get-a-light-bulb-...</a> |
What happened when Swedes tried six-hour days? | personal anecdote.<p>* i'm a software developer in central europe.
* i suffer from delayed sleep cycle (i.e. i'm a night owl).
* i picked up weightlifting (as the main hobby) to compensate for all the sitting and the club has fixed workout times in the evening (i.e. no 24/7 gym access). the harder i work out, the more sleep i need.<p>i used to work a 42 hour work week (from 7:30am - getting up at ~6:30am to ~6pm) at a small web dev company in the countryside for 2 years. close to the end i was practically burnt out, close to tears every evening and broke out in celebration when they told me i was fired. even after 2 years my sleep cylce hasn't normalized - i've been constantly sleep deprived.<p>afterwards i got another software dev job at a company in the capital where i first worked 25 hours and now work 30 hours a week with flexible time - roughly 6 hours a day monday to friday, no core time (except for scheduled meetings).<p>i get paid more for those 30 hours than for the 42 hours in the first job, but have less money at the end of the month because i used to live with my parents at the first company.<p>there are a lot of differences (more competent superiors etc), but personal observation regarding work culture and time:<p>* i'm usually well rested: due to flexible time i rarely set an alarm and wake up on my own depending on when i went to bed and how much i worked out (or boozed) the previous day. this means sometimes i'm in the office at 3pm. sometimes 7am. doesn't really matter as long as i don't have any meetings (which are very rare; currently once a week at 2pm). if i want to stay home for the day i send my teammates a message.<p>* stress level is extremely low because i can always take time off without much bureaucracy if i have to attend personal matters.<p>* due to only working 6 hours a day i can easily accumulate overtime which isn't paid but goes into an 1:1 overtime pool. this enables the next point:<p>* i rarely sit idle. if there isn't any work to do, i'll go home. period. if there's a lot of work to do (and i'm in the zone), i'll happily stay longer. it evens out and i never idly wait for the clock, passing time. i usually work more during the winter and less during the summer, when customers are on vacation.<p>* if i'm feeling unwell but not sick (or not sick enough for sick leave) i work from home and take frequent naps. if i'm sick it's rarely for long because coming to work sick is heavily discouraged and i just stay in bed. i go back to work as soon as i feel healthy and ready even when my doctor approved more sick leave.<p>* if my concentration is slipping and i don't get any work done, i call it a day. if i'm super productive and in the zone i stay because i want to.<p>* because of all those things i love working there. i think my employer is fair, understands efficiency and treats us employees well and i wouldn't want to cheat the company because "do as you'd be done by". i wouldn't call in sick if i had a hangover (or are otherwise unfit to work due to my own fault). if i work from home i don't do the dishes on company time. i'm honest - and so is my employer (as far as i can tell - i never caught them trying to cheat me). loyality is high; in case i suspect a colleague of cheating i'm actually on my employers side and tell them to quit their bullshit because of self interest (i don't want to lose those perks).<p>* i don't think i could deliver the same bang for the buck with an 8 hour work day because i wouldn't be able to accumulate the overtime i'd need to take time off if i'm not at my best. but if i wanted more - or even less - that'd be possible.<p>* i still earn enough to get by comfortably.<p>* i don't have kids yet but many of my colleages do and they love working part time because it makes things so much easier and enables them to spend more time with their offspring, even though they earn less. but this way their spouses can work more and earn more, so it evens out - and they can share responsibilities easier.<p>TL;DR: in my opinion 30h/week is the best bang for the buck for both me and my employer because i only work when i'm productive, so the company doesn't have to pay for my idle time and i can minimize stress and frustration. i understand this is partially possible due to the nature of software projects (deliver on time, but it doesn't matter much when you do the work).<p>edit: also, i can do 6 hours without the mandatory 30 minute break, if i'm in a hurry.<p>edit 2: i can't offload work to teammates. if i take time off, work just accumulates. no cheating! |
YC at Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UPenn | Wall Street is also known for visiting and doing on-campus recruiting at only a very small list of target schools. Right or wrong every year we pick which schools to give this extra attention to and every year we debate if we are doing this right and if we should target schools at all.<p>Entirely anecdotal, maybe obvious to some, but here's what I have experienced (I'll focus on STEM students):<p><i>TL; DR I have had to visit and do on-campus recruiting. The top of top talented, skilled, smart student could be at any school. Every school has dumb as fuck kids too. But there is higher % chance the valedictorian at Stanford is smarter than the valedictorian at San Jose State. But who cares, when a cream of the crop student ends up at non-target school for whatever, they know how to work with those circumstances and get to where they want to go. I think if you know how to "disrupt" or "hack" or whatever stupid word we are using these days, it is easier to stand out as applicant from a no-name school. Good luck</i><p>1. The practical stuff: The "budget" of time and people and money to do recruiting and campus outreach is not unlimited. There are only so many hours in a day, you can't visit every school and meet every kid.<p>2. School visits are worth doing, for the students to learn about a company and for a company to get to know a few of the students better. Companies that do visit schools can attract more applicants and higher quality applicants.<p>3. The school someone went to tells you <i>ZERO</i> about how talented or skilled that individual is as an engineer or potential founder or employee. Zero. The best person for a job or to fund could have studied at Stanford or San Jose State or Joe Bummwarts University. There are plenty of kids at no-name schools that crush the skills of kids at top-ranked schools. (Also the whole "but the department's reputation is good" doesn't matter nor do grades tell you very much either - I don't even care if someone has a degree to be honest - but that's another story).<p>4. If a top company or VC or Grad school is looking for those best of the best young people; they often seem to be the type of student that can self-teach and have done so. They are frequently miles ahead of their classmates at their school and any school in terms of knowledge. They know things the schools don't even teach.<p>5. Unfortunately where someone went to school still matters for several reasons. I'm sorry if this offends. There are many reasons your schools makes a difference. I won't go into things like PR pedigree and friendships and alumni networks. And just to be clear there are a shitload of dumb people at every school, tons and tons of dumb people at the top ranked-schools. Spot them a mile away. <i>But: when you are looking for the one or two or three students who are miles ahead of other people their same age, the % chance that person is going to be at a top-ranked school is slightly higher. i.e. if you are looking for the smartest kid in the sandbox, the odds the valedictorian at Stanford is smarter than the valedictorian at San Jose State is higher on average, not guarantee, but enough to say it's more likely.</i><p>6. Lastly, I'll just say in my experience when legit talented students ends up at a non-target school for whatever reason (family, cost, bad luck, whatever) they are mature and they know why they are there and they know what it means and they know what they need to do to succeed at their goal under these circumstances - these are not the students you see complaining about school recruiting being unfair. It's the idiots and the average people who complain the loudest about this :( Those talented students at no-name school are aware of how the world works and that life's not fair. They know how much better they are than their peers and they know the school they went to will not matter. They also know they will have to take a couple different steps to get where they want to go vs. target-schools kids. (it's a known secret it's actually much easier for a no-name school students to stand out). They seem to know what to do: they just keep quiet about it, they network with the people who get it and they find the other doors. Sorry. Look around. Students from no-name non-target schools get top jobs right out of school and they get funded and they get into a top grad schools all the time, every year. If you don't understand how they did what they did, that's the point. Seriously, no offense some people are more skilled and talented than others. But if you are so smart and happened to have gone to a crap school, but want to get in somewhere difficult, then figure it out, many others have before you. If you feel you need someone to come visit your school to get something you are missing the point of how this works. Good luck YC SUMMA CLASS |
There Are Three Programming Paradigms (2013) | This is a question I've thought about a lot this year. How many programming paradigms are there? How will we know if/when we've discovered them all? Is there a way to arrange them so that gaps in the table predict yet-to-be-discovered paradigms in the same way the periodic table predicted elements or the square of R/C/?/L predicted memristors?<p>After reading some of Greg Egan's hard science fiction that explores the consequences of a universe where time is a spacelike dimension or another where there are two timelike dimensions, I wondered if programming paradigms could be categorized according to what kind of world lines data or variables may have.<p>For instance, in some mathematical spacetimes, the future looping back on the past is not a construct you can create. In others (such as Egan's Orthogonal universe), it is quite possible for world lines to arbitrarily loop back on the past. This could be analogous to in a programming paradigm whether statements not yet reached can affect the statement you're looking at. For instance, whether a logic program supports constraint satisfaction.<p>Mutability and immutability could be analogous to various ways of resolving the Grandfather Paradox. If the result is the timeline is changed/overwritten, that is analogous to a mutable programming paradigm. If the result is that you either are prevented from doing it or doing it results in spawning a duplicate timeline where history is changed, then that is analogous to an immutable or functional paradigm.<p>Finally, it should be noted that the program and it's entire execution state-space could be regarded as a "four dimensional object" the same way you could consider the universe + its history as a four dimensional mathematical object. (Not really "4" because the space of the program isn't necessarily 3 dimensional, but using the term as a metaphor.) In this sense, you could see the <i>actual execution</i> i.e. the <i>implementation of the execution</i> of the program as a vector or walk through this time-state-space that does not necessarily have to follow the (human) conceptual vector of time through the program! (Not to mention the lexical order of the program text.) For instance, a SQL engine might build a query plan that approaches the execution of a SQL "program's" time-state-space in a much different direction and order than what a human would call the "time vector" through the program.<p>In Egan's Orthogonal universe he deals with the question of how can living beings experience local time when a universe has all 4 dimensions as spacelike by making a distinction between the arrow of time defined by entropy versus "timelike" dimensions. In our universe the entropy arrow of time usually aligns with the timelike dimension, but in the Orthogonal universe the entropy arrow of time <i>could</i> point along any dimension, but which dimension is the "time" dimension is set by the combined entropy of the local surroundings. Similarly, in a programming paradigm you can choose to define the "time dimension" in many different ways, but there is also an entropy arrow of time.<p>As an example, imagine a simple imperative programming language that conceptually executes from top to bottom. You could, in principle, make a bizarre implementation that executes backwards, starting with the last instruction and all possible result states, and searches for precondition states that could have caused that result. Repeat for the second to last statement for all of the candidate results, and so forth, until we reach the most initial state.<p>It's clear that this is <i>possible</i> to implement if the language is restricted enough (for instance if it has few states, or if the only allowed operations are of a certain type). It's also clear that the big-O time/space complexity of this implementation strategy is astronomical for most complex programs. But it is instructive to look at <i>why</i> this is: it is because this time-reversed execution implementation strategy is going backwards against the entropy arrow of time! This is reflected in the enormous amount of energy it would require to compute (drawing on the entropy of an outside system's energy source to reverse local entropy), and/or the gargantuan amount storage it would require (increasing the entropy in space of an outside system in order to reverse local entropy).<p>Yet at the same time, no one would bat an eye at certain classes of "programs" "running backwards", such as a linear equation solver, or a layout engine, or a logic constraint solver, etc. (One wonders whether a nominally imperative assembly language for a machine based on reversible computing would also fall into this category.)<p>What I'm getting at is that there are myriad "potentially timelike" dimensions in programs: lexical order, call stack, real execution time, the programmer's conception of how time flows in the conceptual program, etc. And there's also an entropy arrow of time related to how hard/easy it is to reorder the operations. Finally, I view the execution implementation as sweeping a hyperplane (or hypermanifold) through the four dimensional time-state-space of the program & the result of its execution. Depending on the ways that the time-state-space of the program are connected (or connectible) determines along which direction(s) that sweep may or must proceed.<p>Programming paradigms may be understandable as rules governing how this time-state-space may be connected up, which in turn affects what the entropy arrow of time looks like in execution-implementation-space. |
Inside Medium's Meltdown | I like Medium for browsing front end dev articles in the morning.<p>But I think there is a big UX and design issue that should be questioned : the "feed".<p>This concept has been overused and it doesn't serve users. When I read on Medium, I'm in the mood for reading programming stuff, or design stuff, or other stories. But I'm rarely in the mood for reading a completely random feed of all those topics intermingled. That makes no sense to me.<p>And you can follow "Publications" but it doens't help very much, you still get a "feed" in the homepage. And the publications don't really work as a magazine rack.<p>That imho is the biggest weakness of their design.<p>How would I solve that? First off stop "feeding" people. I mean just the term is wrong. Why do we need to be "fed"? The assumption for this design I assume, is that a feed makes it easy to discover content and for the initial experience. But why should it remain the central piece of focus everytime you start the app?<p>I think it would make more sense to add the concept of magazines. That is why I think Flipboard works so well (at least for me). The problem with Flipboard is that it also treats every magazine as a feed, and is designed primarily as a RSS kind of consumption where old content is to be forgotten while only new content is relevant. Thus it also doesn't work as a repository of valuable articles. A lot of things are written that are timeless and both the Flipboard and Medium approach and insistence on "current day" writing/ stories reduces the value of these tools.<p>What I would suggest is to add the concept of magazines at the very least. Let people create "baskets" of interests, and let them drag and drop tags into these baskets. Then present those "smart magazines" with tags showing where there are updates?<p>----<p>As an aside my experience with Medium last month could be summed up in two words: "feminist rants".<p>Ever since I started using Medium, I thought.. I already use Flipboard and Feedly. So let's focus. There are some pretty cool CSS/Javascript articles on here so I decided to follow exclusively programming and design topics. I would read Medium in the morning to catch up on front end dev lang.<p>But.. Medium had another idea. My feed kept getting ridiculous feminist rants and other political B.S. I don't want to read. No matter how many times I pick "Show fewer stories like this" I couldn't get rid of them. This happened for several weeks.<p>I contacted them because I thought my account was the perfect example of something wrong with their recommendation algorithm. Why on earth did Medium keep saying I am interested in feminism when I NEVER recommended any such articles (they tend to have obnoxious click bait titles and terrible writing)?<p>I looked through every person that I may have followed or recommended. I could'nt find anything. The closest to a meaningful connection I could see is one female journalist who "liked" on of my responsoes. Mind you Medium considers a simple comment to someone else's story as a "story". As if a comment had the same value as writing an articile in the first place. But I digress...<p>So I blocked a couple people. First off, they don't disappear from the notifications pane. This is WRONG imho.<p>Secondly, it didn't change squat.<p>Eventually I became sick and tired of seeing feminist rants in the middle of my programming / design feed; so I deleted my account and started anew. Hey at least Medium got this right : you can delete your account entirely and it was easy.<p>So here is my tips for people who still want to use Medium:<p>- NEVER EVER follow anybody whom you aren't sure that they share your interests 100%.
- NEVER EVER recommend any articles unless you reviewed the tags and all the tags are specific enough to your interests. (Medium loves to make all kind of tangential connections and also recommend you stuff based on extremely lose tags like "Journalism" or "Essay"... follow these and soon enough raging feminists will entertain your feed every day).<p>Funny enough even with these rules in place. When I created my new account I still got an influx of feminist/political rants (bad writing) but they were gone after a few days.<p>And I realize that I use Medium in a way they probably didn't mean to: I really focus my feed on an area of interest. But then again they designed this completely wrong putting things backwards. When I go into a newspaper shop, I browse the rack for magazeines I'm interested in. I don't go to the owner and say, "hey you got something from me to read?" And even if I did, he'd probably look at me weird for a moment, then he'd be like "well, what do you like to read?"<p>Presumably this is what the tags system is supposed to do. Many online sites lets you pick your "interests" whne you creat a new account. But the analogy stops herE. Because in a newspaper shop, I'd tell the guy "well, videogames, and uh.. science". And he 'd point me to magazines. He wouldn't print a "feed" to me of random crap from different sources.<p>---<p>PS: Also please stop writing "stories" in your iOS updates and tell your users what you changed or fixed, even if it's minor thing. Yeah, we get it you're all about "stories". Jesus. Stick to medium if you want to entertain people, and serve your users by describing what yo uactually changed or updated, even if it has to be the usual "misc performance fixes". |
On Loneliness | There's always something odd to me about teachings in this category. For one, it's often very hard to tell where they're really going, what they're proposing, and the verbose language with sprinklings of mysticism doesn't really help. For another, they often take things that are fairly omnipresent, and then say the person shouldn't feel them. The utter focus often seems to be on the person feeling them, as if that is the biggest crime.<p>Such philosophies often come with implicit assumptions that, say, desire, self-concern, ambition, etc., are all negative things, which seems to be accepted in some circles, even though, to me, that <i>is</i> the claim that needs proving. Strangely enough, despite this being widely accepted by most people you ask, the same people don't live that way, which makes it look like an extensive signaling operation.<p>The commentary is gigantic but I'll try to do my best to show what I mean.<p>> 1. He said he was obsessed by stupid little things, and that these obsessions constantly changed. He would worry over some imaginary physical defect, and within a few hours his worry would have fixed itself upon another incident or thought. He seemed to live from one anxious obsession to another. To overcome these obsessions, he continued, he would consult books, or talk over his problem with a friend, and he had also been to a psychologist; but somehow he had found no relief. Even after a serious and absorbing meeting, these obsessions would immediately come on. If he found the cause, would it put an end to them?<p>> 2. Does discovery of a cause bring freedom from the effect? Will knowledge of the cause destroy the result? We know the causes, both economic and psychological, of war, yet we encourage barbarity and self-destruction. After all, our motive in searching for the cause is the desire to be rid of the effect. This desire is another form of resistance or condemnation; and when there is condemnation, there is no understanding.<p>> “Then what is one to do?” he asked.<p>> 3. Why is the mind dominated by these trivial and stupid obsessions? To ask “why” is not to search for the cause as something apart from yourself which you have to find; it is merely to uncover the ways of your own thinking. So, why is the mind occupied in this manner? Is it not because it is superficial, shallow, petty, and therefore concerned with its own attractions?<p>1. An exposition that I've seen in a lot of sub-philosophies or religions of this variety: a person has feelings, those feelings bother the person, and those feelings need to be corrected. For one, the exposition is extremely vague. What physical defects? Was this always a character trait of the person? Have those actions helped them in some way before?<p>It seems likely that this is a feature of the brain, and it could work for good or for ill. Without context, it's very hard to tell, sounds like hypochondria. I'd say that paragraph is very vacuous. But it seems a lot of people relate to it, which goes to the next question: if it's a problem many people have, why is it a problem with those many people? Also note that many people have done away with this problem, at rates that are likely comparable to those of improvement via reading such teachings, but they are not mentioned here.<p>2. Again, very vacuous. The benefits of finding a cause are obvious enough that I don't need to outline them. It is too bad that we don't pay attention to causes of bad things, although I don't see how that's a good argument for not seeking causes. Finding the correct cause is very helpful at times. It may also be very difficult to do so, which may be an argument against trying to find, but not finding. But trying to find a cause and failing to find it is indeed a stressful task, but in that of itself there's nothing particularly wrong.<p>3. The claim appears to be that that the cause of the obsessive thoughts is the person's mind, and to figure out where they're coming from is for the person to understand their own mind. That's well and good. Then it jumps straight to:<p>> Is it not because it is superficial, shallow, petty, and therefore concerned with its own attractions?<p>Eh, OK? I thought condemnation was bad? That seems quite a jump, and, more importantly, it doesn't really say anything. Those are all fairly loaded terms that require a proper context. The poor fellow, trained to take attacks on himself and his mind in stride, just accepts the claim. In the end, though, we have learned nothing.<p>A staggering amount of this style of spirituality seems to follow this formula: person comes with troubling thought patterns, the other person tells them that those thought patterns are bad and unjustified, and then the person leaves with "I have odd thought patterns because my mind is <bad>". It's not much progress from the tautological conclusion: "My mind has odd thought patterns because it has odd thought patterns". Something that can be summarized as another common maxim: stop thinking about things or asking questions.<p>Similarly, some after that seems to suggest accepting things, which reminds me of stoicism. But it's not enough to state that one should accept things, it needs to be proven. Again the author seems to be piggybacking on preexisting agreements where Buddhist or stoic positions are perceived as wise so he doesn't need to defend them.<p>A lot of text but nothing concrete to hold on to if I want to avoid injecting my own thoughts into it, which, fortunately, jar too much to do it automatically. This appears to be more a stream of consciousness. One could try to extract something from it, but it would be of their own doing. I wonder if that's the appeal.<p>That being said, with the current lack of better options, if you want to quiet some thoughts and calm down, I'd just suggest to try Buddhism. It has a lot of the same problems since it's basically saying the same thing, but there's at least a method to the madness. |
Ask HN: Did you find it hard to date if you immigrated to US? | Well to be honest there's a lot of difficulties in dating foreigners. Aside from the skin-color aspect, you've got several things working against you:<p>1) this is probably the biggest one: different culture. I've dated a couple of foreign women (still am dating one), and the culture difference is definitely an issue. It's a lot to ask someone to just ignore it or put up with it; not everyone is prepared for that or wants to invest the energy needed, or deal with the inevitable issues. Some things to consider here: a) how good is your command of English? (And be realistic here; I've noticed a lot of Indians in particular think their English is great, but from an American perspective it really isn't, with a lot of odd phrasings, odd use of words, etc.) The accent is also an issue. b) How will your family take it? That's a really big issue I've found with people from other cultures: they're young and all into dating interracially, but their parents are completely against it, and that makes things very difficult. That doesn't mean we Americans never have family issues like this (we definitely do), but it's a lot less likely, especially if you're dating within your socioeconomic group (e.g. two white non-religious liberals aren't likely to have serious family issues when they try to get married). c) What kind of food do you like? Not many Americans are going to want to date someone who insists on eating their native food all the time, and never wants to eat a burger or pizza or whatever. There's a bunch more issues under this category, which can make it very hard to live with someone. Dating someone who's different and exotic can be fun, but after you get over the newness and novelty, and start thinking about having a serious relationship and moving in together, these issues will manifest and can break up the relationship. This kind of thing happens with Americans dating Americans too, but with someone from a very different culture you're at a huge disadvantage already, and anyone who's thinking long-term is going to think about this.<p>2) Looks. It's not just racism; different people are attracted to different types of people and looks. A lot of white men, for instance, are very attracted to far-east Asian women, but not black women. Some people from certain ethnic groups just seem to be more attractive to people from other ethnic groups than people from certain other ethnic groups. Another big factor here, though, is height: this is a lot easier for foreign women than men, because men don't usually care so much if a woman is shorter, but women almost always want to date men who are taller than themselves. Foreign men who aren't from western Europe are going to be at a huge disadvantage here because white American women tend to be rather tall. Finally, what kind of women are you pursuing? White, black, Hispanic? You'll probably have far more success with black women if you have darker skin, but have a good job. Hispanic women might also be interested: they tend to be rather short so a man who isn't really tall can still be taller than them. Sometimes men who are a little lacking in the looks department (but not too much) can compensate with a really great personality that wins over a woman, but that's not easy, esp. if you're trying to meet women online rather than at in-person events.<p>3) Immigration status. You said you have an H1-B visa. This is already a big red-flag, because it means you're neither a citizen, nor a permanent resident alien ("green card"). You can be deported at almost any time really, especially if something goes badly at your job. How many women really want to date a guy who may or may not be around long-term? If you were a permanent resident, you'd probably have an easier time, though it's hard to say how much.<p>It really sounds to me like you want to date women casually, rather than looking for a marriage partner; maybe I'm wrong about that. There's plenty of women who like to do that, but those women tend to be both young, and shallow. They're not likely to be interested in someone who isn't extremely attractive to them. I think a lot of foreigners have a perception, probably because of Hollywood, that American women are "easy". This isn't really true. It's true for a certain subset of them, but they're going to be divided into two groups: young women who want a really hot-looking guy to show them a good time (80% of American men who pursue them don't even meet this bar), and desperate women who you probably wouldn't be interested in anyway (fat, ugly, self-esteem problems, etc.). You're not going to hook up with some hot 26 year old woman who's a 9/10 if you're not also a 9/10. |
More Serotonin, Less Motivation? It Depends on the Circumstances | Probably also important to point out that SSRIs don't seem to be much more than active placebo for the first few months for most people, and that most people's depression lifts without them. And that SSRIs are super addictive, so once they stop working you can't get off them easily without massive withdrawals and are usually given some other mix of drugs.<p>The "imbalance" model for depression / mental illness was a great hypothesis and was worth exploring. Unfortunately there really has never been any studies that really support it, but it's certainly a narrative big pharma loves when people repeat.<p>MDMA and other psychedelics on the other hand have been very useful in single doses (or short series) in effectively curing PTSD, depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.<p>I know from first hand experience.<p>For me, my research led me to see the fragility of the main stream narrative and seek to understand other ways.<p>I found a model that suggested past cultural, developmental and shock trauma caused a freezing of the organism into a fight or flight response (which depending on the individual manifested in a number of ways), and that the way to "heal" that experience was to relax the ego enough (default brain network) to allow new information in. Dan Siegel calls this the "window of opportunity". Various therapies offer a gradual opening of this window, from Journaling for PTSD to the most effective I found, NARM.<p>When used in a therapeutic setting, MDMA allows for this relaxing and those unexperienced exoeriences (trauma) can be released -- this was experienced for me, and many, as a safe revisiting of the hardest moments in my life in an understanding way.<p>The human psyche even has its own reboot system to accomplish this, though like a psychedelic, if your culture lacks the understanding and set / setting, it can land you in a psyche ward.<p>This reboot process is called "psychosis" and it is induced internally when external stresses push the organism beyond its model of the world.<p>What happens is the default network relaxes and allows new information flows to come in -- this is identical to a psychedelic experience from my direct experience and if one can stay with it (and not end up having a 1st year psychiatric resident with no experience holding space for a psychosis to come to completion shoot you up with some anti-psychotic) you emerge, predicably, with a new sense of confidence and mission / message -- which is almost always directly related to the under represented values / conditions that existed in your environment that caused the stress.<p>People experience some version of this all the time, creativity is spurred by pain, people get stressed and then have an insight, etc.<p>Some cultures have identified the value of this experience fully completing and in integrating the wisdom from the sensitive person who is manifesting symptoms for the collective -- they are Shamanic Cultures, and they have a process and protocol for initiating folks, almost always with the use of non-ordinary states (plants, dance,fast, chanting, sweats) to heal and gain access to new views (non default network brain mode).<p>For me, it's been quite amazing because once those patterns unwound inside, all of my relationships took on this magical new quality of wholeness and safety, as I was no longer hiding from certain feelings.<p>As someone who was labeled everything from schizophrenic, schizo-affective, bipolar, depressed, anxious and has tasted the heights of mania and depths of suicidal depression, I can say that I'm without a doubt healed of the bulk of the trauma that was beneath the surface and it is due to using a variety of non-ordinary states of consciousness to create that window of opportunity (both medicine potentiated and non-medicine potentiated.)<p>My team says I'm no longer diagnosable with those and have been asked to compiling my research for a PHd program (which I may do). And I've gone to work to integrate the values & vision I came back from my experience with acrosss a wide range of industry (outer space, permaculture, education, politics, etc.)<p>In honor of Valentine's Day I should mention that Love is also a powerful psychedelic that requires the right set and setting (when we lack the right set and setting, the nature of the psychedlic is it can reveal an old trauma and if it's not addressed, it can retraumatize people or make them feel worse).. Ann Shulgin (wife of Sasha, the man who resiscovered MDMA) famously said "love is the psychedelic experience that all humans have access to in this lifetime, and they would outlaw that too if they could."<p><shameless plug> I am actually co-leading a workshop in NYC tonight about how to use True Love as a psychedelic healing experience. My yogi girlfriend & I will demonstrate in real time how we use the psychedelic nature of love & conflict to access and heal our deepest parts so we can be more real and effective in the world.<p>The workshop is called Drama As Dharma, in NYC and we have a couple spots left, I'd be happy to comp anyone a VIP ticket ($60) if they'd like to check it out. 2/15, 6:30-9pm @ Reflections Center for Concious Living </shameless plug><p>If anyone wants more info on how I handled this stuff or wants to come tonight, my email is anthony @ 175g . com<p>Thanks!
Anthony |
How terrible code gets written by sane people | A number of points in the post/article are questionable.<p>First, it assumes the developers had substantial control over the schedule for the project ("Giving excessive importance to estimates"). Certainly in my experience this is unusual. More frequently, the schedule is dictated by management, frequently by sales/marketing executives in commercial software development. It is <i>very</i> difficult to push back and a good way to lose your job.<p>Sales: We have closed this great deal with BigCorp. Can you do X (complicated, challenging software project) by the end of the quarter?<p>Developers: Err, um, X sounds like a project that will take six months.<p>Sales: We really need to make our quarterly numbers. Our CEO Bob used to be a developer and he says any <i>competent</i> programmer can do it and we only hire the best. Competent doesn’t cut it here! You are a rockstar ninja, aren’t you? Can you prove you can’t do it by the end of the quarter?<p>Developers: Well, no. The schedules are driven by some unexpected problem or problems that usually happen. But, well, if <i>nothing</i> unexpected happens, we can do it by the end of the quarter.<p>Sales: Great! Bob is expecting results by the end of the quarter.<p>So much for the beautiful, elegant software design methodologies taught in college and university CS programs and peddled by high priced consultants.<p>Second (“Giving no importance to project knowledge”), high technology employers seem to have extremely high turnover rates of software developers and other employers. Payscale produced a study claiming that the average employee tenure and Amazon and Google is only one year. Many companies seem to target employees with more than seven years of paid work experience — Logan’s Run style — for layoffs and “constructive discharge,” (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal</a>) where employees are made uncomfortable and quit “voluntarily.” Undoubtedly, this is costly as the author implies, but it seems to be common practice.<p>Yes, metrics like “issues closed,” “commits per day,” or “lines of code” don’t work very well. Once employees realize they are being tracked and evaluated on some metric, they have a strong motivation to figure out how to manipulate the metric. Even if the employees don’t try to manipulate the metrics, the metrics all have serious weaknesses and map imperfectly to value added (biz speak).<p>Third, are code reviews and unit testing proven processes especially for normal non-Microsoft companies? In the early days of Test Driven Development (TDD), Kent Beck and his colleagues made numerous claims about the success of Test Driven Development in the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) payroll project, an attempt to create a unified company wide payroll system for Chrysler. This project in fact had a range of problems and was eventually cancelled by Chrysler in 2000, without replacing the Chrysler payroll systems successfully.<p>As the problems with C3 have become well documented and well known, TDD enthusiasts have shifted to citing studies at Microsoft and some other gigantic companies that claim practices like TDD and code reviews work well. Are these really true or do these case studies have hidden issues as C3 did?<p>Further, Microsoft, Google, and other companies that have played a big role in promoting these practices are very unusual companies, phenomenally successful super-unicorns with sales in the range of 40-100 billion (with a B) dollars with near monopoly positions and anomalously high revenues and frequently profits per employee. Microsoft claims to have revenues of $732,224 per employee. Google claims an astonishing $1,154,896 per employee. (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-per-employee-2015-10/" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-pe...</a>) This compares to $100-200,000 per employee for most successful companies.<p>Fergus Henderson at Google recently published an article on Google’s software engineering practices (<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01715" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01715</a>) with the following statements:<p><i>2.11. Frequent rewrites</i><p><i>Most software at Google gets rewritten every few years.</i><p><i>This may seem incredibly costly. Indeed, it does consume a large fraction of Google’s resources.</i><p>Note: “incredibly costly”<p>Companies like Microsoft and Google have enormous resources including monopoly power and can follow practices that are extremely costly and inefficient, which may work for them. Even if these practices are quite harmful, they have the resources to succeed nonetheless — at least for the immediate future, the next five years.<p>From a business point of view, it may even be in the interests of Microsoft, Google, and other giant near monopolies to promote software development practices that smaller competitors and potential competitors simply can’t afford and that will bankrupt them if adopted.<p>Both code reviews and unit tests are clearly time consuming up front. Code reviews using tools like Google’s Gerrit or Phabricator (a spin-off from Facebook, another super-unicorn) are committee meetings on every line of code.<p>Regarding:<p><i>Imagine my dismay when I had to collaborate with a colleague on that legacy project and his screen displayed Notepad in its full glory. Using “search” to find methods might have been rad back in the nineties, but these days, refraining from using tools such as modern IDEs, version control and code inspection will set you back tremendously. They are now absolutely required for projects of any size.</i><p>Using “search” to find methods was not rad back in the 1990’s. IDE’s and code browsers specifically have been in widespread use since the 1980’s. Turbo Pascal (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Pascal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Pascal</a>) was introduced in 1983 and featured a fully functional IDE, soon to be followed by IDE’s in many other products. Version control dates back at least to SCCS (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System</a>) which was released in 1972. RCS was released in 1981 and version control was common in the 1980s and since.<p>Code reviews have been around for a long time. However, in the 1990’s and earlier they were restricted to relatively special projects such as the Space Shuttle avionics where very high levels or safety and reliability, far beyond most commercial software, were required. This speaks to the “incredibly costly” quote about Google above.<p>Without more context, it is difficult to evaluate the use of Notepad. Simple code/text editors like Notepad and <i>vim</i> (formerly <i>vi</i> ) are very fast to start up and can be a better option for some quick projects than starting an IDE.<p>Some IDE’s are particularly hard to use. Early versions of Apple’s Xcode circa 2010 were particularly difficult to use in practice; it has improved somewhat in the current releases.<p>People vary significantly. Some developers seem to find stripped down tools like <i>vim</i> or Notepad or Notepad++ (on Windows) a better option than complicated IDE’s. I am more of an emacs or IDE person.<p>The fact that someone else works differently than you do does not mean they are worse (or better) than you. The fact that something works well for someone else also does not mean it will work well for you — or vice versa.<p>There are sound reasons for duplicating code, cutting and pasting, rather than creating a function or object called in several location in the code. If the developer anticipates that the code may subsequently diverge, then duplication is often best.<p>Like grand master chess players, highly experienced developers, especially under tight time constraints (like a chess tournament), code by intuition, not by laboriously reasoning out every step. If it feels like the code is likely to diverge in the future, duplicate. If it does not diverge, no problem, it can be merged back later if needed.<p>In the bad old days of structured design (1980’s) and object-oriented design (OOD — 1990s), software development projects suffered from Big Design Up Front (BDUF), grandiose attempts to design a perfect software system before writing a line of code. This often resulted in massive cost and schedule overruns and total failures. It often proves better to just throw (“hack”) something together quickly — a prototype, proof of concept, Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Just “get something working.”<p>Inevitably these prototypes and early stage software projects are going to compare poorly to some theoretical perfectly designed system with 20-20 hindsight. That is what seduced people into BDUF twenty, thirty years ago.<p>Modern Agile software development methodologies are foolishly trying to have it both ways, have an initial quick iteration BUT that first iteration should be perfectly designed up front — beautiful, elegant, with hundreds of tests, endless committee meetings on coding style and design (code reviews), all sorts of supposed best practices, no code duplication, etc. This is a seductive fantasy doomed to fail in most cases. |
Why Is Cancer More Common in Men? | I found a really excellent answer to this question in one of my university evolution textbooks [1]. The fact that men generally die sooner than woman (in humans) has been well studied and we've come to a fairly decent answer.<p>--<p>Why do people die?<p>The answer to this mystery has been partially solved by senescence theory (Williams,
1957). Senescence is not a specific disease, but rather the deterioration of all bodily mechanisms as organisms grow older: Senescence theory starts with an interesting observation:
The power of natural selection decreases dramatically with increasing age. To understand
why this occurs, consider a twenty-year-old woman and a fifty-year-old woman. Selection
operates far more intensely on the younger woman, since anything that happens to her could
affect most of her future reproductive years. A gene activated at age twenty that weakened
a woman’s immune system, for example, could damage her entire reproductive capacity. If
the same damaging gene became activated in the fifty-year-old instead, it would have
almost no impact on the woman’s reproductive capacity. Selection operates only weakly on
the older woman, since most or all of her reproduction has already occurred (Nesse &
Williams, 1994).<p>Williams (1957) took this observation as a starting point and developed a pleiotropic
theory of senescence. Pleiotropy is the phenomenon whereby a gene can have two or more
different effects. Let’s say that there is a gene that boosts testosterone in men, causing them
to be more successful in competing with other men for status early in life, such as in their
twenties and thirties. But the elevated testosterone also has a negative effect later in life—
increasing the risk of prostate cancer. This pleiotropic gene can be favored by selection-—
that is, it increases in frequency in subsequent generations—because the early advantage in
status gains for men outweighs the later cost in lowered survival due to prostate cancer.
Through this pleiotropic process, we have evolved a number of genes that help us early in
life but cause damaging effects later in life, when selection is weak or absent.<p>The pleiotropic theory of senescence helps to explain not only why our organs all wear
out at roughly the same time late in life, but also why men die younger than women—
roughly seven years earlier on average (Kruger & Nesse, 2006; Williams & Nesse, 1991).
The effects of selection operate more strongly on men than on women because the reproductive variance of men is higher than that of women. Stated differently, most fertile women
reproduce, and the maximum number of children they can have is sharply restricted—
roughly twelve, for all practical purposes. Men, in contrast, can produce dozens of children
or be shut out of reproduction entirely. Because men have greater variability in reproduction, selection can operate more intensely on them than on women. In particular, selection
will favor genes that enable a man to compete successfully for mates early in life to be one
of the few who reproduces a lot or to avoid being excluded entirely.<p>Selection for men’s success in mate competition will be favored, even if it means
that these genes have detrimental effects on survival later in life. Even though men can and
sometimes do reproduce for a longer period of time than women. Senescence theory explains
why these later reproductive events will have a much smaller impact than events occurring
earlier in life for men. Genes will be selected for early success in mate competition more
strongly in men than in women, at the expense of genes that promote survival later. This
strong selection for early advantage produces a higher proportion of pleiotropic genes that
cause early death. As one researcher noted, “it seems likely that males suffer higher mortality
than do females because in the past they have enjoyed higher potential reproductive success,
and this has selected for traits that are positively associated with high reproductive success but at a cost of decreased survival” (Trivers. 1985, p. 314). Men, in short, are
“designed” to die sooner than women, and the theory of senescence helps to solve the
mystery of why.<p>In summary, selection is most potent early in life because any events that happen early
can affect the entire span of a person’s reproductive years. As people get older, however, the
power of selection weakens. In the extreme case something that happened to you in old age
right before you died would likely have no effect on your reproductive capacity. This means
that selection will favor adaptations that give beneficial effects early in life, even if they
come with heavy costs later on. These heavy costs cumulate in old age, resulting in the deterioration of all body parts at roughly the same time. In this sense organisms can be said to
be “designed” to die.<p>--<p>The authors are pushing the X-linked recessive inheritance
hypothesis <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-linked_recessive_inheritance" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-linked_recessive_inheritance</a> , which by itself is fine but by itself does not paint the whole picture. The theory does not take into account how genes on the Y chromosome can affect the expression of other genes. For instance, a single gene on the Y chromosome can affect the expression of thousands of other genes across the whole genome.<p>[1] Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (4th Edition) by David Buss, pages 101-102 |
Cheating on a string theory exam | ELI5 Version:<p>In order to understand the solution, we need to first understand basics of coding theory. Unlike envelopes when we send messages over a wire, or through air (wireless) it is possible that the messages we send get corrupted. Specifically if we are sending “Hello” it can end up becoming “Hgllo” where e became g because of some electric/electromagnetic distortion. If we typed incorrectly using our mobile keyboards it would have auto corrected “Hgllo” to “Hello”. This is possible, because our natural languages have a lot of redundant information. Otherwise if we lost one word in a conversation whole sentence would not make sense.<p>Coding theory is about how do we systematically put redundant information so that computers can correct for errors. We are only going to talk about one type of error, where a letter gets replaced by another letter. If ABCDEF becomes GBCDEH ; here two letters are wrong, and we say they have a distance of 2. What will happen if we simply repeat each letter? Message ABC becomes AABBCC. Now if a single error happens GABBCC we know original message got corrupted. We still can’t figure out what the original message is. It could be either ABC or GBC. So a better technique would be to repeat each letter thrice. Message ABC becomes AAABBBCCC. Now if a single error happens GAABBBCCC, then we can say if there is only one error then the correct message is ABC by taking majority. Note that this cannot correct for two errors because if you see GGABBBCCC then you will think real message is GBC.<p>What if the message has 4 letters, ABCD becomes AAABBBCCCDDD? This scheme requires you to send 12 letters just to correct 1 error in 4 letters. We denote this by saying [12, 4, 1] — where 12 is the coding distance, 4 is the original message length, and 1 is the number of letters we can correct for.<p>For now let us temporarily restrict our focus to binary letters (0, 1). This is because in computers we communicate purely using 0s and 1s. For example letter A would be represented by a number 65, which would be represented as 0100 0001 an 8-bit message, or simply called a byte.<p>It turns out if we want to send 4 bits, then using 12 bits for it is actually not very efficient. You could do better. In fact just 7 bits is enough to represent 4 bits where you can correct for a single error. This is called the hamming code.<p>Let us understand why our repeating scheme works in more detail. Consider any two valid code sequence, for example AAABBBCCCDDD and AAAAEEECCCDDD, even though only one character changed in the input, 3 letters changed in the output. So if we make sure distance between any two coded sentences is 3 then we can correct for one error.<p>There are 16 possible words using 4 bits (0000, 0001, 0010, … 1111). If we can assign code words for each of them such that distance between any two is 3, then we can say that it can correct for 1 error. Hamming code essentially achieves it. If are encoding ABCD, then first 4 bits is the same as the the input viz ABCD, 5th bit is A + B + D; 6th bit is A + C + D, and 7th bit is B + C + D. Of course sum like 3 will be replaced by 1 again by taking remainder to 2. Such codes are also called linear codes, where each bit can be written as linear combination of input bits. You can read chapter 5 of Jiri Matousek’s 33 Miniatures to see a quick proof on why hamming code is indeed a valid code using a bit of linear algebra. Or you can simply write down 16 of those codes, and check every two combination and make sure they differ in at least three places. (You will need to compare 120 pairs though). <a href="http://kam.mff.cuni.cz/~matousek/stml-53-matousek-1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://kam.mff.cuni.cz/~matousek/stml-53-matousek-1.pdf</a><p>What if we want to correct for more than 1 error? Golay code is one such code. G23 and G24 are two codes that encodes 12 bits in 23 and 24 bits respectively. In the first case hamming distance is 7 and in second case it is 8. There is no reason to have a distance 8, distance 7 is enough because<p>Imagine two codes valid codes (x0) and (x7) which are 7 distances apart. Then using 7 changes you can reach from x0 to x7.<p>(x0) — x1 — x2 — x3* — x4* — x5 — x6 — (x7)<p>Even if (x0) makes 3 errors, and (x7) makes 3 errors you will only end up with (x3) or (x4). And never get confused. So if we want to correct for k errors then hamming distance between any two code words must be 2k + 1 or higher.<p>It turns out that G23 is not just a good code, it is a “perfect” code. Meaning if we want to send 12 bits, with 3 bits of correction, then you must need 23 bits.<p>Now back to our problem, you have 23 answers in front of you, assume it is G23 code and decode back to 12 bits. You get up at a time to represent these 12 bits. We know that when your friend encodes this 12 bits back to G23 code then at most 3 bits will be out of place. In other words you friend will get at most 3 answers wrong. Hence getting at least 20 of them correct.<p>Now relationship with String theory requires a bigger write up. But essentially it is because the internal structure of field theory on some kind of donut shaped universe, the type of transformations you can do there will look something like the type of transformations you can do on the Golay codes. |
Since Devs change jobs every few years now: 401k or Roth? | First thing I want to say is that it's very easy for technical people to frame this as a technical issue rather than an emotional issue. The evidence is overwhelming that wealth building is an emotional issue. So if you're not paying attention to that side of the equation, all this tax stuff really doesn't matter. I'll get back to this later and explain the four account types now.<p>Employer:
Traditional 401k (pre tax), Roth 401k (after tax)<p>Personal:
Traditional IRA (pre tax), Roth IRA (after tax)<p>These are tax designations, not investment types.<p>Roth means after tax dollars (more money up front). Traditional is pre tax dollars (you get pay more later). Both <i>grow</i> tax free, but with the traditional withdrawals count as income so they are taxed according to that tax year.<p>401k has a contribution limit is $18k / year.
IRA has a contribution limit of $5500 / year.<p>$23.5k / year total right now for somebody under 55.<p>If you make enough / spend little enough that you can put the maximum dollars under the shelter, my suggestion is to go Roth 401k and Roth IRA or backdoor IRA. Over a 30 year period, the additional dollars under Roth will make up for most tax percentage differences, so it's a decent bet. Roth is the best way to max dollars under the tax shelter, and the tax shelter is hugely profitable. Also, if you go Roth, your retirement balance will be the real balance, not some fake number that is still subject to unknown future taxation.<p>If you can't max the dollars, then it doesn't matter as much if you pick Roth or Traditional. Yes, you have to make a call about what tax rates will be now vs. in the future, but how much money you put into the account and if you stay steady with low cost investments will matter more. So I wouldn't focus on the tax issue. I'd focus on how you earn enough / spend less to be able to max both contributions so that the tax issue matters less than the opportunity cost of having investments outside the tax shelter.<p>If your employer doesn't offer a retirement plan, you can usually write off a traditional IRA contribution on your taxes. However, I'd recommend you do a Roth IRA instead or avoid this writeoff so that you can do the back door roth mentioned in the next paragraph.<p>If you make too much for a Roth IRA, you can do a back door roth ira.<p>Get a tax guy for this. It can get complicated the IRS is a headache. It's worth it to pay for a tax guy.<p>Do this by funding a traditional IRA then converting it to a roth IRA. The conversion has no income limit - that's why this is legally possible. This gets more complicated if you have traditional IRA money, because they don't let you pick which dollars you're converting. The cleanest way is to convert all of the money at once, but you will have a big tax bill if you do this, so you need the cash saved up OUTSIDE the account. If you pay the taxes with money from the account, there's no point doing it. When you convert it, it's counted as income -- you have to pay the taxes at your current tax rate, and that may bump you into a higher tax bracket, so you might not want to convert it all at once to avoid those higher taxes. If you know you're going to live in a lower tax state soon, it is probably wise to wait until you fall under the tax laws of that state to do the conversion... but remember ,this is most valuable while you're young, so when I say wait, I mean 2 years, not 20. It can be a hairy calculation. The taxes you pay are, in effect, shoving more money under the tax free growth umbrella.<p>Most 401ks offer mediocre to bad investment options. This sucks, but contribute anyway b/c the tax shelter is fabulous, and later you'll roll the money over into an IRA where you can pick good stuff. I suggest go an indexing route like Betterment.<p>Allright, so those are the tax mechanics. But they don't matter if you don't actually save the money, and saving the money is highly dependent on your emotions and habits.<p>- Do you have habits that are coping mechanism connected to spending?
- Are you surrounded by people in BMWs who make you feel poor?
- Do you regularly read about investing and spend time planning your investing?
- Do you have a plan for career advancement?
- Do you have mentors for career advancement?
- Do you keep a monthly budget and check your spending against your plans?
- Do you know your retirement date?<p>I'm asking all these things because they are more important than the (theoretical) mechanics of the money. Engineers love to believe a spreadsheet showing how their 30 year 4% mortgage is hedged well against their predicted 8% portfolio to make them an extra $150k over 30 years, but the truth is that Americans suck at saving and generally don't save, so the hedge never happens and the spreadsheet was a waste of time. Also, maintaining the mortgage can put enough pressure on someone that they keep the paycheck instead of starting a business, so he earned a fraction of what he would have if he'd tried a startup. The decision to lower financial risk to start a company has a hard-to-calculate gain. We tend to avoid it and instead focus on things we can calculate.<p>If you spend some time reading about personal finance and psych, you can learn how to be a happier person while spending less, and this will matter more for your retirement than 401k vs. IRA and Traditional vs Roth.<p>I recommend you invest some time and money in some good books / audio books. They will pay themselves back 1000X, literally.<p>1. Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover
2. The Millionaire Nextdoor (and the Millionaire Mind sometime later)
3. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
4. <a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/</a>
5. <a href="http://earlyretirementextreme.com/" rel="nofollow">http://earlyretirementextreme.com/</a>
6. Predictably Irrational
7. The Power of Habit<p>Of course, tax sheltered retirement accounts aren't the only option planning for the future. But they are a decent insurance plan. As you read more about personal finance, you'll see some of the other options for your savings (education, business), and you'll have to make a call about how you want to spread your risk. good luck. |
27 Jobs with Unbelievably Tough Interview Questions | > 4. “Who in history would you want to go to dinner with and why?”—Flight Attendant, PSA Airlines<p>I was asked a similar question, but in a quite different context. I was on jury duty in the Los Angeles area in July, 1987. Our panel was sent to a courtroom that needed a jury for some drug charge. The procedure was that 14 from the panel would sit in the jury box (12 jurors plus 2 alternates), where we'd be questioned by the judge and lawyers, and if any of us were rejected for that jury, someone else from the panel would take their place and be question. Repeat until there are 12 acceptable jurors.<p>One of the questions the defense attorney asked us was if we could have dinner that night with anyone in the world, living or past, who would we choose? I was in the fifth seat in the front row, so had some time to think before he got to me. The answers ahead of me were the candidate's deceased mother, Richard Feynman, Pope John Paul II [1], and I forget the other.<p>Then he asked me.<p>I said "Adolph Hitler".<p>A lot of the panel that was not in the box (maybe 30 people) had been kind of nodding off, as this was boring, and the courtroom was hot (it was the middle of summer, and the courtroom was not air conditioned). My answer woke them all up.<p>The attorney asked why and I explained that Hitler did terrible things to other people, and was clearly insane. That makes him at least interesting, but not unique. What sets Hitler apart, and makes him a good candidate for dinner, is that he somehow got a lot of apparently sane, rational, educated, well-off people to willingly help him commit his atrocities. He must have had tremendous charisma or something in order to get those results, and so a dinner with him should be very interesting.<p>The prosecutor also asked us a far out question. She asked us what we would say if aliens (the space kind, not the human from another country kind...) contacted us and said they had been monitoring our news and were confused about the "drug problem", and asked us to explain it.<p>I told her that I would tell them that we have arbitrarily classified some drugs as illegal and some as legal, without much regard to the actual harm of each, and so we have some drugs legal (alcohol, tobacco...yes, I know these might not scientifically be drugs, but for purposes of drug law policy they are effectively drugs), and some illegal (marijuana, LSD, cocaine, heroin, for instance), even though some of the latter group (such as marijuana) do the same or less harm than some in the former group. Then on top of that we don't admit that this is arbitrary and irrational, and so our schools, police, and government lie to kids telling them that drugs like marijuana are as bad as heroin. Of course, the kids end up trying marijuana, find out that they were lied to, and then do not trust the advice they've received on other drugs, and so likely end up trying drugs that really ARE bad. And then we waste a lot of money trying to enforce these stupid laws on things like marijuana when we could be putting that money and time toward real problems. She tried to defend the drug laws and policy, and we argued for a bit before she moved on.<p>So...basically...I told the prosecutor that this case was stupid and irrational, and she is working for a system that purposefully lies and makes the problems worse. Oh, and I had long hair and a beard and was wearing a tie-dye shirt that made me look like a hippy who had just come from a Grateful Dead concert and was probably on drugs right now.<p>I was pretty sure at this point that I was not going to make it onto that jury. The only question was whether it would be the defense or the prosecution that used one of their three peremptory challenges to kick me off.<p>I was guessing it would be the prosecutor, because I had basically told her I considered this whole thing stupid and harmful. On the other hand, I did say when asked that I would vote according to what the law says, regardless of how stupid I thought that law or its application was, and they knew I was a software engineer with a math degree from Caltech and so might have felt that this made it believable that I would be able to let logic rule instead of emotion.<p>It was actually the defense that did it. The prosecutor used all 3 of hers on other people, and the defense used his first 2 on others, then took me out with his final one. I think they were both holding off because they each thought the other might take me out.<p>[1] This was in July, 1987, so John Paul II was the current Pope, and Feynman was still alive. |
Facts about migration and crime in Sweden | OK, I'm going to address two claims together:<p>> "The number of reported rapes in Sweden has risen. But the definition of rape has broadened over time, which makes it difficult to compare the figures. It is also misleading to compare the figures with other countries, as many acts that are considered rape under Swedish law are not considered rape in many other countries."<p>and:<p>> "the main difference in terms of criminal activity between immigrants and others in the population was due to differences in the socioeconomic conditions in which they grew up in Sweden."<p>Firstly, "socioeconomic conditions" can not excuse away rape or murder. And even if they could, that's little solace to the victims of these crimes. Secondly the study they are referring to states that "socioeconomic conditions" can explain 50% to 75% of the difference. Even then, what about the other 25% to 50%?<p>As for the redefinition of rape, it was expanded in April 2005 to include acts perpetrated against victims in a ‘helpless state’, such as being intoxicated. So it's broader but much of what it captures still falls under the term rape in other countries' legislation too. New crimes weren't invented, they were simply shifted from the sexual assault column. Plus it keeps on rising, a decade after the redefinition.<p>But here's the thing. We can ignore the redefinition and the associated noise, and instead look at trends before 2005 as well as at aggravated rape (Grov våldtäkt) whose frequency is not affected by changing definitions. We can also just see what the crime reports tell us. Let's do that.<p>Here's the facts:<p>- Studies in 1996 and again in 2005 showed that foreign-born individuals were 4.7 times more likely to commit a crime of rape and 3.7 times more likely to commit the crime of murder.<p>- Multiplying each group's proportion of suspects by their absolute size gives us the absolute amount of those suspected of "Rape" for each group. Doing that we find that "Swedes" made up 43.5% of "Rape" suspects, "Half-Swedes" made up 14.6% of "Rape" suspects, and "Foreigners" made up 42% of "Rape" suspects. These are approximations.<p>- 2005's info is less informative as Sweden stopped publishing info on ethnicity but had this to say in a their report: "Immigrants’ risk of being registered for crime has not changed in any pronounced way since the previous study conducted by the National Council, which related to the situation at the end of the 1980s"<p>- Before the change to the penal code in 2005, rapes were rising rapidly. "The number of consummated rapes reported to the police has increased dramatically, more than tripling over the course of the past two decades. A total of 2,261 consummated rapes were reported to the police in the year 2004. It is not possible to exclude the possibility that the dramatic increase in reported rape offences may at least to some extent be the result of an increase in the propensity to report these crimes to the police. <i>On the whole, however, no support was found for interpretations suggesting that this factor, even taken in combination with the effects of the legislative change referred to above, would be sufficient to explain any major part of the increase in the number of reported rapes. Thus it has not been established, but it does not appear unlikely, that the number of rapes committed has in fact increased.</i>"<p>- "Since 1990, the number of reported cases has increased by an average 400 per year. According to the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), people’s propensity to report has probably increased during this period, <i>but a reasonable assumption is that actual violence against women in close relationships also increased in the 1990s.</i>"<p>- A 1996 BRA (Swedish Criminal statistics) study found that <i>"there any indication that immigrants in Sweden are discriminated in the courts. Immigrant overrepresentation in registered crime is almost certainly real...nor is it caused by any generally lower social economic status (calculated as per SEI code) in Sweden."</i><p>- Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention determined that between 1985 and 1989 individuals born in Iraq, North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia),Africa (excluding Uganda and the North African countries), other Middle East (Jordan, Palestine, Syria), Iran and Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria) were convicted of rape at rates 20, 23, 17, 9, 10 and 18 greater than individuals born in Sweden respectively."<p>- Eurostat use the ICCS (international classification of crime for statistical purposes) method which standardises types of crimes so that they mean the same thing in different countries. Their stats show rape in Sweden is rising both before and after 2005.<p>- Audited sentences for rape from 2009 shows an over-representation by as many as 48 percent of the rapists were born abroad. (This represents an increase compared data from 2005, which could point to the phenomenon is growing.) Within the category of aggravated rape, the figure was as much as 64 percent.<p>- Professor Sten Levander, a member of BRÅ:s scientific board, in an interview with tabloid Aftonbladet said "That the number of reported rapes has increased so significantly in a short time can not be explained by regulatory changes and increased willingness to report the crime. Scientists believe that certain types of rape may indeed have become more common."<p>So, yes. Sweden's real rape-rate is rising and, yes, migrants are disproportionately responsible. Often shockingly so.<p>Sources:<p><a href="https://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/05/08/br-1996-2-invandrares-och-invandrares-barns-brottslighet-1/br-1996-2-invandrares-och-invandrares-barns-brottslighet-1.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/05/08/br-1996-2-invandrares...</a>
<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1147632?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/1147632?seq=2#page_scan_tab_con...</a>
<a href="https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800025850/1371914734437/2005_crime_among_persons_born_in_sweden_and_other_countries.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800025850/1...</a>
<a href="https://www.bra.se/download/18.779f51ff14b839896441cec/1427800831841/Reported_offences_1950_2014.xls"" rel="nofollow">https://www.bra.se/download/18.779f51ff14b839896441cec/14278...</a>
<a href="https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800010674/1371914726382/2006_4_kriminalstatistik_2005.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800010674/1...</a>
<a href="https://www.bra.se/download/18.12305534131e173a7f180001557/1371914735610/2010_18_english_summary_men's_violence_against_women.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bra.se/download/18.12305534131e173a7f180001557/1...</a>
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<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-datasets/-/crim_off_cat" rel="nofollow">http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-datasets/-/crim_of...</a>
<a href="https://www.bra.se/download/18.31d7fffa1504bbffea0abf49/1450440526618/2015_Våldtäktsbrottets_hantering_i_rättskedjan.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bra.se/download/18.31d7fffa1504bbffea0abf49/1450...</a>
<a href="http://www.bra.se/download/18.22a7170813a0d141d2180007794/2012_13_Brottsutvecklingen_i_Sverige_2008_2011.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.bra.se/download/18.22a7170813a0d141d2180007794/20...</a>
<a href="http://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/05/08/br-1996-2-invandrares-och-invandrares-barns-brottslighet-1/br-1996-2-invandrares-och-invandrares-barns-brottslighet-1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/05/08/br-1996-2-invandrares-...</a>
<a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:526664/FULLTEXT01.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:526664/FULLTEXT0...</a> |
Facts about migration and crime in Sweden | I would take these "facts" about migration with a huge rock of salt.<p>In Sweden, as in other Western European countries, public debate about immigration, islamisation and its consequences to society is being smothered under a suffocating blanket of political correctness.<p>After the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne - when on one square, during one night a total of about 1200 women were hemmed in individually and sexually assaulted by a mob of muslim men [1] - the German press and the government managed to keep the events under wraps for four days until the outrage on social media became too great to ignore.<p>In the slipstream of the press coverage that followed, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that similar events had happened since a couple of years on the summer music festival "We Are Sthlm" in Stockholm [2]. When asked for reasons as to why nothing of this ever became public knowledge, Police chief Peter Ågren is quoted explaining how he performs self-censorship on these kinds of cases as to not play into the hands of the anti-immigration party Sverigedemokraterna [3][4].<p>I don't follow Swedish media because of the language barrier but if my experience with Flemish and Dutch media is any indication then this political party might very well be demonised beyond recognition in the Swedish press. People don't like to play into the hands of what they're told to consider as the Second Coming of Lucifer, even when the events turn out to be the very thing this party has been warning for for years.<p>It would be quite understandable if events like wat happened in Stockholm would lead to a moral panic [5], but as soon as it becomes clear that muslim immigrants are the perpetrators, the opposite happens. People will vent their outrage about what happened in a close circle of trusted friends but put on a mask of political correctness to anyone outside that circle. Not unlike the Soviet Union in its heyday. On the other hand, as soon as there is a hint of how racist the native population allegedly is, the press kicks into full moral panic mode.<p>A striking example of this double standard are the events of 2016 in Belgium. During the arrest of terrorist Salah Abdeslam in Brussels [6], the anti-terror units were pelted with stones and bottles by muslim youth from the Molenbeek neighbourhood where his hideout was. Quite the contradiction to the eternal story we keep hearing about "a few bad apples". So the public broadcaster VRT decided not to mention that pesky detail. Elsewhere it hardly got any coverage until a minister got angry over it [7]. When on the other hand a few racist comments made by native Belgians are found on Facebook among millions of non-racist ones, then this is reason enough for the newspaper "De Morgen" to appear with a entirely black front page [8].<p>The Swedish government's "fact" sheet puts on a brave face about having immigration-related violence under control. One look at the ever growing list of recent grenade attacks [9] (that they conveniently forget to mention in their factsheet) tells us there is a very serious problem [10]. No mention neither of the fact that of the 160.000+ asylum seekers that arrived in 2015 only, fewer than 500 landed a job [11]. On a total population of 10 million people hundreds of thousands of relative newcomers - many of them functionally illiterate - are living on benefits without any prospect of ever playing a role in the economy of Sweden where less than 5% of the jobs is low-skilled [12].<p>The "factsheet" lambasts its own citizens - who foot the bill for the benefits and the urban unrest - for being islamophobe, for harrassing muslims and for discriminating them on the job market. It misleadingly suggest a percentage of 1.5 muslims by only counting "muslim faith communities". While the real number is probably at least 6% [13]. Apparantly the Swedish government wants us to believe that the other 4.5% have become secular.<p>The findings of the Dutch scholar Ruud Koopmans, who does research at the Humboldt university in Berlin tell another story. By conducting surveys among the European muslim population he comes to the conclusion that 40 to 45% percent can be classified as fundamentalist [14][15]. There is also the British Channel 4 docu "What British Muslims Really Think" [16].<p>That many muslims in Sweden are quite fundamentalist is why the Jewish actor Kim Bodnia decided to quit the crime series "The Bridge" because he did no longer feel safe in Malmö with its growing antisemitism [17].<p>And if you think this will all blow over once the children of the first generation immigrants have finished school and are ready for the job market, think again. Second generation muslim immigrants are no better integrated, they are even worse integrated. If you want to look up some stats from Belgium on that topic you hit a stonewall. But the Dutch central bureau for statistics has some solid public data on that.<p>So one of the disturbing things they found was that for many non-Western minorities criminality rate increased with the second generation w.r.t. the first one. Take for instance Moroccans and Turks, as they are important minorities in both Belgium and the Netherlands.<p>Males with a Moroccan background are almost six times more likely to be a crime suspect than a native Dutchman. Males of Turkish descent more than three times. And when you split up by generation: second generation Moroccans in the Netherlands are almost three times more likely to be a crime suspect than the first generation. Second generation Turks more than two times [18].<p>So you have a generation of people who were born and spent their entire life in the Netherlands, went to the same schools and got the same education as Dutch kids, and yet they are more of a burden to society and are less well integrated than the first generation of immigrants.<p>I think you can extrapolate that to other European countries like Sweden and to immigrants with a background in other parts of the world, like the horn of Africa, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.<p>The share of muslims among the European population is also rapidly growing [19] because of a number of factors that amplify each other. First of all there is the continued influx. Then you have family reunification. Add to that the fact that many muslims of 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation prefer to look for a spouse in their country of origin. And there is the higher birthrate among muslims compared to the native population. And finally there are native people who feel alienated in their own country and go try their luck in North America, Australia or New Zealand.<p>So I think these "facts" are a desperate attempt by the Swedish government to shape perception towards their own interests, and you are better informed when reading the testimony of that courageous Swedish cop:<p><a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20170208/swedish-police-officer-causes-controversy-with-facebook-post" rel="nofollow">http://www.thelocal.se/20170208/swedish-police-officer-cause...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Sthlm_sexual_assaults" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Sthlm_sexual_assaults</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-up-mass-sex-attacks-by-migrant-men-swedens-record-is-shameful/" rel="nofollow">http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that...</a><p>[4] <a href="http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/assaults-at-the-stockholm-festival-have-never-been-fully-investigated/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/assaults-at-the-stockholm-f...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic</a><p>[6] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Brussels_police_raids" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Brussels_police_raids</a><p>[7] <a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/binnenland/1.2607503&edit-text=&act=url" rel="nofollow">https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...</a><p>[8] <a href="https://twitter.com/demorgen/status/760580553850621954" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/demorgen/status/760580553850621954</a><p>[9] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe...</a><p>[10] <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-sweden-grenades-idUKKCN0QE09F20150809" rel="nofollow">http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-sweden-grenades-idUKKCN0QE0...</a><p>[11] <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-asylum-seekers-sweden-applications-withdrawn-record-numbers-a7209231.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisi...</a><p>[12] <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/finance-economics/21709511-too-few-refugees-not-too-many-are-working-europe-refugees-sweden-are" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/news/finance-economics/21709511-too...</a><p>[13] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Sweden" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Sweden</a><p>[14] <a href="https://www.wzb.eu/en/press-release/islamic-fundamentalism-is-widely-spread" rel="nofollow">https://www.wzb.eu/en/press-release/islamic-fundamentalism-i...</a><p>[15] <a href="https://phys.org/news/2015-01-islamic-fundamentalism-marginal-phenomenon-europe.html" rel="nofollow">https://phys.org/news/2015-01-islamic-fundamentalism-margina...</a><p>[16] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQcSvBsU-FM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQcSvBsU-FM</a><p>[17] <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/12160003/Anti-semitism-in-Malmo-made-me-quit-says-The-Bridge-actor.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/1216...</a><p>[18] <a href="https://www.cbs.nl/-/media/_pdf/2016/47/ji2016s_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbs.nl/-/media/_pdf/2016/47/ji2016s_web.pdf</a>, paragraph 1.7, "Proportion of crime suspects by background and background characteristics, 2015*"<p>[19] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth#Europe" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth#Europ...</a> |
Why taxing robots is not a good idea | <i>Particular workers may suffer by being displaced by robots, but workers as a whole might be better off because prices fall.</i><p>May... might... this is the argument?<p>Let's be clear: robots disrupt the supply side and help the demand side. Full stop. Let's not conflate the two in our arguments.<p>Yes, lower prices help the consumer. They also squeeze producers. See Amazon wage slaves -> kiva robots, or Apple FOXCONN factories -> robots, or Uber drivers -> self driving cars, etc etc etc.<p>When the producer is a human we have added constraints, whose cost goes up every decade and century: we want the human to...<p>+ Not starve... and now have a choice in good nutritious food from all over the world<p>+ Have access to water ... which is clean, potable and is pumped to their faucet automatically<p>+ Have healthcare ... that utilizes all the advancements of modern medicine to reduce child mortality etc.<p>+ Have primary education ... with multimedia on iPads instead of a huge backpaack of heavy books<p>+ Not be homeless ... while having their own apartment with enough living space to be comfortable<p>+ Utilities ... inclding broadband internet and a basic cellphone plan.<p>etc etc.<p>These demands are larger than, say, in medieval times, when serfs worked the land. We also have quite more wealth as a society thanks to advances in automation and information, and just building upon previous results.<p>Thus we can afford to get the basics taken care of unconditionally for all members of society.<p>It doesn't have tk be Unconditional Basic Income. A better method is Single Payer Systems, which we already have in many countries. Single payerfor education, public schools, healthcare, etc.<p>NOTE: this is not the same as government provided housing, education, etc. There shohld be vouchers that let people choose the provider. And it would only cover the basic service. Providers would compete to offer that basic service to the huge pool of buyers - WHO DO NOT COMPETE WHEN IT COMES TO THE BASIC SERVICE LEVEL. This is the key. Consumers compete on how much they pay, that's it. The single payer sets the price for the basic level. Prices therefore go down. (See eg Medicare or single payer systems around the world.)<p>For example a "Food Stamps for All" program where the first $100 a week is loaded onto SNAP cards for everyone, including millionaires. After that they are free to do whatever they want. We might even require (LOCAL!!) ID to use the card for food, to prevent ID theft. To starve, a poor person would have to explicitly sell their last food aftr buying it. Same with "Medicare for all" and "Housing for all".<p>This can be done on a local level. Everyone in NYC or SF gets taxed and gets $1000 a month in housing vouchers which landlords would be free to accept, or not. Most would, just like most doctors choose to accept insurance.<p>Where will that money come from? That's a silly question. People ALREADY have to pay for food if they live in a city. This simply makes the whole thing cheaper by squeezing the producers further. The producers may introduce robots, pay less to CEOs, or whatever, in order to get access to all that volume. But the one thing they won't be able to do is raise prices because some buyer might defect and pay them (shout out patio11). They can do that for premium services but never the basics. That is a GOOD thing for everyone because everyone needs the basics. Bill Gates said the burger still tastes the same when you are a billionaire.<p>So the end result is cheaper for the consumers, not more expensive. It is just a question of how to get from here to there. Being able to phase it in on a city level and really try it is a good feature of any program.<p>If you're a Conservative, consider that you most likely already support this in Primary School Education (vouchers and single payer for all) but for some reason oppose it in Healthcare etc.<p>If you're a Libertarian or Anarchist: listen, I'm a minarchist! I want to get government down to one thing: taxing and running single payer systems for thins we all need. Maybe that includes the army but nowhere near the amount the US has now. What I would like to see is single payer systems for basic levels of every thing people have come to expect.<p>The argument that someone is getting something for nothing is an even sillier argument.<p>We all live in the 21st century people!! Just by being born at a certain time we get things that even kings could only dream of, for nearly all of human history. Many people <i>already have</i> single payer systems.<p>And you are jealous that someone lives in the 21st century has a safety net, so if they don't work they don't starve?<p>You are jealous someone doesn't live as a serf on the land, who doesn't eat if he doesn't work?<p>You have the same protection! The same equal opportunity. Many of them are jealous of you for having been born in a more wealthy place.<p>Stop the jealousy. Single payer allows equal opportunity for all. It allows us to abolish minimum wage. Let people learn new skills, make contributions to copyleft / patentleft, discover new drugs, spend time raising their children well, instead of working a dead end uber driver or macsonalds job which will be automated soon. That's the real solution. If you're going to do anything, ensure everyone has the minimum first. |
Ask HN: What is 1 thing that can take a Junior's career to the next level? | There are many things you can do, and not really "one" silver bullet, but I feel the most important are "soft-skills" and a hyper-focus on learning. You asked for one, but the two of them are so deeply connected, I feel they warrant being included together.<p>Communication/soft-skills has already been mentioned so I'll leave it with the simple "At the end of the day, regardless of how smart you are, if you cannot work well with others and you're not the sole employee/owner, your value is very limited".<p>The biggest problem I've found being a software developer is exposed by this phenomenon referred to as Imposter Syndrom[0]. In a lot of fields, there are good ways to measure yourself and your skills against others. In software development, it's a difficult thing to measure. You can become an "expert" in the core language you write in -- understanding the common patterns, standard libraries, and common features -- and no matter how much your abilities increase, what you know is far less than what you don't know.<p>Even today, with resources like StackOverflow, open-source material and source repositories with endless amounts of code available, learning corners of your specialty is hard. Your resource may be "out-of-date" (which happens within weeks, rather than months/years) or might be so specialized that there's just nothing out there[1]. Because of Imposter Syndrom, your developers are not quick to point out their weaknesses, but knowing the strengths/weaknesses of your coworkers helps you to be effective and to know who to tap when you get stuck. Unlike "that person in the forum", they have a vested interest in making you better -- you'll reduce their workload the more effective you become. Provided you're good at establishing relationships/friendships with others, they'll actively <i>help</i> you to become better and there's no better way to learn than one-on-one with someone who has the skills you lack. Knowing their weaknesses allows you to better focus your study on areas that the team has gaps (tip: offer up your own deficiencies and others will open up about theirs).<p>A lot also depends on what corner of software development you're focused on. If you're focused on web front-end development, you have a much easier time learning what you need to learn, and more jobs available to shine in, but you also have a huge amount of competition and a greater distance between Junior and Senior. In a highly specialized area -- mine was Skype for Business development -- you have fewer job options, almost no resources but a much smaller distance between Junior and Senior since simply having experience in <i>one</i> of the APIs already puts you near the middle. At first, I was tempted to say that being in the latter category is helpful, but having done it and reflecting on how painful it is when you run into a problem and have, literally, nobody to turn to for help[2], I can't say that I recommend it. Picking an area of focus that is somewhere in the middle might be a good idea. :o)<p>On learning, figure out what techniques are most effective for you. I don't do well in lectures, and I don't have the patience for video tutorials. I took a class about 20 years ago on effective book study (it was called "speed reading" at the time, but has nothing to do with these gimmicky techniques taught by apps, today). I learned how to skim/scan material and take effective notes while doing so, allowing me to consume huge books in hours, and "read" those books for information several times over a period of a week/month. I felt like I had a "super power" and exercised this ability to the tune of about 6-10 large volumes per year. When I need to learn something, I look for a good, thick, book on the subject, set a goal for completion and relentlessly pour myself into it. For programming, I know this requires me finding a personal, useful, project to build, an "instructional book" and a "reference book". Give me those three things and the language, framework or pattern in question will be cemented in a way that allows me to use it at a practical level.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx</a><p>[1] My area of focus until very recently was developing software for Skype for Business using some of the (very excellent) APIs provided by Microsoft. Unfortunately, the number of people who are doing professional development in this software is small due to its target audience being enterprises. You just don't have a large number of hobbyists writing libraries on the weekends. The primary API I used to develop in, UCMA, had one half-chapter in one large book written in 2007, none of which is helpful to new developers due to it being <i>wildly</i> out of date. The documentation for this API is mostly "Undocumentation", and I've encountered very few APIs that have as many sharp edges, parts that don't work as you'd intuitively expect or simply don't work in any way resembling the documentation.<p>[2] I can't tell you how many times I've googled a problem and ran into solutions where the answer was provided by a person I worked with that I could have tapped on the shoulder. Or the two times I googled something, saw the answer (in one case, slightly <i>disagreeing</i> with the approach) only to discover that the person who wrote it ... was me. Just goes to show that anything in software that you've written six months ago might as well have been written by someone else. |
Mozilla Acquires Pocket | I hope this is good news.<p>I've been using Pocket for a couple of years, and am a top-1% user. It's been useful, though also highly frustrating, and is at best only about a 50% solution.<p>I've provided considerable feedback to Pocket over issues and features. Over the course of a couple of years, few if any of them appear to be addressed, which has been highly disheartening. (Any Pocket folk: I'm "dredmorbius" at gmail, though not in my account, which is otherwise attributed, because, you know, privacy, Kristalnacht, Snowden, etc., etc.)<p>I'd previously used Readability, which was nice in fixing a primary problem of online content: Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem. But <i>that</i> service shut down, on 30 days notice (though with loud signs for the previous couple of years) last September. I spent several days largely manually transferring information out of Readability (404 links meant that a straight export wasn't useful -- I had to track down alternative references where possible). I'm hoping I don't have to go through that again.<p>I've looked at other alternatives: Instapaper (no compelling use case), Pinboard.in, by our very own @idlewords (his comment below was ... not particularly useful). Upshot: without a very specific walkthrough of the product, I can't tell if it's worth my time, and my time would be a week or month of trying to reconstruct the structure I already have in Pocket, in Pinboard. I've visited the "Tour" link multiple times, and no, it isn't clear that this offers me anything useful.<p>I'm thinking that RMS's model of having an email-based web-requesting systsem might actually be more useful than anything else. A Mutt (or Emacs mail-mode) searchable, taggable archive, date-sorted, threadable/groupable, would be a huge win over a lot of other alternatives. I've been thinking through other ways in which I might create my own self-hosted archive repository.<p>Zotero is another option, though again, I can't quite penetrate the use model / workflow.<p>In both cases, the prospect of being stuck with as-published layouts rather than as-useful layouts (have I mentioned: Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem) is disheartening.<p>I'd really like to have an offline / commandline tool which could manage webpage decrufting. I'm aware that it's not a fully deterministic process -- the problem with the Web, for better or worse (I've been suspecting the latter for some time) is that there are no publishing standards, and content follows no consistent form. That said, much content can be divided into two general categories: 1) known states of fucked up and 2) unknown states of fucked up. Growing the size of category one, and taking the hopeless cases and simply stripping <i>all</i> markup from it and starting from scratch (something I do myself, manually, far more often than I care to think) is a semi-reasonable approach.<p>I've written a few times on what's plaguing the Web (as have others, Maciej's rants are particulalry recommended).<p>Tabbed browsing: a band-aid:
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_browsing_a_lousy_bandaid_over_poor_browser/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_...</a><p>The Reference Management Problem:
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/50o1jv/the_references_management_problem_readability/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/50o1jv/the_ref...</a><p>And some general feedback (wrapped around some specific feedback) to Pocket:
<a href="https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/3eucmp_s0tumjuoxmfclbw" rel="nofollow">https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/3eucmp_s0tumjuoxmfclbw</a><p>(Yes, it's heavy on the caps and asterisks -- it's difficult otherwise to indicate important points in email. SoKookMeHarder...)<p>Borrowing from that last:<p>Don't put solving your own problems ahead of solving those of your users.<p>The features I do use, heavily, and would like to see improved, are article view (many websites remain glitchy, I'm well aware this is a whackamole problem, but it does need to be continually addressed), import (I've been working through a backlog of 2,000+ Readability articles migrating to Pocket, slowly, one-at-a-time, there's no automated tool), bulk-action tools, sub-corpus tools (working on a specific set of articles at a time), and tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags tags (did I say tags) tags tags tags. And more tags.<p>A principle, perhaps the principle problem with the Web as it stands is organisation particularly as concerns quality and vetted content.<p>There are various sources who can vet content. Some are good. There's one I especially trust, and whose judgement over what I like is strong: ME.<p>I've commented before, AND CONTINUE TO HUGELY APPRECIATE several features of Pocket, especially the ability to peform full-text searches of my current and archived articles. It's HUGE.<p>One of my (many) interests is COGNITIVE LOAD. Pocket is a tool for REDUCING COGNITIVE LOAD when reading online media. I see several mechanisms:<p>1. A standardised presentation of Web content. I can look at an article, and identify what is the primary content (virtually all of it), what's metadata (usually the top -- you do a good job but I'd love to see this improved as well), and where the controls are (standard Pocket bits).<p>2. Elimination of online distractions. Sidebars. Ads. Animations. Videos. Spurious links. Shitty page layout. Shitty font choices. Shitty colour choices. Shitty CSS choices.<p>3. Format optimised for my device and preferences. I love you to tears for not having to fuck with zoom, font choices, background/foreground colour, etc., etc., etc., on Every Fucking Webpage. ("Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem.") Huge. Or is that "Hyuuuuge!" now?<p>4. My own curation. Anything I've saved to Pocket I've seen at least once. There's a familiarity in returning to material which makes it more valuable.<p>5. Tags. Again, my assigned classifications for material. (And often picks selected from Pocket's tag suggestions, which are quite good.) |
Problems with RESTful APIs (2015) | This article is a complete strawman. His description of a supposed "REST"ful API is the least RESTful API I've seen in a while:<p>> <i>The what-we-actually-indended-to-use request method embedded in the request payload, e.g. DELETE</i><p>Don't do this.<p>> <i>The what-we-actually-indended-to-use response code embedded in the response payload, e.g. 206 Partial content.</i><p>Don't do this!<p>> <i>If you’ve ever worked with a RESTful API, you know they are almost impossible to debug.</i><p>You're begging the question.<p>There exist <i>plenty</i> of APIs that abuse the HTTP methods and status codes, which I feel like is really the core argument being made. But completely ignoring it and what its purpose is is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Read and understand the RFCs for HTTP, for a start; unfortunately, I'd wager that far too many devs of ostensibly RESTful APIs do not do this, and it shows when you get a response with a status code that makes zero sense. The vast majority of HTTP APIs I've interacted with violate both the semantic meaning of the methods and that of the status codes. (GitHub's is about the best I've ever seen.) A "RESTful HTTP API" is an API that uses the mechanisms in HTTP to accomplish the ideas of REST; (i.e., I'm not trying to equate HTTP and REST, I just think abuses of HTTP are a major impediment to understanding REST. Using HTTP well will naturally help you accomplish REST.)<p>> <i>can anyone out there explained to me what 417 Expectation failed really means?</i><p>You've not read and understood the RFCs for HTTP. 417 Expectation Failed is obvious if you have; an expectation (on the request) failed (cannot be met by the server). An "expectation" is denoted on the request through use of the "Expect" header. The only existing expectation is 100-continue. Even if you do not know this by heart (and I don't expect that), it's <i>readily</i> findable:<p>1. Google "http rfc status codes"; unfortunately it's the second result; Google doesn't understand that the second result is an updated version of the first. Regardless, if you go for the first result, it points you to the second (-ish, b/c the RFC was split into multiple).<p>2. You select "417 Expectation Failed" in the Table of Contents.<p>3. You read the extremely straight-forward explanation. If you don't understand what the Expect header is for, the RFC links you to it.<p>So what are the ideas of REST? Start at its (de-)acronym: "Representational state transfer". That is, transfer of <i>a resource</i>. A "resource" is just an "object" or a concept, a thing — the actual concrete thing represented by a resource is going to be determined by your domain specific problem. E.g., "a user's profile data", "a message in a thread", "a news article" are all "resources" in that they embody some concept or idea that we want to communicate the underlying state of. You also need a standard, or <i>uniform</i> method of uniquely identifying, or <i>locating</i> these resources, which is what a URL is for (you then see why it's lit. uniform resource locator). So we build URLs to stand in as names for resources.<p>In order to transfer the state of a resource, embodied at a URL, you need to send it across a wire. You need to serialize it into some <i>representation</i> that's going to get transferred. That's what HTTP is supposed to help you do.<p>If you <i>were</i> writing a RESTful API, embedding things like the status of the operation in the response body should feel wrong, because the status isn't conceptually a part of the resource you were trying to operate on in the first place; go back to our example of "a post in a thread" — whats a status got to do with that? While technically, yes, HTTP's entity body is capable of transferring arbitrary binary data, the end result of using it that way results in simply the re-invention of wheels, such as needing to signal the success or failure of operations on resources. HTTP's purpose, alongside the ideas of REST, is to pull out the common bits that occur when writing code that transfers representation of stuff around, such as, e.g., caching, getting an ok to transfer large content prior to writing it all out to the wire, knowing the status of the operation, or pagination of collections of resources. (I cannot count the number of times I've witnessed API designers reinvent pagination, badly!)<p>The manner in which people like to use HTTP, with effectively only GET and POST (<i>maybe</i>!) is more akin to RPCs to me. It works. You can do that. But you then need to handle caching, pagination, status of operations, etc. on your own, and you'll end up, I believe, reinventing HTTP. Doing a lot of that (I think, and I think this was Roy's original point) is more effective if you structure your operations around transferring representations of resources around; this is especially visible in caching, because in caching you <i>need</i> the representation of a resource, because that's what a cache works with by its very nature. (As opposed to, say, making opaque method calls on a remote instance.)<p>Go read [1]; nothing really in there is bound to HTTP, just that HTTP makes a lot of it easier. Also, while I understand that Roy has a lot of arguments around how representations should be hypertext — and I agree with them, mostly — I think that comes <i>second</i> to the ideas that:<p>1. A URL represents a resource<p>2. The point of GET / PUT / DELETE is to transfer the state of that resource.<p>If you don't understand those two points, I don't think you'll understand the arguments behind hypertext.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch...</a><p>The other points,<p>> <i>They are easy to debug since transaction information is found in easy-to-read JSON inside the payloads using a single, domain specific vocabulary.</i><p>Pushing everything into an opaque blob removes the ability for any tooling to pull out high level information. Chrome devtools, httpie, etc., all disprove this point.<p>> <i>Problem #1: There is little agreement on what a RESTful API is</i><p>I agree. I also feel like too many people who think they know have not read anything from Roy Fielding, or even the HTTP RFCs.<p>> <i>The REST vocabulary is not fully supported</i><p>depends mostly on<p>> <i>most client and server applications don’t support all verbs or response codes for the HTTP protocol. For example, most web browsers have limited support for PUT or DELETE. And many server applications often don’t properly support these methods either.</i><p>This isn't true: JavaScript in all browsers in respectable use supports this; Android and iOS fully support HTTP; most server-side development languages have excellent tooling for this. This is a completely false statement, and requires proof, or at least a concrete example to back it up. (Were it true, it only invalidates the use of HTTP as an aid to accomplishing REST.)<p>> <i>Problem #3: The REST vocabulary is not rich enough for APIs</i><p>POST is, essentially, a catch-all for odd operations not supported by other verbs.<p>> <i>Imagine we create an application where we want to send a “render complete” response back to an HTTP client</i><p>If we have a resource that represents a rendering job, if you GET a representation of that render job, it can include some indication of completeness. The bigger problem here is actually HTTP's polling, IMO. Websockets might serve <i>this specific example</i> better, but this singular example doesn't invalidate that most web APIs boil down to CRUD $object of $type, which HTTP supports phenomenally well.<p>> <i>Problem #5: RESTful APIs are usually tied to HTTP</i><p>Well, yes. At the end of the day, it <i>has to be tied to something</i>. HTTP is a pretty good something, with decent tooling.<p>> <i>They use only one response code to confirm proper receipt of a message - typically 200 OK for HTTP.</i><p>Yes, you can send a single bit back. HTTP attempts to be a bit more rich than this. E.g., if something is in progress, and attempting to retrieve the data I just stored will fail until some serve-side job is complete, HTTP can easily signal this. Muxing them into 200 OK removes that information.<p>> <i>They completely separate the response content from the transmission mechanism. All errors, warnings, and data are placed in the JSON response payload.</i><p>HTTP already has this: the response content is the body of the response. The transmission mechanism is HTTP. I don't want errors, warnings, etc., in the payload, where they are opaque and unusable by common tooling.<p>> <i>They can easily be moved or shared between transmission channels such as HTTP/S, WebSockets, XMPP, telnet, SFTP, SCP, or SSH.</i><p>These channels do not support transferring the state of something. (Okay, HTTP does.) telnet is a mostly dumb pipe, same for SSH. You would need to build some custom, non-iteroperable layer on top of that. HTTP is the standardized version of that. |
On Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) in HTML5 | <i>>Some people have protested “no”, but in fact I decided the actual logical answer is “yes’.</i><p>As long as anti-circumvention laws are a thing, the real answer should be nothing but a very enthusiastic "no". I don't see how anything covered by anti-circumvention laws could in any way be compatible with the idea or spirit of what is supposed to be Open Web.<p><i>>The reason for recommending EME is that by doing so, we lead the industry who developed it in the first place to form a simple, easy to use way of putting encrypted content online, so that there will be interoperability between browsers. This makes it easier for web developers and also for users.</i><p>This is also a whole bunch of horse manure considering that the actual DRM part is externalized to proprietary black box extensions so in reality HTML DRM doesn't really do much to improve interopability. A browser vendor needs to basically bundle a black box extension with their browser to handle the DRM, and the DRM needs to approved by vendors like Netflix etc in order for you to actually view DRM'd content on their site. Basically this just entrenches the dominance of existing browsers over the market while making it even harder than before for anyone new to try to tackle the market since now you need to basically please Hollywood if you want to be able to play their content in your browser, all with the blessing of W3C.<p>Sure, these DRM solutions already exist and will continue to exist, and it doesn't help that two of the three big browser vendors are also DRM vendors themselves (Google & Microsoft), but the last thing we should do is give them official blessing for their practices. It's a huge spit in the face of the Open Web.<p>EDIT: Some more comments.<p><i>> If EME did not exist, vendors could just create new Javascript based versions.</i><p>This would be an infinitely more preferable solution to EME, because guess what - this would actually guarantee true interoperability! As long as your browser could run (modern) JS, it would be compatible with a JS-based content protection scheme. Things on eg. Linux would Just Work without having to use rely on Widewine DRM on a closed build of Chrome, for example. So presenting EME vs JS-based protection schemes as equivalent is ridiculous. The latter is vastly less bad than the former.<p><i>>And without using the web at all, it is so easy to invite ones viewers to switching to view the content on a proprietary app. And if the closed platforms prohibited DRM in apps, then the large content providers would simply distribute their own set-top boxes and game consoles as the only way to watch their stuff.</i><p>If content distributors wanted to try and ignore the web completely in the name of "protecting their content"... by all means, go ahead! Somehow I suspect they wouldn't resort to that, though - they wouldn't be so interested in HTML DRM if they didn't see the web as a valuable venue. Most likely they'd end up restricting web versions to lower quality options while trying to lure people to more closed enviroments with promises of higher quality, but the thing is that they're already doing exactly that anyway even with all the black box DRM they have today so it really wouldn't be all that different from that.<p><i>>An important issue here is how much the publisher gets to learn about the user.</i><p>This whole list is also ridiculous considering that proprietary black boxes are a way bigger unknown in terms of what they could be doing on the user system than any say, JS-based solution. And the "user tracking" the DRM supposedly couldn't do could be done separately in JS anyway, whether the whole content protection is based on JS or not, so this list is once again basically just a poorly thought distraction.<p><i>>Spread to other media</i><p>This section is way too short and basically handwaves the issue away. "Music probably won't go back to DRM and books, lol dunno, maybe they'd give up DRM even when we're explicitly endorsing DRM for the web?" Endorsing any kind of DRM in HTML standards has a very real danger of being a slippery slope. Hey, now we can black box DRM <video>. When can we do it to <audio>? Music and audio in general needs protection too! Hey, we got it for <audio>, now where's our DRM support for <img>? Images need to be protected too, they're copyrighted content after all! And what about text? Books and articles need protection too! <p> needs DRM! And suddenly the DOM in your developer tool is just a bunch of black boxes, and the Open Web is no more. In fact, developer tools in general should probably be banned, someone might use them for anti-circumvention purposes after all, and that would be illegal! The Right to Read[1] is <i>uncomfortably</i> real with the possibilities here.<p><i>>Despite these issues, users continue to buy DRM-protected content.</i><p>Well gee, it's not like legitimate users have much options in many cases. Video especially tends to be DRM-infested pretty much everywhere you go. In many cases piracy is literally your only option when it comes to getting content DRM-free, which is a crying shame. This is once again no reason whatsoever why we should just be okay with it and endorse DRM for what is supposed to be Open Web.<p><i>>The web has to be universal, to function at all. It has to be capable of holding crazy ideas of the moment, but also the well polished ideas of the century. It must be able to handle any language and culture. It must be able to include information of all types, and media of many genres. Included in that universality is that it must be able to support free stuff and for-pay stuff, as they are all part of this world. This means that it is good for the web to be able to include movies</i><p>Well, I completely agree with that...<p><i>>and so for that, it is better for HTML5 to have EME than to not have it.</i><p>...but this does not follow In fact, it goes pretty much directly against it.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a> |
How millions of kids are being shaped by know-it-all voice assistants | > In talking that way about a device plugged into a wall, Yarmosh’s son was anthropomorphizing it — which means to “ascribe human features to something,” Alexa happily explains. Humans do this a lot, Calvert said.<p>Do humans do this a lot, or do some humans not snap out of it? I've been minding myself ever since my early 20s. Starting with articles like this: <a href="http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html" rel="nofollow">http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html</a> which I can't thank the author enough for.<p>But there's much more on this written during the 20th century, so to me the question is, why do people stubbornly ignore that? This expert here does it to, by just going "humans do this, <i>shrug</i>". No, it's one of the failure modes of the human mind. Humans also go on killing sprees, after all, or hack their children up and throw them in the garbage bin. You can't usefully talk about humans by first fusing all of them into one huge blob.<p>> The problem, Druin said, is that this emotional connection sets up expectations for children that devices can’t or weren’t designed to meet, causing confusion, frustration and even changes in the way kids talk or interact with adults.<p>I like how this implies that the problem isn't worshiping the things we made as a higher power or some sort of mystery, but could be solved by those devices matching our expectations more. If "humans anthropomorphize things", we obviously have to make more objects that have human features. Never mind the flip side of humans getting an increasingly object like quality. Just limit their access, and otherwise sit and wait, it'll be fine. I mean, what's the alternative? Just say <i>no</i> to products corporations insist on pushing?<p>> Or take the weather, particularly in winter. Instead of asking Mom or Dad the temperature that day, children just go to the device, treating the answer as gospel.<p>Perfectly obedient machines, on top of that achieving compliance levels highly paid humans can't consistently on their best days -- what's not to love? It's unclear though whether corporations and the military are paying any attention any of this, at all ^_^. They'd have to give us in writing that they do for us to have any further thoughts about this, certainly too critical ones.<p>> Upside: No more fights over what the temperature will really be and what’s appropriate to wear. Downside: Kids will go to their parents less, with both sides losing out on timeworn interactions.<p>The what not? The downside is "losing out on timeworn interactions"? That's like saying the downside of the sun exploding is having to use more electricity on street lights.<p>Here's what you miss out on, for starters that is, or I would be doing the same: empathy, which I wouldn't be surprised is very much linked with of growing your own person. Both abuse and extreme pampering are harmful. I don't know if it's been proven, I just know that the literature I read on that matches what I saw and experienced myself. The machines of the future will do what we tell them to, and take our abuse with a smile -- except all those instances where <i>we</i> have to do exactly what they tell us, and do without question. Then there is taking what the machine says for gospel -- certainly doubly so if it tells you anything you like to hear. Why think when you can "know", right?<p>From the Third Reich to Milgram's, this is such a huge can of worms, I can only stand in awe with how non-chalantly this bit is treated here. Missing out on timeworn interactions. I'm still reeling a bit.<p>Just one random thing because I don't have time on the one hand, but am also not just being contrariarian, or lying when I said I spent a LOT of time reading and thinking about this shit since the 90s.. you know, since I saw a bunch of corpses being shoved into a mass grave by a caterpillar while changing channels as a kid and started to wonder wtf kind of world I'm in, and how magically people in the past were obviously wrong, but currently, everything is just a-okay.<p><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959354314542368" rel="nofollow">http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959354314542368</a><p>> The perception of a convergence between the views of Arendt, Stanley Milgram, and certain Holocaust historians inspired the situationist argument that ordinary people become mass murderers because they find themselves in circumstances that subvert their ability to make or act upon individual moral judgments.<p>We already have this problem as as, no technology required. It's already swept under the rug all the damn time. But using technology to amplify it so much on multiple levels, while not addressing the human problem, by constantly working around it and trying to have dysfunctional human beings be functional cogs in a system that grows for its own sake, leads predictably more war, more terrorism, more drugs, more happy slapping videos, more babies in microwaves, more everything, and more people who just can't seem to find the connection between a leak in a boat and that boat sinking.<p>> “Alexa,” they’ll say, “you’re such a butt.”<p>And some of them even might grow up calling other kids "fun-sized terrorists" as they have a great time blasting them with drones on command. |
Ask HN: What's the one thing that let you grow the most as a developer? | It was this one internship that I had where there was no formal process or program to guide me. At the time, it seemed like it was going to be a nightmare, I certainly imagined early on returning to my classmates with stories of disappointment, as there was almost no supervision, and everyone I worked with was way too busy to try to think of fun little toy projects for me to work on. I remember thinking it just didn't really seem like the program was very much of a "thing", however I ended up being very wrong and this one internship I'd consider to be the single most important experience for me as a developer.<p>In 2012 I got my first internship at Intel to work on post-Si validation for atom. I remember there being a huge amount of build up in my mind leading up to orientation, "What should I wear? Should I look up how to act?" etc... On orientation day, after all the usual cheerleading, all the other interns waited in a room for our managers to come pick us up and give us a tour. It felt like we were waiting to get new families. I saw each intern get picked up by smiling, charismatic managers, all happy to see them, one by one. My manager never came as he was too busy and I was told to just come back in the morning and I'd get a tour.<p>So the next day, I did, and our meeting seemed forced and hard for him, but he was really trying to make my internship seem like a "thing". Then all the interns who were in my section were given a tour of the lab and shown basically what they were working on, the different projects going at at the time. I remember being very concerned about what I was going to work on, what I was going to "be" so to speak, eagerly listening to every word, hoping to catch anything that would impress my superiors. Then there was one thing that caught my eye, a robotic arm, barely draped in a cloth, that just looked neglected.<p>After the lab tour and lunch, I met my mentor, a lead on the team, and we (me and two other interns) were to be assigned our work for the summer. This, it felt, was the moment I had been stressing over. They were each given duties, but when it came to me it felt like my mentor didn't really have anything in mind yet and so something inside of me just blurted out that I wanted to work on that robot that I saw in the lab. He told me a story about how it got to be that way and how no one was really in charge of it and that for now I could start just by figuring out how it worked and could take it from there.<p>I ended working there with almost complete ownership of my own project, just straight up coding non-stop, for what started out as the summer but then extended into a co-op that lasted until I graduated. Having something to work on, with very little structure, every day, was so much fun you wouldn't believe, and it was there that I developed the foundation for all of my programming skills.<p>I took that project from one machine that turned on but didn't do anything to two machines that could calibrate themselves, move through an arbitrary topology using pathfinding, pick up parts, take pictures of the different serial numbers and identify them in a database, and cycle through the remaining parts in the tray with very high accuracy. Each component in this ecosystem was networked so there had to be fail safes, like you don't try to move to the motherboard socket, if the actuator is already down, etc... and there were a lot of components. The only thing missing from this that would have made it a complete continuous integration system for Silicon was a test runner, which I would have had no idea what to do for back then. Any way, although I was a software intern, I even got to build a safety cage with an interlock, complete with a hardware-based fail-safe switch, for the robots, out of extruded aluminum! To be honest I didn't really know what I was doing the whole time, which is why it took me over a year to do this, but it was such an incredible learning experience that I will cherish it forever.<p>My manager, team, and everyone at Intel ended up being really awesome to work for and the internship was awesome, even if it wasn't a "thing", but hands down the best part of that experience was just figuring out what to do with myself and then becoming deeply and passionately absorbed by it and coding nonstop. |
What Causes Burnout and How to Overcome It | On Real Burnout
——————————————<p>TL:DR; (Worth the read though)<p>I recently—early last year—faced real burnout for the first time and it has had devastating effects for quite some time. Up until then I considered myself to have some level of fortitude such that amongst my many failings, I managed to maintain a strong level of enthusiasm for development and work ethic in general. I wanted to work. I wanted to do well. I wanted to make new things on the web. I wanted to do this with smart people who held the same interests. Working at the last company that I did progressively got more and more dismal until it came to an unfortunate and abrupt end. All of the positive attributes that I just mentioned went away. I’m just now coming out of this after having been unemployed for almost a year, unable to successfully find work and having to overcome all the previously mentioned hurdles.<p>My Story.<p>Starting in mid-2015 I was contacted by a recruiter working out of Vancouver about a job in the area. I was living at home in Winnipeg at the time, needed the money (much better than I was capable of making locally), needed the work itself and further experience. I spoke with the recruiter, did an interview, and was left with a tough decision to make. I knew the company was a large corporate entity which I knew I wouldn’t fare well at. But, the money was literally twice what I had brought in previously and the location much better. I also hadn’t worked at a large corp. until then and was basing my hesitation upon my personality and gut instinct rather than hard experience. It was also one of the largest auction companies in the world, so I figured at the very least it’ll be good experience. It’ll give me the money and power to do something different if I need to right? So I gave it a go. I accepted the offer, said goodbye, and moved.<p>The day I started was an Agile workshop. Hallmark of corporate stooge hell. This isn’t in and of itself all that interesting, but in retrospect I should have started panicking. Anyway, the first few weeks were strange. I was handed a large and heavy HP “workhorse” laptop, tasked with nothing in particular and went about my business of inspecting the website to see where improvements might need to be made. I made an effort to get acquainted with everyone in the office, some of which helped me get my dev environment set up. This was a project. No documentation to speak of. No standard image, package, zip file, consistency. The code base was pulled from SVN (I can elaborate on the stack if anyone is curious) and configured using one of my colleague’s environments as an example. Everyone seemed to have their own slight variant of course and there wasn’t one base, definitely working version, to go off. The codebase was monolithic, inconsistent, slow, and undocumented. It made “going faster”—one of my supervisor’s favourite catchphrases—impossible, and “breaking things” the only element of consistency other than stress. So for the first 6 months I pushed through and things were going okay. I got along well with my colleagues and managed to get a decent amount done through sheer brute force. The arcane knowledge of a few veterans and the support of a good team helped get me there.<p>Six months in and my contract up, I still had confidence in my abilities, was stressed out but not insurmountably so, and enjoyed living in BC. I knew that this wasn’t a long-term thing for me, but was able to circumvent some of the archaic policies that had detrimental effects on my work. I was learning a little about how to work with large legacy codebases and on teams. I was also learning about what it’s like working in a office in which the managers truly don’t care and internal politics supersede everything. First experience witnessing blatant favouritism, backstabbing, and slightly more subtle sexism. Anyhow, managing to secure a raise and renewed contract, I pushed through into the new year. Weeks prior there was a bit of a team change up (department consisted of roughly 5 teams, somewhat arbitrarily put together from the top-down). Front-end people were moved around a bit. Not a huge change, not a huge problem. I worked closely with the other team dealing with the front-end web stuff and had a vague idea that they were going to working on a new high value re-design. Coming into the new year, management made the decision to completely re-configure the teams and then immediately start this new project. Of course, with tight deadlines. My new team, tasked with this new project, had no domain knowledge to speak of. The other front-end dev which had been integral to the R&D + planning of it was tasked with something completely different. Great. Tight deadlines to not only learn how to work with a different team, within a different team structure, switch contexts to a foreign part of the system, in a noisy grey office, and operating on a dev stack more fragile than Donald Trump’s policy decisions. So I did my best. I started trying to build a solid foundation of communication amongst team members, attempted to plan a sound process for which to get things done, and advocated for things that would help us do this. But I was also speaking with others and started looking for other work here and there. Getting my resume ready and so forth.<p>By this point, I was starting to really feel burnt out. My interest in open source was fading. I wasn’t encouraged to experiment with new things, directly and indirectly as a result of ludicrous deadlines, I was losing confidence in my efficacy, and wanted to escape as often as I could. I became the bottleneck in the team because I couldn’t get anything done. Meetings, noise, stress, broken builds, slow builds, not enough points, no documentation, slow hardware, slow libraries, no true responsibility, no time to improve things, no help with improving things, resentment within the team, literal alienation through isolation of team members. Going faster was a far off dream. Going at all would have been a step in the right direction. My normal emotionally mature, generally muted self turned into a much more quick to irritate and react self. It was getting bad quick.<p>I had previously booked a short 1 week vacation at a point that wasn’t supposed to be too busy. Management seemed irritated that I took it because the project ran straight through it, now way past deadline. It was a wake up call. I went home, collected my thoughts, drove thousands of KM, and gained some perspective. When I got back I was going to actively pursue leaving more than previously, and figure out a way to get this project done. Fortunately, I got back and was promptly fired. I saw it coming. Managers had been planning this for a while. Not a confidence booster and I was already too late. I was burnt out.<p>So I packed up my crap, said goodbye to everyone, met up a few more times with them (while maintaining some friends and connections) and took some well needed time off. I needed to enjoy myself. I don’t know how this would have played out had it just been that. Tragically though, this coincided with the news of my grandmother falling critically ill back home. I flew back and spent the next two months helping my family through a very rough time. Enjoying myself though I did in the time I could, it was in large part a period of time spent watching a key family member pass away. I did not look for work during this time, and all of these things coming together likely contributed to every part of this becoming more difficult.<p>Upon arrival back home I found it an arduous task at a minimum gathering the spirit and curiosity I once had. I didn’t care about practicing my career and now had dependancies to finance. I couldn’t focus easily, I couldn’t find anything interesting and obtainable, a multitude of job interviews came and went, and money was disappearing quickly. I was stuck. But, I still had my hobbies. Skateboarding, friends, and adventure all kept me going. I was able to maintain perseverance if nothing else. Eventually, it slowly started coming back. Very slowly. I found a unique conference in Europe to attend surrounding web graphics and climate science which I thought would really help me get back into it. By introducing me to new tech, brilliant people, and coupling it with adventure, I made a small step forward. I started working with visualization more, reading more theory, exploring subjects outside my comfort zone, and kept going forward. Still slowly, but kind of getting there.<p>In late December I was offered some part-time work installing a CKAN Open Data portal for a University which was not only not something I had not done before, but it fit directly in-line with what I want to be working on again. Now in March I’ve come to the end of that, made a tiny bit of money, but am still essentially income-less, unsuccessful at finding consistent work, and still struggle with motivation. On the upside, I have an idea of what I want to be doing. I’ve met more people and done more interesting things than ever before. I’ve regained a good amount of confidence in my skill, a good amount of ambition, and am still in the best health/physical condition I’ve ever been in. The mental health is the harder part, it’s been 10 long months.<p>To anyone here going through something similar, don’t give up. Keep pushing. Introduce variety and try new things. Meet smart people and ask for advice. Have fun. The bounce-back is very slow, and ongoing for me personally, but I think you can get through it. |
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system | I wanted to read all the snippets of text but didn't have time to scroll through the whole map, so I selected all, copied and pasted.....<p>#############<p>That was about 10 million km (6,213,710 mi) just now.<p>Pretty empty out here.<p>Here comes our first planet...<p>As it turns out, things are pretty far apart.<p>We’ll be coming up on a new planet soon.<p>Sit tight.<p>Most of space is just space.<p>Halfway home.<p>Destination: Mars! It would take about seven months to travel this distance in a spaceship. Better be some good in-flight entertainment. In case you're wondering, you'd need about 2000 feature-length movies to occupy that many waking hours.<p>Sit back and relax.<p>Jupiter is more than 3 times as far as we just traveled.<p>When are we gonna be there? Seriously.<p>When are we gonna be there? This is where we might at least see some asteroids to wake us up. Too bad they're all too small to appear on this map.<p>I spy, with my little eye... something black.<p>If you were on a road trip, driving at 75mi/hr, it would have taken you over 500 years to get here from earth.<p>All these distances are just averages, mind you. The distance between planets really depends on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun.<p>So if you're planning on taking a trip to Jupiter, you might want to use a different map.<p>If you plan it right, you can actually move relatively quickly between planets.<p>The New Horizons space craft that launched in 2006 only took 13 months to get to Jupiter.<p>Don't worry. It'll take a lot less than 13 months to scroll there.<p>Pretty close to Jupiter now.<p>Sorry. That was a lie before.<p>Now we really are pretty close.<p>Lots of time to think out here...<p>Pop the champagne! We just passed 1 billion km.<p>I guess this is why most maps of the solar system aren't drawn to scale. It's not hard to draw the planets. It's the empty space that's a problem.<p>Most space charts leave out the most significant part – all the space.<p>We're used to dealing with things at a much smaller scale than this.<p>When it comes to things like the age of the earth, the number of snowflakes in Siberia, the national debt...<p>Those things are too much for our brains to handle.<p>We need to reduce things down to something we can see or experience directly in order to understand them.<p>We're always trying to come up with metaphors for big numbers.<p>Even so, they never seem to work.<p>Let's try a few metaphors anyway...<p>You would need 886 of these screens lined up side-by-side to show this whole map at once.<p>If this map was printed from a quality printer (300 pixels per inch) the earth would be invisible, and the width of the paper would need to be 475 feet.<p>475 feet is about 1 and 1/2 football fields.<p>Even though we don’t really understand them, a lot can happen within these massive lengths of time and space. A drop of water can carve out a canyon.<p>An amoeba can become a dolphin.<p>A star can collapse on itself.<p>It’s easy to disregard nothingness because there’s no thought available to encapsulate it.<p>There’s no metaphor that fits because, by definition, once the nothingness becomes tangible, it ceases to exist.<p>It’s a good thing we have these tiny stars and planets, otherwise we’d have no point of reference at all.<p>We’d be surrounded by this stuff that our minds weren’t built to understand.<p>All this emptiness really could drive you nuts.<p>For instance, if you’re in a sensory deprivation tank for too long, your brain starts to make things up.<p>You see and hear things that aren’t there.<p>The brain isn't built to handle "empty." "Sorry, Humanity," says Evolution.<p>"What with all the jaguars trying to eat you, the parasites in your fur, and the never-ending need for a decent steak, I was a little busy.<p>I didn’t exactly have time to come up with a way to conceive of vast stretches of nothingness." Neurologically speaking, we really only deal with matter of a certain size, and energy of a few select wavelengths.<p>For everything else, we have to make up mental models and see if they match up to the tiny shreds of hard evidence that actually feel real.<p>The mental models provided by mathematics are extremely helpful when trying to make sense of these vast distances, but still...<p>Abstraction is pretty unsatisfying.<p>When you hear people talk about how, "there’s more to this universe than our minds can conceive of" it's usually a way to get you to go along with a half-baked plot point about UFOs or super-powers in a sci-fi series that you're watching late at night when you can’t get to sleep.<p>Even when Shakespeare wrote: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – he's basically trying to give us a loophole to make the ghost in the story more believable.<p>But all this empty space, these things of a massive scale, really are more than our minds can conceive of.<p>The maps and metaphors fail to do them justice.<p>You look at one tiny dot, then you look for the next tiny dot.<p>Everything in between is inconsequential and fairly boring.<p>Emptiness is actually everywhere.<p>It’s something like 99.9999999999999999999958% of the known universe.<p>Even an atom is mostly empty space.<p>If the proton of a hydrogen atom was the size of the sun on this map, we would need 11 more of these maps to show the average distance to the electron.<p>Some theories say all this emptiness is actually full of energy or dark matter and that nothing can truly be empty...<p>but come on, only ordinary matter has any meaning for us.<p>You could safely say the universe is a "whole lotta nothing." If so much of the universe is made up of emptiness, what does that mean to people like us, living on a tiny speck in the middle of all of it? Is the known universe 99.9999999999999999999958% empty? Or is it 0.0000000000000000000042% full? With so much emptiness, aren't stars, planets, and people just glitches in an otherwise elegant and uniform nothingness, like pieces of lint on a black sweater? But without the tiny dots for it to stretch between, there would be no emptiness to measure, and for that matter, no one around to measure it.<p>You might say that so much emptiness makes the tiny bits of matter that much more meaningful - simply by the fact that, against all odds, they aren't empty.<p>If you're drowning in the middle of the ocean, a floating piece of driftwood is a pretty big deal.<p>What if trillions of stars and planets were crammed right next to each other? They wouldn't be special at all.<p>It seems like we are both pathetically insignificant, and miraculously important at the same time.<p>Whether you more strongly feel the monumental significance of tiny things or the massive void between them depends on who you are, and how your brain chemistry is balanced at a particular moment.<p>We walk around with miniature, emotional versions of the universe inside of us.<p>It's reassuring to know that no matter how depressingly bleak or ridiculously momentous we feel, the universe, judging by its current structure, seems well aware of both extremes.<p>The fact that you're here, in the midst of all this nothing, is pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.<p>Congratulations on making it this far.<p>Might as well stop now.<p>We'll need to scroll through 6,771 more maps like this before we see anything else. |
I spent three months working full time to get a job | <p><pre><code> With a homework assignment that is not timed, you let the candidate do her best possible work in her ideal environment, and yes, while a work environment is sometimes chaotic, when she needs to get her work done, she is going to make her environment as perfect as possible.
</code></pre>
I'd like to second this comment as someone who was recently laid off, did a bunch of interviews[0] and landed a job I'm enjoying very much. The company I picked had a "homework assignment". It wasn't a <i>real project</i> that had any useful purpose to them, which I've seen suggestions about doing[1], but a simple web based app.<p>At first, I was a little less enthusiastic about the approach -- I have GitHub repos and other examples of competency out there -- but as I thought about it, this "test app" was in line with what they were looking for and when they described the approach, I liked it. The first thing they did correctly was provide a basic spec sheet. It wasn't overly specific and I think this was <i>by design</i>. It was basically a CRUD web app, with a statement of "feel free to get creative; do as little or as much as you feel it needs". I provided a self-hosted CRUD app that worked on multiple devices, syncing state between them in real-time, documentation, an installer and everything else that was needed to make it a complete product. <i>Most</i> of that wasn't on the spec sheet, but in line with thinking about the project as "something I'd deliver", those were things I'd consider to make it complete and it also gave me an opportunity to demonstrate competency in different frameworks, provide examples of functional/OOP design and other areas that gave them an adequate look at what I could do. The app, itself, was a really minimal web app that took me a couple of hours to write, but after all of the additions, it landed in at a day and a half or so -- not a terrible amount of work for someone out of work and worth it since I landed the job.<p>Frankly, given the choice between shoulder-surf coding, whiteboard coding[2] and test projects, I'll take the test project. I hate whiteboard interviews and thankfully there were none of those this time around. I've had two whiteboard interviews in the last five years. In one case, I got lucky in that the first algorithm was one I had written into an app I had on a private (personal) BitBucket repo, so I pivoted with "I can marker up your board here or I can show you a good implementation that I did a few weeks ago". We spent the rest of the interview with them asking questions about my choices and that was one of the most enjoyable interviews I've had. I didn't take that job. The other, I didn't get as lucky and actually ended up turning down the job on my way out of the interview room[2].<p>I agree with the author about having empathy for the job seeker. This empathy, though, works both ways. In my case, I had filled in for a dev team in a pinch -- at the last minute -- to <i>run</i> an interview. They hired the guy on my recommendation and he ended up being a great employee so I was pulled in to most of the interviews for several of the dev teams from that point forward. Never mind that I did development on an ops/security team and didn't work with <i>any</i> of these teams, making whether or not they hired a particular person -- or anyone at all -- of now benefit to anything I was responsible for. As a guy who had an already overbooked week, I didn't enjoy being pulled into these and I really didn't appreciate the massive number of <i>woefully under-qualified</i> candidates or the fact that all of that time was often spent on a <i>great candidate</i> who turned down the job in the end. Because of this, I express thanks at various times during the interview process and specifically mention how grateful I am for the time taken out of their already busy work-life. I was glad for the opportunity to interview at all of the places that chose to interview me so I simply made that known. The cool thing about that is later interviews felt more at-ease with the team as a result[3].<p>[0] I had quite better luck than the author, but did fewer interviews, and was seeking a position that was right in line with my experience.<p>[1] I like this idea, too, provided compensation is provided -- after all, if you intend to use the product of the work a candidate performs, they're technically a contractor and I wouldn't do work like this for free.<p>[2] I actually do pretty well on my toes -- I'm good at rationalizing out loud, and breaking up the tension with a little humor (to the point that I've been given hints at answers when I was stuck). Despite turning down this job, they made a really good offer to me two weeks later that I declined -- the job itself was in a domain I wasn't excited about, but the whiteboarding didn't help.<p>[3] Felt being the operative word -- these were later interviews which means the team was already more interested in me as a candidate than in the first interview. I also remember the first time a candidate specifically thanked me for the time I spent interviewing him and very likely projected that onto my interviewer. But at the same time, it increased my confidence so if it was all in my head, I'm OK with that. I also feel that it was "the right thing to do". |
When Factory Jobs Vanish, Men Become Less Desirable Partners | As a female engineer perpetually in male dominated environments whether at work or at a bar being served mostly by male bartenders who I have come to build a repore with. It ends up being a casual mutually beneficial way to exchange banter and discuss social life but get perspectives and experiences from people who lead very different lives, and here is what I find. I find that most lower middle class men struggling to find jobs who have a complaint about this DO NOT have an issue finding women. They have an issue with women who do not financially contribute, and trap them into paying child support for a kid they never planned on having, and women who feel entitled to men being the sole provider, stripping away their freedom, and them men are trying to get away from women and commitments, not towards them. They are looking to travel and have experiences and do things they enjoy instead of repeating the failures they saw their parents go through. Theyve seen their parents fight over money, their dads lose jobs, their parents get divorced and I don't know who is asking for that life back but I think its the older men who lost everything because I don't know any noneducated man my age that actually wants that, they are running away from it at all costs.<p>I not only find this with lower middle class men but men I work with as well. They are getting sick and tired of being manipulated by women and trapped into families they never planned to or agreed to and being expected to do all the work financially for the rest of their lives...<p>I find in male dominated environments with men of higher socioeconomic status, that they end up dating financially needy women who are incentivized to lock them into a long term financial relationship because theres not enough economically independent women to date.<p>Additionally, I find women like me tend to be much more attractive to them for the reason that working women doing well and climbing the socioeconomic ladder by ourselves are attractive because we have ambition, which in their socioeconomic stratus is not something they are conditioned to, so not only is it attractive because you have more in common to talk to someone about, but its also from their point of view rather exotic and rare, and thus instantly more desireable. While a comment below stating chinese stats is generally worriesome, in America, the issue is not that lower income men can't get women, its that they cant get the women that they want. While most of the comments talk about how these women need to be more openminded, I find myself as a socioeconomic 26yr old woman progressing in my technical career in engineering and software development, I find that there is not nearly enough women, and that we need many more.<p>IF this happens (and that happening whether its happening and causes behind it happening or not is a WHOLE different discussion) over time then the standards men have for women will raise. While these men are pining after women who in reality don't exist in great numbers, just highly highlighted, the other 95% of women are incentivized to compete on a personal and economic level if they find men on their level and above their socioeconomic level are choosing women who make their own money, and they will begin to understand they are the only ones providing for themselves and over time women will seep into previously considered male dominated environments and take on more management and leadership roles.<p>Over the long run, this will hopefully allow men and women to engage in short or long term relationships or whatever they choose as we all become more accepting and openminded based on the person and less on the economic benefits they can provide. Progress is painful, and as one of the few women pioneering in it, I get pressure form men i work with to date and marry, men who serve me drinks to date and marry, and I get hate and drama from all the girls who are mad at me for making more money than them (who have no problem dating men with money but lots of problems with women making money, and can't seem to solve that issue in their head)<p>In general, its not as glamorous as it seems if you are actually a full time, preference for low drama female with your career as your first priority. Women like us are highlighted as the pain point of the issue, but we are not the cause of it, and over time hopefully the solution.<p>The other complaint I have about this whole argument is if women are getting a higher socioeconomic status while men complain they don't have jobs, then there are clearly jobs, they are just stereotypically female jobs, so instead of men complaining that the universe isnt entitling and providing them to the (in the grand scheme of things incredibly fleeting and nonpermanent manufactoring jobs) they should be more open to becoming nurses, teachers, government jobs and other jobs that are clearly in a great shortage for that women are not only working full time side jobs while taking night classes to become nurses and etc but raising kids while doing it often times as a single parent.<p>If they can do it men can do it, they just don't want to because its an uncomfortable stereotype to break, but in WWII many women stepped into manufactoring jobs to fill the void in America, so men need to do the same thing.<p>For now its a bit of an awkward phase for men because they are used to being the ones that get to choose and women have always been very willing to compete in looks and otherwise to get access to that financial stability as it was the only socially acceptable way to do so for so long without permanently striating yourself into a considered deplorable condition.<p>Men need to realize over time women becoming more independent is a good thing for everyone. Gorwing pains will always exist in society, its how we adapt to them that makes both men and women successful and competitive candidates in the working field and in the personal relationship realm.<p>This ongoing complaint I keep hearing about men wanting to fall back into manufactoring jobs and women getting jobs is a more a complaint about how they wish things would never change and how they want people to accomodate them instead of steering the dicsussion to how to adapt to reality. |
CIA malware and hacking tools | I feel like this might get lost in the shuffle, so I'm posting it independently.<p>I'm not shocked at any of this. The writing has been on the wall as early as 2001 that the NSA and CIA has been gearing up and building these exploits out. Here is a nice PBS documentary on the subject of FISA & NSA surveillance, and of course the CIA is no lone wolf, these agencies were given carte blanche by previous administrations to work together. While I believe they are different in aspects of what they do, from this perspective, I think its fair to say that likely if the CIA has it, the NSA has it, and if the NSA has it, the CIA most likely has it or can get it.<p>To illustrate a nice timely, take a look at this gem from 2001<p><a href="https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/fl32-soc-ussfisa/united-states-of-secrets-warrantless-wiretapping/" rel="nofollow">https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/fl32-soc-ussfisa/un...</a><p>Around the same time, we even had this pop up: its a run down as to why the NSA needs to have this 'legal authority' to act with impunity for 'American interests'<p><a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB178/surv34.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB178/surv34.pdf</a><p>and of course, we have the NPR story that breaks it all down over the NSA wiretapping debate:<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/news/specials/nsawiretap/legality.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/news/specials/nsawiretap/legality.html</a><p>Take special note here: hardly any at length commentary at all so far and the news is pretty sparse. Largely, it seems people were not paying attention, yet right here its clear as day that the NSA was gearing up to expand and use its surveillance capabilities.<p>Of course, around all this, it is clear the NSA and the CIA would be sharing exploits like these, it is likely these were all used in joint context with each other:<p><a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0006184107.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0006184107....</a><p>and of course, the ACLU has a relevant statement on this as well, i think its quite a good summary of the feelings at the time:<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/how-anti-terrorism-bill-puts-cia-back-business-spying-americans" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/other/how-anti-terrorism-bill-puts-cia-...</a><p>Then, we have these here, around 2004-2006:<p>The first real report coming out is from the ACLU, reporting about the NSAs massive build up since 9/11 and how its creating a lot of questionable actions to be undertaken by the agency, in which they allege, at the time, among other things, that the NSA is spying on US citizens:<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/surveillance_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/surveillance_report.pdf</a><p>My favorite quote:<p><i></i><i>National Security Letters. These obscure devices, which can be written by FBI officials in field offices without the approval of a judge, give the government broad power to demand records. Once upon a time this sweeping power could only be used to get information about “agents of a foreign power” from banks, credit agencies and Internet service providers. But the Patriot Act changed the law to allow their use against anyone, including persons not suspected of a crime. The bill quietly signed into law by President Bush in December 2003</i><i></i><p>but wait, there is more!<p>Around the same time, the GAO had noted that there was an increasing amount of trouble coming from cyber security experts about cybersecurity infrastructure in the states. How easy they were to exploit, their threat to infrastructure, and how it could affect people. How is this related? This same type of report details alot of the exploits that the NSA has used, such as stuxnet, which come to light many years later:<p><a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04321.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04321.pdf</a><p>and less us not forget, the NSA tried to sway attention away from itself by releasing this tidy memo, which got leaked, in and around 2004:<p><a href="https://epic.org/privacy/nsa/foia/EPIC-NSA-USSID-18-and-Domestic-Procedures.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://epic.org/privacy/nsa/foia/EPIC-NSA-USSID-18-and-Dome...</a><p>In which they promise to quote 'no longer use their spying apparatus on US citizens knowingly'(i'm paraphrasing)<p>and of course,<p>We have this report from 2006 from the Indiana Law Journal detailing all of the potential pitfalls and abuses of the FISA courts. In essence, to sum it all up, it states:<p><i></i><i>Accordingly, to extend the “special needs” doctrine to the NSA program, which
authorizes unlimited warrantless wiretapping of the most private of conversations
without statutory authority, judicial review, or probable cause, would be to render that
doctrine unrecognizable. The DOJ’s efforts to fit the square peg of NSA surveillance
into the round hole of the “special needs” doctrine only underscores the grave
constitutional concerns that this program raises</i><i></i><p>oh and i didn't forget: we got concrete evidence of state sponsored Russian hacking against US systems since as early as 2008:<p><a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB424/docs/Cyber-027.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB424/docs/Cyber-027.pdf</a><p>relevant quote:<p><i></i><i>The head of the Russian Army Centre for Military Forecast, Colonel Anatoly Tsyganok,
made comments to the Russian news outlet, Gazeta, about the cyber attacks on Estonia. He
believes that there was nothing wrong with the attacks because there are no international
agreements established. Colonel Tsyganok also believes that NATO couldn’t do anything to stop
the attacks and that they were highly successful. The most telling example of Russian government involvement in cyber warfare was with Herman Simm selling IT secrets to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service that was discussed in Section VIII of this monograph. This case showed that the government of the Russian Federation is actively seeking information on cyber defenses and is willing to pay large sums of money (Mr.Simm is accused of selling cyber security secrets for millions of dollars) to receive information on cyber security.</i><i></i><p>I feel like the tech public that should be doing the diligence on this has been asleep at the wheel. On the recent stories from NSA surveillance, the CIA leak we are reading here, or other government programs. Its not crackpot. Its not a conspiracy. The evidence has been out there in our faces for years. I feel like we fell asleep at the wheel as a tech community to stand up to this. |
Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up? | Well, time for the politically incorrect, yet reality based, "dad pill".<p>First of all most people social status signalling are liars and the few who aren't are very unusual from unusual situations. There aren't that many book authors or operating system kernel authors. So debating the engineering operations of lightning strikes and lotto wins is kinda pointless nonsense. What if my project takes over the world? Well it won't now stop daydreaming and work on real issues that are important. As for the liars you just have to read the books they talk about a little more than they do, which might mean as little as a light skim or getting to page 2 instead of giving up on page 1, or experiment with the new flash in the pan software for an hour instead of their five minutes. You'll still be ahead of 90% of the population.<p>Secondly give up on careers, ignore upward mobility, if you're not happy where you are today, daydreaming about being one of the very few who make it to the top of the pyramid is a bad life strategy dooming you to unhappiness in later life. Anyone over 30 is probably working with tools in a field that didn't exist when they were 20 and if they claim they got their via conscious effort they're just liars and status signalling see #1 above. If they're over 40 ageism is about to remove almost all of them from the field so since you're going to get kicked out anyway may as well have fun having kids along the way, because you aren't going to "win" and thats OK. The difference between a guy unemployed by ageism at 45 without kids and a guy unemployed at 45 by ageism with kids is the unemployed guy with kids is had more fun, had a better life. Merely not having kids doesn't mean the "agism fairy" will not wave her wand on you ending your career. Sometimes the rate of change is crazy, I spent my early 30s in a field that didn't exist when I was in school. If you think you can plan that and apply a timeline for a career against it, you're merely lying to yourself or others. Nothing wrong with having general goals, but specific tasks of "XYZ at 40" is for losers. Even worse there's survivorship bias where random lotto winners think they have ESP but actually just won the lotto and thinking they have ESP leads to very bad life decisions.<p>Thirdly a super politically incorrect "dad pill" is depending on demographics about half the kids out there are growing up with no dad, so having you around and out of jail and providing and guiding and playing with them occasionally immediately puts the kids in the upper half or even upper quarter of society even if you do the worst bad job as dad in the country, which you probably will not sink to. Actually doing anything with the kids already puts you in elite territory. Another way to phrase it is there's a lot of political indoctrination that kids only need 1.00 parents that being the mom of course, so if you're feeling bummed about taking time for yourself or career you're still providing 1.75 worth of parents which is 0.75 more than society claims is necessary or even ideal. Just like the kid who gets a Ferrari for his birthday from dad doesn't necessarily turn out better in life than the kid who got a Ford from dad, when you're far enough into the corner of the bell curve of doing anything at all, the specific ordering and timeclock measurements don't affect rank as much as paying attention and being there and not being a dirtbag and actually parenting the kids as opposed to being their big person friend roommate and "skills" in general.<p>Fourthly related to "no one is gonna make it to the top of the pyramid" just learn at work like everyone else does. Well, actually some people don't even learn at work. If you're not a quick learner, its important to learn how to learn first. You're not really competing against people who claim to have infinite time to learn because they have no kids, you're competing against people who never learned in college or refuse to learn post college. You're gonna do fine.<p>Fifth relating to liars telling lies, decades ago when I was a young single guy it sounds very self serving to express lies about how all I ever did was work on technology because I had no kids, but mostly I drank and watched sports and chased girls and had sex and breakups and interpersonal drama and listened to music and watched TV. Well the dad pill is you might want to think about growing up, and when you cut all that waste of time junk out that doesn't really matter in the long run anyway or you've outgrown binge drinking or you got a wife so dating is probably over for awhile, even when you add back in "dad duties" you still have plenty of free time because you're not being a drunk bastard every weekend night, or if you're doing that instead of parenting, you suck so fix that at which point you'll have plenty of free time again. So grow up, man up, dad up, whatever and put down the beer bottle or switch off the TV, in the long run parenting the kids is going to be most important, then all this "work for free for the boss at home" stuff a distant second, and you'll still have some time to goof off anyway.<p>Believe it or not when farmhands worked the fields sunup to sundown or dads worked in factories six twelves a week or when dads fought in war deployments for years at a time, they still fathered their kids reasonable better than the current crop of kids. You got it easy now. Just put some effort into it and you'll be fine. So thats the "dad pill". Not as cool as the red pill or blue pill but more masculine and useful in the real world. |
SJCL – Stanford JavaScript Crypto Library | So, hopefully without shooting my mouth off (this time), here are some lessons I have been learning (the hard way) about SJCL:<p>* The SJCL library appears to be really great. It is super simple to use and has great documentation. Dan Boneh has a reputation that precedes him. I've been pointed in the direction of his work multiple times, independently, by different sources. [0]<p>* The SJCL library is only going to be as good as its implementation in the browser. For instance, how is it getting in the browser? Is it stored in an extension, or is it being loaded dynamically? If it is loaded dynamically, you are going to be vulnerable to a whole host of attacks, including cross-site and MITM. That aside, even if it is loaded dynamically and it gets there in one piece, is it loaded into the runtime securely? This last one is the real kicker for me. If you are implementing it as injected code onto a third party page, you are leaving it open to trivial manipulation by third parties. I was savaged by Nikcub for this, and rightly so. For embarrassing exchange, you can see my history.<p>* What is the threat model? Browser-based encryption is only ever going to deal with certain threat models - as we are seeing in the recent days, there is good reason to assume that end-point security on a host of devices may be compromised by state actors. Please note <i>I am not declaring this to be the case</i> based on my authority - but it seems like in a world where we are getting leaks off of handsets prior to encryption by Signal and Whatsapp, assuming end-points are secure is a big assumption. Additionally, I know the wikileaks Vault7 only list compromises up to Chrome ~35 and for Android below Kitkat [1], I've read this list is likely dated, and I don't think it is fair to assume that the development of zero days has stopped there. Accordingly, if you are trying to prevent intrusion from state actors, then there is reason to suspect that browser-based implementation will never get you there.<p>* Key generation and exchange remains an issue. Lots of people more qualified than I state that javascript RNGs are just not that great, which can significantly reduce entropy on keys. [2] On top of this, I want to talk about entropy more at length, in particular reference to SJCL: SJCL goes to some length to create 'random' (I personally cannot verify this) salts and initialization vectors. However, as far as I can tell, you have two choices: you either store those separately and transmit them separately from the message, which creates a whole host of issues in the transmission and storage of those salts, or you send them with the message. As far as I can tell, if you send them with the message, the extra entropy they introduce is not relevant for warding off brute force attacks or attacks based on trying to compromise the password (e.g. dictionary attacks), but are only useful against crib-based attacks or other cryptanalytic attacks - which, again, as far as I can tell, if you are going up against the sort of entity that has the resources to actually try and crack AES128 or AES256 by attacking the cipher, rather than the key, I suspect you are dealing with some very nasty people and using javascript crypto is not your best bet.<p>* Importantly, and critically, security is a conclusion, not a feature. Adding SJCL onto a communications protocol is not going to make it secure. In fact, it has been expressed by people better than me that that the author of software cannot self-authenticate that it is secure.[3] It needs to be subjected to third party (and, ideally, public scrutiny). So, in the end, if you are going to be using a library like SJCL, it is important to have the <i>particular implementation</i> tested by disinterested third parties. Though the math and code behind SJCL may be secure, actually getting it into a piece of software that people want to use introduces a gigantic raft of issues.<p>On background, the reason I know this as a (software) lawyer is because I have been working with SJCL on a node based application for quite some time. I do not represent it is secure - if I have in the past, that was in error and an oversight on my part (hat-tip to all the people on HN who have very rightly pointed this out). However, working on it has been extremely instructive and has confirmed what I always suspected to be true - if you want to be able to say something is secure, you need to be working with people who work on security as a primary occupation, not a hobby or a side-interest. It is too enormous, complex and ever-changing a field for anyone to be an 'expert' at it unless it is their primary concern.<p>As always, interested in any feedback or counterpoints. Especially on the math.<p>[0] <a href="http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/" rel="nofollow">http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/</a> ; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-boneh-8b599020/" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-boneh-8b599020/</a><p>[1] <a href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11629096.html" rel="nofollow">https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11629096.html</a><p>[2] <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17280390/can-local-storage-ever-be-considered-secure/24677597#24677597" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17280390/can-local-storag...</a> - hat tip to <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bmh_ca" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bmh_ca</a> , who, based on this thread, I have discovered was the author of that post on stackoverflow, which is instructive.<p>[3] <a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/schneiers_law.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/schneiers_law...</a> |
Ask HN: Am I a software developer? | To answer that question first you have to know what happens inside many of these companies. Its just too complex to come up with a process that is fair to everyone.<p>There is a lot of overlap into different roles in this field<p>Programmer<p>Developer<p>Software Engineer<p>Web Developer<p>Full stack engineer<p>Backend Engineer<p>Frontend Engineer<p>Software Design Engineer<p>DataScience Engineer<p>There is no standard or a clear definition of these roles or the skills you need for these roles or skills relevant to particular company. Not all companies have a clear cut hiring standards or insight into what kind of people they should be hiring. Hiring is overshadowed by a lot of players who are just following process. Most of them search in google to figure out a perfect recruiting approach or just want to one-up the popular company hiring approach. They are easily convinced by "tech hiring done right consultants" or their SEO tailored blogs, who actually are good at selling their services. The interviewers in the loop do a google search to figure out what to ask and it does not occur to them if it is relevant or not, its just what other big companies ask in an interview. At the end it is left to un-empowered hiring managers, many times also dev managers who are afraid of breaking tradition and have to make a better decision in a bad situation.<p>If you ask a web developer a lot of algorithmic questions, the candidate fails and a candidate who "cracks" your algorithmic interview is most likely to fail at front end web development job. Design skills are as important as algorithmic skills and they need constant improvement just like programmers improve, who decides what level of design skills are needed for this role?. For a web developer there is a decent amount of algorithmic thinking necessary but who determines that for your company or team? From my personal experience, I needed someone who knows a couple of javascript frameworks and can make sure things look good. The company did not have a role as "web developer" and they choose to call him "software developer" and paid him at the same scale. After a year, the person was transferred to a different team that did not value his skills and the company thought it was too expensive to retrain him.<p>Most management at mid sized companies want to see tech people as lego blocks/building blocks who can be transferred to a different team or project/product on demand. There is a preference for generalist programmer who sort of can do web development/app development/ data science/machine learning/AI etc on demand. It is kind of good and bad because many people get bored after sometime and want to do something else at their job and would like it if a company allows them to transfer.<p>A lot of companies I know tried the tailored approach where they let the teams decide who they hire but the problem is lot of the team members are unskilled at making hiring opinions outside their area of work, they mimic the Hippo(highest paid person opinion) in the room. People with other skills can make the team/product better but many hiring teams do not have that self-intuition and mostly hire someone like themselves. There is also a conflict between hiring for known chunk of work already planned vs hiring for longterm with skills to solve vague problems related to a specific field. The same hiring approach does not work for both the cases.<p>To deal with this complexity, many big companies come up with a process that looks like standardized testing. Hire hardworking people who can deal with really hard problems and solve very complex math/computer science problems and have spent enough preparation time learning the literature. Kids who are very good at school can easily get through this tests. This will become a new normal to them. Also the standardized testing approach gives the companies immunity from gender/race discrimination complaints.<p>The fact that these smart people seem to be unhappy everywhere and have to change companies every 9 months tells you that not everyone needs to write MonteCarlo Markov Chain likelihood estimators with Bayesian inference in python. Your average CRUD app may not be able to keep them happy no matter how much PR you give this product. There is a need to tailor these interviews with time. Its a constantly improving process.<p>I was watching this documentary on notorious gangs. The common way to get into that gang was always designed to be very hard. One approach was they throw this new wannabe gangster down and 5-10 people start kicking this guy brutally and after 10/15 mins if this guy survives with out crying/screaming/giving up then they will admit this person into the gang. It was psychologically important for the gang to recruit only the toughest people and at the same time it was important for the person to mentally go through that rigorous process and beat it which after "winning" creates a psychological bond and loyalty with the brand of the gang and a sense of earning that respect from the gang. Our tech interviews sounded very similar to the recruiting done by these notorious gangs. So lets just say that this kind of whiteboard interviewing evolved in nature.<p>For lack of better ideas, this is going to be new normal. Spend significant time and get comfortable dealing with whiteboard/standardized tests. The alternative is networking and referrals where some managers in few companies can bypass the hiring process and hire you if they like what you have to offer. |
Ask HN: How do I start my own consulting firm? | First and foremost, if you have an idea for a good product then just work on that. Don't complicate your life with consulting unless there's a dire need to save up a bunch of cash. It'll be easier to work on that while maintaining a 9-to-5 job, as opposed to trying to build a product while running a consulting business.<p>That said, consulting is a great way to learn a lot, gain experience, make good money, and figure out what you <i>don't</i> want to be doing. If you want to go this route, read on...<p>Speaking from experience (having incorporated two software consulting firms and worked at that for a few years), I completely agree with the comments about sales/selling be such an important part of things. If you don't enjoy this (or have someone on your team who does), then you're going to get worn out pretty quickly. However, if you can land 1-2 big clients and setup some kind of continuous (ex. retainer-based) relationship then you're golden.<p>One option is to try and contract from your current employer. You obviously have the experience and the relationships already in place. Your employer won't be happy about you leaving, but might be amenable to hiring you on a short-term gig.<p>An alternative is to subcontract. Expect your rates to be lower, but you'll have more opportunity to gain valuable experience and won't bear the risk/burden of landing clients yourself. It's a lot easier to find your own contracts once you have a few projects (and a network of contacts) under your belt.<p>Regardless of your approach, advice I <i>always</i> give to people when they ask me about starting a business are: get a good lawyer ; and get a good accountant. Don't take the cheapest options because you'll regret it later. Find people in the space who come recommended, whom you like, and who have a track-record in dealing in your line of work.<p>Whether or not you decide to incorporate is up to you (talk to the aforementioned lawyer), but in my experience it's a no-brainer.<p>In terms of legal, you'll also want your lawyer to provide you with a standard NDA and contract that you can use in all of your engagements. Any lawyer with experience should be able to provide this pretty cheaply (at a fixed rate, hopefully).<p>In terms of an accountant (or a small accounting firm), you won't need much to get started, but a 1-2 hour consultation to get your bookkeeping and invoicing setup will save you a lot of time (and grief) later. Make sure that you can hand easily hand your invoices, bank statements, receipts, etc. to your accountant when it comes time to file your taxes. Again, if you cheap-out on this it's going to cause you a lot of pain down the road.<p>Other notes from experience:<p>- Switching from consulting to product is difficult and almost always fails unless you're willing to make a clean break. As a consultant you eat what you kill; as soon as you stop working then your revenue stream drops to zero. I've seen people try to work around this by expanding their consulting firm to handle larger and larger projects, but then the people at the top just spend more time managing everything and have even less time to work on products.<p>- You'll eventually come up with a good product idea, at which point you should be willing (and able) to completely stop consulting to work on it. This transition will hurt, but you should have enough cash saved up to make a go of it.<p>- It's okay (in Canada, at least) to start working as a sole proprietor on some (smaller) contracts, but don't expect any client to be amenable to you changing the nature of your relationship with them half way through a contract (for instance, if you decide to incorporate).<p>- The larger the client/contract, the more likely you'll need insurance (errors & omissions, liability, etc). This doesn't come cheap. I recommend starting with smaller clients and projects to mitigate this.<p>- Figure out what taxes (if any) you need to charge ahead of time and be very upfront about this (and your rates).<p>- If someone wants you to be on-call (ex. 2-hour response time to a phone call), then great. Charge them more for it.<p>- If someone wants you on retainer (ex. 20 hours/month for dev ops), wonderful. Consider giving them a discount for multi-month agreements because it's a low-risk and guaranteed revenue stream.<p>- Make it <i>very</i> easy for clients to pay you. Include all of your payment information on each invoice. Have multiple payment options, if possible.<p>- Expect to terminate agreements with some clients. This sucks, but it's sometimes necessary.<p>- In your contract, be sure to state that the client doesn't own the work product (copyright, etc) until they pay you. This doesn't mean you don't deliver things according to schedule if payment is a little behind schedule, but you have some recourse if things ever get nasty.<p>- Finally, be sure to check your current employment agreement to make sure there's nothing that would get you (or your colleague) in trouble if you both decide to leave and start a company. Two things come to mind: there might be some onerous (and probably unenforceable) non-solicitation clause that a lawyer could twist to state that you solicited your colleague (or vice versa) to leave (this probably won't be an issue); and there might be some non-compete that you have to be careful about if you're consulting on similar products/features to your current employer. In both cases, I think this would be low-risk, but talk to your lawyer. |
Son – A minimal subset of JSON for machine-to-machine communication | > Piping JSON through multiple programs creates lots of trivial changes, which makes it hard to do things like take meaningful diffs.<p>That's the virtue of having a format which offers a canonical representation for data.<p>> No insignificant whitespace.<p>I.e., it's not human-readable. It also has no decent way to exchange binary data (there is no byte-sequence type: one must either use Base64 or an array of integers, neither of which is space-efficient).<p>It'd be nice to have a format which is <i>both</i> human-readable <i>and</i> has a canonical representation. Fortunately, such a thing already exists (and I've even linked to it once already today), and has since <i>1997</i>: <a href="http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Sexp.txt" rel="nofollow">http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Sexp.txt</a><p>Here's a JSON example (from <a href="http://json.org/example.html" rel="nofollow">http://json.org/example.html</a>):<p><pre><code> {
"glossary": {
"title": "example glossary",
"GlossDiv": {
"title": "S",
"GlossList": {
"GlossEntry": {
"ID": "SGML",
"SortAs": "SGML",
"GlossTerm": "Standard Generalized Markup Language",
"Acronym": "SGML",
"Abbrev": "ISO 8879:1986",
"GlossDef": {
"para": "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook.",
"GlossSeeAlso": ["GML", "XML"]
},
"GlossSee": "markup"
}
}
}
}
}
</code></pre>
Here it is in SON:<p><pre><code> {"glossary":{"GlossDiv":{"GlossList":{"GlossEntry":{"Abbrev":"ISO 8879:1986","Acronym":"SGML","ID":"SGML","GlossDef":{"GlossSeeAlso":["GML","XML"],"para":"A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook."},"GlossSee":"markup","GlossTerm":"Standard Generalized Markup Language","SortAs":"SGML"}},"title":"S"},"title":"example glossary"}}
</code></pre>
Here it is in an advanced S-expression representation:<p><pre><code> (glossary "example glossary"
(div S
(entry SGML
(sort SGML)
(term "Standard Generalized Markup Language")
(acronym SGML)
(abbrev "ISO 8879:1986")
(def "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook."
(see-also GML XML))
(see markup))))
</code></pre>
And here it is in its canonical representation:<p><pre><code> (8:glossary16:example glossary(3:div1:S(5:entry4:SGML(4:sort4:SGML)(4:term36:Standard Generalized Markup Language)(7:acronym4:SGML)(6:abbrev13:ISO 8879:1986)(3:def72:A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook.(8:see-also3:GML3:XML))(3:see6:markup))))
</code></pre>
What, you'd like something which is immune to 7-bit/8-bit or email mangling? Here's the same data in transport format:<p><pre><code> {KDg6Z2xvc3NhcnkxNjpleGFtcGxlIGdsb3NzYXJ5KDM6ZGl2MTpTKDU6ZW50cnk0OlNHTUwoNDpz
b3J0NDpTR01MKSg0OnRlcm0zNjpTdGFuZGFyZCBHZW5lcmFsaXplZCBNYXJrdXAgTGFuZ3VhZ2Up
KDc6YWNyb255bTQ6U0dNTCkoNjphYmJyZXYxMzpJU08gODg3OToxOTg2KSgzOmRlZjcyOkEgbWV0
YS1tYXJrdXAgbGFuZ3VhZ2UsIHVzZWQgdG8gY3JlYXRlIG1hcmt1cCBsYW5ndWFnZXMgc3VjaCBh
cyBEb2NCb29rLig4OnNlZS1hbHNvMzpHTUwzOlhNTCkpKDM6c2VlNjptYXJrdXApKSkp}
</code></pre>
All three of those S-expression formats can be <i>losslessly</i> converted to one another. Ordering is exactly as specified (they are lists, not unordered or ordered dicts — although one can understand them as dicts, if desired). |
Keep the Internet Open | > There's an argument that Internet Service Providers should be able to charge a metered rate based on usage.<p>For home Utilities, this is based on the fact that, indeed, your usage pattern is a couple of things<p>1) In the best of Utility markets, electricity has no real elasticity. Electrical demand is a constant game of just simply keep pace with existing demand as much as possible. There is no excess capacity problems per say, as the game is trying to be as efficient as possible.<p>2) For the most part, people's usage patterns are routinely predicable and stable, so the demand cost associated can be metered reasonably and with <i>relative</i> transparency (Not to say, its completely transparent, because its not, though its very well regulated in comparison to say, internet service access & quality). This allows a relatively consistent and low variable cost of delivery of this service, however its not a 'fixed' cost, with the exception usually of the wiring the house itself to the grid.<p>3) The device in which a home uses, in fact, can be measured in absolute terms. For instance, your appliances can be calculated to the letter how much they will cost to run (see here, for instance: <a href="http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html" rel="nofollow">http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html</a>). I would argue that this is not true of internet usage, which can vary EXTREMELY widely. The EIA gives a nice summary on this too: <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_used" rel="nofollow">https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electrici...</a><p>Now, often people will say, reasonably, that in an environment maintained much like the power utilities, if things could be achieved to this level of usage/monitoring/charging for use would make sense. Transparent pricing, easy ways to calculate usage based on the app or app(s) or some other methodology for chunking the pricing structure so its really transparent and stable to price out a month to month usage pattern for the average person. Sounds cool right? Well, here is some notable differences:<p>(As an aside, for fun, imagine a world where the app had to tell you how much on average it cost to use for an hour on a metered connection, like how energy star rated appliances tell you their yearly cost)<p>Broadband is a completely different story<p>1) Wired service has a fixed cost and tons of excess capacity. The cost, while not <i>cheap</i> is fixed, per house or neighborhood, and that infrastructure doesn't have to be changed out for many years, in some cases a decade or more. Once the wired service has been installed to a house, thats it. the ISP then can flip the service on and start delivering product to the homes at virtually no cost after that. There is no ongoing 'generation' of bandwidth to closely meet demand. The technology itself, after all, takes care of all that. All the ISP has to do is run the ship smoothly, but they don't have to build a new bandwidth power plant to make more bandwidth.<p>2) Which leads me to my second point. There is a ton of bandwidth in the system already. WE know this. The system not only has a fixed cost, but the actual capacity of the wired services being deployed already have a ton of extra bandwidth capacity, in particular if we are talking about home users. From DSL Reports <a href="https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Deconstructing-The-Exaflood-Myth-97440" rel="nofollow">https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Deconstructing-The-Exafl...</a> we get this great line (i encourage everyone to read the full report):<p><i>Andrew Odlyzko is one of the nation's top experts on global Internet traffic. Stationed at the University of Minnesota, Odlyzko posts all of his data to his website, and notes that while growth is strong, it doesn't necessitate drastic new pricing model shifts (metered billing), or wailing to the heavens about the dire menace that is P2P traffic. "There is not a single sign of an unmanageable flood of traffic," Odlyzko says. "If anything, a slowdown is visible more than a speedup," he says</i><p>And thats just from 2008, and the situation for bandwidth excess capacity has actually improved:<p>Tech Dirt reports from 2012 (<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable...</a>):<p>The relevant bit, in response to a Michael Powell, a cable industry lobbyist:<p><i>If usage caps were about "fairness," carriers would offer the nation's grandmothers a $5-$15 a month tier that accurately reflected her twice weekly, several megabyte browsing of the Weather Channel website. Instead, what we most often see are low caps and high overages layered on top of already high existing flat rate pricing, raising rates for all users. Does raising rates on a product that already sees 90% profit margins sound like "fairness" to you?</i><p>Even as far back as 2008, they tried to push the bandwidth hog myth (<a href="https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-Myth-117230" rel="nofollow">https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-M...</a>):<p>relevant quote:<p><i>Assuming that if disruptive users exist (which, as mentioned above we could not prove) they would be amongst those that populate the top 1% of bandwidth users during peak periods. To test this theory, we crossed that population with users that are over cap (simulating AT&T’s established data caps) and found out that only 78% of customers over cap are amongst the top 1%, which means that one fifth of customers being punished by the data cap policy cannot possibly be considered to be disruptive (even assuming that the remaining four fifths are).
Data caps, therefore, are a very crude and unfair tool when it comes to targeting potentially disruptive users. The correlation between real-time bandwidth usage and data downloaded over time is weak and the net cast by data caps captures users that cannot possibly be responsible for congestion. Furthermore, many users who are "as guilty" as the ones who are over cap (again, if there is such a thing as a disruptive user) are not captured by that same net.</i><p>Also see this: <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/myth-bandwidth-hog" rel="nofollow">https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/myth-bandwid...</a><p>3) [Opinion piece here]: Fair and open internet access is in my mind, is going to become a first amendment issue, or at least should be treated as one. The growth and power of being able to be seen, heard, and read on the internet is quickly, as we all know, supplanting most if not all other forms of media. And for the media it is enabling, other mediums that carry forward, like video, are quickly consolidating onto the internet in great numbers. This makes it <i>the</i> place for public speech. While the space may be non-physical (virtual), the ability for ISPs to pick winners and losers to access will have inevitably terrible political and economic consequences, and not just for start ups. Imagine if employees who got cancer from working in an industrial facility could not publish their stories to say, Medium, because a large ISP like Comcast will refuse to carry medium's traffic in and around that issue, or at all, if it becomes a hot bed for other interests that are willing to pay vast sums of money to filter that traffic from ever being delivered or surfacing. Does this sound farfetched? I don't think so. We know groups have tried to do this with newspapers in the past, and of course groups have also tried to do things like pressure individual websites from publishing things to. If you open the internet and mandate its traffic is treated equally regardless, it largely negates the ability for this to happen on that level, as in an ideal implementation, the ISPs would be stripped (and monitored to ensure) that they aren't reading <i>any</i> traffic in the wild that they don't have an <i>explicit</i> reason to do so (Say, a warrant to tap into a connection of a suspected murder looking at their network traffic or something)<p>4) While we are talking about this, there is no damn spectrum crunch either, its a nice myth that wireless carriers/ISPs are using to justify their underhanded tactics here, because physics dictates there <i>can</i> be a spectrum crunch. that doesn't mean there <i>is</i> or <i>soon will be</i> a spectrum crunch:<p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable...</a><p><a href="https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-Myth-117230" rel="nofollow">https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-M...</a><p><a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/01/30/is-the-spectrum-crisis-a-myth/" rel="nofollow">https://gigaom.com/2012/01/30/is-the-spectrum-crisis-a-myth/</a><p><a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/10/21/the-myth-of-the-wireless-spectrum-crisis/" rel="nofollow">https://gigaom.com/2012/10/21/the-myth-of-the-wireless-spect...</a><p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/507486/the-spectrum-crunch-that-wasnt/" rel="nofollow">https://www.technologyreview.com/s/507486/the-spectrum-crunc...</a><p><a href="http://www.androidauthority.com/wireless-industry-flipped-business-model-3-myths-407068/" rel="nofollow">http://www.androidauthority.com/wireless-industry-flipped-bu...</a><p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121004/02434820589/now-that-we-know-telcos-exaggerated-about-spectrum-crunch-how-about-some-more-open-spectrum.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121004/024...</a> |
Why your startup should be a Delaware C-Corp, not an LLC | Sure, he's correct -- if and only if make a lot of assumptions.<p>But he is talking about startups, and there, from all I can see and without his many assumptions, a Delaware C-Corp is a lot more time, lawyer money, other overhead, and botheration than just an LLC.<p>Sure if I have co-founders, which YC seems to want but I don't, or Sequoia wants to write me an equity check for $20 million, which, by the time they would, I wouldn't need, want, or accept it, I'd want a Delaware C-Corp.<p>But, IIRC, with a C-Corp, I have to have a BoD that I have to keep happy, or they can and very well may fire me -- take my company. So, a Delaware C-Corp has me take a lot of the power I have as CEO and 100% owner of my startup and hand a lot of that power, control, and financial value to a BoD for no good, and many really bad, reasons. "Financial value"? Sure, the BoD could fire my ass, put in one of their buddies as CEO, and the BoD and their buddy could issue nice stock options to the members of the board. Due to vesting, etc., I could leave with nothing, not even $0.00. They could flatly just steal my company from me including all the value, cash, intellectual property, promise, everything -- 100%.<p>There's nothing seriously wrong with, and a lot of important advantages to, being CEO and 100% owner of a successful LLC startup. Or, all across the US there are pizza shops, flower shops, auto body shops, dentists, etc. that don't have a BoD. My startup has a lot more financial promise than an auto body shop, but I don't want a BoD either.<p>E.g., with a BoD, have to have board meetings. Then the members of the board have to travel to the meeting. So, guess where the money comes from for their travel (first class air, limo service?), lodging (four star hotel?), fancy dinners? No thanks.<p>I learned early on that I'm not always good at pleasing people, even if I do really good work. E.g., my Ph.D. is in applied math, and I did the research independently with no faculty direction or input, picked the problem before I went to grad school, and did the core research in six weeks alone in the library in my first summer. I gave a graduate seminar on my work, designed and wrote the illustrative software, wrote and typed the dissertation, stood for my oral exam (majority of the faculty from outside my department, Chair, Member, US National Academy of Engineering, from outside my department, majority people I'd never met), passed, first time, without revision, from a world famous, world class research university, and got my Ph.D.<p>BUT: In the eighth grade, the arithmetic teacher gave me a D (as is common for boys of that age, my handwriting was awful and so was my clerical accuracy) and fervently advised and urged me never again to take anymore math. Right, honey: I didn't take freshman calculus, taught it to myself, started on sophomore calculus in a course using the same text Harvard did, found the course easy, and made an A. In my high school, all the female teachers (gossips?) were all conviced I was a poor student and a poor math student, but the only male math teacher I had sent me to a state math tournament, my aptitude and achievement tests showed that I was one of the best math students in the school, an especially good high school, I got sent to an NSF summer math program, and on the school's SAT math scores, of 1-2-3, I was #2. #1 went to Purdue. #3 went to MIT. In college I wrote on group representations and got Honors in math. My math GRE score was 800. Then I was sent to another NSF program, in axiomatic set theory and modern analysis. But my high school female math teachers thought I was a poor math student. I was a very good math student, but there was no way I could please those females.<p>Being good is not enough. Instead, people can get totally pissed at you for no good reason, even if you walk on water in warm weather.<p>A BoD might just hate my guts. E.g., if I presented some original math derivations, with advanced prerequisites, for a step forward for part of the business, say, as part of getting the budget approved, the BoD might soil their clothes, the board room furniture, and the carpet on the way to the rest rooms and come to deeply, profoundly, bitterly hate and despise me, all for no good reason.<p>If have something rare and good, don't dilute it with a lot of mediocre nonsense. If are lucky enough to have Michelangelo painting the ceiling, don't send in a lot of house painters to give him advice. Or, when Stravinsky wrote <i>Right of Spring</i>, some Tin Pan Alley guy wanted to recommend a good <i>arranger</i> for Stravinsky's music. For such nonsense, just say not only "no" but, if they insist, "hell no".<p>Reporting to a BoD has a big downside, a huge risk for no good reason, and nearly no significant upside. E.g., there is a good chance that not one BoD member of an information technology startup anywhere in the world has even the math prerequisites to understand the crucial, core math I derived for my startup; not understanding the math, they will not be able to do their jobs and will hate me. So, no way do I want to put my career and startup in the hands of a BoD that hates me. |
Ask HN: What's it like being a “digital nomad”? | I wrote a medium length piece on this you might be interested in.<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/46o7ws/my_experience_working_remotely_and_traveling_in/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/46o7ws/my_exp...</a><p>The part that might be most relevant to your question:<p>"There's a decent chance you'll get sick and tired of the negative aspects of being a DN sooner than you'd think. Before you've ever been a DN it's easy to understand what the good parts of being a DN will be: who the heck doesn't want to know what it's like to live in Scandinavia or Japan or on a beach in the Caribbean or to learn to dance salsa in Colombia! But you really can't understand the negative social or psychological aspects of long-term nomadism without having experienced them. I hope this part of my post doesn't get me downvotes because this place [reddit.com/r/digitalnomads] seems to only really want to talk about feel-good stuff, but there really are drawbacks to being a DN.<p>In the initial months of being a DN I was meeting new people, learning the basics of a new language, dating some interesting people that seemed very different than any I'd met before and had accents like James Bond girls, etc. It was amazing. But what you start to get worn down by is the fact that every month, or every three months, or whatever your period ends up being, you've got to start over socially or romantically or whatever and climb that mountain all over again. Moving to a new place and knowing no one can be exhilarating, but it's also a lot of work and takes a bit of psychological fortitude to push yourself to go out there to an event or a bar or anything and go up to new people with the possibility of rejection. Even if you're a natural born extrovert (I'm pretty extroverted actually) it just gets tiring to have to keep losing people when you leave and restart. Even if you don't consciously change, you may find that one year in you can't force yourself to be as enthusiastic when meeting new people because in the back of your mind you're subconsciously aware that you probably won't have them in your life in 6 months. If you're dating while traveling it can be a whole 'nother level, for a multitude of reasons. You start being intimate with someone then a week later you're lying in bed alone again and asking yourself if you'd been better off just staying there. You'd certainly have been less lonely. You may find yourself starting to treat people as replaceable even if you are a more traditional person before you became a DN.<p>Something I noticed after some time was that in some ways you could tell who'd been a traveler or a DN for a long, long time. The people I met who'd been doing it for years didn't have as much enthusiasm when meeting new people. Ask yourself what kind of person is able to stay emotionally healthy when they're not maintaing any long-term friendships or relationships for years and years at a time - only making surface level friends that they throw out every few months. That person is either very introverted / self-reliant emotionally and friendship-wise or they're crazy (the exception is a DN who has travels with someone else or goes back and forth between places they already have friends or loved ones). There's a joke that goes around in traveling circles (didn't invent it myself): "what do you call a 5-year nomad? a sociopath." Hopefully I don't ruffle the feathers of any 5-year DN readers here, I'll be the first to admit that towards the end of my DN-hood I was seeing some of these changes in myself. I'm not saying that long-term DNs are all emotionally unhealthy or crazy heartless bastards, but I am saying that it's a struggle that you may not think about before you've experienced it. And it's the main reason I think so many people eventually stop and settle somewhere. I think there are definitely people who can stay emotionally healthy, who can keep the twinkle in their eye, but I'm just saying not everyone can.<p>Which leads to me my last point - I did drop out of the DN rat race. I got some useful data for my life about what cultures and languages I'd like to learn about and engage with more in my future. I have a short list of 2-3 places I'd go if I ever decide to leave where I currently am. And now that I've seen a lot I know exactly why I love the place that I'm living (and also what it lacks :( wah, wah, wah). There's a handful of places that I lived that I absolutely loved. None of them were places I expected to love. One of them is actually - shame on me - the United States.<p>If you want to be a digital nomad, I'd suggest having an idea of why you want to, considering what you want to discover or find out while being one, and plan your time around that. You may get tired of the constant travel after a year or two or three, and that's OK. Just keep that in mind when planning so you can accomplish what you want in that timeframe." |
Ask HN: What does a typical day look like for you? | I'm a web developer and work for a media corporation where we brand news landing pages. Here is a sample of what we do: <a href="http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7893651-ges-avatar-discover-pandora-exhibition-taiwan/" rel="nofollow">http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7893651-ges-avatar-di...</a><p>I love it. It's fun. Everyday I come into work and there is usually a job or two waiting for me. Some times are more busier than others, but every landing page, for the most part, is unique, and I get to be creative doing it. There are times where a client wants a new job to look like their last, so it sometimes "streamlines" the work, but we do try to make every page different. Been working at this business for almost 5 years -- I was a contractor for this very same company before they hired me as a full-time employee.<p>As a contractor, I used to work from home and actually held two jobs -- so my life had been that I would be working from 8 AM to 2 AM, 5 days a week, for about a year and a half. I even tried to find time to work on side projects. Sleep? Yeah, hardly any. Something had to give. Only 24 hours in a day! But that was a few years back. The second job laid me off before they went under themselves just 6 months later: lesson to all companies out there--IF YOU REFUSE TO KEEP UP WITH YOUR COMPETITION AND THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY, YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO FAIL. I was upset at first before realizing I could somewhat have a normal life again. Imagine working 5 days a week from 8 AM to 2 AM for over a year with almost no time off (excusing the weekends). And where was all the money I was making going? Aside from paying rent, all it did was pay off my student loans... and then I ended up owing the IRS $6,000. I gained a lot of experience though.<p>Long story shorter about the second job: I had been a web developer for a company that installed Solar Panels and I worked on the software that was displayed on the kiosks in buildings (they usually put them in the front lobby so people could see how much energy a building was using or saving). I worked on the graphics and made it all work with the building`s data. It was a platform that was done in Flash so I had to work in Flash. As you know by now... Flash has pretty much become a thing of the past, and all companies were using HTML5 and Angular and others out there, while my company just had this hard on for Flash. And when Flash went, so did they.<p>Anyways, as my life is now, I currently work the evening shift at my job, 3 PM to 12 AM. Since I can't sleep after work, I shifted my entire "life schedule" so that I stay up all night and I sleep the morning away, and wake up anywhere between 10 AM - 12 PM. During the hours I am awake after work, usually from 1 AM until 6 AM, I'm working on my own side projects.<p>I prefer to do it this way because I've tried it the other way around: Going to sleep after work and getting up early. The problem with this is: There are things to be done during the day and people (family/spouse) are bothering me during the day to run errands and stuff like that, so I have tried, but trying to get [my own] work done is almost impossible. They still bother me when I'm sleeping sometimes, but I'm usually unconscious and I don't remember. If not that, than everyone is being loud and I cannot focus at all. And as a programmer/developer, you know you can't just immediately "get into it" unless you really have to.. it takes time to relax your mind into the code.<p>So at night, while everyone is asleep, I can work in peace. The other thing is: If I wake up early, I find myself often needing at least an hour nap before work or I find myself tired and falling asleep at work. If I sleep till the 10 AM - 12 PM schedule, I don't need a nap, and I'm not tired at work.<p>I normally only eat once a day, so between 12 - 2 PM I will make something to eat. I mainly live on the ketosis diet, so my meals are often packed with a lot of fat which keeps me full throughout the day, though I do keep almonds or pistachios at my desk for a snack if I find myself hungry later on.<p>For exercise, I ride my bike to work, which takes me about 10-15 minutes each way, and works out my legs. I live an apartment complex that comes with an indoor heated pool and jacuzzi, so that works out my arms and helps me relax.<p>During some waking hours, I also run a popular website, <a href="http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com</a>, which focuses on jobs, careers, and the workplace -- technically it runs itself, but I get many people contributing articles and infographics, which I have to process and get prepared to publish on the website, so this has basically become a part-time job that I don't get paid for... but it does help with networking, gaining exposure in the world, and helping others as well in the process as they help me. There are just too many benefits that are beyond the financial aspect of it. I normally take a few hours during the week to focus on this website, preparing all the articles and infographics sent to me during the week, scheduling them for a time to get published. Wait times usually range from 1-3 weeks. Since this is a [less than] part-time kind of deal, and the website is free, there is always a waiting period before people get published, but I've had very few complaints about it. As I can only respond: It is a free publishing platform and it is in demand and popular. I only publish once or twice a day and I could probably publish a lot more than that, but I've found a formula that works for me: doing it this way creates that supply and demand as well as that need to keep coming back to the website to see "today's confession".<p>On the weekends, when I'm off from work, I'm either sleeping, running errands, going to concerts, hiking, watching TV, or working on my side projects. And that is my exciting life. |
If War Can Have Ethics, Wall Street Can, Too | In war, morality is a propaganda technique to convince mothers to let their sons die hero's deaths, and to convince the young and foolhardy to join a crusade that is likely to result in their death. Periods of the biggest moral clarity in war are the periods where the propaganda is the thickest and human rationality the weakest.<p>To believe otherwise one must believe in forces of evil that animate one side and forces of good that animate another, which is a profoundly supernatural view.<p>Similarly, this article suggests that Wall Street lacks morality and uses as an example a VC considering layoffs that would occur if she fails to fund a round.<p>If there is a finite amount of money, an investor will invest in the firm that shows the most promise. Many teams of hard working people are seeking investment, but only some will get it. The investor must use the available information to decide where to place her bet.<p>If the investor is wrong, she will not be able to afford to bet again in the future. Should we all fell sorry if the investor makes a bad decision and a team of people spent several years getting paid to pursue an ill-fated idea? Arguably, the cost to society for this misstep is great, so perhaps we ought to appoint a wise <i>investment minister</i> to make the choices judiciously on behalf of investors? Why not also appoint a hiring minister to direct job-seekers only toward the most promising startups? For that matter, why not also appoint a business strategy minister to help startups make good decisions and avoid bad ones?<p>While these ministerial posts sound absurd in the context of startups, this is our reality in the world of banking and housing. Ministers tell our banks how much reserve capital they ought to carry, they tell our housing market what a reasonable rate is for a 30 year mortgage, etc.<p>Fannie and Freddie flew under the radar for years without revealing their balance sheet, drastically altering the US (and world) economy all at the behest of a small number of officials. I think the reason this was allowed to occur was (ironically enough) to avoid financial bad news when our leaders were trying to sell a war.<p>When you introduce socialized risk the market cannot be counted on to prevent socialized losses. The game is changed. The normal incentives and disincentives do not apply.<p>After 9/11 for example, the government became the insurer of last resort for terrorism related claims. This came as a relief to anyone building a skyscraper or running an airline, but at what cost? It eliminated much of the incentive that would have existed in the economy to prevent terrorism.<p>We let our ministers create very bad policy. Rather than just writing poor people a check to help them get a mortgage, they create artificial demand for high risk housing loans, which creates a broad incentive for reckless expansion of a whole sector of the economy. They keep much of this risk on the government's books, making taxpayers accountable not for a simple payment to the poor person to allow him/her to get housing, but for the entire house of cards built upon those loans.<p>We cannot allow our government to try to address so-called "market failures" by creating <i>infrastructure</i> that distorts and hides information from the market. Not only is it paternalistic, but it also creates a tremendous amount of risk for the whole economy.<p>This is not an argument against welfare. We have two options for how we can think about giving welfare, either as a cash payment (with or without strings attached, fwiw) or by greasing the core infrastructure of the economy to slip in some subprime loans among the many non-subprime loans, figuring that the risk won't really be discernible by financial markets and all will be well.<p>When capitalism contains a lot of incentives imposed by various government ministers, "free" economic behavior adapts to exploit those incentives. This is what the author of the article disagrees with. He thinks that we should all act genteel and avoid transactions that have moral consequences. The problem is that such transactions rarely occur, finance creates abstracted transactions that are rarely correlated with a desirable or undesirable social outcome.<p>In many industries (healthcare, finance, automotive, solar, etc.) government-sponsored incentives dominate free-market incentives. When we allow this to happen, we are effectively saying that we do not want individuals to have free economic choice, we instead want a select group of ministers to create a socially responsible landscape.<p>Welfare is distortionary, but few would argue that it is unnecessary. What <i>is</i> very harmful is when welfare programs corrupt the infrastructure of markets and lead to widespread behavior that exploits the programs.<p>The goal of every industry, and of every firm is to become "essential" or "too big to fail"... in other words, to be declared to be worthy of the guaranteed support of taxpayers.<p>Think about it this way, if issued a credit card with very low interest and a very high limit, most people could easily become billionaires simply by using low risk investment strategies. The problem is that if for even a day, the strategy requires more of a limit than is available, the whole plan comes crashing down. Even with low-risk endeavors, losses must be covered. Without forcing firms to cover their own downside risk, they of course will leverage to the max. This is what has happened in our modern finance industry, the growth since the 1990s has been due to consolidation and increased leveraging.<p>FWIW I think that what is needed is a new financial statement to be added to GAAP which is a statement of risk, which recursively points to all assets and liabilities whose market risks correlate with solvency risk of other firms, so that a broad, a view of the risk a company faces (market, and systemic) that can be viewed in aggregate, so that we can more easily understand the factors that impact an entire portfolio.<p>Ironically, such a statement would allow Wall Street to invest most heavily in firms with socialized risk (for those are the lowest risk bets), but at least then, regulators could impose a limit on the amount of socialized risk firms were allowed to invest in, which is one of the few things that can be done to actually stop the cycle of exploitation. Firms should have an incentive <i>not to</i> be classified as "too big to fail" and not to attempt reclassification if things go worse than expected. |
A new “Mathematician’s Apology” | With the main issues in the OP, I have
struggled for too many years, and I
strongly agree that the main issues are
very important.<p>While the OP makes some solid points,
mostly I disagree with the essay as a
whole.<p>I got into math because (A) I was good at
it and (B) math was presented as useful.
For (A), no way could I please humanities
teachers, but when my math was correct,
easy enough for me, no teacher could
refuse me an A.<p>I got a big shot of enthusiasm about the
usefulness of math as I worked, starting
partly by accident, in applied math and
computing within 100 miles of the
Washington Monument. There was a LOT of
applied math and computing to do, heavily
for US national security (right, needed to
be a US citizen with a security clearance
of at least Secret, and I had both).<p>Some of the topics were curve fitting,
numerical linear algebra (right, all the
Linpack stuff, the numerical stability
stuff, and the applications), antenna
theory, e.g., for adaptive beam forming
and digital filtering for passive sonar
arrays, multivariate linear statistics
(about a cubic foot of books), statistical
hypothesis testing, the fast Fourier
transform, numerical integration,
optimization (unconstrained non-linear,
constrained linear and non-linear,
combinatorial, deterministic optimal
control, stochastic optimal control,
etc.), time series, power spectra, digital
filtering, numerical solution of
differential equations (ordinary and
partial), integration of functions of
several variables, statistical inference
and estimation, estimation of stochastic
processes, algebraic coding theory, Monte
Carlo simulation of non-linear systems
driven by exogenous stochastic processes,
building good mathematical models of real
systems, etc.<p>For the applied math, I was in water way
over my head, struggling to keep my head
in the air, while drinking from a fire
hose. I made good money, e.g., quickly
was making in annual salary about six
times what a new, high end Camaro cost.
And I had just such a Camaro and daily
drove it something like road racing all
around within 100 miles of the Washington
Monument, occasionally ate at the best
French restaurants in Georgetown, got a
lot of samples of nearly the best grape
juice from Burgundy (Pommard, Corton,
Nuit-St. George, Chambertin, Morey-St.
Denis, etc.), occasional samples from the
Haut-Medoc, Barolo from Italy, etc., had
big times at Christmas, enjoyed the
museums on the Mall, etc. Good times.<p>After some years of that math fire hose
drinking, I got a Ph.D. in applied math
from research in stochastic optimal
control for a problem I'd identified
before graduate school.<p>For applications to the stock market,
well, for a while the Black-Scholes
formula was popular, but by now that
flurry of interest seems to be over. For
the more general case, say, of solving the
Dirichlet problem by Brownian motion, that
seems not to be of much interest.<p>Apparently the main success was just the
one by James Simons and his Renaissance
Technologies. Of course, Simons is a
darned good mathematician. For just what
his math training contributed to his
investment returns, maybe actually Simons
is an example of the OP's remarks about a
math education being good training in how
to think.<p>For the rest of business, my view is that
significant, new applications of math are
dead, walked on like dead insects, and
swept out the door -- very much not wanted
and otherwise bitterly resented and
fought.<p>Or, to work for someone in business who
has money enough to create a good job for
you, they are nearly always rock solidly
practically minded, no nonsense,
conservative, rigid as granite, have for
all their careers rejected thousands of
opportunities to waste money, and never
but never invest even 10 cents in
something THEY do not understand or trust.
So, the first time they see "Theorem",
they walk away in disgust; never in their
business careers have they ever seen
"Theorem" lead to money made.<p>Such a business person really can make use
of information that is technical,
advanced, obscure, specialized, etc. and
do so frequently from experts they trust
in finance, engineering, medicine, and
law. Note, math is NOT in that list.<p>Note: It is true that occasionally some
lawyers want to draw on mathematicians as
expert witnesses to try to win some legal
cases.<p>So, for that context of mainline US
business, math has two huge problems:<p>(A) Math is not a recognized <i>profession</i>
like law, medicine, and much of
engineering.<p>(B) Math has, in business as best as
business leaders can see, from no track
record to dismal, time and money wasting
disasters. People who have made good
money in US mainline business have seen
many disasters, but relatively few of
their own, and very much want nothing to
do with disasters.<p>In particular, IMHO the OP's argument for
math in business based on some version of
intellectual or conceptual <i>diversity</i> or
<i>way of thinking</i> will fly like a lead
balloon or float like a canoe with a
framework of cardboard covered with toilet
paper.<p>For US pure math research, here is my
nutshell view of the situation:<p>As in a famous movie, "The bomb, the
hydrogen bomb, Dimitry", is one heck of a
big reason. A little more generally, from
another famous movie, "Mathematics won
WWII" -- not exactly true but darned
close.<p>For a short version, Nimitz, Ike, and
MacArthur slogged and struggled, but the
end was from two bombs in about a week.<p>Those bombs were heavily from some good
applied math and physics, and there were
more really important to just crucial
contributions via code breaking, radar,
sonar, and more.<p>Big lessons tough to miss.<p>Supposedly at the end of WWII Ike said
something like "Never again will US
science be permitted to operate
independent of the US military.".<p>Since then, Gulf War I showed more of the
overwhelming power of good applied
math/physics, e.g., the F-117.<p>Broadly the lesson was: Basic physics is
super important stuff. The next country
that discovers something as fundamental,
important, and powerful as nuclear energy
might take over the world in a week. So,
the US MUST be right at the leading edge
in fundamental research in physics.<p>Much the same for mathematics.<p>To these ends, the US will just ask US
high end research university academics to
be at the world class leading edge,
whatever that is, say, as can be seen in
the internationally competitive aspects of
research and publishing, Nobel prizes,
etc., in basic math and physics.<p>So, what the Harvard, Princeton, MIT,
Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Tech,
etc. math and physics departments want for
funding for basic research to be the world
champions, they get. Period. For
defending the whole US, it's not many
people or much money.<p>The money will come via the NSF, DARPA,
ONR, Air Force Cambridge, Department of
Energy, or wherever, but Congress will
write the checks, no doubts, no delays, no
questions asked.<p>There will be more research funded in
units attached to universities, various
national labs, various companies, etc.
So, there's Oak Ridge, Lawrence-Livermore,
Los Alamos, Argonne, Lincoln Lab, Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab,
Naval Research Lab, Raytheon, Lockheed,
GE, NSA, etc.<p>Still, considering the size of the US, the
size of the US economy and the Federal
budget, and the importance of US national
security, we're not talking very many
people or much money.<p>Broadly, research is cheap and a big
bargain.<p>And Congress can lean back, relax, and
easily see that US academic research is
extremely competitive. Genuinely
brilliant students are awash in
scholarships. For a new Ph.D., for a good
job at Harvard, Princeton, etc., the
student need only do some really good
research -- one good paper, if really
good, is quite sufficient. If they keep
the really good papers coming, keep
getting prizes, etc., then the money will
keep coming. No problemos. And for the
fundamental research that Congress and the
US DoD want, that competitiveness is
enough.<p>For math in business? The solution is
easy: (A) See a good problem, that is,
some nicely big pain in the real world.
(B) Do some applied math research to find
a good solution. (C) Write software to
implement the solution and deliver it over
the Internet, maybe as just a Web site.
(D) Get a first server, for $1000 or less,
go live, get users/customers, revenue, and
earnings. Slam, bam, thank you mam.
Presto. Bingo. Done.<p>Here never have to convince some rock
solid, conservative mainline US business
person that your theorems are valuable.
All such people see is the solution to the
big pain and your happy trips to the bank.<p>Notice that (A)-(D) isn't done very often
and don't have a lot of examples in the
headlines? Right. So, good news; there's
not much competition!<p>Accountants can confirm the revenue and
earnings, and that's enough for VCs,
private equity types, M&A types,
investment bankers, institutional
investors, stock pickers, stock funds,
etc.<p>Want to improve the situation for math in
business?<p>(i) Okay, need more examples like what I
just outlined in (A)-(D).<p>(ii) Then need to have applied math
graduate schools borrow from law and
medicine and be clinical and professional.<p>Don't hold your breath waiting for (ii);
that would mean that good applied
mathematicians would be employees instead
of their own CEOs, and that's not so good.
Or, if a good applied mathematician wants
a good job, then they should create it for
themselves by being CEO of their own
successful startup.<p>Back to it! |
Never Put Two Spaces After a Period | ""Who says two spaces is wrong?" they wanted to know.<p>Typographers, that's who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. "<p>I really think this guy Farhad Manjoo is trying to buy an argument where one doesn't exist. Perhaps he's practicing for April Fools' Day which isn't far off!<p>In his aforementioned quote, either he fails to justify his statements/claims or he covers a lot of mileage to prove minor points, same goes for the rest of his post. Sure, he has links to references and that fine (and the ones I looked at I didn't dispute,)—however that's not the most significant point.<p>Just because someone or authority dictates or pontificates from upon high that something is this or that, or is supposed to be a certain way etc. doesn't give that person or anything he says higher authority or even any credibility whatsoever. Moreover, often so-called 'orthodoxy' can actually be wrong or misinterpreted.<p>That said, professional standards are very important, so is the craft and experience of the artisan. However, 'double spacing after a stop between sentences' simply doesn't drop into this category, it's a lower-order exercise. It is not as if the typist who puts in a 'double-stop' is 'performing' at the level of a Graphic artists or typesetter does when he/she say typesets a novel in Palatino for general market release.<p>If the typist does worry thus, then I'd humbly suggest that he/she is overly obsessed about the matter or has some kind of fetish about it.<p>(No, I'm not being derogatory here as I actually understand the issue. Let me give you an example. When, say, I'm in a supermarket checkout aisle that has a checkout sign to the effect "People with less than 12 items" then I have a strong urge to cross out 'less' and replace it with the correct word 'fewer' but I never act upon it.)<p>It boils down to this, I am a very fussy person but nowhere as fussy as Farhad Manjoo, he strikes me as bordering on the obsessive.<p>The Issues as I perceive them:
---------------------------------------<p>1. I use 'double spacing after a stop between sentences' and a colon because it emphases the stop or colon itself. That's to say, it strengthens the action of the punctuation and makes the page more readable. Moreover, I have done so for years, and I have no intention of stopping.<p>1.1 Often seriffed fonts with various degrees of kerning etc. one often sees in books makes the punctuation almost illegible—concomitantly, thus so the text. There are many, many examples of this done by so-called professionals!<p>1.2 THE FACT THAT THE FONT/LAYOUT METRICS FOR THOSE TYPEFACES IS PRECISELY CORRECT AS SPECIFIED FOR THE TYPEFACE/FONT COMBINATION DOES NOT NECESSARILY ENSURE GOOD READABILITY. THESE BOOKS WOULD BE BETTER OFF BY INCREASING INTER-SENTENCE SPACING [ALBEIT NOT NECESSARILY TWO FULL SPACES]. SAME ALSO APPLIES TO THE INAPPROPRIATELY SMALL INTER-PARAGRAPH SPACING.<p>2. Many others who I have observed over the years and who use two spaces after a stop also consider the matter a readability issue—double spacing often makes text more readable/understandable! Fact!<p>2.1 If I type a large document with <i>single</i> spacing after the stop and then I read it back some weeks afterwards (after I've forgotten the fine detail of what I typed), then do the same with identical text but with <i>double</i> spacing, then I find the <i>double spacing</i> considerably easier to read. In my case, it's a fact (perhaps for Farhad Manjoo there's no difference but he shouldn't criticise those who do find the increased spacing better).<p>2.2 You might say the 'test' in 2.1 is fanciful and that I'm lying about it, as who would ever bother doing a comparison like that in the first place? However, I can assure you that such comparisons do happen. Often, I can have two identical documents even down to the font and almost to the layout. It mostly occurs when 'copy' goes into web pages or HTML editors that are set to automatically convert double spacing to single [i.e.: the page defaults to single spacing]. In fact, such comparisons happen quite regularly.<p>2.3 By insisting that I read 'single-spaced' documents then Farhad Manjoo would effectively disadvantage me because of my 'handicap'. There are many other typists out there who expedience reading text the same way I do. So what to do with us all? Perhaps shoot us, or put us all down like a sick dog?<p>2.4 In my case, the <i>double</i> spacing after a stop/colon is so ingrained that I can get rather annoyed and irritated when posting to web sites that automatically convert from 'double' to 'single' space when posted. Sometimes there is no way around the problem but often there is. use ALT-255 or another Unicode blank symbol to insert the extra blank. If enough of us did that then the nastily little authoritarian people who write code for such pages might eventually get the message!<p>3. Farhad Manjoo seems to spend precious little time discussing the very real effect 'double spacing after a stop' has when the typeface and its fonts are changed. Sometimes double spacing look awkward and often it does not depending on which typeface is used. Use a modern typing font such as Calibri and it hardly matters. This is a far too detailed a subjects cover here, suffice to say, different typefaces and different weights have a psycho-visual impact on the reader—that's why we use different typefaces with various font weights, etc.<p>3.1 The fact, that Farhad Manjoo is 'blinded' by a page of 'spaces' between sentences when 'double-space after stop' is used means that he actually perceives the page in a different visual way as do many others do. If so, I can actually understand his problem. Like many, I DO NOT notice these 'spaces', for me the effect is the 'area-under-a-curve' stuff—the integrand if you like—which, overall, makes the page have better readability performance when double space is used. No more, no less!<p>3.2 If disturbing 'double-space after stop' 'spaces' on a page cause Farhad Manjoo so much bother, then what does he do when the line spacing/line height is changed to double or even triple height. What does he do when the character spacing is adjusted or the kerning not set to his liking? It must be a nightmare for him—he must go around examining pages for "correctness"—and if they're "wrong" his distraction must make it difficult for him to comprehend the page.<p>[Actually, I can understand typeface/layout distraction. I'll often not buy a book if the typeface / fonts etc. are very poorly executed (but it does have to be bad, usually the content is more important and overrules my resistance).<p>3.3 Can Farhad Manjoo tell me how he copes with automatically justified text [i.e.: text with no ragged right]? Often such text can look truly horrible, nevertheless, it is a standard layout methodology used and accepted by Graphic artists and fontographers. Does this mean that because it's "officially" part of the layout 'canon' then Farhad Manjoo will fully accept it even though it is distractingly ugly?<p>3.4 Graphic artists and fontographers, etc. aren't the right people to judge the single/double spacing after stop rule/issue. These people are trained to notice the finest details with respect to the printed page and thus have a far too critical an eye.<p>3.4.1 The average user rarely notices 'typeface issues' at the 'minutiae' level, in fact I'm often horrified by the typeface/font 'sins' that so many are actually capable of committing.<p>3.4.2 I know, I am very fussy (in fact pedantic) about the typefaces and font weights that I use. I select them very carefully. Nevertheless, I'm not as fixed in my views as some professionals who work with type on a daily basis are. I am currently working on a long report. Considerable effort went into selecting the margins, footnote size, main heading (Aharoni 13pt), sub-headings (Aharoni, 10pt), main text (Calibri 10.5pt) block-text quotes (Rockwell 9 & 9.5), footers (Calibri 9). This attention to detail shows that I am sensitive to the issues of typefaces and layout, and it's why I reckon people who whinge and complain about the 'double spacing after stop' matter are just overly obsessive.<p>3.4.3 Why would I take the time to respond in so much detail to Farhad Manjoo post unless I was reasonably obsessive? Well, even though I accept and understand the purity—or should I sanctity—of the fontographer's typeface metrics, and, ipso facto, that I also understand that 'double spaces after stop' technically violates the aesthetics of these metrics, that it is such a small and trivial (but often useful) matter in the greater scheme of things that I consider it almost unworthy of discussion.<p>Simply, if I'm obsessed with such trivial details and it doesn't worry me one iota, then that Farhad Manjoo and his ilk in a special class of their own. QED.<p>4. Microsoft Word has a setup setting which automatically enforces 'double spaces between sentences'—when set, put in a single space or three spaces and the grammar checker kicks in with a wiggly underline! If Microsoft took the trouble to provide the option in Word then clearly many use it and find it acceptable!<p>4.1 One of the reasons I do not use OpenOffice/LibreOffice very often is that it DOES NOT ENFORCE the 'double space after a stop between sentences'!<p>LibreOffice developers take note! Stop shooting yourselves in the collective foot and give users the options they want! |
US Senate votes to undo FCC internet privacy rules | So much of this conversation has turned political that I'm going to write this as a top-level comment instead of a response to any of the Republican/Democrat comments.<p>We all want to perceive our political views as the result of deep, personal thought--reflection on our own moral guidance, our own observations about the world, our knowledge of the law. Or some combination of those things. We don't want to think that our political views are determined by something as arbitrary as where we grew up.<p>But I think that we are, in fact, shaped more by our environments than we want to think we are. I grew up on a small farm in Texas. My parents happened to be university professors, so I had access to decent education and placed some value on the arts. In fact, I was a professional violinist for 20 years before I got into software engineering and data science.<p>My working theory is based solely on my observations, and I haven't done a study to try to support this theory, but I am working on getting the funding to do such a study in a rigorous way.<p>It's this: the primary driver of political philosophy is access to property. When you have access to cheap, functional property, you tend to lean Republican. When you don't, you tend to lean Democrat.<p>The reasoning behind this is pretty simple. When you live in a place like Texas, you don't really need other people's rules. If you don't like the rules in your city, it's pretty cheap to go buy some land with little-to-no oversight from anyone and live your life as you please, so long as you aren't being really obnoxious.<p>So you have to drive 2 hours to work instead of an hour? No big deal. Your freedom to live under your own rules is more important than that. Why would anyone compromise on their way of doing things when it's so easy to not compromise? It doesn't make any sense.<p>Contrast that to NYC, where I've been living for almost 2 years. Everything is about compromise. Very few people can afford to just move to a place where no one cares--for a variety of reasons. You can't live in that kind of a dense population without accepting limitations to your freedoms. And you want those limitations in place because people are jackasses. So you agree to curtail what you are allowed to do so that you have some confidence that other people are similarly curtailed. There's a sort of minimum viable level of human decency that gets enforced.<p>If you think of personal freedom in the sense that it ends when it starts to infringe on the personal freedom of another person, it makes sense that you are going to have more of it if there's no one near you for 10 miles vs. your next door neighbor living in what used to be the second toilet in your apartment.<p>I don't see much of a conceptual problem with either attitude. I'm much happier in NYC than I ever was in Texas. Texas just doesn't have a whole lot to offer to a liberal, atheist, violinist, and software engineer.<p>What I see as a problem is that people are incapable of understanding the different needs of different human situations and want to impose their own ideas on populations they do not understand at all.<p>New Yorkers grow up riding the subway to school. They see all kinds of people from all walks of life and all different races from a very young age. I didn't even meet a black person until I was in college. New Yorkers don't understand how the south can be so racist. I can understand it. I don't condone it at all. But I can understand how it happens. We still have housing laws that allow what's basically racial segregation in Texas and all across the South.<p>We have Senators and Supreme Court Justices from New York City who don't have a clue about how utterly different things are 2,000 miles away trying to enforce the compromises they absolutely need on the entire country. And conversely, we have idiots from Texas pretending that places like NYC, LA, SF, Chicago and other high-density populations just don't exist--pretending that anyone who doesn't want to compromise is completely free to just go someplace else.<p>Both sides of the aisle are completely fucked in the head. They are wrong. There is no universal set of rules that make sense in both the context of sparse population/cheap land/driving culture and dense population/expensive land/walking or pub trans culture.<p>To bring it back to something relevant to this particular conversation, I think you can apply this heuristic to the Senate, FCC, and FTC.<p>As parties, yes. Both of the big ones are owned by corporate interests. That's clear. But they are owned by the ones they want to be owned by. The ones that they think are in alignment with their political philosophy.<p>The Republican version of the story on privacy and net neutrality is that everyone has space to move to something else if they don't like it. Let the companies do what they want, and if users don't like it, they can go do something else. Which would be reasonable if Republicans weren't already in the pockets of all the major providers and have made it impossible for there to be another place to "move" to, in terms of internet providers.<p>The Democrats did, unfortunately, almost nothing to protect users. The Democrats are too willing to compromise to get something done.<p>In my opinion, it's the will/won't compromise that is fundamentally derived from the geography of where you live that is driving our politics now, including the politics of the internet. Republicans win because they don't compromise. It's not in their vocabulary. Democrats lose because they are, by nature, the compromise party.<p>In a perfect world, both sides would get out of their shells and try to experience the places other people live. They would realize that one-size-fits-all compromise legislation does not, in fact, work for everyone all the time. And it can't really.<p>But there are some cases that affect everyone equally: bottom 1%, top 1%, anything in between, the internet matters. This is one of the rare few instances where Republicans and Democrats should be holding hands and applying rules equally across the board.<p>Those rules should be in favor of privacy and neutrality. No compromise, no matter where you are from or where your political philosophies came from. Net Privacy should be absolute by law as should Neutrality from the providers. That's all there is to it.<p>In the absence of that, I see a good market opportunity for a social network like Facebook that is entirely encrypted and unscannable by the Intelligence Community. Totally private. No ads. You pay a dollar a month for this. Your data is yours, and you can leave at any time and take it with you in a reasonable format.<p>I'm already working on that. Ping me if you are interested. |
Ask HN: Is Accidental Complexity Growing Faster Than Essential Complexity? | Context intro to my answer: I'm come from a service economy. Much of what I've seen is from companies that go out there, get clients from various types of businesses - construction to finance - and create custom solutions for them that are then maintained by the same service companies. I've also seen a few product companies and I have worked with one for a year.<p>---<p>After reflecting on this question, I feel like a good way to think about it might be this:<p>Companies are hitting extreme points right now. On the one hand you have companies that have stuck to their way of working for years. It worked, and in the process of getting customers and making the money come in, they never really thought to upgrade the company processes. After all, back in the day, tech moved at a much slower pace and that's what they are used to. There's been little to no incremental improvement in the technology or even the practices that have been used throughout the companies life. These types of companies still use FoxPro for ERP's, much much older Java enterprise tech stacks (and practices) for their server side stuff. I don't say that that's bad mind you. The ERP company has been around for over 25 years.<p>On the other hand you have the fresh companies started by people who really don't want to enter the juggernauts of the market. The establishment. Guided by the excitment that reaches us from Facebook listicles, and Techcrunch, they want to ride their own paths and build a fresh future. They want to go in and show businesses that the establishment is giving them "boring" and that they can do it better. I've met with lots of these people as well. Generally they'll start explaining their business by start from their tech stack. "We are a SME ERP business using react and a full JS based stack". That is not an exaggeration. That is near verbatim.<p>In between these companies you have the graduates who need to pick a side to go work in. And those that are entering the establishment, want to make their mark. Their impact. They walk into a company that is using SVN for their source code management, and they groan. They see Java being used and they say "why not NodeJS?". And what I've seen that happens, is that they run into the people of the establishment who have no interest in upgrading. Instead of having mentors who work with them towards incremental improvements where each improvement is justified by developer productivity and improvements to the customer they hear "what we have is good enough. Forget it". Or the more common "too much work. Don't bother". As a personal note, the latter really bugs me. Of course it's too much work. You've set it up to be too much work. But, what happens then is that some people will become the establishment, while the others will bide their time waiting for a greenfield project to come and for them to be given a PM role (mind you I see PM roles being handed out to people with almost no technical knowledge, little ability to evaluate tech or specs, after being in a company for 1.5 years). And when they get it, "LET'S DO NODE JS!!!!".<p>Oh and what of those graduates who left college to join the "entrepreneurs"?. They too have gone through university being taught web app development using "ASP MVC" and "Microsoft SQL" and they long to be let out into the world to play with the tech that they hear their peers are working with around the world. Admittedly, the Open source world of react and angular and what not is super exciting in terms of pace of announcements these days. And then they join their peers and everyone gets to feel excited that they are working with new things because they believe new must mean better.<p>---<p>Ultimately the answer is yes. Accidental complexity is growing faster than essential complexity. Business practices change much slower than tech in today's world. I also feel like understanding the reasons behind it is worth pondering on.<p>For me, I feel that a lack of mentorship has a lot to do with things. There are far too few Uncle Bob's - veterans of the software industry who've kept pace with the change and understand things with a deep historical context - who lead architectural decisions and project management at a company. It doesn't even have to be Uncle Bob level veterans. But my observation of companies from where I am shows me very clearly that after 3-5 years of being in the industry, the deeper level constant learning vanishes. Which means that the older employees and the relatively new employees have stopped growing and the mentorship they provide is based on a tiny amount of work that they've done at some point in their life.<p>So to recap, we have people who've come out into the industry, fascinated by the flashy stuff (which is fine! That kind of youthful enthusiasm is also needed in the eco system). These people quickly make their way up to the management level within a couple of years, and then get to push the flashy stuff, and it doesn't go beyond there. Understanding the balance between tech decisions and what's required to solve the problem efficiently for the customer doesn't happen. And then these people guide the next generation which multiplies the effect.<p>From my POV and from where I live, this is the service industry today. Accidental complexity is a growing beast heading towards an exponential curve. |
Ask HN: Has attracting a blog audience become harder? | I don't really think there is any trick to it, but the maturity of a blog is what helps. Even after years of being exposed and publicizing your blog, most people still have no idea that you exist. Imagine all of the people who know that Facebook exist. 1 billion people, at least. Instagram has at least 100 million people. That is A LOT of people. Now how many people know you exist? Likely less than 1% of the Facebook OR the Internet. I always like to stare at this map: <a href="http://internet-map.net/" rel="nofollow">http://internet-map.net/</a><p>It reminds me of how vast the Internet is and how insignificant my website is. Kind of like looking at Earth, compared to the universe. Yet, the visitors I do get, that happen to come across my website? They were looking for me or accidentally discovered me and most of them are usually happy they found me. I get those emails that let me know they are grateful they are to have found my website, or some article that helped them get a job, or just reading an article made them want to write and submit their own article to my website.<p>I've been running a website (<a href="http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com</a>) for several years now and I'd say its fairly popular. It is a niche which focuses on jobs, careers, and the workplace. In the beginning, I used to just post everything myself, but it became near impossible to keep coming up with topics, though the topics in this niche are so vast and cover just about anything and everything pertaining to a job.<p>I remember when my visitor base just consisted of my mom and my girlfriend. 35 visitors was the highlight of my day. Years later, the website is receiving about a thousand people a day and it varies, less or more, at times depending on the month, season, or trends of unemployment or if a certain article is just popular that month or a keyword or phrase just hits what people are looking for, or if Google just happens to change their algorithm to favor my website for that week or month. I have had a few companies submit articles and take out their own Facebook ads to drive traffic to it (their own article). Many factors can play a role in driving traffic to the website and other than what I can learn from the few analytics scripts I have installed, I just accept whatever traffic I get and I am grateful for any traffic. The website has been penalized at least twice, the latter just a few months ago, and without Google, traffic was cut in half (based on a 2-week penalty).<p>I think just a month after opening up the blog and welcoming posts by others, in essence, creating a community, and it grew in popularity, mostly because when you offer to publish articles for people, they tend to share it as well. Repeat visitors and new authors, the traffic just keeps coming. But it also technically remains as a steady flow. I don't have the resources or money to spend on social media interacting with fans, so I really just rely on my contributors and readers to do the work with a few automated scripts that randomly choose an article every couple of hours and post it to Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.<p>I have learned over the years: just keep writing. Google will help you get found eventually. There are articles I wrote years ago that only received a few hundred visitors when first published, yet you can get one day where it happens to go viral. I went in for an interview once and it was so awful that I decided to write about it. It was just the way this woman shook my hand! I could not stop thinking about it that it probably ruined my own interview for me. ( <a href="http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/power-of-the-handshake/" rel="nofollow">http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/power-of-the-hand...</a> ) In the beginning, it might have had only 300 visitors or so, but then one day, the article went viral! It was probably one person posting it on Reddit or something, and everyone who saw it was curious about it. At the moment, it has almost $10.5k views.<p>It is certainly easier when you do have a niche. I write tons of articles and I have tons of people contributing every week, every year -- always new names, but plenty of people I've been talking to for years who love to share their articles about investing or real estate or whatever the case may be, so I'm never without an article to publish.<p>I also stick to a schedule: Monday through Friday, 10 AM. Occasionally, I'll publish two articles in a day. I'm sure that publishing more articles per day will likely drive up traffic, but I feel this schedule just works for me. I write out infographics which take time and spend time ensuring articles are quality and unique. It also creates a queue which causes people to wait and see if their articles get published, which keeps them coming back to check to see when it got published. I also ask for donations which often help articles "jump the line" and get published earlier, though I think I have only had less than 10 contributors actually donate anything. Most people would just prefer to wait the 1-2 weeks that it takes to get published.<p>It definitely isn't a straightforward "if you build it, they will come." Worst advice that anyone could ever give you about starting a blog, imo. They can't come because they don't really know that you exist. Other bad advice is that you can build a blog and it will just make lots of money. Far from it. You need to have passion for blogging and your niche. Most of your website or your blog's existence means you are doing it for free.<p>Otherwise, and I am guilty of it: You lose interest. There have been times where I almost thought about giving up, but then I get emails from someone wanting to publish an article on the website or just thanking me for doing what I do, and it keeps me going and sparks that interest and passion all over again.<p>Don't get me wrong, there are some bloggers out there who have learned how to make blogging a living, upselling Amazon links, writing sponsored posts for companies, signing up for and posting affiliate links, or attracting mainstream companies who want to be mentioned on the blog with links back to their products or websites. It is all in finding the audience, the niche, the traffic, and appealing to those who will pay you to keep doing what you are doing.<p>You have to keep mentioning yourself and keep trying to show the world that you exist and you have a purpose. Well, not only you, but your website. I definitely don't take all the credit for where the website is today and what it has become, as it has hundreds of different personalities on it, but the website has become a community in which everyone is helping everyone else to gain some exposure. Every new post on the website is a new gateway and there will always be someone out there who is looking for exactly what you wrote: Whether it helps them or if they were just looking to read something entertaining, they will eventually find you. |
Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women? | To answer some questions regarding the comments about how these things are different from men to women. They may not be. The reported answers may be the same and related to issues both men and women struggle with.<p>However, I think theres been some more chatter in the industry trying to get to the bottom of some issues that have come up recently with gender in tech one not so recent and more general. Here's what I mean<p>1. In the 1980s, for reasons everyone can quantify but noone can understand why, is why women stopped going into computer science in the 1980s: <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...</a><p>Particularly data scientists and computer scientists and economists who are skilled at teasing out data in large and seemingly choatic data sets cannot figure this out, which is ironic considering they are the group in which this gender disparity occurred which such a dramatic and relatively sudden dropoff.<p>2. On top of the dramatic drop of women in computer science, 41% of the women who do go into tech leave compared to 17% of men: <a href="https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996#.cuwsh66wd" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-i...</a><p>3. A number of studies have shown that identical job applications, resumes AND VC pitches are evaluated differently based on whether they are labeled with a male or female name.
<a href="https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996#.cuwsh66wd" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-i...</a><p>4. High acheiving women, and particular women in tech show<p><pre><code> a. more negative feedback in reviews compared to men
b. the word abrasive is used positively with men, negatively with women in reviews
</code></pre>
<a href="http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/" rel="nofollow">http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias...</a><p>5. Alot of women get into entry level tech jobs, but far fewer climb the ladder/wages stagnate<p><a href="https://qz.com/645587/a-mckinsey-report-on-female-leaders-finds-women-are-unable-to-enter-the-tech-industry/" rel="nofollow">https://qz.com/645587/a-mckinsey-report-on-female-leaders-fi...</a><p>6. Female leaders: Founders, CEOs, CTOs receive far more public criticism AND HOSTILITY than male CEOs and CTOs ie.e Ellen Pao as leader of reddit, Marissa Meyer, Sheryl Sandberg
* The things that have been said about these women and their bodies and how evil they are I have never ever heard with male CEOs no matter how evil, nor have I seen criticism as harsh, unrelated to the business issue, cruel and emotionally punishing as these women have faced. Dear god, how could any women aspire to be a leader when the women who aspire to are bombarded with a nonstop barage of sexual and emotional humiliation 24/7 on the internet male CEOs never face. It's ridiculous.<p>* I am not saying these things happen (the disparities by gender noted above) because men are sexist and evil. I don't think anyone knows why this is happening, which is why more women who are in tech are being asked to open up and speak out to get their personal perspective since all the data and studies in the world don't seem to be providing these answers<p>* My personal opinion for what its worth: I have to say as a woman in tech, an Electrical Engineer with a minor in Computer Science who now does graphics engineering and GPU software layer dev, I don't think it is fair that large corporations are being blamed for the gender disparity in STEM fields. The gender disparity is documented in highschool starting with the number of women in advanced STEM related classes like Calc and Physics all the way through college majors to then the workplace, and yet Microsoft and Google need to fabricate highly skilled and experienced technical women out of thin air or take on the effort to create fund and integrate their own ideas for education in highly unskilled and complexly funded school systems. I think its great they are doing these things, but I think the expectation society has suddenly placed on them since they decided to be angry about it this year is unreasonably punishing and creates more anger and blaming than it does objective awareness and productive conversations, of which I think this convo was an attempt to counteract on YCombos part so thank you<p>( and to go back to my mid-sentence point, as far as people being angry about big tech corps and the lack of women...ummm yeh Ive been a women in tech for almost a decade now so thanks for suddenly caring out of thin air but how about asking women in tech about it instead of just finding the biggest tech corporation around and blaming them for everything, which is why Q&As like the above listed are nice)<p>Lets address the gender disparity in STEM at age 8 and work our way up. Need help start with Toys R us and just do a study noting toys based on level of difficulty/problem solving/building creating and colour versus child care, clothing and social itneraction based toys...and start there. DONT start at google and blame everything on them. Start with YOU and how YOU raise, dress, spend time, talk with your own duaghters as mothers fathers sisters teachers etc before you assume everything is googles fault.<p><i>There is no "bad guy" guy we get to blame for this as much as mass media these days loves bad guys to blame for everything. This is a very complex cultural issue for which atleast in my experience my parents, teachers, school, cultural demographic of the area I grew up in, politics, media, men in college, magazines for women, AND THEN on top of all of that and all the warped ideas I had about myself and my capabilities due to that yes also there were cultural clashes between me and men at my tech university and also at work.<p></i>I have also on top of all of this faced blatant sexual harrassment cases which were quickly resolved just because, there was no debate about whether they were harrassment or not. They were. Even though these issues were resolved, they were horrrible experiences, emotionally traumatizing, and embarassing and annoying because other employees always find out, not to mention distracting me away from that thing called my job that I came to work for.<p>*The amount of times men have shockingly stated to me after getting to know me that they now realize I'm not in the industry to husband shop...is too damn high..... |
Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python | Dear Kite,
I really love this idea, but <i>hell</i> no I'm not using it yet. Here's why... I'll cut to the point here, so please forgive the bluntness as I mean no insult or accusation, just honest criticism, and I'm gonna try to cover a lot in as small a space as possible.<p>There's not even a mention on kite.com about how data is handled that I can find anywhere. What is the method of transport? What stands between skids and my code? The server my data goes to, is it shared VPS hardware waiting to get pwned by your neighbor, xtremecrackz.zyx or is it on private servers guarded by a three headed puppy named Κέρβερος, 13 ninja, and biometric security? Does the page even mention this <i>is</i> a cloud service somewhere? I see support for VS Code, but not MSVS proper, emacs but not specifically GNU/Linux yet; Mac support but not Linux in spite of at least $4M USD in seed and 3 years of development (source: crunchbase [1])? The Windows download page gives instructions for bypassing SmartScreen warnings meaning your code signing certificate has no reputation with Microsoft yet if I understand correctly. Frankly, I didn't think "Adam Smith" was even a real person until I checked it out. LOL, sorry bro but it sounds kinda generic to someone skeptical I guess. Maybe you assume trust since you travel in the circles you do, but we nutjobs like stuff in writing, and trust assumptions without verification are bad practice anyhow -.-<p>(on trust)
Your investor who may or may not provide the same or similar "Kite" software discussed in GCHQ leaks as a "correlates-anything" solution, Palantir Technologies, has been standing in the suspiciously shadowy center of a maelstrom in some circles. I like them supporting our warfighting - but not working against the people of the United States, or anyone's civilians for that matter, however that's an argument for the agencies they contracted with. I've watched my brothers bleed out defending the rights their software has helped undermine, I'm not sure how to feel about them at all right now. Do I want to give my code to their creepy software? No, not really, since I'd have to consider that if they got a contract they might, without even knowing the end use, build software to guide Terminators to hunt down and kill civilians who write bad code or wear plaid socks. Seriously though: eyebrow raised.<p>(advice)
I would add more clear information about how this all works. A link to security answers should come up before the footer IMO, given the nature of this product. Going out of my way to look for it, I guess it seems like security was an afterthought. I can appreciate your blog post about security [2] and the main security page which links to that article (merge these?), but they fail to answer almost all of my questions. They imply that the service isn't really ready for the spotlight, but do not explicitly say anywhere to safeguard sensitive stuff or not to trust everything just yet, but it seems softly implied to me.<p>(bigFoilHat)
This might sound far out to some, feel free to ignore or laugh, but if I were an evil puppet master, I'd have my cybersecurity and intelligence contractor who provides access to mission critical software or monetary capital for a startup attempt to leverage this relationship to gain information about code in the wild and specific targets' code using this service, perhaps to have software look for opportunities to steal parts of keys, suggest code changes to enable exploitation, forward copies of code from persons of interest to investigators. I might ask them to approach them as patriots in the interest of the GWOT and all things decent, to tacitly and deniably or perhaps even expressly cooperate with legally and morally grey-area surveillance operations. Perhaps if there is no cooperation or just to keep it quiet, I might suggest they infiltrate Kite.com and gain the ability to intercept data clandestinely by using their trust and rapport with company leadership. "Plz send all code to spies and disable security stuffz kthxbai" I can weaken my own PRNGs and send copies of my code for spooks to analyze by myself without assistance thanks. Again, I'm attempting to honestly characterize how it makes me feel, just sayin'. I simply have no way to even fool myself into thinking I can know what goes on with my data after it leaves my PC. How do I even build rules for my firewalls? What are the parent processes which need communication, on which ports, using what protocols? Which servers will it upload to? Can we blacklist certain destinations by region or other attributes? I think you need a more robust explanation on the site before us crazy people are satisfied.<p>(bigFoilHat Q)
HN: what say you, am I just being paranoid here in thinking that users' analyzed code may end up being displayed on an alphabet soup agency wiki somewhere along with download links for tools to suprisebuttsecks us being passed out to every malware hoarding contractor who accidentally skated past the SF-86? Maybe I'm just having a bad bout of Stallman Syndrome. One might argue "99.99% of users' code will be useless fluff and bizcruft, who cares if they copy my der.py code?" but finding that 0.01% relevant signal in the noise is exactly what Palantir does for customers, isn't it? So how can I flippantly dismiss the notion?<p>(Q) Do you sell, gift, trade, share, or otherwise disclose or make available knowingly any information about users' personal data or source code, even if anonymized or generalized in reports and detached from identifying information, to other parties? Can/will/do these parties include your investors? Does Palantir Technologies store, use, or have access to at any time, our source code or any information about it or ourselves?<p>That said, it sounds cool as phrack and I would love to see this in many languages and editors, but only if it can be trusted somehow. I'll be watching and investigating, thanks for sharing this on HN,<p>-Ax<p>[1] <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kite-com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kite-com/</a>
[2] <a href="https://kite.com/blog/thoughts-on-security" rel="nofollow">https://kite.com/blog/thoughts-on-security</a><p>Please correct anything I am mistaken about, I admit I could be completely off the mark here. |
VPNs are not the solution to a policy problem | The (presently) top-rated comment on this thread by nikcub is not only wrong, but fractally wrong in every particular. I'm offering this as a possible counterpoint.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13982966" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13982966</a><p>* False dichotomy: that the solution lies in only one sphere. (Lessig, <i>Code</i>). This is lightly moderated, but resurfaces at several later points in the argument.<p>* Personal responsibility. Check. Never mind that the source article states concisely and specifically why this doesn't work or scale.<p>* Hybrid system. Or as I prefer, <i>the worst of both worlds</i>. In the healthcare example, a <i>guarantee of emergency room services</i> is posited as a sufficient mitigation for mandating individual responsibility <i>in all other areas</i>. Disregarding the fact beneficial health outcomes comes from public or preventive measures, not acute (read: late, expensive, heroic measures) interventions:<p>"In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care."<p>― Laurie Garrett, <i>Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health</i><p>* As with all good Techno-Libertarians, nikcub "personally believe[s] in user responsibility". Despite some 50+ years of experience that <i>user responsibility for security simply does not work or scale</i>.<p>Nikcub continues with specifics:<p>* Universality of policy. Which seems to boil down to "since <i>every</i> jurisdiction cannot offer the same high levels of protection, <i>no</i> jurisdiction should". What ever happened to the concept of a competitive marketplace for ideas, including legal and moral frameworks? Isn't the very idea of liberal democracy that its principles, premises, and protections <i>are so manifestly self evident</i> that <i>all</i> people everywhere would want them? (And hence: why it's such a major pain in the ass of tinpot despots everywhere.)<p>* Some governments are bad ... so <i>no</i> governments can be trusted. Again: a slope so slippery nikcub loses his footing instantly. We can apply the same argument to ... anything. Including his proposed technological solutions: <i>Software is a major party in privacy violations and is conflicted (and buggy), so it cannot be expected to behave in the interest of users.</i> In government as with software, <i>the proper response to buggy implementations is to fix the bugs, not burn the house down and abandon the domain completely.</i><p>* Government trust. Where do I even start (the concept and questions of trust are ... a whole 'nother essay). <i>If liberal democratic government, the agent </i>and agency* of The People, cannot be trusted, then what can?* Private, <i>self-interested</i> business? Which, I'll hasten to add, <i>has landed us in the present kettle of fish</i>? If you're finding that your government (or parts of it) aren't trustworthy, <i>then you have two problems</i>. But the one doesn't invalidate proper approaches to the other, <i>and fixing the problem of government trust gives you an exceptionally powerful tool to apply in remedying privacy and other policy failures</i>. Say, such as single-payer, universal, socialised medicine.<p>* Tech solutions that are universal ... are called <i>policy</i>. And, to add to that, <i>a primary reason for approaching such policies through government is that governments have the clout and scale to make policies stick.</i> Keep in mind that this need not be at national or international scales. Policies at the sub-national scale -- say, Northern Ireland or Scotland within the UK, or California or New York within the United States, could have major impacts. Given the option of adopting <i>multiple and conflicting regulatory standards</i>, or <i>a unified and coordinated</i> standard, companies will often prefer the latter. The case of US EPA and California EPA emissions standards would be an excellent study in same.<p>* Good policy is hard work. Yes, well, hard problems are hard. This doesn't make them not worth pursuing. And remedying the specific problems highlighted would be a key goal of any privacy regulatory overhaul.<p>* Penalties are small. Well, duh: <i>embiggen them.</i> I thought <i>yuuuuge!!!</i> was in now, anyways....<p>* On information disclosure: yes, <i>it's very hard to un-leak data</i>. On the other hand, comprehensive and pervasive regulations <i>against</i> the storing <i>or</i> transmission of personal data, <i>stiff penalties</i> for doing so, and <i>sufficient rewards</i> for reporting on such violations, will tremendously decrease the incentives for doing so. Given that the value of vast troves of personal information to firms such as Facebook is ... roughly $12/year per person, those penalties need not be tremendous, though they do need to be sufficient <i>given scales of detection</i>. This isn't dissimilar to present approaches against counterfeiting of money or goods: the fundamental capability to violate norms exists, but with appropriate penalties, and incentives, against transacting in such money or goods, it can generally be tamped down to an acceptable level. The more so <i>if technology and other means are applied in concert with policy</i>.<p>The argument continues spewing the additional canards of <i>perfect worlds</i> (no policy world is perfect, at best it is <i>sufficient</i>), <i>sole reliance</i>, and of mis-casting the argument as <i>warning people away</i> from VPNs (it doesn't, it merely points out that <i>VPNs alone are grossly insufficient</i>).<p>And for the capper, we have <i>free-market it harder</i>. As if it wasn't free-market interests, and failures, which haven't landed us precisely in the present situation. |
Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10? | Well, i tried already to post, but that post did not appear..., here my second try:
Hi, i'm very excited about this, because we use Ubuntu at our company. I have many suggestions, perhaps i can describe them better this second time :)
MultiMonitorSupport and HDPI were already called for, so i will not repeat that.
I'm very well aware that you cannot and won't do most of this stuff, but any of this done would tremendously help you and all ubuntu users. And do not think i think Ubuntu is not great. It is. But there's always room for improvement. You guys are the best for asking here!<p>I am a developer and kind of architect at our company. and we have a downstream distribution of ubuntu. we try to upstream our stuff, but that's not easy with our resources<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core
- HEADLINE: support reproducible builds
- DESCRIPTION: reproducible builds will help us to write better software and verify software on systems bit for bit, this is an tremendous effort, which will possibly help us all with software quality<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core
- HEADLINE: provide fuzzy build recipes
- DESCRIPTION: provide fuzzy build recipes (with afl-fuzz for example) with each source package like for example <a href="https://github.com/d33tah/afl-sid-repo" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/d33tah/afl-sid-repo</a> so it is possible that we can test the software and find bugs. you won't find all the bugs because you cannot test for all inputs, but if you provide the recipes most will try that on their own systems with the input which is important for them<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: please provide more apparmor profiles
- DESCRIPTION: the desktop is a interesting attack surface, please provide more apparmor support for example thunderbird, okular, libreoffice, calligra flow, calibre, gwenview, gimp, kate, xpdf, since email, pdf, images and office documents are common attack vectors. perhaps even provide multiple versions for more or less strict version for example for firefox.<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Core
- HEADLINE: make poppler/okular better!
- DESCRIPTION: poppler is an important kind of piece, many depend on it. but i miss important functionalities like layers (<a href="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97768" rel="nofollow">https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97768</a>) or xfa-support which is needed for government papers to fill out :(<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: better citrix support
- DESCRIPTION: citrix web receiver and the ica client are not nice to use. Perhaps you could collaborate with them and make it nicer. Responsivness, speed and image quality often lacks on ubuntu/linux machines :(<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core
- HEADLINE: make a citrix alternative?
- DESCRIPTION: or instead of citrix you could build a alternative to citrix with libvirt/kvm and spice? :D<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: Support kube
- DESCRIPTION: Kube (kube.kde.org) is a new emailclient based on qt/qml, written by kolab and could be a replacement for thunderbird, which is barely maintained. and finding people who can hack on thunderbird/xul is not easy.<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: integrate usbguard for enterprise
- DESCRIPTION: usbguard is a tool for white/blacklisting usb-devices. please integrate it and make a version, where it can use signed data from other remote sources! :)<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: integrate clevis/tang
- DESCRIPTION: clevis and tang would support device encryption and make a second decryption key which is important in enterprise settings, WITHOUT pressing the user to reveal his own key.<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: better beamer support?
- DESCRIPTION: when i put my ubuntu box to a dvi/hdmi beamer i often see the display only after rebooting. could you make it work that it works already after plugging the beamer in? with other distributions like fedora it often works :(<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core
- HEADLINE: more security support
- DESCRIPTION: either put more packages from universe/multiverse to main or support security updates for packages in multi/universe too. This is not easy for users to know, what is insecure on their box. or at least make it visible via a commandline tool?<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: docx support?
- DESCRIPTION: make libreoffice with docx support better... yeah, it is not a nice job to do :(<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server
- HEADLINE: enable kernel live patching and activate it with unattended-upgrade
- DESCRIPTION: enable live kernel patching and enable unattended-upgrade for it that it supports ith with configuration.<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: make joining ad/ldap+kerberos environments easy
- DESCRIPTION: make a tool, that makes joining an AD-environment or kerberos/ldap-environment really easy. bonus if you provide such a server environment via configuration/debpackages yourself!<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: NetworkManager and secure certificate support
- DESCRIPTION: In Enterprise Environments it is often needed to have Certificates for 802.1x, openvpn or openconnect. It would be great if networkmanager would support pkcs-urls (and the tools which are used by networkmanager) which then connect to a softhsm and the certificates are only available for the networkmanager, which is enforced via apparmor-profiles<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: security audit of qt
- DESCRIPTION: Martin graesslin mentioned in a blog post that qt is not vetted for security, it would be great if there's a security audit for it<p>- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop
- HEADLINE: make a function/syscall for erasing memory secure in qt
- DESCRIPTION: Enable a possibility with QT (perhaps even with a syscall) which erases memory secure even within the qt-environment? |
The new age of Ayn Rand | htaunay et al, do not be so quick to discount Rand’s solutions. It is way too easy to make false assumptions about the nature of “Capitalism" as she defines it.<p>First you have to realize that Politics is but one of a philosophy’s necessary 5 interdependent branches:
1. Metaphysics, which answers the question “what is the fundamental nature of everything?”
2. Epistemology, which answers the question “how do I know that or anything else?"
3. Ethics, which answers the question “given #1 & #2, how should I act in order to achieve the fulfillment of my nature?”
4. Politics, which answers the question “what kind of relationship consistent with #3 should there be between me and others when living in a society?”
5. Aesthetics, which answers the question: “how can I experience concretely the the product of my abstract conclusions in #1-#4 before they are actual, and of what value would that be?”<p>The validity of any philosophy depends on 1) consistency of conclusions drawn within and between each of the branches and 2) consistency of those conclusions with the actual facts of reality.<p>So, half of the task in grasping Rand’s radical Capitalism is understanding what its principles are vs. all the other versions of Capitalism. The other half requires understanding how they rest on and derive from her Ethics. While it is easy to inform yourself of her political principles, you can neither validate them nor argue successfully against them without dealing with the ethical principles from which they are derived.<p>For instance, a Capitalist government, in Rand’s view, may not fund itself through taxation. 99% of her critics will argue that is impractical; but her Ethics, recognizing human fallibility, demands individual autonomy in the pursuit of one’s life, and inherent in claiming the right to autonomy is the obligation to grant it reciprocally to all others.<p>Therefore, the only job allowed or required of the government is to secure that autonomy for all by forbidding/preventing/punishing the use of force by anyone against others for gain. Since taxation is the use of force by one group against another group for gain, it is inherently immoral, and the immoral may never be argued to be “practical” under any circumstances.<p>If you cannot devise a way to fund the government without using force, you don’t get a government! If you want to know how to fund a massive worldwide service like Rand’s minimalist government in which those with money pay for it voluntarily while the poorest get it for free, just ask Google or Facebook, who have been there and done that.<p>Here are 13 fact based conclusions supporting radical laissez-faire Capitalism as the only moral form of government:<p>the metaphysics:
1) The existence of living organisms is conditional on self-generated selection and exercise of certain actions consistent with their specific nature in the face of alternatives.<p>2) The most fundamental of all alternatives for all living creatures is life or death.<p>the epistemology:
3) Of all living creatures, only a volitional human can initiate the selection of which alternative to pursue and how to pursue it.<p>the ethics:
4) The choice (deliberate or implied in all other choices) to pursue the fundamental alternative of life over death implicitly establishes one’s life as one's fundamental and primary goal.<p>5) One's fundamental goal is implicitly the standard of measure for all values one acts to gain or keep in its pursuit.<p>6) Therefore, that which contributes to one's life (consistent with one's nature, as opposed to mere vegetative existence) is necessarily "the ethical good", and that which detracts from it is "the ethical bad".<p>7) Since the identification and evaluation of goals/values is slow and deliberative while everyday life is spontaneous, the long run pursuit of life necessitates a hierarchical code of values in principle (ethics) to guide (by programming emotions) one's spontaneous choices in any alternative faced, and it requires one to opt, in each concrete instance, for that which is the higher value per that code in lieu of the lower one (the morality of egoism).<p>8) Man's singular means to fulfill these requirements of his nature in the pursuit of life is by applying the product of his reason to his actions in the production and exchange of values needed to survive and flourish consistent with the nature of the human being he is.<p>the politics:
9) The extension of that individual ethic to the social context of an individual living in a society of other volitional (and therefore fallible) men requires that one seek to preserve one's own autonomy over the application of one's own reason to one's own action in the pursuit of one's own life ( = freedom from the fallibility of others).<p>10) The only threat to a man's pursuit of his life in that context would be the initiation or threat of physical force by others to coerce certain choices of action against his will thus diminishing or negating the above defined individual autonomy.<p>11) The single most fundamental political alternative is therefore not left vs. right, or liberal vs. conservative, but rather: freedom vs. force (autonomy vs. coercion).<p>12) Therefore, it is morally imperative that each individual human being living in a society of men advocate and sustain, to the best of his efforts and extent possible, a third party institution authorized to remove the use of aggressive force from all human interactions within its jurisdiction.<p>13) A moral government must therefore guarantee that:<p>No person shall initiate the use of physical force or threat thereof to take, withhold, damage or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another person who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange, nor impede any other person's non-coercive actions.<p>Note that every interrelationship, every exchange of values, tangible or intangible among those who are acting in their own rational self interest must be voluntary. Further, in every voluntary exchange of values, both parties profit. Each gives up something he values less to get something he values more, and they do it without using force. That is the essence of a free market!<p>Thus, no one can oppose Ayn Rand’s politics without sooner or later embracing the use of force against others for their own gain. |
United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler | Some people are getting hit with paywalls. So here is the full text of the article:<p>It’s hard to find examples of worse decision-making and customer treatment than United Airlines having a passenger dragged from an overbooked plane. But United’s shabby treatment of Geoff Fearns, including a threat to place him in handcuffs, comes close.<p>Fearns, 59, is president of TriPacific Capital Advisors, an Irvine investment firm that handles more than half a billion dollars in real estate holdings on behalf of public pension funds. He had to fly to Hawaii last week for a business conference.<p>Fearns needed to return early so he paid about $1,000 for a full-fare, first-class ticket to Los Angeles. He boarded the aircraft at Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai, took his seat and enjoyed a complimentary glass of orange juice while awaiting takeoff.<p>Then, as Fearns tells it, a United employee rushed onto the aircraft and informed him that he had to get off the plane.<p>“I asked why,” he told me. “They said the flight was overfull.”<p>Fearns, like the doctor at the center of that viral video from Sunday night, held his ground. He was already on the plane, already seated. He shouldn’t have to disembark.<p>“That’s when they told me they needed the seat for somebody more important who came at the last minute,” Fearns said. “They said they have a priority list and this other person was higher on the list than me.”<p>Apparently United had some mechanical troubles with the aircraft scheduled to make the flight. So the carrier swapped out that plane with a slightly smaller one with fewer first-class seats.<p>Suddenly it had more first-class passengers than it knew what to do with. So it turned to its “How to Screw Over Customers” handbook and determined that the one in higher standing — more miles flown, presumably — gets the seat and the other first-class passenger, even though he’s also a member of the frequent-flier program, gets the boot.<p>“I understand you might bump people because a flight is full,” Fearns said. “But they didn’t say anything at the gate. I was already in the seat. And now they were telling me I had no choice. They said they’d put me in cuffs if they had to.”<p>You couldn’t make this up if you tried.<p>It shouldn’t make any difference where a passenger is seated or how much he or she paid for their ticket. But you have to admire the sheer chutzpah of United putting the arm on a full-fare, first-class traveler. If there’s anybody whose business you want to safeguard and cultivate, it’s that person.<p>So how could United possibly make things worse? Not to worry. This is the airline that knows how to add insult to injury.<p>A United employee, responding to Fearns’ complaint that he shouldn’t have to miss the flight, compromised by downgrading him to economy class and placing him in the middle seat between a married couple who were in the midst of a nasty fight and refused to be seated next to each other.<p>“They argued the whole way back,” Fearns recalled. “Nearly six hours. It was a lot of fun.”<p>Back in Southern California, he consulted his lawyer and then wrote to United’s chief executive, Oscar Munoz, who commended airline workers after the passenger-dragging incident “for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.”<p>Fearns requested a full refund for his flight from Kauai and asked for United to make a $25,000 donation to the charity of his choice. This is how rich guys do it.<p>He received an email back from a United “corporate customer care specialist” apologizing that Fearns apparently had an unpleasant experience. But, no, forget about a refund.<p>As for that charitable donation, what are you kidding? A hard no on that.<p>Instead, the service rep offered to refund Fearns the difference between his first-class ticket and an economy ticket — about a week later, as if that wasn’t the first thing they should do in a situation like this — and to give him a $500 credit for a future trip on the airline.<p>“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”<p>I reached out to United and asked if anyone cared to comment on Fearns’ adventure in corporate catastrophe. No one got back to me.<p>Julia Underwood, a business professor at Azusa Pacific University, said United’s actions in both the dragged-off-the-plane episode and with Fearns reflect a coldhearted mindset utterly devoid of compassion for customers.<p>“They’re so locked into their policies, there’s no room for empathy,” she said.<p>As a result, Underwood said, situations that should be manageable spiral out of control and result in unnecessarily messy PR disasters.<p>“What United and all companies need to do is to train and empower workers to deal with specific issues as they arise,” she said. “Don’t just follow whatever is written in your policies.”<p>I couldn’t agree more. United is neck-deep in trouble this week because its workers are clearly out of their depth in handling out-of-the-ordinary events. You have to think someone on the flight crew would have been able to step up, if given the trust and authority to do so by the carrier.<p>Fearns said three different members of the crew on his middle-seat, economy-class return to L.A. apologized for how he was treated in Hawaii. But they said they were unable to do anything.<p>He’s now considering a lawsuit against United — and he certainly has the resources to press his case.<p>I asked if he’ll ever fly United again.<p>Fearns could only laugh. “Are you kidding?” |
Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far? | I've spoken about this before on here. We developed on HoloLens for a couple months. Working on the HoloLens app was actually my first foray into 3D development, and also required converting ThreeJS JSON into Unity models which was a mess.<p>The user experience
--------------<p>HoloLens is mesmerizing. I'm not big into VR or anything, and will often make the arguement that VR hype will die out and is a fad. But there's something very different about what Microsoft is doing. The ability to incorporate reality as a first class citizen in your 3D applications (or vice versa) is groundbreaking. People often complain about the FOV when they first try it out, and I had the same complaint, but your brain is able to compensate once it gets used to it, and then you stop noticing it. That's something you don't get from a short trial of it at a tech demo. The user inputs are indeed very clumsy still. We'll need vast improvements in this area before HoloLens can feel immersive. But the amazing thing is that this first pass isn't <i>that</i> bad. It can track your hands and it's a computer that sits on your head. I mean, come on! I'm only 22 and even I think that's amazing.<p>The developer experience
------------------------<p>One of the major short comings of HoloLens development is its dependency on Unity. C# isn't the problem. I love C# and use it daily now for web development. The problem is Unity uses .NET 2.0, and good luck finding C# libraries that are compatible. So for every new thing you want to do, you're going to have to find a "Unity compatible" C# library, which is very annoying.<p>Unity will work for what you need most of the time, but it turns out if you want to try something custom (like your own gestures) then you're out of luck, because the Unity APIs are limited in that way.<p>I suppose I'm mostly just not a fan of Unity's component model. Constantly switching between adjusting settings in the IDE and coding feels like a bad way of developing.<p>Okay, so maybe you want to try something a little lower level. Microsoft offers a C++ API as well, and for the most part this is what you want if you need to harness the limited power of the HoloLens. I haven't played around with all of the APIs, but I know of one in particular that left a bad taste in my mouth (this applies to Unity too) -- the spatial anchor API. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the spatial anchor API is the only way to acquire a durable and persistent reference to a real world location. This is done (I think) with sensor data (orientation, lighting, and images captured by the 4 on board spatial mapping cameras.) This is really an incredible feat of engineering, however it produces a binary which is around 15MB. Far too large to store in a database at scale. I'd like to see MS open up raw access to those sensors so middleware developers can try their hand at improving this aspect of HoloLens.<p>If C++ isn't your thing, there's a library called HoloJS. You guessed it, it's a JS runtime for HoloLens with access to native libs. I actually started my own variation on this (called HolographicJS) before Microsoft released theirs, but I'm happy they've taken over.<p>The future
----------<p>So what does this all mean for a device that seemly has its share of problems to overcome? Well, after trying it I'm fairly confident that MR as Microsoft calls it, is here to stay. The ability to mix reality with virtual reality, and augment that with a layer of environmental understanding is really incredible. I think we're just scratching the surface of the possiblities.<p>HoloLens is the first in a new field of devices that I believe will come to replace all forms of computers we currently use: phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, etc. Even things like IOT devices. Why spend time building your own interfaces when you can just augment the users'?<p>If v2 had better FOV and improved input tracking, I'd consider it a major success. But if it also included improved spatial mapping and a reliable GPS, that could bring us into a whole new world, quite literally.<p>The way I see it, the first company to solve outdoor use of an MR device, and solve what I'm calling the "universal spatial map" problem, will run the world of tomorrow.<p>Imagine every machine being capable of interfacing with you without the need for a screen or separate device. Imagine walking down the street, gesturing to a restaurant and placing an order before you even get inside.<p>Further down the line. What if we could transfer consciousness out of a dying car crash survivor into a computer. What if that person could then be virtually transferred back to the scene of the accident, to be greeted by those who are augmented.<p>Anyway, that's all crazy futurism; but the point is that reality starts with what is being done with HoloLens, and I think it's an incredible thing to be a part of.<p>To me, HoloLens feels like the Apple II. |
Blessed Are the “Boring,” for They Create the Billion Dollar Startups | I agree with this as well. Many good comments so far. It's something I constantly struggle with. My one passion for my whole life has been classical music. Before I got into software, I played violin for a living. Not a great living, but enough to scrape by.<p>That's still my passion. I'm passionate about computers in and of themselves, and I enjoy the mental challenges that come from tackling the tasks that I get paid to work on day-to-day. What keeps me motivated in my job now is the same thing that gets me excited about classical music: you create very special and very deep personal connections with your coworkers (or co-performers) and your clients (or audience).<p>This is one reason I am always much happier with in-house teams serving internal clients rather than creating products for masses of people I'll never meet. I can't imagine being happy at a company like google or facebook. But put me in a medium-sized business where I'm building tools for people I see and work with every day? I'm super happy. Thrilled that I'm touching people's lives with my work who I have a real human relationship with.<p>I have a problem when it comes to pursuing side projects with an aim towards maybe turning them into a business: the one thing I'm passionate about for its own sake has little available market. I probably think of 5 different things a day that would be awesome for classical musicians.<p>But when it comes down to it, classical musicians are generally not wealthy. They have very little disposable income, most of them are up to their eyeballs in debt because instruments are very expensive, and they are not technically savvy.<p>Aiming a business at that market would be stupid. They can't afford it, and they won't understand it. But it's what I care about. So what. It's a bad business choice. And I just have to accept that.<p>In the 11 years since I quit playing violin for a living and started my career in technology, I've come up with exactly one idea that has the broad appeal to all non-profits across the country. And I sometimes work on that. But, boy: it's boring.<p>The thing I'm working on right now is a totally practical itch that needs scratching, and it's for my family. My family is really big. If you count up all of the people descended just from my grandparents on my dad's side, we're talking about upwards of 1,200 human beings. Not all of whom are still alive, obviously. We've lost a couple dozen here and there. And many are quite old. My dad will be 98 in a couple of weeks. And he still jogs 5 miles a day. He's probably in better shape than my neckbeard ass is.<p>I hope I got his family's side of the genes. His only remaining sibling is 105, and she lives alone and takes care of herself. His mother was 102 when she passed when I was a kid. So if the 1,200 number seems crazy coming from my grandparents, I'd like you to remember that that's all the people born and married into a family where my grandma was born in 1882. That's a lot of time to generate a lot of kids. And I'm only in my late-30s. So you know, possibly a lot more to come along. :)<p>We have an enormous amount of family pride and stick-together-ness. We love being who we are and knowing that we're sort of everywhere. But it's really hard to keep everyone up to date.<p>I want us to have a totally private, secure, ad-free, social environment to share family news with each other, plan our reunions, figure out who is living where and when we might be near enough to one another to meet up. I'd like for us to be able to do this without having to mess with the constantly changing facebook privacy jiggery pokery.<p>We don't want to be making the sadly frequent funeral plans in a place where things could get public because someone clicks the wrong button. It needs to be dead simple to use. My dad loves facebook and is on it constantly, as are many of the older people in my family who are still with us. I want to build something for them that's a default-private place for all of us, and with end-to-end encryption.<p>Here's an example case where this would have been amazing. I moved to NYC almost 2 years ago. I didn't know anyone here at all except for the 5 people in the startup I was working for. NYC can be a lonely place, what with all the people around here.<p>Months later, I got a call from one of my cousins many states away, and she said, "I heard a rumor that you're in Brooklyn now. You, know, my son lives about a mile from you. You remember him from when you were kids? He's about your age. You should get together."<p>Fast forward a couple weeks and he comes over for dinner. And he has two women with him. And he says, "Oh hey. These two are also our cousins and live nearby. We got ourselves a whole fucking crew of Martins here now. Time to take over the city."<p>And we are a tight-nit crew today. It was a wonderful thing. I'd like to facilitate more of that for my family.<p>So the plan here isn't to build a business that intentionally competes with facebook or tries to take it on at scale. The idea is to build a better experience for one specific use case family social connections. Provide some tools that help event planning for things like weddings, funerals, and reunions. Some special tools for family tree exploration, wiki pages for people who have passed away, etc. It's very purpose driven towards allowing families to stay in touch.<p>And I figure I can't be the only person, nor we the only family, in the world who would like something like this. I think this safe, secure environment would be worth a dollar a month to enough people that I could eventually build a niche business out of it. I won't ever get hundreds of millions of users. And I don't want to. I'd be thrilled knowing that 50 thousand people in the world are using this to stay closer to the people they treasure.<p>And I'd happily work on that every day until I die.<p>Sorry, that turned into a much longer post than I intended it to. The main thing I'd say to people who want to pursue their passions as a business is to do some deep thinking about what motivates your passion. It took me a long time to understand that while, yes I am passionate about the actual music that gets written and performed in the classical genre, there's something deeper that motivates that passion. And it's something that when recognized can be applied passionately to a number of different endeavors. It can be a life-altering experience to come to the realization that what you think you are passionate about is really a surface level symptom of what's really driving you as a person.<p>You may find yourself doing something relatively boring in your spare time. Like, another social network. Yawn. But you might also find yourself on fire for this boring work because it is deeply and personally meaningful to you. |
Reasons blog posts can be of higher scientific quality than journal articles | I can't comment on the field of psychiatry. However, I will comment on my field of physics. The author seems to completely neglect the signal to noise problem. There has been an explosion of journals and scientific publication. It's rather hard to keep up to date on the literature and editors do provide a valuable function in filtering what they think is interesting (which is further filtered by the referees). Also, for the referee process--it's not perfect and will probably not catch complete fraud. But, it is good for checking the basics of whether or not the story being told in a paper is consistent. Also, again related to signal/noise, the editors hopefully choose referees with a minimum level of competence in the field (not always, but usually). Also, in terms of dilution--if there's a blog, there's no guarantee that a critical mass of people will read it to try to give it a critical review. Whereas, even for a journal that is not widely read, the papers in it will have received some peer review where someone in the field tried to take a look through it for obvious errors. I am not convinced by open peer review. Let's consider two scenarios. Suppose there is a leader in the field trying to publish something (or perhaps even a friend or collaborator). If I notice that they are wrong, am I more likely to call them on it if I am anonymous or if they know who I am? One can be idealistic, but researchers are people too. I think that the anonymous review allows people to speak frankly (though it does sometimes let people be mean--that seems to be the cost of anonymity in forums unless there is strong moderation). Let's consider another scenario. Suppose I am a junior researcher and I get a referee comment that I determine is wrong. If it comes from the leader in my field, maybe I won't push back as hard as if it came from someone else junior--again, in an ideal world, it wouldn't matter, but researchers are people too. It would seem that the editor knowing the identity of the referees would serve as a check on bias, not 100 percent, but I think that more is gained than is lost from a closed referee system.<p>In terms of error correction, there are errata that are published if someone finds an error in a major study and in journals like the physical review are linked back to the original article.<p>The open data problem is hard. In my particular field, our raw data is available on the web, but the problem is that the meta-data needed to interpret is not. And that's nontrivial. For example, I may perform several operations on my data (for example, background subtraction) before fitting it to a model. We are experimenting with dataflow languages where we embed the series of "filters" that we apply to the data, but if we want someone to be able to reproduce this 20 years from now, then there's a whole ecosystem that would have to be maintained--for example, not just my code, but all of the libraries that it depends on to run. We can describe the basic process in the paper, but for true long term reproducibility, it's a hard problem...There are groups that are working on open-data and reproducible research, so I don't think that there isn't interest, just that it's not as easy a problem as you might think. But, for reduced data, I agree, it would be nice to have that available for papers in a machine readable format...<p>Open access. This is also a hard problem. Increasingly, funding agencies are requiring that publications be made available in an open format after some embargo period. I think that may be the best we can hope for. Just paying for competent editors requires funding. If we want additional features like data attached to papers (for decades), it will take more funding. That money has to come from somewhere. For typical open access journals, the author pays, but that seems to create difficult incentives--not to mention that it makes it difficult for poorer funded researchers to publish. I'm not sure what the right answer is, because I agree that the public should be able to see the results that they paid for--perhaps an embargo period is the best solution...<p>I think a blog is a great way for communication of ideas and for education, but I do not think that it is able to replace publication in a refereed journal. |
Why don't you just rewrite it in X? | <p><pre><code> Should I rewrite X in Y?
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Am I doing this just Is my team full of
for the features in Y? experts in Y?
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Yes ___/ \___
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\ No Yes
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\ Are there any experts |
\ on my team in Y? |
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\ No | |
\ | Yes |
\ | _____/ |
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\ | Did they |
\ | propose it? |
\ | | \ |
\ | Yes | |
\ | | No |
Don't rewrite. | |
| | |
| Were you going to
| rewrite it anyway?
| No |
|______________| Yes
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|
Think about it.</code></pre> |
Ask HN: Does reposting someone's photo with additional info fall under Fair Use? | <i>Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. You should consult an attorney for more definitive answers, especially if you are considering undertaking this as part of a business.</i><p>The short answer is "it depends, but probably not."<p>There are four tests that are applied by courts to determine if a particular use of a copyrighted work falls under the Fair Use doctrine or not (see <a href="https://copyright.columbia.edu/basics/fair-use.html" rel="nofollow">https://copyright.columbia.edu/basics/fair-use.html</a> for an overview). Under these tests, your scenario has some positive angles, but more negative ones.<p><i>1. Purpose and character of the use.</i> Generally speaking, commercial use of a work is granted less fair use leeway than non-commercial use, for the obvious reason that reproducing someone else's work for profit is more damaging to the interests of the creator of the original than reproducing it to comment on it or to use it as a teaching aid. Fair use is intended to protect reviewers, journalists and educators, not people who just grab other people's work and then monetize it.<p>There is a wrinkle here, though, in that one type of use that courts have looked favorably upon in the past is the kind they deem "transformative" -- where the person reproducing it goes beyond simple reproduction to add new value or meaning to it. Taking an uncaptioned image and (accurately) cataloging the types of hardware in it could, therefore, potentially be considered a transformative use. But it'd be on safer ground if the catalog of hardware wasn't full of affiliate links.<p><i>2. Nature of the work.</i> This just means that some things are more public than others, and the more public something is, the friendlier it is to claims of fair use if it's reproduced. The Louvre puts the <i>Mona Lisa</i> on public display, so it would be hard for them to argue that it's unfair for people to take pictures of it. But if you steal my private journal and start distributing copies, you'd have a hard time claiming fair use as a defense even if you give the copies away for free.<p>So a big question here would be, where are the original images coming from? Are they being posted to public or private fora? Would the people who created them have a reasonable expectation that they could be found and viewed by the general public?<p><i>3. Amount or substantiality.</i> What this means is, the less of a particular work you reproduce, the easier it would be to claim that your reproduction is fair use. This is why book reviews can excerpt a paragraph or two from the book, and movie reviews can include a brief clip -- because doing so enhances the value of their commentary, but nobody is going to think they've seen the movie or read the book (and therefore not pay the original creator) just because they were exposed to those excerpts. The closer the length of the excerpt approaches the total length of the original work, the more likely that is to happen, though, so the ability to claim fair use declines accordingly.<p>In your case, it sounds like you'd be using the entire image, so you'd be on tricky ground. You could try to improve your legal position by cropping out everything that isn't computer hardware, but images generally aren't that big to begin with so you'd likely still be reproducing most of the original work.<p><i>4. Effect on the market for the original.</i> In other words: if someone interested in the original is exposed to the reproduction, how completely does it satisfy their interest? This is why sharing movies and songs online doesn't count as fair use; if I can get a 100% complete and accurate copy of that song from you for free, I have zero need to pay the creator of the original work. And if <i>anyone</i> can get that copy from you, you've completely killed the market for the original.<p>(If this seems like it's related to amount or substantiality, it is; the closer you get to reproducing 100% of the original work, the greater the impact on the market for that original work is likely to be.)<p>Here you'd have the same issues as you have with #3 above, with one caveat -- the source of the images would matter quite a bit. If you're reproducing people's personal photos, arguably the "market" for those is non-existent to begin with (e.g. nobody's ever going to buy them), so you'd have more of an argument than you would if you, say, grabbed a bunch of images from Shutterstock, removed the watermarks and used those.<p><i>Other things to consider</i><p>1. For some reason, lots of people think that attribution is a big factor in whether something is fair use or not. As you can see above, it really doesn't matter that much. If I put a full-length FLAC copy of Drake's latest album up on the web as a free download, putting it behind a link that says "this album is by Drake" doesn't magically make it fair use. Neither do disclaimers or attestations of pure intent ("I don't own the copyright on this, I'm just sharing it for personal use", etc.) of the kind you see all over YouTube.<p>2. The above all assumes that you're talking about copyrighted images. The vast majority of images <i>are</i> copyrighted, of course, because creators (in the USA, anyway) get copyright on their work simply by the act of creating it. Not <i>all</i> images are copyrighted, though; some are in the public domain, including all works created by the U.S. government, and with those you can do anything you want. And in other cases, creators choose to voluntarily waive some of their copyright rights on a work in order to improve its distribution; an example of this would be works published under Creative Commons licenses, which specifically permit reproduction and some other uses as long as you comply with the terms the license specifies. See <a href="https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/</a> for more info on that. |
Feynman Algorithm (2014) | I want to share a look at this from a bit different perspective.<p>As a kid, I would fix, trade and sell older radios and TV's for money and other things. I fell in love with vacuum tube era things. They are beautiful and it's all human scale. You can see the parts. Back then, I didn't have much. Our family was in poverty a lot of the time. Reasons. That's not a big deal, and in fact, was of great benefit to me personally. It kind of forced exploring the world and meaning to get something out of it. I needed it!<p>Anyway, I had a couple of old ratty texts from the 50's era that explained the theory of operation. And I had various toys and projects that showed parts of that theory to me. A crystal radio, for example. I must have reread that text 50 times.<p>At first, I understood very little. Being young, much of the higher level stuff would blow right by. But the general concepts were there.<p>So, imagine being faced with the radio. You don't have much, no fancy test gear, etc...<p>I submit Feynman didn't fix the radio. It's still broken in a sense. But, what he did do was make that radio, imperfect or broken, damaged, as it was, perform as needed. He moved the problem out of the way.<p>This is important. The radio is a system. It's designed to do a task, and it's parts are designed to perform to a specification or other. Each radio is kind of unique too. Whatever flaws it has gets compensated for.<p>Problem: Noise in the radio audio<p>Think real hard:<p>Here, one can start to analyze the radio, take the theory of operation and identify where noise might be coming from. This means one has sufficient understanding to solve the problem in the first place. The heavy lift is realizing it!<p>But, say one does not possess that level of understanding. I didn't back then. Not until many years later, lots of fixes under my belt, and some kind souls giving me test gear.<p>So then, as a system, what's still possible? Fixing the radio may not be an option due to lack of components, understanding, tools.<p>Move the radio
Swap the tubes
Modify antenna
Change power source
Change adjustable things in the radio
Remove something from the radio
Etc...<p>For each of these things one CAN do, which of them may resolve noise?<p>In this way, the problem shifts from, "fixing it", which implies the radio is brought from a flawed state to an acceptable one. (just less and more minor flaws really)<p>That is what Feynman did. A poor component at one stage of the radio may perform another task just fine. Swapping the tubes does that.<p>For many years, I would get this gear from people. And it was a lot of, "look at the problem", "think real hard", "execute solution."<p>And a bunch of that boiled down to what I could do, not so much what should be done, or needed to be done. And a lot of that was successful. Try stuff, observe, try more stuff, observe. After a time, which stuff to try boiled down to a potent set of things. More successes.<p>I would get an older TV, for example. Maybe it had a red tint, or the picture bloomed. One could make adjustments in the set to re-balance the picture, or improve focus, limit overall brightness, and any number of things to bring that particular system into a functioning order sufficient to perform the task required of it. Still broken, in the technical sense. New components would very likely improve it, but a removal of one, or replacement with similar one, even removing one, tweaks to the unit, all could combine to make it perform.<p>In my following of Feynman, I find a consistent theme where he was very good at understanding basic understanding. The calculus book he refers to contained some general solutions he found could solve a very broad set of problems. Rather than explore all the solution sets and struggle to apply them, he would take a very useful one and max it out, applying it everywhere. Where it would not work, or was impractical, he would seek another one.<p>I see this as a very important aspect of this awesome problem solving ability he demonstrated. Collecting things like this, as well as taking problems from various angles:<p>What can be done, and could it help?
What has been done before?
What should be done.
Combine things done before.
Guess at possible new things to be done.
etc...<p>seems to be major contributors to this skill.<p>Feynman often mentioned puzzles. When you combine a "gauntlet" of puzzles and Feynman's natural ability to recognize fundamental understanding with time and a zeal to solve, his remarks about "not being a genius" have some real merit!<p>Now, he was, and that's not really a matter of serious debate. But, the method, to him, is more about doing the work to be lucid. Solve, solve, solve, refine tools, collect new ones, solve, solve, solve...<p>The difference here, between Feynman, and us ordinary mortals, is the breadth and depth of that lucidity.<p>Those skills I learned in my early youth still apply today. I can't tell you how many times I've arrived at simple ways to "fix" something, just based on what could be done, and inferences on what must be true. It's theory of operation, coupled with broad experience and that "gauntlet" of puzzles run with "the tools"<p>Each of us can do this. Some of us can do it extremely well in a given domain too.<p>I feel Feynman never did appreciate his skill and lucidity about reality itself, the world, it's parts. Few of us have that.<p>But, the Feynman way of looking at things, solving problems, collecting tools to solve them with, being observant, and inference:<p>What is possible?
What can we do?
What must be true?
Etc...<p>Is something everyone can cultivate to varying degrees, depending on our affinity for a given domain, personal attributes, and resources.<p>I know this is a zen like argument, but he didn't actually fix that radio. He made a broken one, or flawed one perform better.<p>And in that last bit is an important realization:<p>We state the problem. Fine. But, we need to also state the goal too.<p>Given a goal, the problem may be too limiting. A solution may appear out of reach, or not be seen due to a problem statement constraining things, or masking things.<p>Work backward from the goal and sometimes one can factor the original problem statement away. And in the doing of that, arrive at a solution that gets it done, or renders the problem a non problem.<p>And I'll add Feynman did the work. A lot of it, and he credits that to a lot of his insights. Solving a bazillion puzzles will turn anyone into a much better solution finder, and he's right about that.<p>Do the work. Seek the puzzles, and keep at them. Over time, one gets an internal sort of understanding that is more broadly applicable. |
Windows Is Bloated, Thanks to Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform | Wow, that's a bloated format. Here it is as XML:<p><pre><code> <?xpacket begin="?" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.4-c002 1.000000, 0000/00/00-00:00:00 ">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/">
<xmp:CreatorTool>Picasa</xmp:CreatorTool>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:mwg-rs="http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/"
xmlns:stDim="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#"
xmlns:stArea="http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#">
<mwg-rs:Regions rdf:parseType="Resource">
<mwg-rs:AppliedToDimensions rdf:parseType="Resource">
<stDim:w>912</stDim:w>
<stDim:h>687</stDim:h>
<stDim:unit>pixel</stDim:unit>
</mwg-rs:AppliedToDimensions>
<mwg-rs:RegionList>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">
<mwg-rs:Type></mwg-rs:Type>
<mwg-rs:Area rdf:parseType="Resource">
<stArea:x>0.680921052631579</stArea:x>
<stArea:y>0.3537117903930131</stArea:y>
<stArea:h>0.4264919941775837</stArea:h>
<stArea:w>0.32127192982456143</stArea:w>
<stArea:unit>normalized</stArea:unit>
</mwg-rs:Area>
</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</mwg-rs:RegionList>
</mwg-rs:Regions>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:exif="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/">
<exif:PixelXDimension>912</exif:PixelXDimension>
<exif:PixelYDimension>687</exif:PixelYDimension>
<exif:ExifVersion>0220</exif:ExifVersion>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>
<!-- whitespace padding -->
<?xpacket end="w"?>
</code></pre>
And here it is as SXML (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SXML" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SXML</a>):<p><pre><code> (*TOP* (*PI* |xpacket| "begin=\"?\" id=\"W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d\"")
(|adobe:ns:meta/:xmpmeta|
(@ (@ (*NAMESPACES* (|adobe:ns:meta/| "adobe:ns:meta/" . |x|)))
(|adobe:ns:meta/:xmptk|
"Adobe XMP Core 5.4-c002 1.000000, 0000/00/00-00:00:00 "))
"
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:RDF|
(@
(@
(*NAMESPACES*
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#|
"http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" . |rdf|))))
"
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:Description|
(@
(@
(*NAMESPACES*
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/| "http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
. |xmp|)))
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:about| ""))
"
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/:CreatorTool| "Picasa") "
")
"
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:Description|
(@
(@
(*NAMESPACES*
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#|
"http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#" . |stArea|)
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#|
"http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#" . |stDim|)
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/|
"http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/" . |mwg-rs|)))
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:about| ""))
"
"
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/:Regions|
(@ (|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:parseType| "Resource")) "
"
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/:AppliedToDimensions|
(@ (|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:parseType| "Resource")) "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#:w| "912") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#:h| "687") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#:unit| "pixel") "
")
"
"
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/:RegionList| "
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:Bag| "
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:li|
(@
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:parseType| "Resource"))
"
"
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/:Type|) "
"
(|http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/:Area|
(@
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:parseType| "Resource"))
"
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#:x| "0.680921052631579") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#:y| "0.3537117903930131") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#:h| "0.4264919941775837") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#:w| "0.32127192982456143") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area#:unit| "normalized") "
")
"
")
"
")
"
")
"
")
"
")
"
"
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:Description|
(@
(@
(*NAMESPACES*
(|http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/| "http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/"
. |exif|)))
(|http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#:about| ""))
"
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/:PixelXDimension| "912") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/:PixelYDimension| "687") "
"
(|http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/:ExifVersion| "0220") "
")
"
")
"
")
(*COMMENT* " whitespace padding ") (*PI* |xpacket| "end=\"w\""))
</code></pre>
The only terrible thing about the SXML is the preserved-whitespace from the XML (which of course wouldn't exist in pure SXML); otherwise it's much nicer and contains exactly as much information. |
Is Every Speed Limit Too Low? | Michiganian here ... I've watched the speed limits increase over the last few years on all but residential roads and though my take is anecdotal, it's a fantastic thing as far as I'm concerned.<p>I used to drive 62 miles round trip to work, worked at home for a bit in between and am now back to about a 30 mile round-trip commute. Both were split equally on surface and freeway roads. Back when the speed limits were lower it was generally expected that most drivers -- during rush hour (assuming one could reach the speeds) -- would drive 50 MPH in a 40 and around 55 in a 50. It always surprised me -- every morning and evening on about a 6-mile stretch of road marked 40 MPH, there wasn't a car driving under 50 (and when that rare driver arrived, he was often tailgated so hard that traffic safety decreased considerably for him). Then, out of the blue, almost every road I took to work was changed to 50 MPH. Surprisingly, people weren't suddenly driving 60 MPH. I'm now on a similar commute as I was years ago, taking that same road, and people are consistently driving between 50 and 55 MPH on it.<p>I love our 85th percentile rule. It makes sense -- that one driver who's obeying the speed limit is being tail-gated by everyone else, reducing the distance between him and other cars, which increases accident probability and the relative severity of the accident since it will happen at a higher speed due to reduced braking time. When everyone is going about the same speed on the road, cars tend to be more spaced out and the relative difference in speed between the two objects colliding affects the severity of the accident.<p>There's also a lot of misconceptions about how speed is enforced -- at least in my area -- and what rules exist around speeding. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be that you were legally allowed to exceed the speed limit by 10 MPH on a freeway to overtake a vehicle in the passing lane. I have family who work in traffic patrol for the county and this topic comes up regularly. The department they work in encourages targeting people driving in excess of the speed of traffic, not folks who are keeping up with the speed of the cars around them. Of course, you <i>can</i> be pulled over in this scenario, and you <i>are</i> breaking the law[0], but at least in my area, it's not encouraged. An orderly system is safe, an outlier is unsafe, so they aim for folks who are driving in the left lane on a freeway in low traffic volumes, folks going over 20% of the speed of others and exceeding the speed limit, people jumping solid lines[1] and the huge problem caused by large numbers of people running red lights and failing to yield right-of-way when turning left[2].<p>[0] Both of them will tell you "If I want to pull you over, I can find a reason". A common one is those plastic covers/dealer advertisements around license plates or things hanging from a rear-view mirror. Some of the plate variations are legal (but there are <i>very</i> specific rules and almost all of them are not -- it's just rarely enforced), but most things hanging from the rear view mirror are obstructions.<p>[1] There are many places on the freeways in Michigan where the lane markers are solid white and for some reason, people don't understand that it's illegal to change lanes -- that's why they're solid. Aside from safety (they're put in due to increased blind-spots that make lane changes unsafe), they're often located in areas where people are entering the freeway and backups occur. Folks who panic at merging traffic or just don't want to slow down will jump lanes ... causing a worse backup.<p>[2] I realized this is going to sound uncommon to folks who don't live here, so pardon the long explanation. <i>Easily</i> the most common issue on road-ways in my area is people failing to yield when turning left at an intersection (my cousin/uncle will tell you this, but if you live here you're either already aware of the problem, or you aren't realizing you're doing it). Red light running is also more common here than in most of the country because of the frequency with which people encounter one-way intersections. It's legal, everywhere (except NYC and a probably a few other corner cases), to turn <i>left</i> on red when the road is one-way. Where I live, every road over three lanes (and many under) are engineered using the "Michigan Left" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left</a>). Often, though becoming less common, the "turnaround" is configured so that you can only turn left onto the same road heading in the opposite direction. Everything's fine when this is the case. However, it's grown popular to position these turnaround lanes in places that coincide with large retail business entrances or moderate traffic side-roads. All bets are off here. Because people are used to turning left on red in these turn-arounds, they assume they can also, legally, go straight into the side-road/business on red. Go ahead and google for signs telling people <i>not to run red lights</i> ... I couldn't find any. We have <i>several</i> of them on Hall Road in Macomb County. People are also used to "just going" when it's green, but you can't do that if the turnaround has traffic entering the road on the other side -- all of that traffic is turning right and has the right-of-way, just like in any other intersection -- left <i>must</i> yield unless they have a green arrow. I've been <i>honked at</i> on more than a few occasions by other drivers for not just plowing into the intersection, or not running the red to enter a side-street when traffic is clear but the light is red. Worse, once they put these hybrid side-street/turnarounds in, it destroys any advantage that the Michigan Left supposedly provides. It's already at a disadvantage since a portion of the traffic now has to pass through an intersection twice, but now the advantage of the "increased flow due to reduced traffic light phases" is overcome by the backups occurring in <i>both</i> turnarounds bleeding into a lane of traffic and the sudden pouring in of <i>new</i> traffic -- which has priority over existing traffic due to right-of-way -- entering in from popular businesses and busier side-streets (and, yes, a vein is popping out in my forehead now). |
New England Lost Ski Areas Project | Easy to get lost in this site. Many unusual stories, including the "Private Property No Trespassing Keep Out Ski Area" (<a href="http://www.nelsap.org/ma/private.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nelsap.org/ma/private.html</a>):<p><i>I actually once owned the farm that included the hill that the ski slope was on (long before I bought the property though). I was there with Peter Kallander, its owner operator, on what was likely the last occasion the rope tow was operational on that site. I think it was in the fall of 1983. Peter was the guy that built the lift and owned several hundred acres including the mountain.<p>Peter was a pilot of wide-body jets for Delta Airlines. He had a small private airport on the site (with grass north-south and east-west runways), and the run-out for the ski slope ran across the east-west runway over toward Stoneybrook golf course a few hundred yards away. Peter built that golf course with his dad when he was younger on another part of the property. It was a small 9 hole par 3, which is the golf equivalent of his small ski slope. They sold the golf course at some point I believe. Here's the Airline Owners and Passengers Association link to the private air strip, which is still in operation: <a href="http://www.aopa.org/airports/09MA" rel="nofollow">http://www.aopa.org/airports/09MA</a>.<p>... Kallander Hill, which it should be referred-to as, was north facing, and had two purposes. In the summer and the fall, Peter told me if the conditions were right, he would take his plane up the hill and take off. I never saw him take off on that side of the hill because my property was a few hundred yards south and west, and the ski slope faced pretty much due north. I did, however, help Peter clear the west side of the mountain in 1983. At that point he hadn't been operating the lift in the winter for a number of years. The lift was an old farm vehicle with its drive-train intact. I did see it, and I think we may have fired it up that day to see if it was still working properly. He showed me how it operated because he knew I was a life-long skier and had learned at a place like this in Dudley Mass near Nichols College, and at Mount Tom and Maple Valley. The rope was attached to one of the back wheels with its counterpart at the bottom. He'd just start it up and run it for his kids and their friends. I don't recall him ever saying if it was ever a commercial venture for Peter. It was likely just for his kids and for locals. Peter was a popular guy around town and had been the president of his class in high school.<p>... We cut down a number of cedars that fall weekend, and I took them to use for a fenced-in paddock that I was going to build off my barn (which I never got around-to). Peter then had a west-facing runway on Kallander Hill that could be used when the winds came from the other direction. I don't believe anyone ever skied on that, although I had planned to try it. My estimate is the hill had a vertical of at least 200-250 feet. On that day Peter gave me the history of the mountain that I note here. Over the next year I did see him take off from the part of the hill we cleared. I think he did that as a practice exercise for having to take off or land in extraordinary conditions. He had a house on Moosehead lake in northern Maine, and would fly up there regularly.<p>Around the time I moved away a few years later he had purchased an amphibious plane (either a Lake or a Seabee), with a large prop high and behind the cockpit. I did see him taking off and even doing the last part of his landings on the side of the mountain with that and its predecessor plane, sort of like touch and goes. It was an amazing site for me and all the other neighbors that could see it. I think he bought the rear prop plane because there wasn't enough prop clearance on the west facing hillside given the steeper grade.<p>Peter also told me that the mountain was his retirement, so that would explain why he never tried to develop it into a commercial ski area, as he did with the golf course. He was going to build houses on it. Clearing the portion on my side was likely a part of that strategy. It was pretty steep, and I didn't quite understand how he was planning to do that. I also didn't completely realize how big the mountain was. But he had been seeing it from all angles during his years of flying around it.<p>About 15 years ago he did that and there must be 60 high-end homes/condos on it now, most with magnificent views. It's a high density development with 2-4 units in each structure. They've also made major topographical changes, taking off at least 100 feet of vertical and creating a large plane for the area where the homes are now.</i> |
Scaleway ARMv8 Cloud Servers | Little bit confusing in the admin interface. It seems like these new processors replace the old C1 offer. This is the cpuinfo of the new one:<p><pre><code> cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 200.00
Features : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 atomics
CPU implementer : 0x43
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant : 0x1
CPU part : 0x0a1
CPU revision : 1
processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 200.00
Features : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 atomics
CPU implementer : 0x43
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant : 0x1
CPU part : 0x0a1
</code></pre>
For comparison, this was the old C1, their prior ARM offering they mention in the blog post:<p><pre><code> Processor : Marvell PJ4Bv7 Processor rev 2 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 1332.01
processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 1332.01
processor : 2
BogoMIPS : 1332.01
processor : 3
BogoMIPS : 1332.01
Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp vfpv3 tls
CPU implementer : 0x56
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part : 0x584
CPU revision : 2
Hardware : Online Labs C1
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000
</code></pre>
I take it the BogoMips are just a false info in the kernel interface.<p>For performance, I ran `sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=1000 run` on both (first I tried that with max-prime=20000, but that did not finish in a reasonable time span on the old server).<p>New:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 1
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 0.6541s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 0.6507
per-request statistics:
min: 0.06ms
avg: 0.07ms
max: 0.14ms
approx. 95 percentile: 0.06ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 10000.0000/0.00
execution time (avg/stddev): 0.6507/0.00
</code></pre>
Old:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 1
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 10.1997s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 10.1909
per-request statistics:
min: 1.02ms
avg: 1.02ms
max: 1.22ms
approx. 95 percentile: 1.02ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 10000.0000/0.00
execution time (avg/stddev): 10.1909/0.00
</code></pre>
When using the additional cores (2 for the new, 4 for the old):<p>New:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 2
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 0.3282s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 0.6523
per-request statistics:
min: 0.06ms
avg: 0.07ms
max: 0.28ms
approx. 95 percentile: 0.06ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 5000.0000/2.00
execution time (avg/stddev): 0.3261/0.00
</code></pre>
Old:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 4
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 2.5527s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 10.1983
per-request statistics:
min: 1.02ms
avg: 1.02ms
max: 5.49ms
approx. 95 percentile: 1.02ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 2500.0000/1.87
execution time (avg/stddev): 2.5496/0.00
</code></pre>
The new processors seem to be a lot more powerful. I run my blog on that old C1 (that might have skewed results somewhat if they were close, but they are not). I think I'll move it over asap.<p><i>Edit:</i><p>I have another Scaleway instance that runs <a href="https://www.pc-kombo.de" rel="nofollow">https://www.pc-kombo.de</a>, and is a C2S instance, which is the also mentioned X64 offering of theirs. It is more expensive, as it has more cores, but if matching those the ARMv8 seems to actually be faster. That's the performance of the C2S:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 1
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 0.8497s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 0.8480
per-request statistics:
min: 0.08ms
avg: 0.08ms
max: 0.13ms
approx. 95 percentile: 0.08ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 10000.0000/0.00
execution time (avg/stddev): 0.8480/0.00
</code></pre>
With 2 threads:<p><pre><code> Number of threads: 2
Doing CPU performance benchmark
Threads started!
Done.
Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 1000
Test execution summary:
total time: 0.4489s
total number of events: 10000
total time taken by event execution: 0.8752
per-request statistics:
min: 0.08ms
avg: 0.09ms
max: 20.09ms
approx. 95 percentile: 0.08ms
Threads fairness:
events (avg/stddev): 5000.0000/23.00
execution time (avg/stddev): 0.4376/0.01
</code></pre>
Seems like I should move that as well. |
GDELT 2.0: new release of open Global Event Database updated every 15 min | new features:<p>15 Minute Updates.
Access the world’s breaking events and reaction in near-realtime as both the GDELT Event and Global Knowledge Graph now update every 15 minutes.<p>Realtime Translation of 65 Languages.
GDELT 2.0 brings with it the public debut of GDELT Translingual, representing what we believe is the largest realtime streaming news machine translation deployment in the world: all global news that GDELT monitors in 65 languages, representing 98.4% of its daily non-English monitoring volume, is translated in realtime into English for processing through the entire GDELT Event and GKG/GCAM pipelines. GDELT Translingual is designed to allow GDELT to monitor the entire planet at full volume, creating the very first glimpses of a world without language barriers. A special emphasis on locations and names makes GDELT 2.0 likely the largest multilingual geocoding system in the world.<p>Realtime Measurement of 2,300 Emotions and Themes.
GDELT 2.0 also brings with it the debut of GDELT Global Content Analysis Measures (GCAM), representing what we believe is the largest deployment of sentiment analysis in the world: bringing together 24 emotional measurement packages that together assess more than 2,300 emotions and themes from every article in realtime, multilingual dimensions natively assessing the emotions of 15 languages (Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Chinese, French, Galician, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Pashto, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu). GCAM is designed to enable unparalleled assessment of the emotional undercurrents and reaction at a planetary scale by bringing together an incredible array of dimensions, from LIWC’s “Anxiety” to Lexicoder’s “Positivity” to WordNet Affect’s “Smugness” to RID’s “Passivity”.<p>High Resolution View of the Non-Western World.
Over the last few months we’ve embarked upon an ambitious initiative to vastly expand GDELT’s knowledge of the media systems of the non-Western world. Working closely with governments, think tanks, academics, NGO’s, and citizens on the ground throughout the world we have been working country-by-country to try to build the highest resolution inventory possible of the media systems of the non-Western world. While we still have a long way to go and the fluidity of the world’s media ensures that this will be a perpetual task, we are incredibly excited by the ability of this high resolution inventory, coupled with GDELT Translingual’s ability to translate 98.4% of this material in realtime, to give voice to the most remote corners of the world in near-realtime.<p>Relevant Imagery, Videos, and Social Embeds.
A large fraction of the world’s news outlets now specify a hand-selected image for each article to appear when it is shared via social media that represents the core focus of the article. GDELT identifies this imagery in a wide array of formats including Open Graph, Twitter Cards, Google+, IMAGE_SRC, and SailThru formats, among others. In addition, GDELT also uses a set of highly specialized algorithms to analyze the article content itself to identify inline imagery of high likely relevance to the story, along with videos and embedded social media posts (such as embedded Tweets or YouTube or Vine videos), a list of which is compiled. This makes it possible to gain a unique ground-level view into emerging situations anywhere in the world, even in those areas with very little social media penetration, and to act as a kind of curated list of social posts in those areas with strong social use.
Quotes, Names, and Amounts. The world’s news contains a wealth of information on food prices, aid promises, numbers of troops, tanks, and protesters, and nearly any other countable item. GDELT 2.0 now attempts to compile a list of all “amounts” expressed in each article to offer numeric context to global events. In parallel, a new Names engine augments the existing Person and Organization names engines by identifying an array of other kinds of proper names, such as named events (Orange Revolution / Umbrella Movement), occurrences like the World Cup, named dates like Holocaust Remembrance Day, on through named legislation like Iran Nuclear Weapon Free Act, Affordable Care Act and Rouge National Urban Park Initiative. Finally, GDELT also identifies attributable quotes from each article, making it possible to see the evolving language used by political leadership across the world.<p>Tracking Event Discussion Progression.
Under the previous version of GDELT, only the first URL mentioning a given event was recorded, even if the event was mentioned in a hundred separate articles. GDELT 2.0 adds a new “Mentions” table that records every mention of an event over time, along with the timestamp the article was published. This allows the progression of an event through the global media to be tracked, identifying outlets that tend to break certain kinds of events the earliest or which may break stories later but are more accurate in their reporting on those events. Combined with the 15 minute update resolution and GCAM, this also allows the emotional reaction and resonance of an event to be assessed as it sweeps through the world’s media.<p>Over 100 New GKG Themes.
There are more than 100 new themes in the GDELT Global Knowledge Graph, ranging from economic indicators like price gouging and the price of heating oil to infrastructure topics like the construction of new power generation capacity to social issues like marginalization and burning in effigy. The list of recognized infectious diseases, ethnic groups, and terrorism organizations has been considerably expanded, and more than 600 global humanitarian and development aid organizations have been added, along with global currencies and massive new taxonomies capturing global animals and plants to aid with tracking species migration and poaching.<p>Source Geographic Background Knowledge.
GDELT now assesses the geography of every outlet it monitors over time and estimates its physical location on earth, incorporating that information back into the geocoding process to maximize its ability to recognize the geography of local media (a small rural radio station likely assumes its listeners know what country it is based in and thus does not clarify every mention of a local location with the corresponding country name).<p>Global Knowledge Graph Now in BigQuery.
The GDELT Global Knowledge Graph is now available in Google BigQuery, allowing you to query and explore the GKG in realtime and to integrate it into queries of the Event dataset. In fact, the Event, Mentions, and GKG tables are now all in BigQuery and updated every 15 minutes, allowing you to leverage BigQuery’s enormous power to perform mass-scale analytics in near-realtime on our changing planet. |
How Google Could Collapse | I enjoyed the way the author laid it out, it illustrates the problem Google has, and I tend to watch Google's responses fairly closely. But in full disclosure mode, if this is the first you've heard me say this, and it isn't :-), I also believe that Google's inability to create a business outside of search advertising has put them in this spot.<p>I would also like to address a common response to the 'Google is doooomed' thesis, which is "Hey, look their revenues are going up and up, you would be stupid to think they were doomed!"<p>I've asserted for several years here that Google's core advertising business is rotting from the core outward. And I used as the basis for that tracking their reported "cost per click" erosion and their "paid traffic" growth.<p>The reasoning is pretty simple; At the most basic level Google puts an ad out there, and when that ad is 'clicked' [1] they collect a fee. And if you are familiar with the history, this was revolutionary where advertisers could pay only when someone demonstrably both saw their advertisement and indicated an interest in it with a click. And initially it was wonderful and then bad guys figured out they could insert themselves in the middle, selling advertising space to customers at a price per click and then buying the ads on google can clicking on them with their own computers and collect some ad revenue off the top. Easy riches except that the ads massively underperformed because most of the clicks on them were fraudulent. And that begat a war that continues to this day and has lead to a general disillusionment with online advertising.<p>So people get disillusioned, but as advertisers are setting the prices and budgets they show this by being unwilling to pay more for ads that they aren't sure will be effective. And since Google's system is auction based their pulling back results in the average price Google can get for a 'click' to go down. At which point Google has three choices, eat a revenue loss (not really a choice), give them more opportunities to buy ads, or increase the number of people who are getting a chance to click.<p>Google started by bringing more people in contact with their ads by "buying" traffic. The way that works is you find a web property where people are accessing the Internet and you pay the proprietor money to only show your ads to their traffic, or to move their traffic to your web site. So in the case of Firefox they paid mozilla to send their search traffic to Google, in the case of Apple they paid to have all of iOS search traffic go to Google by default. In all these cases you "lose" a bit by increasing your traffic acquisition costs (that money comes out of ad profits) but if you get more clicks from that traffic than you paid for it, you can cause your revenue number to increase. As the effectiveness of buying traffic has declined (and there just aren't that many sources out there and Microsoft is also paying for traffic so you end up paying more and more for less and less valuable traffic) and the cost has gone up, they moved on to stage two.<p>Stage two was to start increasing the number of ads you had exposure to when you landed on Google sites. You look at how hard people work to be in the first few search results on the page, well advertisers want to be in the first few ads. You can also create other ways to pay to play like, for example, charging advertisers a monthly fee in order to <i>enable</i> them to appear in a 'shopping box' result that appears on what looks like a shopping search query assuming they bid enough on their ad to show up there. Search engine result pages (SERPs) for shopping 'like' queries progressively got fewer and fewer organic results and turned into mostly ads. Google stopped surfacing organic web pages or web sites from their index that their algorithm told them were the best results for a query in favor of people who had paid to be on the page in the event a given query or keyword was entered. More ads to click, heck pretty much anything you clicked on the page was an ad, and revenue goes up.<p>Of course there are limits to how far you can take this, and the article pointed out that people are pretty fatigued from all of the advertising. As you block more ads and start avoiding things that are just ads in favor of perceptually "better" web sites, revenue should drop at Google. And I was surprised it didn't, but then I read this article : <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/27/alphabets-google-unit-grabbing-ever-more-ad-revenue-from-partners.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/27/alphabets-google-unit-grabbin...</a> The CNBC folks had noticed that Google's ad revenue from its own sites was growing faster than its partner sites. And that tells me that Google had a third strategy which was "reduce the share of ad revenues to partners." Which really sucks for partner sites and adds commercial sites to the list of people complaining that their AdSense revenue reduced to a trickle over the last 5 years.<p>Google burns though an extraordinary amount of cash. Its partly due to the nature of their business and its partly due to the way they are investing looking for new opportunities. The unanswerable question is what happens when Google runs out of ways to offset their ad profit margin declines and have to show a reduction in revenue Q/Q and then Y/Y? I don't think they will 'Collapse' any more than IBM collapsed when the computer market stopped carrying the load for them. But will be an extraordinary test on their leadership to avoid setting up a Blackberry like slow descent into near obscurity.<p>[1] Yes there are CPI models as well but historically they are both lower paying and a smaller fraction of revenue. |
Facebook to add 3k people to community operations team to improve moderation | Why doesn't Facebook give people a way to have input to their 'community standards'? Basically it's a black box that's presumably stuffed with lawyers, marketers, and some analytics people. I see zero evidence that there is any actual input from the people who use FB. It's essentially a dictatorship dressed in a costume of democracy, and I would far prefer it if the 'community standards' were called what they are, 'Rules of Mark's Club.'<p>This is a sore point for me as an artist. It's tedious when posts are removed because they depict or seem to depict nudity and you have to go through and assure some anonymous and wholly unaccountable person that they're not. One of my friends teaches art history at UCLA and - surprise - he posts lots of fine art on his wall. He has to have 8 or 10 accounts because he is constantly getting temp banned for posting famous paintings of people with no clothes.<p>It also bothers me on a more general level, eg it's fine if I take a picture of myself with my shirt off but if one of my female friends does the same thing she risks being restricted from posting or having her account terminated because her breasts are apparently a worse thing than extreme gory graphic violence that comes with a warning but is nevertheless acceptable to post.<p>That's sexist bullshit that turns women into second class citizens. I utterly fail to understand how it's OK to share pictures of just about any violent subject matter, but any kind of nudity, sexual or not, is grounds for having your account terminated.<p>Here's a list of some of the things I've seen on FB over the last year, some with an automatic clickthrough content warning (which is a good idea and mostly well implemented) and some not. As far as I'm aware none of these have resulted in account terminations for people who posted them:<p>Beheadings (video, multiple examples); hanging; people being shot/have been shot; serial killers and their refrigerators stuffed with human meat; disembowelments; autopsy photos. In each of these cases I don't mean grimy thumbnails where you can sort of imagine what was going on, but photos and video of sufficient clarity to be used in a news broadcast if not for the disturbing nature of their subject matter.<p>I'm leaving out other stuff that I found sufficiently disturbing that I prefer not to even describe it. I'm not into gore, beyond watching a few horror movies in a given year. But I'm pretty open with my friends list and allow people to join me to groups, so I'm exposed to a certain amount from trolls and of course there are episodes of violence in the real world that are newsworthy, and I prefer my news without censorship of any kind.<p>You'll notice that I'm not calling for this stuff to be removed or banned from FB. I think the 'graphic content, are you sure?' warning strikes a sensible balance between protecting people's sensibilities and allowing free discussion and information. We live in a world that is often violent and I believe that concealing the ugliness of violence often allows it to proceed unchecked. It's also true that some people become obsessed with or celebrate violence, and that admitting it as cultural currency risks desensitization or normalization of violence. Those are tricky questions to which I do not believe any one person, firm, or society has a perfect answer, but given that the instinct of criminal persons and regimes is generally to conceal rather than reveal transgressions, exposure and condemnation is probably a more effective response than obscurity and censorship.<p>After that unpleasant detour into the pits of human awfulness, I <i>really</i> want to hear from someone at Facebook:<p>a) why it's OK to engage with the reality of people inflicting horrible violence on others, but it's not OK to let people engage with the reality of sexual or aesthetic expression, and<p>b) why the 51% female majority of the population are subject to tighter restrictions than the male minority, and<p>c) why the 'community standards' don't offer any formal mechanism for community input and decision-making.<p>Think about it, Folks. A picture of a healthy naked body is grounds for account suspension or a ban, but it's totally OK to show that same body hacked to pieces? That's some grade A bullshit, and platitudes about how 'we try to reflect the prevailing standards of society' isn't going to cut it.<p>Automation <i>intensifies</i> whatever process you choose to automate, and if you automate a standard whereby erotic desire and self-expression are constrained but extreme violence and interpersonal aggression are less constrained, guess which you'll end up with more of? Likewise if men are allowed freedoms that are systematically withheld from women, guess whose freedoms are going to be expanded and whose are going to be reduced?<p>I demand answers on this. Facebook is one of the most powerful political entities on the planet and those who own it need to explain why, within Facebook, there is greater tolerance for violence than nudity or sexuality, and why one half of the population is subject to greater restrictions than the other half. |
Show HN: Nedoka – rapid creation and management of containerised environments | Demo video (no audio): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6yD3Zo3LlY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6yD3Zo3LlY</a><p>I'm forever jumping around between different stacks and I found myself really hurting for something that would streamline the process, so I made it. It's not for running production services and it's not polished, but it's very powerful.<p>It comes with a combined bootstrap and control script which has been tested with Ubuntu 16.0.4 and mac os. Windows and other distros will follow, but it should work on anything x86 which runs Vagrant and Virtualbox if you do some manual setup - the readme in the repo gives a kind-of-detailed/kind-of-hand-wavy explanation of how to set it up manually.<p>I should highlight up front that this was made as both a learning exercise and to solve problems I experienced specifically when working on isolated container ecosystems. It was built out organically so there's a lot of tidying up to be done, and I've cut corners here and there to get it out the door. There's no scaling or clustering, and you shouldn't attempt to run production services on it. You <i>can</i> enable an external interface in the vagrantfile to present the containers on your LAN, but you'd be wise not to expose it to the internet in its current state. I aim to move it towards something tidy and secure which exports production ready containers and stacks in the future, but for now, it is what it is.<p>I also haven't included a license. I wanted to ask you guys for opinions on which license I should run with. I've read loads about the various different licenses, I'd like to see some discussion on the pros and cons from people with experience before making a decision.<p>Anyway, with that all out of the way...<p>Nedoka lets you control containers, stacks, segments and groups of stacks with painfully straightforward syntax. Your container landscape is defined in yml files anywhere within a config directory tree, and specs can be wired up however you want, regardless of where they live. Any spec can be a container, a stack, both or neither, and can have children which inherit and extend its settings. Stacks/containers/partials can contain dependencies which come up when required, and can include other containers and stacks, and merge containers, stacks and partials together to create new things.<p>It sounds a bit wild, but it's all very straightforward in practice, the end result being that you can wire any number of arbitrarily complex builds and environments together however you want, and control any portion, portions or the entirety of it as easily as you can a single container.<p>Aside from letting you mash configs together to create all manner of ridiculous superstructures, there's a lot more going on. Tags anywhere in your specs will generate and/or retrieve vault/consul based secrets, create and switch users portably, trigger actions on the host or other containers, split layers, inject cache busters, pull environment variables and so forth. Specs can have onbuild, onrun, post-start, pre-backup, post-restore, host post-run, host post-destroy, and arbitrary (and extremely handy) helper scripts defined inline, and can be accompanied by file structures and/or database dumps which are injected into the resulting builds automatically at baseline.<p>When containers come up, .test DNS records are created on split views for traffic kicking around within the VM and over a hostonly interface. If you uncomment the external interface in the vagrantfile, containers with endpoints will be presented over a shared IP with reverse proxying where relevant. If you enable ipvlan i the settings and provide some basic network config, containers with defined service endpoints will automatically join an ipvlan bridge where they'll act as distinct endpoints on the LAN.<p>Specs can specify service endpoints and port forwarding. HTTP endpoints are automatically reverse proxied. HTTPS endpoints will be reverse proxied and a certificate will be created and signed by a local CA.<p>A basic database abstraction layer handles the creation, backup and destruction of postgres, mysql and mariadb databases and users - add a db to a spec and it will be created automatically and backed up/restored alongside the container. Databases are treated as persistent, but can be destroyed or restored on demand. Environment variables for accessing databases are injected into the containers they're defined in automatically.<p>Backups of containers or stacks can be taken manually and will happen automatically on the destruction of a container, restores happen similarly transparently on run, but you can baseline or restore to previous restore points whenever you want.<p>It covers a lot of ground, and I'm sure for some people it will break in weird and wonderful ways (you can generally just restart supervisor or the VM, but I'm sure there are plenty of bugs I haven't come across) there are also some obvious pain points such as manual renaming and repacking of backups being needed if you want to change a container's name, there is no API or web frontend yet, and it needs a lot of polish, "but other than that it's fine" :)<p>I'm very fond of Nedoka, not just as the creator but as an end user too. I can't wait to see what people make with it. |
Stopping the False Epidemic of Adult ADHD | ADHD-er here. I have a 2-sigma attention span in the shitty direction. It's a massive impairment. I've titrated my dose, and I've stayed at 45mg Adderall/day for the past 3-4 years, which is quite high for someone who has been careful not to develop a tolerance.<p>Every month, I have to spend a day (or five) dealing with the nightmare that is filling my prescription so that I can function like a normal human being.<p>THE RULES:
0. For ADHD people such as myself, being forced to go a day without meds is like being forced to go a day without your favorite text editor. It's not fun. In addition, I don't feel safe driving then. If I want to go someplace without meds, I'm taking a cab.<p>1. Adderall is classified by the DEA as a schedule II stimulant. Some other schedule II drugs: cocaine, opium, morphine. If you opt for a paper prescription, it usually has security features like microprinting, watermarks, or holograms. You're going to be asked for an id (or three) when you fill the prescription. After all, you might as well be getting a prescription for cocaine.<p>2. There are no refills on your prescription, ever. You have to get a new prescription every month, which means calling in to your clinic and reciting all of the details. Nurses are not allowed to copy-paste these details, so you can bet your ass that I've dealt with a number of typos over the years. Sorting out typos usually takes a few business days.<p>3. A doctor must sign each prescription.<p>4. Some doctors flat-out refuse to sign prescriptions that they didn't prescribe. That's totally reasonable, except it means that you need to call in for a new prescription <i>on a day when your prescribing physician is in the office</i>. That means that you need to either learn their work schedule, or call in at least 3-5 business days before you need to fill your meds.<p>5. Most insurance companies will not allow you to fill your medication even one day early -- if you want to do that, you're paying the sticker price yourself. For my dose, the sticker price is $500-600.<p>6. In some states...
- if you send a prescription to a pharmacy, then it MUST be filled there, and may not be transferred.<p>- pharmacies may not answer questions over the phone about whether medication is in stock. They might be able to answer in person.<p>- pharmacists may not call other pharmacists or access any sort of database to find out whether there is any pharmacy in the area with medication<p>- if there is not enough medication in stock, then the pharmacy may partially fill your medication with the available stock, but you void the unfilled portion of your prescription. Your insurance will probably not allow you to fill your meds early, even if the pharmacy is out of stock and you choose to fill a partial prescription.<p>Remember that you can't bring your prescription somewhere else, or call in advance to inquire about stock. So you have to remember to ask the pharmacist about their stock before you hand the prescription over, in case they don't have enough stock. That gives you the opportunity to blindly search the neighborhood for a pharmacy that has them in stock. Remember, you can't call about any of this, so you're going to be doing quite a bit of travelling.<p>7. Some pharmacists are antsy about filling a prescription for drugs in the same category as cocaine. I've met pharmacists who will insist upon verifying the prescription with your prescribing clinic. If you try to fill your meds when your prescribing clinic is not open, tough luck. Come back tomorrow.<p>8. Because of the effects that large-ish daily doses of amphetamines may have on one's heart, most doctors that I've met will insist on meeting with patients every few months to check your blood pressure, heartrate, etc. That is, your prescription is not getting filled unless you make a clinic visit every few months. Because I actually <i>have</i> ADHD, the conversation usually goes something like this:
"Are you having trouble sleeping?" Nope.
"Have you been fidgeting?" Nope.
"Has your heart been racing?" Nope.
"Have you noticed a change in eating habits?" Nope.
"Do you want to lower your dosage?" Nope.<p>On one hand, I understand why it's smart to keep tabs on my cardiovascular system. On the other hand, it's obnoxious to force me to get a checkup every 3 months just to fill the same prescription that I've had for the past decade.<p>COMMENTARY ON THE RULES:
Because it's relatively easy to acquire an Adderall prescription, the DEA makes it a pain in the ass to fill it, as a way to restrict the supply for the illegal Adderall market. These rules make it as obnoxious as possible to fill an Adderall prescription.<p>The thing is, a drug dealer with a bogus prescription isn't going to be <i>too</i> bothered if they're forced to wait a week to get an Addy refill. Sure, it's a loss of income, but it's not going to temporarily ruin their life.<p>I think the solution here is to make it easier to refill an existing prescription, but make it harder to get one in the first place.<p>ADHD TESTING:
In particular, I think that people should be required to get formally tested for ADHD in order to get a prescription for amphetamines. Usually, you can obtain a prescription just by telling your doctor that you think you might have ADHD, describing your experience, and then answering some basic screening questions.<p>But there <i>is</i> a more formal test. At the behest of my parents (who were skeptical about ADHD), I got formally tested. It was a 12-hour test, split up into three 4-hour chunks. I was not allowed to take any stimulant meds (not even coffee) during -or in the 24-hour period before- the test.<p>The test measured my IQ, short-term memory, and ability to deal with monotonous or distracting tasks.<p>For instance, one of the tasks was to transcribe a page of symbols using a substitution table. The problem was that the substitution table was printed on the inside front cover of a stapled booklet, and I was transcribing pages <i>inside</i> the booklet. I was not allowed to remove the staples, so I had to flip back and forth a ton. To make matters worse, I had to transcribe each blob of symbols onto the back of the same page. More flipping back and forth.<p>Another task was to listen to a list of numbers, and recite them back in order, or recite them in reverse order, or recite them in sorted order. The number of numbers that you could recite correctly in the latter two situations was used as a proxy measure for attention span, and for immediate short-term memory in the former situation.<p>These are exactly the sorts of tasks with which I have severe difficulty.<p>The test did screen for mental health issues by asking some standard, but nonetheless subjective questions about anxiety/depression/well-being etc.). But on the whole, I thought that the test was largely scientific, and did a good job of measuring my cognitive impairment in a fairly objective manner. Admittedly, the test did not involve any brain scans, so it might not be the best thing available.<p>But in any case, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier if the inconvenience of obtaining and filling an Adderall prescription could just be front-ended! |
Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t | Allowing for-profit coding bootcamp to teach veterans coding is a very bad idea. Some business types will inevitably try to use it as a get rich quick scheme and waste the resources/time of everyone.<p>Here are some thoughts that I'd like to share I went through the path of starting out as a college grad with a degree in Humanities and got into IT/support/light-coding.<p><i>Dump the misconceptions:</i>
I'm sure soldiers smile when they encounter civilians who are completely clueless about military and everything else that goes with it. Same with the startups and coding career. Everything you read/see on media/TV about startups is pretty much garbage. They may get the personality, haircut, fashion, and the ambiance right (Silicon Valley), but that's not what being a coder is about.<p><i>Are you cut out for it?:</i>
Some are just not cut out to be a coder/programmer. This is not meant as a disrespect. Not everyone is cut out to be a soldier. I tried really hard to convince an ex Air Force officer (not army, but a desk jockey from AF) to try out a career in IT (not even coding but server/systems management) as he was leaving the service, but he had been forced to do some of it while in service and had bad experience. So he was dead set against it. But one of my ex managers was an enlisted man in Navy/Airforce (not sure, but not army) when I worked as a server/desktop technician and he was good as a server/linux admin.<p>You need to find out if you have the aptitude, patience and passion for IT/code career. Especially with coding because you will have to constantly learn new tools/languages/etc to keep up, all on your own time (nights, weekends). If you have problem with it, you'd be better off not starting it. This is especially true if you don't have a CS degree. With a CS degree, an employer may hire you even if you don't know the programming language used in their product, because they think you can learn quickly enough. With no CS degree, you have to have concrete examples to show that you can learn and do the job, which means even longer personal time spent for self training sessions.<p>I am in the process of switching from Desktop Support into coding, and I know I am spending easily 10 - 20 hrs a week (thanks to RescueTime) on my personal computer watching/reading online courses and typing out the tutorials. I have a full time job and wife/kids. And I spend 2-3 hrs every weekday and/or entire Saturday on my computer each week, learning/practicing coding and everything else (git, HTML/CSS, some bash, some database) related that I realize I need to know. And I am not really advancing fast enough, for lack of time, and I've been in IT for years.<p><i>Who usually goes to coding bootcamp?:</i>
Coding bootcamp is really for someone who already has enough knowledge in coding. Someone who went through a coding school commented on HN that it seemed most already had spent time/energy on their own to learn quite a bit, and joined the bootcamp to get that final push/proof that they can show to potential employer.<p>Consider a coding bootcamp something like a training school a newly minted SF operator attends after he already proved himself in the initial Army bootcamp and years of service as a regular soldier. If you have not already spent substantial time (and actually learning) with computer, a coding bootcamp will mostly likely be a waste of time/money.<p><i>But you should still consider it seriously:</i>
But here's the thing. Starting the training to be a coder/server-admin these days costs almost nothing, unlike the training required to be a jet fighter pilot or a doctor or a lawyer. To be a pilot/doctor/lawyer, you HAVE to get into a training program and find someone to pay (or pay yourself) for the instructors/equipment.<p>But starting a career in IT nothing is like it. All you need is a computer, internet, and time. Half of the coders surveyed on HN (or Stackoverflow?) stated they were self-taught programmers. Of course many others may have started out but gave up. It would be dishonest to not bring that up.<p>So how do you get that initial start and experience to start the journey to be a coder/IT worker?<p><i>So what to do?:</i>
Research. There are many different types of coding, like HTML/CSS. Or coding backend. Or create an iOS app. I think Mr. In the article, Mr. Molina trying his hand first on iOS app was ill advised. He should've first learned about HTML/CSS or bash scripting, not to be an expert but at least know how's it's done. Read a little about different jobs, like tutorials for a few days to get a sense of direction.<p>Spend time on job postings like indeed.com and see what skills/tools are in demand. Spend time on HN and read, to soak up the culture/ambiance, not too much though. Not to be a pretender, but to start thinking like a coder.<p>Find time, lots of big chunks of time. Coding/hacking/building-a-computer all require hours of continuous tinkering, changing, testing. Not like 1 hr here and there but like half a day, or all of your evening. I find myself most productive when I can spend bigger chunks of time working on the same thing.<p>Watch how you spend your time. Use tools like RescueTime or other tools to keep track of how much time you spend. You will be surprised how quickly time passes when you start watching an episode of something on Netflix. Just stop it, until you get a jog as a coder.<p>Find office like environment. This is necessary especially if you are just starting out. Trying to do it alone at home will inevitably lead to netflix/xbox/etc. I've made that very mistake. And I recommend against Starbucks. You want to maximize productivity, and starbucks is not the place.<p>If you can spare $200 - $500 a month, try out co-working spaces like WeWork or NextSpace. It will make you sit down and stare at the laptop screen at minimum. I used the service in between jobs to learn some very basic html/css and it helped. I didn't get a job as HTML/CSS coder but it definitely beat trying to do it at home. Try cheapest plan which usually allows you to use any open desk. If you can only spend evening/weekend, try reserved desk/room. More expensive but you can leave external monitor to go with your laptop, boosting your productivity.<p>Go to meetups. I personally don't because I'm an introvert, but attending a few doesn't hurt imho.<p>Write out things you want to learn. Doesn't matter whether you stick with it or not. Adjust it if necessary. But write it out so that you know what you are doing now.<p>Use Google Doc to take notes as you try out commands, tutorials. Spending time writing out what you learned really reinforces. Especially useful in the beginning.<p>The path to learning anything in IT/coding will be really circuitous. Let's say you want to put up a HTML/CSS website on a VPS server like at DigitalOcean. But before you even touch the server, you may have to learn about vim, ssh, rsync, ftp, Domain registration, yum install, etc. It may be days/weeks before you actually get to do what you initially set out to do. But that's the fun of being in this field.<p>Try setting up a study group, virtual or physical. Use free/cheap tools like Slack, Zoom, codeshare.io, etc to ask questions, help stay focused.<p><i>Negatives you have to know:</i>
Ageism is real. If you never heard of it, search on google and read about it. You are considered over the hill at 40. Many are sharing on HN that recruiters are not returning calls because of perceived age on the resume. I'm near that age and experiencing it myself.<p>You will have to constantly spend own time learning new things. It may even feel like you have to get a new associate degree every 3 - 5 years. I think no such issue exists in the law enforcement, firefighting and such industries.<p>But if you like computers, now is the best time. |
What Event Sourcing is not | <i>The core idea of event sourcing is that whenever we make a change to the state of a system, we record that state change as an event, and we can confidently rebuild the system state by reprocessing the events at any time in the future. The event store becomes the principal source of truth, and the system state is purely derived from it.</i><p>I think this can be easily misunderstood to describe an unnecessarily strict view of how event sourcing can work. To use the most common example, a bidding system, someone might see the <i>state</i> as the record of accepted offers, bids, and sales, and the <i>events</i> as recording changes to that state. That would be one way to design the system. However, that means events can only be issued <i>after</i> state changes are decided. That means after synchronization and business logic have been applied. Suppose a user submits a bid that is rejected by the system because it does not meet the rules, comes after bidding is closed, or because the system rejecting the bid does not recognize the item id. That bid does not get recorded as an event and cannot be replayed, so if it was rejected in error, the erroneous action is not recorded and can never be reconstructed. This kind of event-based system amounts to little more than capturing a database commit log. Actions taken by users and peripheral parts of the system are obscured, leaving a very subjective account of what happened.<p>If you enlarge the concept of state to include more of the distributed state of the application, then this description can yield a larger and potentially more useful set of events. The user submitted a bid — that's an event. The system rejected the bid — that's an event. The system closed bidding — that's an event. Then you can replay bugs. Was the bid incorrectly rejected as invalid? Did the system close bidding prematurely? If I fix a bug in a system and replay events to it, does it do the same thing or something different? You can also discover performance problems. If a bid event is relayed through the system before it is processed, you might see that the difference in timestamps between the bid being placed and the bid being rejected is higher than expected.<p><i>A simple example of this trap is when an event is used as a passive-aggressive command. This happens when the source system expects the recipient to carry out an action, and ought to use a command message to show that intention, but styles the message as an event instead.</i><p>I think this is another part that can be misunderstood, or perhaps I disagree with it altogether.
Commands can be significant events that are helpful for event sourcing. Ask yourself, if you exclude them from the event log, are you still able to reconstruct what happened to the degree necessary for debugging? Capturing commands as events might allow replay with only a subset of the system running, which can be helpful. Also, computers are more precise than humans. If I tell my girlfriend, "There is someone at the front door," there may or may not be an implied request. There is no reason to design computer systems with that kind of ambiguity, so there is no need to create a separate category of "commands." "System A has scheduled task 23 to execute next on executor Z" is an event that we can program executor Z to respond to in a certain way. The behavior can be specified and tested.<p>Commands have their own problems. I have seen too many systems that report spurious errors because a programmer did not want to report "success" unless a "command" was carried out. "Command" evokes a human relationship that applies to a small subset of interactions between computer systems. When you change the shipping address on an Amazon order, your browser does not say, "Change the shipping address on the damned order!" It says, "The buyer requested to change the shipping address on the order." Now, that kind of message is sometimes modeled as a "command" by sloppy programmers, but really it reports a fact, an event. The browser does not take a position on what the right action to be taken is; that is the responsibility of the server. If you call it a "command" then the server should respond with a 4xx client error or a 5xx server error if it receives the request a nanosecond after the order shipped, when in reality neither the client nor the server did anything wrong. The client correctly reported a fact, and the server responded correctly as well. To call it a command is to imagine the browser client deciding on a state change and attempting to command the change on its own authority, which would be an absurd division of responsibility. The browser client merely reports the intentions of the user.<p>Commands also make systems hard to understand as they evolve, because the "command" issued by a system often stays the same while the correct action taken by the recipient system changes over time. Eventually what the "command" asks the recipient to do can bear little resemblance to what the recipient actually does. The code (and the state of the system) is supposed to be designed to make sense to humans, so the system issuing the command should be changed to make the command accurate, but that rarely happens, and it shouldn't be necessary in the first place. The message issued by the first system should not be modeled in a way that encroaches on the responsibilities of the recipient system. |
Ask HN: What's your working day like? | Profession: Web and Graphic Designer (aka UX Designer), part-time, remote and onsite at <20 employee group in 3000> employee organization.<p>### Morning ###<p>Wake up with feline alarm clock and his sister, both of whom are fed, given fresh water, spoken to and pet.<p>Light breakfast, usually yogurt and cereal or freshly-ground peanut butter on toast, and fruit. Stove-top coffee, black, no milk, no sugar, and accompanying glass of water. Meditate a little, not following any mantra, just trying to observe my thoughts with no judgment. Avoid looking at any screens, except to answer the usual call from my mother who lives overseas.<p>Depending on what day it is, either: ¶ Go out for long walks and photograph mostly people on the street; ¶ Go to office in part-time job, talk to people in person, draw and align things on paper and on the screen, print things and stick them on the wall and put them on a table where everyone can see them and often let them ‘sit’ for a day or five and live with them; ¶ Stay home and go out to buy fresh bread for breakfast. Look at paper planner to find out what I forgot I need to do and remember the context I am doing them in — Examples: update the color or redraw a line on a vector illustration, redraw and rescan a drawing, find a more appropriate typeface, change the wording in an InDesign or GitHub document, update the Google App Engine SSL certificate for a website, update or enhance a Wordpress or Django or Hugo website, make an HTML element display elegantly on a small and large screen, figure out a progressive enhancement with JavaScript while making sure it fails gracefully, find or craft a regular expression that matches a piece of text so I can search and replace it. Most of these involves looking up and also writing documentation to refresh my memory. ¶ I draw, align or write or choose things, around half the time for projects for other people and half the time for my own. Two current projects are a website about visual beauty and a book of black and white photographs.<p>Eat lunch often but not always consisting of heated leftovers from the previous evening’s dinner which was purposefully cooked in abundance so there is also lunch the following or following-following day. A particularly tasty leftover food is black or brown beans and white or brown rice and a spicy sautéed vegetable. If it is not raining or cold I like to eat sitting on grass outside. Should weather and temperature be grim I stay in and read things on a few websites while noting down ideas for projects and blog posts on a paper notebook, which is something I tend to do throughout the day.<p>### Afternoon ###<p>Coffee after lunch, and sometimes a sweet, at least 70% cocoa if chocolate.<p>Check email and reply. If there is an email asking me to do something which I cannot do at the current time I either write down what I need to do and when I need to get it done by on my paper planner or I archive the email.<p>Mid-to-late afternoon I usually draw and look at things on a large computer screen and draft an email showing progress, often with screenshots and brief captions with questions. I make sure to go outside before the sky is dark and walk home looking at and taking pictures of things. I may also walk to a bar and have a beer or play basketball or tennis or throw a frisbee or go to an event with a friend (when I do not get to do exercise outside due to, for example, soul-threatening weather or laziness, I often do the ‘7-minute Scientific Exercise’ routine in the living room before dinner). When I get home I look at, choose and sometimes publish a picture to my website and auto-post a link to it on social media websites that I rarely log into (this is called POSSE — [Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere](<a href="https://indieweb.org/POSSE)" rel="nofollow">https://indieweb.org/POSSE)</a>). If I am home and it is cleaning day I take turns vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, taking clothes to the washer in the building basement and setting up a line and hanging them in the living room, which makes it look Neapolitan and reminds me of the great food and people of Naples and of Pink Floyd’s [Live at Pompeii](<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd:_Live_at_Pompeii" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd:_Live_at_Pompeii</a>).<p>After dinner (which I take turns cooking or washing up after) and conversation I explore an open-world computer game with emergent gameplay mechanics or read a carefully-chosen book (I am lucky to have a partner who loves reading and writing). I also play with the felines, and talk to them and play music on the stereo for them — they particularly enjoy Kenny Burrell and Mozart — when I stay home during the day. |
A plan for open source software maintainers | Having both written & maintained open source software, and negotiating (commercial) support and development contracts, I find myself thinking about this issue every couple of months.<p>A few thoughts:<p>Bounties are a problem since each is basically a tiny contract (what to deliver, what it'll cost, when, etc) in itself, so they need to be haggled over, ie. there's a nontrivial transaction cost to each. In practice, you get a crossbreed between a graveyard of ignored stuff and a race-to-the-bottom wishlist amounts - FIX THIS URGENT MULTITHREADED PROGRAM FOR $15 PLZ I'M PAYING YOU! I'd rather do open source obligation-free than <i>that</i>.<p>Monthly donations (like Evan You's Patreon campaigns that dvnguyen mentioned) can work, but from the client standpoint, it's not really clear what you gain ("if this breaks tomorrow, who I'm gonna call?"), so while theoretically nice, in practice there's not a lot of uptake.<p>As Colin mentions in the post, if there's a large company (or a few) that use the software and see the value, they can be persuaded to support it via explicit support contracts with the developer(s) or just hiring them (I think redis is a success story here). But many projects don't have such large companies as users (or they don't know that they have!).<p>Another issue that I think we always stumble in these discussions is the pricing and talking about value, esp. in context of open source software. My strong opinion (feel free to disagree is): in open source, the software itself is a commodity, and its PRICE is $0. If you don't like that, don't do open source. However, there's no question that the software has a VALUE that's over $0 (otherwise why'd anyone use it). But the value of the software is not only in the code, and as patio11 always reminds us (in the context of business discussions), determine your value and charge based on value, not on cost (ie. amount of effort needed to write the code).<p>The value is that the company developers are faster (increase/multiply their value). The RISK to the company is that the developers will have to spend their time maintaining, fixing, updating, the software if there's no external vendor to do it (the "who am I gonna call?" problem), which will decrease the developers' productivity, ie reducing the software value (perhaps below zero). So, removing this risk should have business sense to the company.<p>Borrowing from risk management, we can try to estimate the probability of it happening ("how often does the code need to change", "how often bugs that should be fixed are found", not "what is the probability of open source dev burning out" since that hides the externality - developer's labor), and the cost ("if we have to maintain it ourselves, how much time (ie. money) would we spend"). It's more of a ballpark estimate rather than a rigorous calculation, but for many highly used projects, a reasonable figure can be estimated. This figure, then, is the amount the company could reasonably be expected to pay each month.<p>So the company is not paying for the software. They're paying for their piece of mind - to minimize risks inherent in their use of unsupported software. I am convinced this argument is MUCH easier to sell to the companies than social or moral obligations.<p>On the developer side we want a steady, stream of income, so combining the two might mean a (tiered) subscription based model. For $0 (free) you use the software but the developer has absolutely no obligation to ever listen to your bug reports or feature requests. For $X (monthly), you can expect the bugs to be fixed (and prioritize which should go first), up to a specific limit in amount of hours worked, but the developer has the sole discretion over the <i>new features</i> to be implemented. There can be multiple tiers ($X, $Y, $Z... for different amounts of work).<p>The limit in amounts worked is there to set expectation of what exactly the company gets for their money, ie. what to do if the company asks for more work (bugfixing) than you'd be happy doing for the subscription amount. For $X, it's Y hours of developers time (non-refundable retainer). $X could be set based on the calculated risk above, an Y (hours) is based from the dollar amount and a hourly consulting rate that the developer could ask for when doing a real retainer contract.<p>An example: let's say I'm a proud developer of libwidget, an indispensable library for managing widgets in a nosql database. There's dozens (respectable, but not high) of companies using my code. I do a few updates a month, mostly bugfixes. If I disappear each company would probably need to spend an hour of their developer time each month maintaining this, let's say that'd cost them $100. Let's also say my target retainer rate is $100/hr, so this ends up being an hour of my time. (To clarify, the rate would be lower than the usual consulting rate since there is a possibility that no work will be needed in a month).<p>Based on the above, I'd set up a subscription plan that says: for $100/mo, you can file bugfixes (private or public), and I will spend up to 1hr per month fixing those issues (if there are more of them, I'll let you prioritize). If more work is needed, I can either set up a larger plan, or agree to do extra work for $Z ($Z > $X), or any combination of the above.<p>Something like this would, I believe, scale nicely from almost no work (and getting a few bucks a month for coffee and ice cream :) to being basically fully employed in support of your work (and being paid fairly for it), while making everyone clear about what they can expect from you as a open source dev.<p>As a footnote - many companies budget for a year, so offering year subscription may work as well, or better (since it'll be almost the same to the company financial-wise, and they'll know they have you on support for the next 12 months). Or you can pull an oldest trick in the book and price-differentiate yearly and monthly fee so that the yearly fee looks like a better value for money. The yearly fee makes the subscription model even more smooth and with less surprises than the monthly-based one, so it's useful to keep in mind.<p>Great thing about this is that it's possible to do with existing infrastructure for monthly subscriptions (say, Patreon for subscriptions, github for issues, email or a separate private bug tracker for private "technical support"). But if a platform that nails this approach would appear, I'm betting in itself it'd be a $1B+ company (think GitHub for - gasp - git hosting - actually, no, wait - GitHub why haven't you done this already ?!?).<p>Just my $0.02 :-) |
A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case | The article somewhat overstates the significance of this case in terms of precedential value.<p>On a procedural level, understand that this is a district court opinion and is not binding on any other court. Of course, if other courts find the arguments persuasive, they can adopt the reasoning. But no court has to adopt the reasoning in this opinion.<p>On a substantive level, it's important to look at the arguments the court is addressing and how they are addressed:<p>1) Did the plaintiff adequately allege a breach of contract claim?<p>We're at the motion to dismiss phase here and the court is only looking at plaintiff's complaint and accepting all of the allegations as true.<p>There are essentially only 2 arguments the court addresses: A) Was there a contract here at all?; and B) Did the plaintiff adequately allege a recognizable harm?<p>Understand that in a complaint for breach of contract, a plaintiff has to allege certain things: (i) the existence of a contract; (ii) plaintiff performed or was excused from performance; (iii) defendant's breach; (iv) damages. So, the court is addressing (i) and (iv), which I refer to as (A) and (B) above.<p>As to (A), the argument the defendant appears to have made is that an open source license is not enforceable because a lack of "mutual assent." In other words, like a EULA or shrink-wrap license, some argue that an by using software subject open source license doesn't demonstrate that you agreed to the terms of that license.<p>The court, without any real analysis, says that by alleging the existence of an open source license and using the source code, that is sufficient to allege the existence of a contract. The court cites as precedent that alleging the existence of a shrink-wrap license has been held as sufficient to allege the existence of a contract.<p>But the key word here is "allege." As the case proceeds, the defendant is free to develop evidence to show that there was no agreement between the parties as to the terms of a license. So, very little definitive was actually decided at this stage. All that was decided is that alleging that an open source license existed is not legally deficient per se to allege the existence of a contract.<p>As to (B), defendant apparently argued that plaintiff suffered no recognizable harm from defendant's actions. The court held that defendant deprived plaintiff of commercial license fees.<p>In addition, and more important for the audience here, the court held that there is a recognizable harm based on defendant's failure to comply with the open source requirements of the GPL license. Basically, the court says that there are recognizable benefits (including economic benefits) that come from the creation and distribution of public source code, wholly apart from license fees.<p>This is key - if the plaintiff did not have a paid commercial licensing program, it could STILL sue for breach of contract because of this second type of harm.<p>That being said, none of this argument is new. There is established precedent on this point.<p>2) Is the breach of contract claim preempted?<p>Copyright law in the United States is federal law. Breach of contract is state law. A plaintiff cannot use a state law claim to enforce rights duplicative of those protected by federal copyright law.<p>So, what the court is looking at here, is whether there is some extra right that the breach of contract claim addresses that is not provided under copyright law.<p>In other words, if the only thing that the breach of contract claim was addressing the right to publish or create derivative works, then it would be duplicative of the copyright claim. And, therefore, it would be preempted.<p>Here, the court held that there are two rights that the breach of contract claim addresses that are different from what copyright law protects: (A) the requirement to open source; and (B) compensation for "extraterritorial" infringement.<p>The real key here is (A), not (B). With respect to (A), the court here is saying that the GNU GPL's copyleft provisions that defendant allegedly breached are an extra right that is being enforced through the breach of contract claim that are not protected under copyright law. Therefore, the contract claim is not preempted.<p>(B) is a bit less significant for broader application. What (B) is saying is that because the plaintiff is suing for defendant's infringement outside the U.S. ("extraterritorial" infringement), and federal copyright law doesn't necessarily address such infringement, that's an "extra element" of the breach of contract claim. I say this is less significant because it wouldn't apply to a defendant who didn't infringe outside the United States. So, if you were the plaintiff here and the defendant was in California and only distributed the software in the U.S., argument (B) wouldn't apply.<p>I hope this clarifies what is/is not significant about the opinion here. |
How do self-taught developers get jobs? (2016) | Equating learning programming with learning a musical instrument was an interesting take. Like most analogies, it fits in some ways and doesn't in others, but the ways that it fits ring quite true. Programming <i>is</i> in large part an art and an act of constant 'practice'.<p>A lot of us divide into two camps - "self-taught is better" or "university is better". In interviews I've ran in the past, I've often been an advocate for lesser considered candidates that lacked formal degrees but showed exceptional understanding of the craft. I've also been on the side of devaluing the degree of a person due to their lack of experience or quality code that demonstrates their practical abilities. Self-taught programmers can lack some of the foundation of software craftsmenship, but not always. It usually just depends on how long they've been at it and what their exposure is to large projects. The self-taught tend to start out like self-taught musicians -- "do first" then learn the specifics later...if they're needed at all. Unlike a musician -- who might be able to get away with <i>never</i> learning to read music or understanding anything about music theory, it's not possible to design a supportable piece of software without understanding major core concepts of computational theory, or design practices like 'SOLID' and the Single-Responsibility Principal. The moment you have to <i>extend</i> a large program you've written, you discover these mistakes and tend to start learning them.<p>Here's the thing, though. Self-taught programmers get jobs the same way as everyone else because <i>we're all self-taught</i>. The moment we leave University, our skillset and even parts of computational theory, become outdated (or maybe our skillset was already outdated due to the choice of technologies that the school decided to use)[0].<p>Regardless of being <i>self-taught</i> or <i>University trained</i>, I look for people who can demonstrate a constant state of learning. I like a candidate who knows the language I'm targeting for a job, but comes in talking about a couple of other languages that they're poking around with and find <i>interesting</i> (as well as understanding <i>why</i> they find them interesting). Way too often we'd get University graduates who clearly chose Computer Science because someone told them that those jobs pay well[1]. They had little-to-no passion for it, had no hobby-projects[2] and had nothing to <i>show</i> me that would demonstrate an ability to actually <i>write code</i> in the language we were seeking candidates for. On the <i>two</i> occasions we landed a candidate with <i>no</i> formal education in software development, I advocated for both of them (with <i>strong</i> disagreement from the other interviewers)[3].<p>[0] I often joke that anything I've written six months ago might as well have been written by someone else... someone else who doesn't know what they're doing. Part of that is because I strive to hone my craft. I <i>want</i> to feel this way about old code. But there's another side to this phenomenon. If I study the code carefully, my biggest complaint is usually that I've chosen an overly complex approach when there was a much easier way to do something. Further investigation usually yields that this <i>much easier way</i> only became possible shortly after or during the middle of the time that the majority of this code is written due to features being added to the language or runtime that weren't there previously. I'm not sure there's another industry where I can look at a product and think 'that design is just ... ugly' when it was cutting-edge 6-months ago ... maybe hair-styling?<p>[1] Part of this was that the only job I had where I was regularly interviewing candidates was for a somewhat non-sexy IT development position at a large company who's primary business wasn't technology. It didn't naturally attract passionate programmers looking to solve interesting problems so we got the candidates that were probably the most appropriate for the job we were posting.<p>[2] And by none, I mean literally <i>no</i> code to show me. I wasn't even expecting them to come with a few GitHub repos of personal projects -- A blog post describing something related to programming, a Pull Request to another person's GitHub repo or even a single Stack Overflow or a programming-centric forum of some kind would have been nice. Nope. And since I <i>refuse</i> to do white-board coding, that pretty much disqualified the candidate.<p>[3] The first was somewhat reluctantly hired due to my persistence. I made the argument and backed it up with the code the candidate had showed off in the interview -- personal project code that was written <i>very</i> well. He was such a successful hire that I ended up doing <i>many</i> later interviews and the second time this issue came up, the candidate was hired on my recommendation without the required persistence. <i>Both</i> quickly became senior developers. Both, also, left after a couple of years for more interesting work. |
Why do many math books have so much detail and so little enlightenment? (2010) | This is something I think about often. Maths is one of those subjects which is taught repetitively rather than philosophically, and yet there couldn't be a worse subject to teach in such a manner. It forms a barrier-to-entry which mathematicians probably care for, glancing at some of the quotes already posted here, but doesn't help people who would make excellent mathematicians if only they had the encouragement.<p>I always found mathematics self-explanatory. From all the repetitions the understanding came naturally, and I think there is definitely a subset of the population that has what you might call 'aptitude' for maths. It makes sense, because philosophically it is self-explanatory by definition. LHS = RHS - the trick is to prove it or fill in the blanks.<p>But I dare say the majority of people aren't 'apt' for maths in the way in which it is taught, but at the same time it's totally unfair to rule them out as maths-stupid. Many people who have no mathematical knowledge whatsoever still prove rather deft at deducing when their partners are lying or when an argument in a debate is self-contradictory. People who failed their mathematical education go on thinking they suck at math, but when they play video games and figure out optimal strategies and formulae for success in the game, it's not all that different. Sometimes the mathematical understanding comes later to people as a direct result of being forced to reason about mathematical problems in an applied setting and discover that they could have been good at maths all along if they had only understood the 'why' of the exercises and formulae they were doing.<p>I think there are two big stumbling blocks that stop people from taking a bigger interest and investing more concentration and care into maths: firstly people mix up arithmetic with maths, and assume from the fact that they take a long time to divide a couple of numbers (or get the wrong answer when they do so) that they are doomed to be crap at maths.<p>But that's utter BS. I'm hopeless at mental arithmetic, but maths isn't about adding numeric values, its about deduction and reasoning, and I'm certainly not alone in being a terrible arithmetician and a good mathematician.<p>The other issue that people struggle with is that the notation itself isn't clearly explained or appears daunting, especially if they didn't go beyond compulsory education. It can prove quite distracting because a person might have questions as to why limit notation looks the way it does or what the hell the integral sign means, when really it's no different to choosing commas and brackets to denote semantic delineation in written language.<p>Take limit notation or summation. The placement of the various numbers is arbitrary on a fundamental level, it's just the standard everybody agreed to use. If someone good enough at math sat down and tried to build up math from first principles, with no knowledge of modern mathematical standards and notation, he/she could come up with the same formulae and concepts but an entirely different way of representing them.<p>That's exactly what happened really. you had Leibniz and Newton just organizing information in a way that made sense to them, and it stuck. An explanation of how arbitrary the notation is on a fundamental level would probably make a board full of symbols and algebraic letters considerably less daunting for those who could-but-daren't understand it.<p>I think there's a big problem in education as well. I'm from Great Britain and growing up I think the biggest mistake in our education system is the dire failure to explain mathematics in a way that is friendly for people who aren't tip-top at abstract thinking or imagining.<p>Take the humble function, for example. teacher says "a function takes an input and produces an output. so f of x equals y minus 5x..." - and half the class stares blankly, daydreams for 15 minutes, chatters through the "work your way through the textbook" phase and does one of two things before the teacher goes through the solutions:<p><pre><code> A. copy answers from the back of the textbook
B. copies an adjacent boffin.
</code></pre>
I think the much maligned set theory actually provides a very good way to teach about functions, and yet it doesn't appear until you hit college, and then suddenly a function is referred to as a mapping, without any preparation or explanation of whether there's a difference between 'function' and 'mapping'.<p>I was endlessly helping classmates in school and I often think about how the education system could have been better and made math more accessible. The conspiracy theorist might say that society cannot afford for everybody to grasp mathematics and get a /good/ job, but hopefully that's not possible.<p>Geometry in education is a big fail as well. when I was growing up, trigonometry wasn't explained at all, it was just repetition of applying trig tables. Nothing visually relating right-angled triangles and circles like Thales was even touched upon until college.<p>Secondary education in UK tries to cover to many things. Not that there's any way of chopping math down to a single textbook or subject area, but there's often little in the way of structure and it's about cramming as many formulae down the student's throats and then examining them on their ability to apply what they have repeated. but you can't apply what you repeat, you apply what you learn and grok.<p>I'm not sure why there is this enormous failure in education. It could be because the people who write the books and lesson plans already grok mathematics and forget to give people aids to intuition or intrinsically understanding what they're doing. Or maybe it's because a mathematical education excludes the philosophy of math and set theory which is a mistake. Set theory is perfect to start off with, it gives insight into functions, probability, everything really. Can always discredit the /project/ of founding mathematics on set theory later.<p>Of course, maybe I went to a bad school, and it was a few years ago now so perhaps things have changed - but I don't think so. most of my younger sister's friends have a worse understanding than the disinterested kids when I was growing up, but that could be down to the whole fast-food, instasnaptwit culture and a hundred other things that seem to be distracting people from anything academic. |
What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016) | In the early 1980s I was a starving artist in Denver, Colorado. I was trying to simultaneously finish a physics degree, work a full-time job, learn martial arts, write and perform avant-garde electronic pop music, and help my girlfriend raise a small child.<p>(I continued this general strategy of doing way too much stuff and getting way too little sleep all the time until it all came crashing down on me in 2004, and my life changed drastically and permanently.)<p>Apple released the Mac, and I fiddled around with it. I really loved MacPaint, but there was no way I could possibly scrape together enough money for a Mac. They were twenty-five hundred dollars. It might as well have been a million. Some years my annual income didn't break $5,000.<p>Nevertheless, my newfound fascination with digital painting led me to start reading everything I could find about programming, mostly in books and hobbyist magazines. There was a plethora of geeky computing magazines in the middle of the 1980s.<p>Eventually, with my girlfriend's help, I scraped together enough money to buy a bargain-basement Commodore 128. It wasn't a Mac, but it had a BASIC interpreter built in and it could display graphics. They were 8-bit color graphics with huge, fat pixels on a 320x240 screen, but they were graphics.<p>I started buying COMPUTE! Magazine. Each issue shipped with a piece of software in it, in the form of a BASIC program printed in a column in the magazine. You could type it into the Commodore and presto! You had a new piece of software!<p>The transformative event for me was typing in an assembler written in BASIC. After that I could write programs in assembly language. I bought a big fat book that documented the Commodore memory map, listing everything in the machine's memory along with all the addresses. It listed the entry-points for all the built-in BASIC subroutines. I could write machine-language programs that used the built-in BASIC graphics routines!<p>I wrote a crappy little paint program that I called "ChocolatePaint". It was horrible. Trying to write MacPaint for an 8-bit 320x240 screen and a cheap joystick is a terrible idea. However, I also discovered Conway's Life and got sucked into a black hole of cellular automata.<p>I spent months on successive versions of a 2D cellular automata program that ran several sets of rules simultaneously on the same grid. There were N sets of rules. Each cell of the grid obeyed all N sets of rules at the same time. The color and text-character displayed at each cell depended on the ruleset that caused it to be considered alive (all dead cells were rendered as empty black squares).<p>I would stay up too late at night fiddling with my cellular automaton, then fall into bed thinking about ways to improve it until I fell asleep, leaving the thing running overnight. I would get up too early in the morning and rush in to see what the program had produced. Sometimes it was a black wasteland with maybe a few live cells here and there. Sometimes it was a riot of color as some ruleset had mostly taken over, occasionally providing fertile habitats for secondary rulesets to thrive in.<p>One day, when I was juggling work on a graduate degree in psychology, songwriting, working in a bookstore, and this cellular automata craziness, while exploiting the bookstore job to read every book and magazine title that had anything whatsoever to do with programming, I learned that my girlfriend was going to have my child. Uh-oh. Sub-$10K income looked even less attractive than before.<p>My mother, a member of Mensa, sent me an ad from the Mensa Bulletin asking for people to apply to Apple Computer to work as technical writers. I said to myself, "why not?" And sent in my application.<p>To my complete astonishment, Apple flew me out to Cupertino to interview, then made me a job offer that would multiply my income by a factor around ten, and that would represent a whole number multiple of the most money I had ever made in a year in my life. To work with and on programming systems for Apple products!<p>I said, "sure!"<p>I officially started work in Cupertino on January 1, 1988, but that was a Friday. I don't remember for sure, but I imagine I didn't really start until the following Monday.<p>Apple drastically accelerated my self-education in programming. It had several resources that were like heaven for me:<p>- the Internet
Apple had one of the earliest domain names assigned, and a great big chunk of IP addresses. It had a dialup network for employees that bridged to the Internet. It supported uucp. Woohoo! Apple had connections to everybody on the net and repositories of all the software anywhere that anybody thought was interesting. Oaklisp! Smalltalk-80! AT&T CFront! Eiffel! Icon! FigFORTH! MIT Scheme! Minix! GNU! I promptly downloaded every free compiler and interpreter and OS I could find and set about learning all I could about them.<p>- the technical library
Apple had a robust library of technical books for any employee to check out. In order to ensure that its library was the best it could possibly be, it had a policy that I took full advantage of: if you went looking for a book there and they didn't have it, you could file a request for them to get it. Not only would they order a copy of the title for the library, they would order an extra copy and give it to the employee who had requested it. I spent hours in there. My collection of technical books on programming and computer science ballooned in size.<p>- the software library
Apple had a software library with policies similar to those of the library of books, except that you couldn't go in and browse the stacks and they wouldn't give you a free copy of the software you requested (a lot of software was pretty expensive). It would, however order enough copies to ensure that you could check one out, and it would allow you to renew your checkout indefinitely. It also had archives of every piece of software that Apple had ever shipped, or that it had ever released internally. My collection of working software ballooned in size. I requested and checked out every compiler and interpreter I could find. I had old versions of Apple Smalltalk and Fabrik and everything else I could find.<p>- the competitive intelligence library
This was Apple's library of actual computing hardware. You couldn't check out the hardware and take it home, but you could reserve time on it. If the machine was connected to the internal network you could get an account on it. They had everything. I spent hours fooling with a Xerox Star. I learned Lisp and Emacs using a Unicos account on Apple's Cray Y-MP. Later I talked someone in ATG into letting me borrow his Symbolics machine. I rolled it into my office, where it stayed for about two years until he decided he missed it and came back and got it.<p>That, plus lots of conversations and cooperative projects with other programmers working at Apple, is how I did it before Stack Overflow. |
The Lack of Intelligence About Artificial Intelligence | Why Machine Won't Think...<p>(ref: [1] Jammer, Max "The Conceptual
Development of Quantum Mechanics" McGraw-Hill (1966) pp 178-179<p>[2] Persig, Robert "Lila: An Inquiry in Morals" Bantam (1991) Chapter 11<p>... In [1], Jammer quotes from Principles of Psychology ... The Stream
of Thought, like a bird's life, seems to be mde of an alternation of
flights and perchings. The rhythm of language expresses this, where
every thought is expressed in a sentence, and every sentence closed by
a period. The resting-places are usually occupied by sensorial
imaginations of some sort, whose peculiarity is that they can be held
before the mind for an indefinite time, and contemplated without
chainging; the places of flight are filled with thoughts of relations,
static or dynamic, that for the most part obtain between the matters
contemplated in the periods of comparative rest... The rush of the
thought is so headlong that it almost always brings us up at the
conclusion before we can arrest it. Or if our purpose is nimble enough
and we do arrest it, it ceases forthwith to be itself... The attempt
at introspective analysis in these cases is in fact like seizing a
spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly
enough to see how the darkness looks.<p>.... in [2] Persig writes about
"Dynamic Quality"... But Dynamic Quality is not structured and yet it
is not chaotic. It is value that cannot be contained by static
patterns. ... Science values static patterns. Its business is to
search for them. When nonconformity appears it is considered an
interruption of the normal rather than the presence of the normal. A
deviation from a normal static pattern is something to be explained
and if possible controlled. The reality science explains is that
`reality' which follows mechanisms and programs. That other worthless
stuff which doesn't follow mechanisms and programs we don't pay any
attention to. ... A thing doesn't exist because we have never observed
it. The reason we have never observed it is because we have never
looked for it. And the reason we have never looked for it is that it
is unimportant, it has no value and we have other better things to
do. ... but 'spur of the moment' decisions... that directed the
progress of evolution are, in fact, Dynamic Quality itself. Dynamic
Quality, the source of all things, the pre-intelectual cutting edge of
reality, always appears as 'spur of the moment'. Where else could it
appear? ... Mechansims are the enemy of life. The more static and
unyielding the mechanisms are, the more life works to evade them and
overcome them<p>What current AI and machine learning is doing is capturing the "things
that don't change", recognizing the resting places, finding the common
elements of the flow of information. As such, it will not see the
flight between the static points. Neural nets compute the function
that extracts the 'static reality' from a flow of patterns. As such
they are only able to represent the resting places, not the flight
between the resting places. They only attack half the problem of
thought. Given two neural nets, what is the dynamic relationship
between them? What it the intuition that connects them? Is there an
imaginative story to connect one to another? Is there a
"rationalization machine" that can make up a connection between them?<p>Persig says "One can imagine how an infant in the womb acquires
awareness of simple distinctions such as pressure and sound, and then
at birth acquires more complex ones light and warmth and
hunger. ... We could call them stimuli but the baby doesn't identify
them as that. From the baby's point of view, something, he knows not
what, compels attention. This generalized 'something' Whitehead's 'dim
apprehension' is Dynamic Quality. When he is a few months old the
baby studies his hand or a rattle, not knowing it is a hand or a
rattle... If the baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality it can be
speculated that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is
normally attentitive to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice
differences and then correlations between the differences and then
repetitive patterns of the correlations. But it is not until the baby
is several months old that he will begin to really understand enough
about that enormously complex correlation of senatations and
boundaries and desires called an object to be able to reach for
one. This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a
complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience.<p>Is thinking possible without this primary experience, this 'Dynamic
Quality', this flight between resting places? Neural nets can
recognize a resting place, capturing what Persig calls 'Static
Quality' but how do we model the flight? Does this require senses?<p>The closest I can come to this question would be to think about a NN
that focuses on changes. It would be comprised of many sub-nets that
would recognize static parts of a scene. For example, a collection of
NNs, each of which recognize static things in a room scene such as
tables and books. But the 'main NN' would look for changes, e.g. the
bee that just entered the room. Not knowing what a bee is, not knowing
what it means to fly, but knowing the 'primary experience' of change
of position, how do we dynamically construct a new NN that recognizes
this 'bee thing' when it sees another one, having only seen one? How
is this new 'bee NN' added to the collection of 'static NNs' behind
the 'main NN' so that it 'knows about bees'? Besides change of
position, there are other primary values such as size, color, sound,
etc. Can we construct a new 'static NN' from 'primary NNs' that
recognize these primary 'sensations'?<p>How do you build a Neural Network to recognize 'size'?<p>'Pressure' is a primary sensation, requiring a sense organ. But 'size'
is not primary, though it is primitive (aka non-specific) and
derivable from something like images. We recognize cats from images
but how to we use images to recognize 'size'? |
The Hidden Sexism of How We Think About Risk | "What on first inspection seemed like a sex difference was actually a difference between white males and everyone else."<p>Articles like this remind me that I'm having an identity crisis.<p>While the focus is on western civilization, it's still valid to say that the assertions can be generalized to any society. I make this point because I partly identify as a white male stereotype. I'm using the word stereotype here as something we're both told we are and also an expectation we must simultaneously live up to. Criticism of my stereotype threatens my identity, or the amalgamation of concepts I have of who I am, most of which consists of stereotypes. It's through my identity that I achieve my purpose. If you identify differently and there's a conflict between our stereotypes, then I'll at least start by acknowledging that. While there could very well be little overlap between our stereotypes, chances are there's lots more overlap between what's important to you and I. We both want food, shelter, happiness for ourselves, and the same for people we're close to.<p>But like, when someone says for example that it's unjust for me as a white male to earn a lot of money - I cannot accept that. Personally, my mother is on the brink of poverty and is unable to work. She doesn't qualify for disability and her social security isn't enough to sustain her. Her health expenses have been $1.5k per month. She's going into $100k worth of debt just to survive. In my immediate family, between my mom, two grandmas, one uncle, and one aunt - I'm the only one with job. When it comes to my income, someone who says that I don't need that money because I'm privileged is making enemies with me. If I loose then my whole family looses. Academics talking about class hierarchy sound smart and may even be right, but they aren't going to save my family.<p>My identity leads me to disagree with some of the ancillary statements in this article, such as the generalization below. Like a minority of men, a significant part of my childhood was with just a single mother. I believe that for me personally and for others who fall into the same category, "a cringingly low sense of self-worth, apathy, incompetence, and stupidity" are glaring red flags in a woman. For people like me, this is because from a young age, our parental role model has shown us these strong personality traits are important for both sexes.<p>``But for women, there are no such benefits to be gained from taking risks. This is because—the authors seem to try to put it as tactfully as they can—“men tend to desire women with characteristics that signal high reproductive capacity (e.g., youth) rather than characteristics that might be signaled by risk-taking.” In other words, so long as the hair is glossy, the skin smooth, and the hip-to-waist ratio pleasing, then a cringingly low sense of self-worth, apathy, incompetence, and stupidity are relative trifles, more easily overlooked from the male perspective.``<p>This next one is also not true for me personally. Again, generally I'm trying to make sense of articles being critical of white men yet they also assume masculine traits have been fostered in these men by patriarchs. In my own opinion and experience, powerful women in the workplace are <i>especially</i> effective.<p>``For example, there is a stronger expectation of women to “be nice” than there is of men. When women violate this norm in a workplace setting (by behaving in domineering ways or negotiating for better remuneration and conditions, for instance) they encounter backlash from others, who become less willing to work with them, and like them less.``<p>My identity is more than just a white male stereotype. In terms of ethnicity, I'm also part Indonesian, but that's not where I'm going with this. I identify partly as an effeminate male. I had a distant father figure. Not only was he distant, but for decades and because of a troubled history, I viewed him as the opposite of a role model. Other than men wearing a suit and tie, there's very little he did to reinforce for me the white male stereotype. It's the absence of a patriarch which magnifies the force of the matriarch (and vice versa). Fact is my concept of manhood and the male stereotype was dominated by the conservative ideals of my mother and her mother: My sole propose is to produce.<p>To the extreme white male stereotype, my small hint of femininity is "cancer" and "degeneracy" and "being a cuck". Their mantra is simply to become more like them, at which point, I shall magically become more confident, sure of myself, and successful. To the opposite ends of the many spectrums, my participation in the oppressive power structures - and by proxy my mere existence - are what damn me. It's an identity crisis, I tell you.<p>After a long rant what I have to say is: What this article highlights for me is identity-based division and hierarchy make the world a terrible place.<p>Seemingly the perfect world would be one where everyone could achieve the same things. If sexism hadn't existed, then my mother could have been better off financially, and I wouldn't have been obligated to take on the bill in her late age. If she hadn't been indoctrinated with conservative values through her religion, then maybe she'd have made a better match for my liberal father, and maybe I'd be a more well-rounded person having had grown up with a balance of matriarchal and patriarchal influences - right now I feel like something's missing. My father might also be alive today if he had stayed married to a partner who could have watched over him.<p>In contrast my present situation is dissatisfying and what's even scarier is that the sheer myriad of conflicting identities inside, let's say, current western civilization, ensures people will continue treating each other in what amount to terrible ways. In a sense I feel an existential crisis as well. By virtue of existing none of us can ever absolutely change the stereotypes assigned to us. Our identities may therefore always be at odds. Seems the best way to get around this is to acknowledge and focus on the common needs we all share, but what an insurmountable challenge it is when our behaviors are ruled by blindness and fear. |
New paint colors invented by neural network | Okay, I'll ask the question:<p>I stumbled on <a href="https://gist.github.com/nylki/1efbaa36635956d35bcc" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/nylki/1efbaa36635956d35bcc</a> recently. This is rather random and chaotic; some parts are interesting, other parts not so much.<p>How could I build a neural network that surfaced information in the style that I've prepared below?<p>The following is taken from the above URL, rearranged somewhat for a certain effect.<p>===<p><pre><code> Title: CARROT CACOA CHILI CHICKEN
Categories: Chinese, Appetizers, Poultry, German, Casseroles, Diabetic, Main dish, Seafood
Yield: 25 Salad
2 c Salad oil
2 c Chicken broth
Steamed, Biscuits
16 Boull of hot soy sauce
1 ds Pepper sauce
1 tb Creme de carrots
1 tb Fat flour
1 tb Cream, divided
6 oz Published cheese; cut
1 ea Stick semoves and pepper sauce
2 tb Minced fresh celery
2 tb Sour cream or flour
8 oz Semisweet chocolate
1/3 c Flour; for frying
1 tb Hot water; or or salt
1 ts Gelatin shortening
2 tb Butter, ground
1 c Crushed bananas
1 ts Poppy strip powder
2 tb Sesame seeds
1 tb Parsley, dried
1 ts Vanilla extract
2/3 c Lite red pepper sauce
1 ts Ground cinnamon
1/8 ts Pepper
Brown sugar
</code></pre>
Preheat oven to 350. Top with parsley.<p>In a lightly floured bowl, beat the egg/unsalted water 2 minutes. Remove base over chicken in bowl. Add meat in foil. Sprinkle each zucchini; add cheese, salt, flour, salt and butter.<p>Fold each balls of pan, reliated with glaze. Cook until crispy on a plate. Allow feed in baking sheets. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda and corn syrup.<p>Sprinkle with green onions and salt. Preheat oven to 375F. To cool completely onto prepared cheesecloth. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, until all ingredients are done.<p>Let them from the heat and spread with a double boiler over high for 10 minutes. Combine sugar and olive oil and oregano. Remove chops.<p>For a couple of dish, pineapple pieces of leek and freeze. Prepare chops to serve.<p>Keep is some mayonnaise to cool spread on a baking sheet, place in a bowl, beat egg yolks, paprika, carrot, celery, thyme, onions, salt, pepper, oregano, and gradually until softened. Combine lemon juice and mozzarella cheese and mayonnaise in a bowl. Add baking chocolate, blending well. Make a little and cooked or all to the cherry and ice cream, and slice the crumbs, and fresh sauce.<p>In a large bowl, beat eggs and cook for 3 hours. Wash pork, freeze up, but not dough back to diet into a layer. YOWL THE COOKIE: ADD 1/2 cup of cheese. Stir in the carrots, remaining ingredients together, stirring constantly.<p>Place the oil in a large skillet over medium heat until chicken is boiled, to the center of the egg mixture. Pour over and roll it for an about 3-4 pounds and can be stored is changes have for sized onion from page in with pan with canned extratty fish on a glass or rounding pan.<p>Cook it with the batter. Set aside to cool. Remove the peanut oil in a small saucepan and pour into the margarine until they are soft. Stir in a mixer (dough). Add the chestnuts, beaten egg whites, oil, and salt and brown sugar and sugar; stir onto the boqtly brown it.<p>In large bowl, combine liquid, and add bay leaf.<p>Microwave each cake; boil 4 hours, until melted too mush of skillet in foil; add remaining 1/4 cup of cheese.<p>Stir together flour, baking powder and leaves to a platter.<p>Sprinkle with basil. Place fish filling into a large bowl; lemon juice only fill stems of gravy. Serve warm or serving colleed. Bake in a skillet into a heavy saucepan.<p>Cover with lemon weed. Stir and saute for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat; fluffy. Drain on both sides of the refrigerator.<p>Grind sauce about 1 1/2 inches in cold water combine with chopped pecans.<p>Cook skillet in a bowl until stiff bowl and stir often on a colored and bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until cheese is evaporated. Peel peppercorns and parmesan cheese, or all flour, 3" pieces, adding the weights: heat over all sweetened corn.<p>Break off doors along with tomatoes. Blend the beans and seasonings. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes, until the figs is absorbed.<p>Store in a high flavors of the meat mixture, and cover with a size of the egg mixture. Stir the beef into the center cups.<p>Bake at high heat and stir over soup and replace 3 tablespoons of the bowl. Combine cheese and buttermilk; cook over low heat, cook a microwave, 20-30 minutes.<p>Sprinkle the beans, then stirring frequently. When the meat is dissolved. Store to medium-side; then dice the fine side.<p>Sprinkle with milk. Gradually remove from heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Mix vegetables, and add the cornmeal and the celery, and mix well. Let cool.<p>Beat Water and boil until light brown.<p>Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes. Remove seconds. Place on a lightly floured board in a bowl.<p>Serve the sugar canned cheese with salt and pepper and tomatoes, and remove margarine, vanilla and bacon and sprinkle with milk and cook to the bag.<p>Let cool for at least 4 minutes.<p>NOTE: Cover with delicious dice them bread for about 30 minutes.<p>Source: Stuff Cooking by Chocolate Candy by Sunsafe by The Collection of
Cookbook by Pet Farnes Weeks, in Your Rodled, Elmeasian. -- (You have)
over the same and roll the edible of the pan of soup.<p>From Electric this unpeelerset Beans Kinch Bar "Suet Brightor, Nanc" and Information To you by Depth Chefs copyrighted by ISBN 0-90828-2 Microwave Optional Collection of Shellies<p>===<p>(YES, it is still random, but I tried to extract the most amusing parts. The full URL doesn't really do that.) |
Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer? | # Always Be Creating<p>If you want to shift from being a consumer to a producer, create something every day. If you're a writer, Stephen King suggests writing at least a page a day, even if you throw most of them away. The idea is that even if you don't have a ton of time or energy for something big today, you can still do a little bit to keep your creative mind engaged and mentally 'fit.' In other words, small things every day and bigger things when you can and have the time.<p>That principle can apply to other sorts of creative pursuits. One sketch every day if you're an artist. Play a song every day on your instrument (or sing it) if you're a musician.<p>If I'm working on a software project on the side, my extrapolation of the every day principle is to get some atomic feature of function to pass all my unit tests each day. With a small side project, that's usually doable in under an hour. Of course, you might need some more time up front to get your project to that well oiled state and write unit tests. There are other small thing per day sort of metrics that apply to software: even if you don't add an atomic feature, you might handle an outstanding pull request (or decide how to handle it), or pick a bug that you're focused on for the next week.<p>The persistence implied here is actually much harder that the actual creative process, but once you're rolling it's easier to maintain.<p># Share-Worthy Milestones<p>Set achievement goals with the question: <i>how far along do I have to get before there is some way I can share this project that will be interesting to other people?</i> With a story or stage play, the first person you'd share with is an informal editor or friend, then a reading (play) or writing group (story), and eventually a professional editor or agent. Keep track of those milestones, and don't talk up what you're doing until you reach one of them. With a song, it might be: ready to perform at a bar that hosts local musicians, ready to record/master a version, and finally ready to sell alone or in an album online.<p>Software is trickier. There's ready-for-people-to-mess-with-it and also ready to maintain as a package (or packages) with regular releases. But there's also ready to host as a service and/or ready to monetize. It all depends on where you want to go with the project.<p># Escaping a Passive/Consumer Mindset<p>I have several rules of thumb for keeping myself out of the consumer mindset. They are all either about managing time or managing things/stuff.<p>1. <i>80% of the things I own should be tools for making or doing something</i>. That's four out of every five discrete things. And I'm constantly eyeing the last 20% for stuff to dispose of or donate. Anything that just sits on a shelf is in line for the guillotine. I do count books as tools for learning, but I try to only buy them rarely and any title I don't consider valuable enough to loan out regularly or reference in the future goes in a box labeled 'Sell at Half-Price Books.'<p>2. <i>News reading is for downtime</i>. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal digitally and I do read it every day, but the key is that the reading happens when there is downtime: waiting for a meeting, a big project is compiling, unit testing or analysis is running on a big data set, et cetera. If news reading is happening during my free time (usually here or on reddit) I set a timer on my phone for a half hour. If I haven't been interested enough in a topic to draft and post my own comment after that time, I stop and do something else. Another great thing is listening to podcasts while doing chores or driving.<p>3. <i>Television should average out to an hour every 3 or 4 days</i>. That's 1 or 2 shows a week that I keep up with, at most. It was The Expanse until recently. It will probably be Game of Thrones again soon. And maybe one other show on the side. I also find myself less drawn to video games than I was as a kid, teenager, or student. I still try to remind myself to only game when there's some RPG I'm excited about---most recently The Witcher 3---and that feeling is more and more rare also. Some people cut out television and video games entirely, which I suppose may be necessary if you have trouble practicing self restraint.<p>4. <i>Set aside time for creative and competitive play</i>. Some of the larger things I still own are board games, and I use them. Head-to-head competition in a social setting requires a different kind of creativity and lets my brain switch gears from solitary creative pursuits. When I was growing up my dad always hated board games and I didn't get it until I realized that he gets his share of head-to-head competition every day as a trial lawyer and doesn't want more of it at home. That itch isn't scratched for me by writing software (though I hear programming competitions can be intense and rewarding) and I suspect committing some time to competitive, in-person games with sociable people (often friends) prevents me from burning out on work and lonely creation. If you don't have friends (who are so inclined also), look for a regularly scheduled meet up at a local game store.<p>5. <i>Keep a balanced budget and use cash for petty transactions</i>. It shocks me how many in my generation (mid-twenties) don't balance their accounts or track spending. I withdraw cash before going out, either for errands or for pleasure, and keep a check register which includes those withdrawals and which I validate against my account balance and activity online weekly. There's something about cash leaving my hand that makes it hard to use it buying stupid crap. Which, in turn, helps me keep to my first rule about owning mostly useful tools.<p>I use these rules of thumb because they work for me, but I don't assume they'd work unmodified for anyone. I hope they're at least helpful as a starting point for people who slip into passive consumption all too easily. |
The Right to Attention in an Age of Distraction | <i>He was surprised to find that he was shown advertisements while he waited for the prompt. Somebody had decided that this moment — the moment between swiping your card and inputting your details — was a moment when they had a captive audience and that they could capitalise on it.</i><p>This is precisely what is wrong with capitalism right here - the extraction of value from an <i>unwilling</i> participant. (Please note that this is not equivalent to saying capitalism is completely invalid.)<p>It's no good to argue people agreed to this when signing up for a bank account of whatever. People need banking facilities and other services; few have the time, inclination, or education to read the absurdly long contractual terms foisted upon them by most service providers, and in any case such contracts are <i>contracts of adhesion</i> rather than negotiations, and it's very difficult for participants in the market to make direct comparisons between competing offerings right now. What's happening here is a form of legal theft of a person's time and attention.<p>As someone who suffers from severe ADHD, I particularly resent this. It's hard to explain the interior experience to someone who doesn't have an executive function disorder, but think of the magazine rack in a convenience store, with all the photographs, fonts, colors and baity headlines. You see a bunch of magazines, I see a crowd of people screaming at me and causing me to temporarily forget why I walked into the store. Over the years I've had to evolve strategies to deal with this sort of thing, like choosing my route through stores I visit regularly and pre-emptively controlling the direction of my gaze to minimize unwelcome distractions.<p>Now, I don't blame the store owners or the magazine publishers for this - it's very annoying, but a marketplace is a busy environment where sellers (or brands) compete for buyers' attention, and it's not their fault that I suffer from a disability. But when I'm dealing with a bank or whoever, their underlying business model is the cake and the extra money they make from advertising to a captive audience is icing on top - icing that is basically purchased at the cost of my convenience and train of thought. And even with ad blockers and so on, I'm sure you can easily think of many ways that distractions are imposed on unwilling information consumers, and how those distractions are <i>engineered</i> to be as unpredictable and disruptive as possible so as to capture people's attention.<p>Now, all of us have the experience of being distracted by things when we're trying to concentrate. But when you have an executive function disorder, the problem is twofold; not only is your attention distracted, but it's a lot of extra work to control your own reaction to the distraction. I <i>have</i> to do that work in public or in a shared workplace, unless I have very tolerant colleagues indeed. But maintaining that control costs effort; when I'm alone or feeling relaxed at home, those control mechanisms are not fully operational, and so an unexpected distraction can trigger an outsize response, which is itself distracting and stressful. Say you're reading an article on screen and you're a couple of hundred words in when a pop-up fades in to invite you to purchase a subscription or somesuch (note, please, the engineering of attention here; hook the reader with the content of that article in order to leverage that focused attention to the advert that is slipped in without warning). You may find this irritating enough that it makes you roll you eyes or frown while you click it away. If it happens to me at the wrong time or too frequently, I'm likely to find myself suddenly screaming FUCK OFF!!! at the screen, which is itself distracting, and now my focus has not merely been interrupted but shattered, and I have a surge of adrenaline with the pounding heartbeat, upset stomach, cold sweats and so on.<p>Lest this seem like an extended complaint about the world just being too damn complex, one of the odd things about ADHD is that in some contexts it lets me function <i>better</i> than neurotypical people. In a quiet environment like a library or when I'm painting, I can focus in total concentration for hours on end, because I've built up those mental muscles for dealing with a noisy distracting world. Equally, in what are very high-stress environments for other people I feel quite at home - I am that calm and clear-thinking person that you want to show up at the scene of a car accident or other dangerous situation, because those situations are not really any worse to me than having to stand in line at a 7-11 counter. In fact, they're better(!) because I don't have to act as if nothing is happening, something actually is happening and the external world is matched up well with my internal world. In those situations I can assess risk, tell people what to do, get people out of cars without injuring them further, move them to safety, call emergency services, and basically manage everything with no more anxiety than making coffee. Had I had this insight and resources when I was younger I'd probably have gone into photojournalism or something; I've been in several riots, and though I don't participate in them I have to say that I <i>enjoy</i> such chaotic situations rather than finding them frightening or confusing.<p>Getting back to the captive attention situation which launched this thought, I'd like to conclude with one of my tediously frequent ethical pleas: developers, please consider the implications of what you are being asked to work on. When the business/marketing people ask you to help them leverage the user's attention away from service delivery and toward advertising, <i>you</i> are the only person in the room with the opportunity to speak up for the consumer, and to query whether interrupting them is actually an effective and sustainable strategy, or more likely to drive people away. If you are being asked to do something that you know is going to make the user experience <i>worse</i>, consider asking or encouraging the business people to quantify the aggregated time cost to the user vs the hoped-for profit to your employer, even if you're a solo developer and you are your own boss.<p>At the very least, ask them how much revenue this strategy is expected to generate, and demand that they furnish you with that information rather than just being a passive agent of their desires. You may be able to suggest more effective and less intrusive ways to create value for both seller and buyer, which is the good, ethical kind of business that makes the world a better place. On the other hand, if you are down with extracting as much value for the consumer as quickly as possible and then moving on (unlikely if you've bothered to read this far, but possible), then you are a Bad Person and you should feel bad about yourself, if only because your selfish tendencies are likely to painfully rebound on you at some point, and changing your outlook may well prove to be more sustainable than making a quick buck.<p>Thanks for reading. |
Ask HN: How to stop overthinking everything in my life? | Thinking is an action, so you most definitely have control over it. But it's like youtube or facebook. They have us addicted to "wanting to check it" and we can't stop, not because we physically cannot stop, but because somewhere we're defeated and underplay it's harm even for a moment, just for that quick fix. But drawn out, it's clearly doing harm, and the behavior pattern is clearly that of addiction.<p>Self loathing is just another one of those problems. Someone depressed is also that way. Like a cigarette that they cannot ignore, of all the things they could be doing, they choose this -- the one thing that is expensive and that can kill you and that will even get you dirty looks nowadays.<p>> I am outwardly extremely confident<p>Why did you put "outwardly"? Because you're not confident. So you are being honest with yourself, in that you're not writing lies. Except, why would "outwardly" matter? You're trying to make excuses as to why you shouldn't be feeling the way you feel. But that's the problem. Emotions defy logic, because they precede them. And an excuse is something that deflects blame but otherwise does nothing. It's a reason for inaction.<p>> overthinking everything<p>This is not related. It's your self-loathing that's got you down. Maybe you even have mild depression. Either way, that's the problem, and not anything else.<p>The simplest answer to your problem is love. You need to learn to love yourself. Culturally Eastern culture can be especially undermining of an individuals healthy mental image of themselves. The burdens of society and of parental expectations weighs heavy, and the environment is that of anxiety and judgementalism, and not that of love and forgiveness. But this pattern exists in the West also. I'm guessing you had strict parents?<p>As gh1 here has mentioned, having a routine or creating ways of taking your mind off yourself is one way to deal with self-loathing. Being immersed in a passion project can do it also, like a startup. If you're too busy, you have no time for hating, even yourself. It's also what people do after bad breakups.<p>But you won't have time for love either, and maybe that's what you need. Some don't waste any time after breakups, and choose to quickly move on.<p>I used to self-loath. But now I couldn't be happier with myself. And it really boils down to the realization that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. All my imperfections are common. I am just like everyone else. My problems are boring. And it's like you said. I can get what I want. Then what's the problem? The only thing that got in my way, and that is getting in your way, is that self image. It's how you think of yourself that alters what you do with yourself. That's the only thing getting in your way. And THAT TOO is an incredibly common and boring problem! It might be personal and in your face, but objectively speaking, tons of people have similar issues and you are not flawed or hate-worthy in any unique or special way. You just have low self esteem.<p>It also helped to understand why I was that way. Turns out, there were self loathing people around me. Japanese society didn't help either. But seeing those influences as what they were helped protect myself. Thinking is done with cues. Much like writing prompts, there are things that get us going (like this post on HN does for me). So understanding and counteracting those loathing cues is also what it's about. What makes you hate yourself?<p>But overthinking is not going to help. Any thinking is not going to help. It's a symptom of the problem. Like wanting that cigarette or wanting to gamble or wanting to drink. You're wanting to think so you can loath.<p>The cure is with maintaining your emotional health and making that a priority. You may need a change in environment, a change in acquaintances, and even a change in diet. But what you need to do is stop hating yourself, and start treating yourself. What do you enjoy? I love cold brew coffee and mindlessly shooting hoops. I love playing with my kid. I love surprising my wife by cleaning the dishes before she wakes up in the morning. Treating yourself is an act, and it's the act of loving yourself. It takes knowing someone to know how to make them feel better. And for that, you should introspect and analyze. But all you really have to do is remember. You need to remember those times and those feeling you'd rather be feeling now, and figure out how to get back there. From then on, it's all action.<p>In parting, here is an exert from the movie The Beautiful Mind, just to illustrate my point about logic is not in anyway unique:<p>Nash: [Making an acceptance speech in front of the Nobel prize audience during the ceremony] I've always believed in numbers, in equations, in logic and reason.But after a lifetime of such pursuits: I ask What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career - the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you<p>Nash: [looking at and speaking to Alicia]<p>Nash: You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you. |
Security of BIOS/UEFI System Firmware from Attacker and Defender Perspectives | Seeing slides in BIOS-UEFI-Security.6-Mitigations.pdf that imply that there's critical crypto being done in SMM mode makes me feel unfathomable hopelessness. The whole x86_64 platform security model (which includes all the privilege levels and the corresponding access control mechanisms) is one hell of an overgrown clusterfuck that could not be <i>more</i> hostile to formal verification.<p>There's lots of wantonly convoluted stuff going on -- a random example is the access control mechanism for the PCH's GPIOs (search "GPIO registers lockdown", in quotes). This isn't, of course, implemented with a register which contains bitfields determining which privilege level can write to which sets of registers. That would be too simple. The GPIO Lockdown-Enable bit <i>can</i> [sic] be changed by the same software that the lockdown mechanism is meant to deny access to! This seems like utter pointlessness -- what use is an access control mechanism if the agent being restricted can change the parameters of the mechanism willy-nilly -- but Intel has a solution! Changing the lockdown-enable bit triggers an SMI and shunts control to SMM mode, which is, naturally, expected to include code that figures out that this bit should not be disabled, and is to flip it back on (and return from the interrupt, having trashed the caches a bit).<p>This is, of course, a pathologically needless level of complexity -- in the ARM world, we have registers with silly names like "NSACR" that higher-privileged execution modes can set to restrict access to certain resources. There's certainly no BIOS-OEM-provided code that needs to exist and be correct in order to implement such a basic task. In the end, this level of access-control is equivalent to a bloody Boolean operation or two, for heaven's sake! All the CPU needs to do is to decode the instruction, realise it's a potentially-privileged instruction, decode what the instruction tries to modify, look up in a table which register holds the relevant permissions bitfield, and do the relevant boolean operation between that register's contents and an appropriate bitmask, and fault depending on the result. Since there's an extremely close match between the properties that needs to hold (the truth table of all combinations of "privilege level <i>x</i> can modify resource <i>y</i> iff bit <i>n</i> in register <i>z</i> is set") and the mechanism that enforces it, it's easy to reason about this scheme and not difficult to either prove an implementation correct (or find counterexamples).<p>Meanwhile, the "wake up SMM and hope it'll countermands the illegal write" scheme depends on a lot more machinery. How does it work on a multi-core/multi-socket platform? How does this mechanism interact with the caches or the memory model? Is it possible to set up a race condition where the illegal write ends up going through uncountermanded because SMM mode can be made to not see the register in an illegal state? This is orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more complex than analysing a lookup-table and a bitmask -- we need to understand the semantics of memory reads/writes, of caching, of mode switches to SMM and the SMI interrupt, and how all of this clusterfuck is affected by the fact that there's <i>multiple cores</i> in our system. LANGSEC people will call this a "shotgun parser" -- when input data checking / recognition is interspersed with processing logic.<p>Even if all of this miraculously works and there's literally no way that all the cores working together can send an illegal write that SMM code won't countermand -- there's still the issue of making sure that the specific SMM blob that our BIOS OEM wrote cooperates properly with this. Indeed, making BIOS OEMs implement these sorts of convoluted and critical mechanisms and expecting them to get all of them perfectly right requires a level of optimism that doesn't yet exist. The situation has devolved to the point that there is literally a tool called "chipsec" that lets you test for the presence of a handful of well-known security-critical things (from time to time someone discovers a new one, of course, UEFI/ACPI and the x86_64 privilege model is too complex for people to be sure that we found all the issues) that UEFI programmers are <i>notorious</i> for messing up. That this tool needs to exist is shameful. Of course, the security of the x86_64 platform doesn't just depend on a bunch of magic access control registers being set right, there's Turing-complete code that needs to be implemented by the BIOS OEM (and runs in the most privileged execution mode that isn't Intel's "management processor") that is <i>security-critical</i>, and, well, it's hard to prove that arbitrary Turing-complete code behaves correctly.<p>The auxiliary CPU mode (SMM) initially meant to hide APM and emulate PS/2 mice in 90s-era computers is now <i>critical</i> to platform security, and does dangerous stuff like crypto and handling pointers from UEFI / the OS. Every few months someone I follow on Twitter finds some new way to trick some widely-deployed SMM code into writing to a memory region it shouldn't, it's quite depressing. Great. Another pointless defender/attacker arms race that the defenders could decisively win had Intel thrown away the spitefully complex intricacies of SMM and the x86 security model and replaced it with a clean, formal-verification-friendly set of privilege levels whose correct operation doesn't depend on platform firmware code. Even AArch64 is less broken when it comes to this. |
Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2017) | <p><pre><code> Location: Istanbul, TURKEY
Remote: Yes (But never tried before!)
Willing to relocate: SO MUCH! You can't imagine how much I want!
** I have friends in NYC and BERLIN, so I will not ask you one billion
question about housing :D
Technologies:
Python2,
Django,
Flask,
Postgresql,
Sqlalchemy,
RESTful,
HTML&CSS&JS(+Bootstrap),
** Currently, I am following UDACITY Full-Stack Nanodegree program.
Résumé/CV: sezinengur.com ◘◘ BS Mathematical Engineering ◘◘ MA Candidate in Game Design
Email: sezinengur@gmail.com</code></pre> |
Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race | I sympathize with the author as a believer in structural racism that's dealt with those same conversations with white people. However, I have to call the author out for not mentioning black people do <i>the same things</i>. As always, this article pushes The Narrative where only whites are racist and only minorities are victims of racism. Like the author's troubles, I have similar troubles describing to minorities (esp black people here in the South) what it's like to be a white minority in black school, business, or city. This is really Dominant vs Non-Dominant group stuff rather than White vs Black which is just the instantiation that plays out the most in this country. It goes the other way, too, any time a "minority" becomes the majority in an area or institution.<p>Quick examples from my time in black institutions, esp school. We're excluded by default from social activities unless we become more like them (white style is wrong/inferior/lame) but not too much since then we're posers (or wiggers). We're told we're inherently imperialists, rapists "going after their women," responsible for all their problems, and so on. In businesses, the racists ones will hire, promote, or (food place) even sometimes serve their own ahead of us. If we disagree on a topic, they're more likely to unite in a mob of sorts to shout us down in class. They'll physically attack us in school usually in greater numbers since we're the minority. In government, it's common for them to try to reward their people over others with many businesses straight-up leaving over it in one of my cities. The list just goes on and on w/ a lot of whites coming out of these areas with conditions ranging from becoming racists themselves to PTSD-like effects from the beatdowns. Irony is I've seen black people accuse several people of racism for getting anxious when the blacks approached them during a verbal conflict when it was actually racist attacks by blacks that created permanent anxiety they can't control. They were reliving the attack to some degree during the approach since the body language looked similar to when the attacks happened.<p>Now, just try mentioning this to writers like the OP. There's some people that will agree structural racism goes both ways. It's uncommon, though, with most blacks saying things so similar one would almost think there was a class giving out specific instructions on what to say to white victims. (Same goes for most whites on racism in fairness.) When I ask for black activists to help white victims, here's the responses I almost always get in some form: (a) structural racism against whites doesn't exist & my experiences were simply isolated acts of discrimination; (b) black people have been through more shit and experience it more often so greater good is to focus on them first; (c) we have it coming because someone somewhere else is victimizing black people in similar or worse ways.<p>Well, ain't that great. Might as well stop talking to black people about race since they'll reject even the existence of white victims of structural racism. Definitely ain't going to start campaigning against or suing black-controlled schools, companies, and governments to help us. They'll go after white ones to help blacks, though. It's too bad because the greatest threat the racist establishment ever perceived was a guy, MLK, that defended oppressed of all colors trying to unite them. He scared the power-mongers so much they straight-up murdered him in my hometown before he did his Washington march. They thought it would be game over for them. Kind of a hint of how we need to approach social justice today if we want the government scared, giving concessions, or showing their true colors.<p>Pieces like I just read are just politics. They don't care about equality or justice. They just care about (benefits or punishments here) going to (preferred groups here for each). The moderate realists who would recognize and help both groups are rare. They'll also get out-shouted by political movements on both Left and Right. That's not metaphorical: I'm talking a room full of black people screaming at the white person until they shut up or leave as happened numerous times at our local university. The right wingers do something similar but with accusations toward black people instead citing all the worst stuff in media. Also citing their personal experience which didn't have racism as in original article. Dissent is simply not allowed by either group. That's why both sides are part of the overall problem that can only get better in tiniest, incremental ways and often gets worse for opposing groups in some way. And people in my camp are totally screwed since almost nobody will help white or male victims of oppression.<p>Ok, now off to my leaning-toward-mostly-black establishment to put in a long shift possibly hearing a guy making more and with more privilege talk about how the company is holding him back because he's black. Usually only every other week but who knows. Maybe I'll get lucky & we all be peaceful today like last shift. ;)<p>EDIT: I dont upvote these kind of articles to front page since a lot of people just start fighting with throwaways and discussion quality drops too low. I am respondjng since submitter has an interest and my not have encountered this perspective. Just clarifying that if anyone was interested. |
Cryptoeconomics 101 | I have a short section on cryptoeconomics in my upcoming book, which I'll post below (still developing, and still in draft). Unlike practically every other description of the "field", I don't take it for granted and don't uncritically adopt it.
(Feedback always welcome!)<p><snip>
The technological imperative of smart contacts and blockchain technology presupposes rational contracting, which leads to particular moral and epistemological positions. Early rationalizations of the moral and epistemological position of cryptographically-assured smart contracts can be found in Reagle (1996) and Szabo (1997). Since that time, several authors have further developed the concept, leading to what is today sometimes called “cryptoeconomics.” This emerging field deploys the technological affordances of (public key) cryptography: specifically, the ability to authenticate and verify parties; ensure non-repudiation of data; and in some cases, selectively reveal identities (as with blind signatures) (Chaum, 1982). Leveraging these cryptographic affordances, authors use the closely-related fields of rational choice theory and game theory to construct protocols and arrangements for creating social behaviours. In an early speech, Buterin suggests that, with cryptoeconomics, “as soon as you have a decentralized consensus framework that controls an internal asset and there is this valuation equilibrium where people care about it… the cryptosystem has the capability to have real world consequences…” (Vitalik Buterin: Cryptoeconomic Protocols In the Context of Wider Society, 2014). For instance, Buterin considers a number of rational choice strategies, including the prisoner’s dilemma, Nash equilibria, hawk/dove games, markets, reputation, and an odd characterization of legal courts. Following Nick Szabo’s earlier discussion of smart contracts, Buterin focuses much of his discussion of cryptoeconomics on Schelling points.<p>Schelling points, or focal points, are a game theory concept developed by Thomas Schelling in his book The Strategy of Conflict (1960). The strategy allows two or more parties to reach agreement in an environment with little information and no possibility of communication. The key insight of Schelling’s theory is that coordination is easier when people’s attention is drawn to prominent or focal points. Schelling offers the example of two people in New York who need to meet in an undetermined location without having prior communication. According to Schelling, on game theory assumptions, each party will likely pick Grand Central Station because in a world in which many possibilities are equally likely, humans look for patterns or unusual focal points of reference. The assumption made by each party is that if I think Grand Central Station is a good meeting spot, the other person may think the same.<p>Similarly, in his descriptions of cryptoeconomics, Buterin offers the example of picking matching numbers from a list without coordination or communication (Vitalik Buterin: Cryptoeconomic Protocols In the Context of Wider Society, 2014). People will, according to the theory, look for something—anything—that makes one number stand out—perhaps an even number, or a number with many zeros, or a well-known lucky number. Thus, given the following numbers: 2349 65 22 100 932, both parties will likely choose “100.” In Western, decimal-based numeracy, 100 “stands out” from the rest of the numbers, and therefore, lacking any other way to coordinate, the rational choice is to assume a common set of beliefs with the person you are trying to coordinate with. Of course, these choices are culture and context specific. With numbers, other patterns might be significant (such as “lucky” numbers), and the same goes with meeting in New York: as times, people, and places change there might be other possible focal points—Times Square, One World Trade Center, Brooklyn Bridge, or the New York Public Library. In these scenarios, all available options might be “weak” focal points. Consider the following scenario where there might be only weak focal points: negotiations between a workers’ union and a business break down and cannot make progress. On the theory of Schelling points, this might be due to lack of strong focal points, in the sense of shared interests and values. Until some stronger focal point can be found, coordination will not be effective. On the other hand, some focal points are very “hard”—so hard that they curtail negotiation. For example, in most of the Western world, the price tag on a retail good is not usually an invitation to start haggling (Szabo, 1997). The stated price is a hard focal point that communicates the context and sometimes the parameters of the contract.<p>While the use of Schelling points is quite powerful and can be used to carefully navigate social contexts, it is not without issue. At its heart, like all rational choice and game theory strategies, a rational (or maximizing) actor is usually assumed, along with some kind of contractual framework or rationality. Fundamentally, cryptoeconomics fails to fully recognize that actual societies are also the result of war, exploitation, racism, and patriarchy (Held, 1987, p. 113). Patriarchy is an especially important value to consider for cryptoeconomics, since complete freedom and equality—the ability to sincerely engage in contractual negotiations—is a uniquely male capacity in most modern contexts. Rational choice or game theory assumptions lead to a shallow view of human sociality, which is likely to produce bad ethics and/or lead to significant errors in use and development (as with The DAO in 2016, see Chapter 8). One alternative to this kind of rationality, suggests Virginia Held, is to focus on “relations of concern and caring and empathy and trust” rather than a fiction about ideal contracts (Held, 1987, p. 125). Such a suggestion does not mean that we should dismiss the role of contracts in society (“smart” or otherwise), rather it implies that contracts themselves are embedded in social contexts. |
The great self-esteem con | Meh<p>1. "prioritising their feelings of self-worth, telling them they are special and amazing, and cocooning them from everyday consequences."<p>This annoys me, when people throw in an entirely new assumption at the end of a sentence "...cocooning them from everyday consequences"<p>You can entirely regaurd growing adults with positive self regard AND let them experience the consequences of their actions.<p>The worriesome part about this is the conflation that consequences = lack of positive self regaurd to the growing adult.<p>If you truly uncaccoon growing adults from consequences and let them experience the results of their mistakes, they don't need your lecture of negative judgment on top of it, life will be there to teach them, and you can positively regard them as humans that make mistakes, and by not caccooning them expect them to solve the problems.<p>I mean honestly, the parents who believe their kids need a lecture about every mistake they make and judgment are the ones who are known as helicoptor parents and actually those kids end up being the least capable of being their own advocates because their parents never back off and allow them to make their own mistakes and struggle to find their way out.<p>This is why the Standford admissions office did an article on this, supposed Helicoptor parenting which was basically Stanford having problems with all these kids with 4.9 GPAs, 87 AP exams, science fair admissions with PhD level work put into them, who were held to hardcore high standards all work no play no emotion work work work your life = your GPA and the school you get into, and saying these kids literally could not solve the simplest everyday life problems and their parents called the school everyday trying to micromanage them or argue with Professors if their kids got less than B+s on exams<p>Its also why after the Gunn highschool suicide incident, highschool kids posted online to the parents to "back off" and quit pushing their kids so hard.<p>It's hard for me to take the rest of the article seriously, but I read on...<p>This is to show the other extreme and REAL effect of the opposite of show no compassion, only regard growing adults based on their accomplishments relative to everyone else.<p>If you take this attitude in life youre not helping your kid grow, you suffocating them, and debilitating their own sense of life navigation. This isn't about them, its about YOU imposing your self worth and narcissism and identify and your own self worth on how far along you can get your kid in life, and you need to back off.<p>I've witnessed this first hand going to university, and was really disturbed by helicopter parents versus my upbringing which was not helicopter parenting at all. Never seen kids more miserable in their life. I'm not even sure it was their life, they were walking poster children for their parents to show society look what I can do. Very few times did I see the kids who grew up like this get to make any of their own decisions. Very sad.<p>2. Grade inflation IS NOT there to boost self esteem, its there to allow elite institutions to maintain elitism by getting ivy kids good jobs and preparing them well for exams.<p>2/3s of all grades made at Brown University are As. It's there so everyone can get good jobs at high end consulting firms if they choose to instead of using their Political Science degree for some less profitable career path where the need is great, and grades/competition/elite ivy names matter less.<p>GPA grade inflation is about highschools gaining and maintaining status to justify private school tuition, and college does the same equivalent but has the double incentive of increasing competition to admissions for more room to choose the cream of the crop, and increasing the dowry back to the school from happy and financially successful alumni.<p>Both appeals to the idea that<p>a. negative judgment from their parents or teachers is the only way to allow growing adults to experience consequences of their actions<p>b. grade inflation is for the self esteem boost of individuals.<p>are false and the rest of this article rides on these astounding assumptions the author assumes you will buy into<p>*Note: I do understand the everyone is a winner, and clapping for every extracurricular club your kid joins, and treating them like little geniuses who Harvard would be at a loss of not having because youve decided thats the case for your baby since he showed his genius capabilities by bring two months early on the growth scale for expected timeline for piecing legos together, and ever since youve just been doing your job by providing the best past of growth for your little genius...yeh yeh yeh I know that happens<p>but that has nothing to do with needing negative judgment to grow, or the motivation behind grade inflation, which is strictly for the long term financial benefit of the institutions providing it. |
Ask HN: What code samples should programmers read? | Fang.[1]<p>Fang is a utility program for UNIVAC 1108 computers, written in 1972. UNIVAC's EXEC 8 had threads and async I/O for user programs, decades before UNIX. The machines were shared-memory multiprocessors. FANG uses those capabilities to parallelize copying jobs. The UNIVAC mainframes had plenty of I/O parallelism and many I/O devices, so this was a significant performance win.<p>See especially "schprocs". Those are the classic primitives from Dijkstra: P, V, and bounded buffers. That technology predates Go by 40 years. Here's Dijkstra's P function:<p><pre><code> .
.
. DIJKSTRA P FUNCTION
.
.
. LA,U A0,<QUEUE>
. LMJ X11,P
. <RETURN> X5 DESTROYED
.
P* TS QHEAD,A0 LOCK THE QUEUE
LX X5,QN,A0 LOAD QUEUE COUNT (note: load)
ANX,U X5,1 BACK UP THE COUNT (note: Add Negative, i.e. subtract)
SX X5,QN,A0 REPLACE THE COUNT IN THE QUEUE (note: store)
TN X5 DO WE NEED TO DEACTIVATE HIM ? (note: Test Negative)
J PDONE NO. SKIP DEACTIVATION (note: Jump, i.e. branch)
ON TSQ=0 (note: this is an assembly-time ifdef)
LX X5,QHL,A0 LOAD BACK LINK OF QUEUE
SX X5,QHL,X4 PUT INTO BACK LINK OF ACTIVITY
SX X4,QFL,X5 CHAIN ACTIVITY TO LAST ACTIVITY
SA A0,QFL,X4 CHAIN HEAD TO NEW ACTIVITY
SX X4,QHL,A0 MAKE THE NEW ACTIVITY LAST ON QUEUE
CTS QHEAD,A0 RELEASE PROTECTION ON QUEUE HEAD
SCHDACT* DACT$ . DEACTIVATE PROCESS (note: system call)
OFF
ON TSQ (note: for later version of OS with alt wait fn)
C$TSQ QHEAD,A0 WAIT FOR C$TSA (note: system call)
OFF
J 0,X11 RETURN AFTER ACTIVATION
.
PDONE CTS QHEAD,A0 UNLOCK THE QUEUE (note: not a system call, just a macro. Stores 0.)
J 0,X11 RETURN
</code></pre>
(Notes:<p>Instruction format is<p><pre><code> OPERATOR REG,OFFSET,INDEXREG
</code></pre>
The "TS" instruction is "Test and Set". That's atomic. If the flag is already set, an interrupt occurs and the OS does a
thread switch. CTS just clears the flag. Later versions of the
OS support C$TSQ and C$TSA, where the OS queues waiting test
and set operations.<p>X4 is the "switch list", the local data for the thread.)<p>[1] <a href="https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fang/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fang/</a> |
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