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Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?	There is very little we can do in the short term. We have to understand the reasons why ISIS are targeting the west. They have a multiple pronged approach:<p>- Provoke the west to further attacks on Muslims. Ideally the deaths of Muslims in Muslim lands should include innocents. Drone strikes and bombings are good, because it helps them turn the local people to their side.<p>- Provoke the west to hatred and bigotry of the greyzone Muslims (moderates) living in the west. Ideally they feel further marginalised and excluded. They need to be turned to fight for the caliphate, or be killed with the rest of the 'kuffār' (western non-believers).<p>- Provide young impressionable marginalised Muslim male youths with 'heroic' role models. Ghettoes in Paris where the 2005 riots took place are an ideal breeding ground for marginalization. Most are unemployed, have no education and no opportunities.<p>- Removal of despotic dictators from Muslim lands. Promoting instability, unemployment and isolation improves the chances of additional soldiers to join the fight.<p>I highly recommend an article called "THE EXTINCTION OF THE GRAYZONE" [1]:<p><pre><code> The Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize and adopt the kufrī religion propagated by Bush, Obama, Blair, Cameron, Sarkozy, and Hollande in the name of Islam so as to live amongst the kuffār without hardship, or they perform hijrah to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the crusader governments and citizens. </code></pre> This shows how the aim is two end up with two sides. No greyzone. Finally this highlights what we are up against:<p><pre><code> As the world progresses towards al-Malhamah al-Kubrā, the option to stand on the sidelines as a mere observer is being lost. As those with hearts diseased by hypocrisy and bid’ah are driven towards the camp of kufr, those with a mustard seed of sincerity and Sunnah are driven towards the camp of īmān. Muslims in the crusader countries will find themselves driven to abandon their homes for a place to live in the Khilāfah, as the crusaders increase persecution against Muslims living in Western lands so as to force them into a tolerable sect of apostasy in the name of “Islam” before forcing them into blatant Christianity and democracy. Muslims in the lands ruled by the apostate tawāghīt will find themselves driven to the wilāyāt of the Islamic State, as the tawāghīt increase their imprisonment of any Muslim they think might have a mustard seed of jealousy for his religion, or lead them to apostatize by working as agents, soldiers, and puppets serving the banner of the tāghūt. Mujāhidīn in the lands of jihād will find themselves driven to join the ranks of the Khilāfah, or forced to wage war against it on the side of those willing to cooperate with the munāfiqīn and murtaddīn against the Khilāfah. If they do not execute these treacherous orders, they will be considered khawārij by their leaders and face the sword of “independent” courts infiltrated by the Sufis, the Ikhwān, and the Salūlī sects. Eventually, the grayzone will become extinct and there will be no place for grayish calls and movements. There will only be the camp of īmān versus the camp of kufr. </code></pre> ISIS believe in a prophesy. They are trying to make it come true. If you look at the list of things above, we are falling slowly into their hands, one step at a time.<p>The sad thing is that there is no quick fix. We could leave the middle east and stop interfering. It would be a good first step to defusing tensions based on our presence there, but it would simply open the door to ISIS at the moment, leaving a vacuum for them to fill.<p>If we go full out war, with boots on the ground then we end up joining a fight that we cannot win.<p>I've heard calls to "nuke them back to the stone age". That's great, but many of them are living amongst us. Paris has had several terrorist attacks and the vast majority of the attacks were French born. The same went for the attacks in London.<p>Long term we need to add to the grey zone. In fact we need to westernise and have inclusive policies to make sure the marginalized Muslim youth (in fact all disenfranchised youths) are included in society. They need to see that they have a future.<p>The best thing we can do is to train them and employ them, making them valuable members of society and giving them something to feel proud of.<p>At the moment, poisonous Mullahs are doing that job a hell of a lot better than we are.<p>[1] Source: THE EXTINCTION OF THE GRAYZONE: <a href="https://archive.is/VE0jj#selection-459.1-463.388" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/VE0jj#selection-459.1-463.388</a>
CVE-2015-8126: Multiple buffer overflows in libpng	Right, so the announcement is kind of vague; let's see what's actually going on. Here are the recent commits to libpng:<p><a href="https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commits/libpng16" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commits/libpng16</a><p>The first/latest one ("avoid potential pointer overflow") sounds scary, but I believe it's just about the pathological case where the library is handed (valid) buffers that extend to only a few bytes away from the maximum possible value (i.e. 0xfffff...). If your OS does this, it probably shouldn't.<p>Going down the list, there are three relevant-looking commits. Listed in chronological order:<p>[libpng16] Reject attempt to write over-length PLTE chunk <a href="https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/81f44665cce4cb1373f049a76f3904e981b7a766" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/81f44665cce4cb1373f...</a><p>[libpng16] Prevent reading over-length PLTE chunk (Cosmin Truta). <a href="https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/a901eb3ce6087e0afeef988247f1a1aa208cb54d" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/a901eb3ce6087e0afee...</a><p>[libpng16] Silently truncate over-length PLTE chunk while reading. <a href="https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/1bef8e97995c33123665582e57d3ed40b57d5978" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/glennrp/libpng/commit/1bef8e97995c3312366...</a><p>- The first one only substantively changes png_write_PLTE, so it could only be an issue for applications that actually write out PNGs. It changes a check on the ‘num_pal’ argument from a hardcoded 256, aka PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH, to be based on the bit depth. The png_write_PLTE function is internal and called only from png_write_info, which passes it ‘info_ptr->palette’ and ‘info_ptr->num_palette’ as ‘palette’ and ‘num_pal’, respectively.<p>- The second one confusingly changes png_write_PLTE again, but just to rename a variable. The substantive change is a similar check on an argument to png_set_PLTE, which is a <i>public</i> function and, incidentally, the only thing that can set ‘info_ptr->num_palette’, unless the application accesses it directly, which is deprecated. (Thus, outside of the deprecated case, it should ensure that the behavior change in the previous patch never actually gets exercised.)<p>- The third one adds yet another check, to png_handle_PLTE, which is called when reading a PLTE chunk in a PNG file - this time, the variable is called ‘num’. After the check, ‘num’ is used to fill an array of size PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH - but there was already an earlier check for the length being too much for that, in which case it may longjmp out of the function with png_chunk_error or just return. png_handle_PLTE then calls png_set_PLTE with the same argument, so, in lieu of the added check, the previous commit’s check would still trigger and fail the image load. The new check just changes an error into something the library might be able to recover from.<p>So the second commit is the important one, and the third demonstrates how png_set_PLTE can be called while reading a PNG with a size argument greater than appropriate for the bit depth, but still <= PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH. What happens then? The oss-security post says:<p>> Some applications might read the bit depth from the IHDR chunk and allocate memory for a 2^N entry palette, while libpng can return a palette with up to 256 entries even when the bit depth is less than 8.<p>So are only applications that do something odd affected? The png_get_PLTE function gives the client the actual num_palette value as an out argument, so any client that uses that to size buffers wouldn’t be affected; nor would one that hardcoded 256 or PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH. For example, Skia does the latter in SkImageDecoder_libpng.cpp.<p>Are there any libpng-internal uses that could be affected? I grepped for ‘->(num_)?palette\b’. TLDR: I don’t think so, but if you want the pointless detail, among other less interesting uses were:<p><pre><code> /* Report invalid palette index; added at libng-1.5.10 / if (png_ptr->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE && png_ptr->num_palette_max > png_ptr->num_palette) </code></pre> num_palette being too high could only make this fail, so it doesn’t matter.<p>png_image_read_header uses it to set image->colormap_entries, which has its own long list of uses. I think this is then used (by the application, via PNG_IMAGE_COLORMAP_SIZE) to determine the size of the colormap buffer, but there may be an issue somewhere.<p>png_image_read_colormap uses it to generate actual color map data, but this is not obviously dependent on the bit depth, and checked against image->colormap_entries (…in case it changed from earlier?).<p>png_set_quantize uses a user-specified num_palette value and in any case is not important functionality.<p>Some PNG_COMPOSE code uses num_palette to write to palette; not a problem…<p>png_do_expand_palette just looks up entries in palette (png_ptr->palette) by byte-sized indices without checking anything. The palette buffer must be at least 256 entries long, or else it will read out of bounds, which is presumably why ->palette is only set here:<p><pre><code> / Changed in libpng-1.2.1 to allocate PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH instead * of num_palette entries, in case of an invalid PNG file or incorrect * call to png_set_PLTE() with too-large sample values. / png_ptr->palette = png_voidcast(png_colorp, png_calloc(png_ptr, PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH (sizeof (png_color)))); </code></pre> (it’s set differently in the dither case, which I don’t think is relevant?) Anyway, it’s not affected by this.<p>png_handle_tRNS and png_handle_hIST have separate arrays whose count is expected to be <= and ==, respectively, num_palette.<p>- For trans, the ‘trans_alpha’ buffer itself is always PNG_MAX_PALETTE_LENGTH sized, so there can be no overflow there; it also sets info_ptr->num_trans. This can affect the application if it uses png_get_tRNS.<p>- The hist buffer is also always maximum size and doesn’t have a separate length field, so it’s covered by me checking uses of num_palette.<p>png_do_check_palette_indexes checks the bit-depth invariant separately.<p>hIST again in pngwrite.c and pngwutil.c, nothing else interesting in those files.<p>I think num_trans is safe in the same way, but I haven’t looked as closely.
Made this open-source, ad-free OS X menubar world clock. Feedback appreciated. :)	Sounded nice but doesn't work on El Capitan 10.11.1 when I tried adding 'America/Los_Angeles' as one of the clocks. Hope the bug report helps. Added as <a href="https://github.com/Abhishaker17/Clocker/issues/1" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Abhishaker17/Clocker/issues/1</a><p>console logs show this:<p>``` 14/11/2015 20:55:38.088 lsd[255]: LaunchServices: Could not store lsd-identifiers file at /private/var/db/lsd/com.apple.lsdschemes.plist 14/11/2015 20:55:40.034 Clocker[47726]: <i></i>* -[NSCalendar component:fromDate:]: date cannot be nil 14/11/2015 20:55:40.040 Clocker[47726]: ( 0 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff987afe32 __exceptionPreprocess + 178 1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff95c1bdd4 objc_exception_throw + 48 2 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff98786b5c -[NSCalendar component:fromDate:] + 316 3 Clocker 0x00000001062b678e Clocker + 26510 4 Clocker 0x00000001062b6924 Clocker + 26916 5 Clocker 0x00000001062b61e3 Clocker + 25059 6 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76cd54 -[NSTableView(NSTableViewViewBased) makeViewForTableColumn:row:] + 76 7 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76c76d -[NSTableRowData _addViewToRowView:atColumn:row:] + 283 8 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76c4c6 -[NSTableRowData _addViewsToRowView:atRow:] + 184 9 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76acdf -[NSTableRowData _initializeRowView:atRow:] + 390 10 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76943f -[NSTableRowData _addRowViewForVisibleRow:withPriorView:] + 416 11 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7691d3 -[NSTableRowData _addRowViewForVisibleRow:withPriorRowIndex:inDictionary:withRowAnimation:] + 299 12 AppKit 0x00007fff9a767f99 -[NSTableRowData _unsafeUpdateVisibleRowEntries] + 1697 13 AppKit 0x00007fff9a76785a -[NSTableRowData updateVisibleRowViews] + 233 14 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7671d3 -[NSTableView layout] + 178 15 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7060df -[NSView _doLayout] + 53 16 AppKit 0x00007fff9a705d97 -[NSView _layoutSubtreeWithOldSize:] + 324 17 AppKit 0x00007fff9a705ff3 -[NSView _layoutSubtreeWithOldSize:] + 928 18 AppKit 0x00007fff9a67819b -[NSView setFrameSize:] + 1727 19 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69f620 -[NSClipView setFrameSize:] + 390 20 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6905b5 -[NSView setFrame:] + 476 21 AppKit 0x00007fff9a63829b -[NSScrollView _setContentViewFrame:] + 633 22 AppKit 0x00007fff9a635fd3 -[NSScrollView tile] + 2563 23 AppKit 0x00007fff9a635547 -[NSScrollView _tileWithoutRecursing] + 51 24 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6a21fb -[NSScrollView _update] + 27 25 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69ef42 NSViewLevelLayout + 165 26 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69ee87 -[NSView layout] + 14 27 AppKit 0x00007fff9a74a660 -[NSScrollView layout] + 56 28 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7060df -[NSView _doLayout] + 53 29 AppKit 0x00007fff9a705d97 -[NSView _layoutSubtreeWithOldSize:] + 324 30 AppKit 0x00007fff9a67819b -[NSView setFrameSize:] + 1727 31 AppKit 0x00007fff9a71f416 -[NSScrollView setFrameSize:] + 1147 32 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6905b5 -[NSView setFrame:] + 476 33 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69cbd5 -[NSView resizeWithOldSuperviewSize:] + 409 34 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69c569 -[NSView resizeSubviewsWithOldSize:] + 318 35 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69ef42 NSViewLevelLayout + 165 36 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69ee87 -[NSView layout] + 14 37 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7060df -[NSView _doLayout] + 53 38 AppKit 0x00007fff9a705d97 -[NSView _layoutSubtreeWithOldSize:] + 324 39 AppKit 0x00007fff9a67819b -[NSView setFrameSize:] + 1727 40 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6905b5 -[NSView setFrame:] + 476 41 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69cbd5 -[NSView resizeWithOldSuperviewSize:] + 409 42 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69c569 -[NSView resizeSubviewsWithOldSize:] + 318 43 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6781b7 -[NSView setFrameSize:] + 1755 44 AppKit 0x00007fff9a80934b -[NSNextStepFrame setFrameSize:] + 201 45 AppKit 0x00007fff9a6905b5 -[NSView setFrame:] + 476 46 AppKit 0x00007fff9a69cedd -[NSView resizeWithOldSuperviewSize:] + 1185 47 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7052a0 -[NSView layoutSubtreeIfNeeded] + 902 48 AppKit 0x00007fff9a724be5 -[NSWindow(NSConstraintBasedLayout) _layoutViewTree] + 82 49 AppKit 0x00007fff9a70b5e2 -[NSWindow _setFrame:updateBorderViewSize:] + 1059 50 AppKit 0x00007fff9a72403d -[NSWindow _oldPlaceWindow:] + 1075 51 AppKit 0x00007fff9a723426 -[NSWindow _setFrameCommon:display:stashSize:] + 2719 52 AppKit 0x00007fff9a722979 -[NSWindow _setFrame:display:allowImplicitAnimation:stashSize:] + 222 53 AppKit 0x00007fff9a722894 -[NSWindow setFrame:display:] + 67 54 Clocker 0x00000001062b5c1f Clocker + 23583 55 Foundation 0x00007fff8a715835 -[NSObject(NSKeyValueObservingPrivate) _changeValueForKey:key:key:usingBlock:] + 1049 56 Foundation 0x00007fff8a780ef7 _NSSetCharValueAndNotify + 268 57 Clocker 0x00000001062b77df Clocker + 30687 58 libsystem_trace.dylib 0x00007fff8b934082 _os_activity_initiate + 75 59 AppKit 0x00007fff9a8bb811 -[NSApplication sendAction:to:from:] + 460 60 Clocker 0x00000001062b4f95 Clocker + 20373 61 AppKit 0x00007fff9ae1842d -[NSWindow _handleMouseDownEvent:isDelayedEvent:] + 6322 62 AppKit 0x00007fff9ae19411 -[NSWindow _reallySendEvent:isDelayedEvent:] + 212 63 AppKit 0x00007fff9a85eb8d -[NSWindow sendEvent:] + 517 64 AppKit 0x00007fff9ad27155 -[NSStatusBarWindow sendEvent:] + 281 65 AppKit 0x00007fff9a7deb27 -[NSApplication sendEvent:] + 2540 66 AppKit 0x00007fff9a645d9a -[NSApplication run] + 796 67 AppKit 0x00007fff9a60efbe NSApplicationMain + 1176 68 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fff8bd805ad start + 1 ) 14/11/2015 20:55:40.059 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.abhishek.Clocker.149152[47726]) Service exited due to signal: Illegal instruction: 4 14/11/2015 20:55:40.113 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.ReportCrash[47730]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash 14/11/2015 20:55:40.537 ReportCrash[47730]: Saved crash report for Clocker[47726] version 1.0 (9) to /Users/username/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Clocker_2015-11-14-205540_UserNames-MacBook-Pro.crash ```
Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?	There are ways to make deeper relationships faster. The key is to become an irreplaceable existence in each others' lives. People fall in love and become closer than any childhood friends (in several aspects at least) even if they meet late in life, right? You basically need to create that kind of relationship with whoever you choose to cultivate a deep friendship with.<p>You can certainly overcome the time condition with practice on getting closer faster. I spent 2 years as a nomad traveling through and living in ~8 vastly different cultures where I didn't even speak the language and had no local friends before I got there. Before that, I was born in India, grew up in the Middle East, studied on the East Coast, and worked in California. During all these transitions I went through lots of periods of incredible loneliness and missing out on the long-standing relationships others had, which is I guess how I learned most of this. Some general tips based on that experience.<p>- Cut the chitchat. Skip the "where do you work? where did you grow up? what's your favorite color?" bullshit when you meet someone. It isn't enriching, and it's more often than not forgettable for both people. You will learn these things about each other over time if you become closer, so save it for later. Don't initiate these questions, and find ways to segway out of this into the other stuff (see below) if the other person initiates it.<p>- Forge a mentor/padawan relationship. If you know more about something they're interested in, or vice versa, go for this, and do it in a respectful manner whichever side you're on, but also be willing to treat them as a peer. This instantly makes you irreplaceable as a friend they can and want to learn from (or teach to), when it's something they're embarrassed to do with their other friends.<p>- Be a good conversationalist. Listen to what they're saying, ask interesting questions, always prioritizing making them feel comfortable telling you more stuff and think more, rather than just making smalltalk. Try to relate to what they're saying but with as little talking about yourself. Direct the conversation towards interesting aspects of the topic rather than mundane superficial details. E.g.<p>Them: Ugh rough day at work<p>You: Good challenges or stuff you wish you didn't have to deal with? (rather than "tell me about it")<p>Them: I guess good challenges, but I wouldn't want to face this too often. We were having a crisis deciding which one the core feature of our new product is, and I and the director of product had somewhat conflicting opinions. (rather than what he would have said "oh, argument with my boss")<p>This provokes thought, and they associate talking to you with having more meaningful conversations, rather than just regurgitating the same words they'd used with their mom or the bartender who said they looked down.<p>- Practice under semi-artificial constraints. As someone else suggested, couchsurfing (or living in dorm-style AirBnBs). You will meet other solo travelers or hosts who would like to get to know you. Practice these with them. The time-limit on when you'll depart will encourage everyone to have more fun with you before you go.<p>- Break down your walls. Be open. Talk about deep topics and expose your flaws and vulnerabilities and things you care about. Talk about things like this, your loneliness and jealousy over other people having deeper friendships. You make yourself vulnerable, but it'll appeal to human empathy, and people will want to help [NOTE: Don't get needy or whiny. Just explore your internal workings together with people]. This draws them in faster and they will want to understand you at a deeper level. They don't see you as that guy who's sitting across the table from them, but as a fellow human being who is in need of their company. People love feeling needed.<p>- Live together, travel together. Don't live alone. When traveling, don't get a hotel room, go dorm-style. When renting, get a house with a shared kitchen and living room. Carpool. Do a sport with your housemates, work on home decor together (furniture shopping, etc). Go hang out in their room.<p>- Play games. Sports are not always easy to coordinate, but football/basketball/tennis with colleagues or other friends is a great way to get closer. If those aren't feasible, play video games together. Have a video game party evening now and then for console people, or just play online while voice chatting in a Hangout/Skype call. Make non-game-related conversation when between games. Or if you want to be away from the computer, play board games. With your housemates, a nearby board game meetup, coworkers, etc. Gaming brings out a lot of personality aspects of people, and they don't waste energy on chitchat.<p>- The above can be summarized as don't just talk to people, but have <i>experiences</i> together. Suffer something together (sport/school/gym), build something together (work/cooking/housekeeping), enjoy something together (concert/games).<p>The part I didn't talk about much is how to meet people. I'll leave that to you. I hope this gives you an idea on what aspects of your human interaction to improve upon so that you can make the most of the pool of people you <i>do</i> get to meet, and get deeper and closer friendships overcoming the aspect of duration.
Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?	My current status: About to drop a very well paying job to move countries (back to Australia) to become a consultant specializing in training, onboarding and POCs in Search Engine industry (primarily Solr and Elasticsearch). I am at the age of being "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" (so, it is a good year to try to fulfill that destiny....)<p>Longer story:<p>- School in Soviet Union. Good student. Got some exposure to computers (Yamaha TRS!!!) and learned Basic, Assembler, game decompiling/modification, and bunch of other self-driven IT interests.<p>- Moved countries (to Australia), Computer Science degree in a new language in a new country. Did ok, helped that I was a full-geek back in Soviet Union already.<p>- Have been playing with Solr for many years on and off. Have recently found random unfinished projects going back to Solr 1.4<p>- Worked in a bunch of IT companies, mostly doing backend stuff with focus on Java <a href="https://twitter.com/arafalov/status/664874979775922176" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/arafalov/status/664874979775922176</a><p>- When the bubble burst, nearly accidentally, got hired to be a 3-rd tier technical support for BEA products (Weblogic, etc). Supported huge customers with multiple versions of multiple multi-million line Java products. Lost a lot of my hair, but gained troubleshooting skills normal developers do not have (e.g. Our bank is experiencing double transactions. Please solve in 3 minutes without seeing the live system. Ping me for the answer.....). Also learned to actually understand and guide semi-technical people in asking complicated technical questions. Learned to answer those questions. Learned to emphasize with their problems and translate them into possible technical solution. Turns out this was the BEST ever job for my career, even taking into account lost hair and probably a couple of years of my life expectancy. Presented at JavaONE twice based on the experience to an extremely interested audiences (400-600 people with 4+ overall reviews). Also, published in a couple of magazines (for free). Also, blogged, anonymously, then under my own name. Still do. <a href="http://blog.outerthoughts.com/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.outerthoughts.com/</a><p>- Went off to do something completely different for a well-paid but highly-bureaucratic company (this is my views, not representing my company, etc). Moved countries a couple more times. Used my troubleshooting skills to build small projects for real non-IT audiences (e.g. translators). Discovered that outside of IT-heavy fields, a little bit of IT skills can go a very LONG way and makes people really happy. But it does require the full-stack skills of hearing the customer needs, converting them into IT issues, building the solution, and training the users in understanding them.<p>- At some point, got a project at work with Solr 3.x, started doing that and asking (and answering) questions on the Solr Users mailing list. Must have been pretty visible as I got contacted by Packt and asked to write an introductory book on Solr. Loved the idea (had a similar one myself) and jumped into it with two feet. Produced something nobody else in the market did (actually had to fight with Packt to let me), which proved very successful. The book still sells some copies despite being for Solr 3.x and quite out of date (don't buy it!).<p>- Writing the book and getting ever deeper into Solr community, realized that helping newbies in any systematic way (beyond mailing list) is a niche that is not served well. More than that, it was something I was enjoying doing as it allowed me to build various (open source) projects but around the same core technology/focus area. Created a resources site for Solr (<a href="http://www.solr-start.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.solr-start.com/</a>) which - behind the scenes - uses quite a large number of different projects and technologies, satisfying my itches and still with each project being useful immediately. The site is quite popular as it is the only place that lists and cross-references all available components of several types. Also, started a mailing list to track new Solr projects/articles/etc, my own and from others.<p>- Realized - by constantly thinking about Solr (and by then Elasticsearch) - that there is at least 20 times more absolutely exciting things I could be doing around the search engines and helping real people. And that I would never be able to achieve that in evenings and weekends. And that I could be doing most of that kind of work from anywhere in the world. And that there is demand for this kind of popularization/education/info-product material. Proven by two already ongoing projects for a large publisher, which we are both extremely excited about. And by presenting to Lucene/Solr Revolution twice to full rooms (slides/videos are online: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov" rel="nofollow">http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov</a>, one with 30K views )<p>- Decided to return back to Australia (where parents are) and see if I can help people to integrate search into their stacks from there. Early discussions with potential partners, customers and users proved very positive. The biggest challenge is figuring out what will be the best win/win/win combination (users' benefits/my income/cool projects). Looking forward to discovering the answer to that.<p>Oh, and if your team needs Solr training in Q1/Q2 of 2016, I still offer <i>first customer</i> rates and (business-) lifetime benefits.
The reverse job applicant (2010)	Man, this hurt like a liver punch. I graduated about a year and a half ago.<p>Two years before graduation, I interned at a really big oilfield services company and they, engineers and managers, liked me despite a Van Wilder academic track (I spent 9 years in college for a 5 year degree. I failed to adapt to academia. I was just someone on which it is easy to apply those rules rarely applied on anyone).<p>I was to be hired if I applied after graduation. Right before I graduated, there was a law that was passed preventing people not from the cities where the oilfields are situated to be hired to work there. The local population (mostly without degrees) was protesting about why all the good jobs went to people from North of the country while they, in the South (where oilfields were), didn't have that chance.<p>There were also protests from people without degrees about why it takes a degree in the first place, or the ability to speak English, to be hired by those companies. Uhm, because NMR and Gamma rays are neat things?<p>This created tension at a critical time, and the Government pushed for a law requiring any new hire by the oil companies to be someone from the area (without consideration to qualifications). That's the Government standard operating procedure.<p>So I was jobless because the company who wanted to hire me couldn't hire me because I was born in the wrong area according to a law that was passed to reduce unemployment. I didn't fail to be amused by the irony of joblessness due to joblessness reducing measures.<p>Now, I reached out to some people to circumvent that. I needed a card to be able to work there. They set out to procure me that card. I waited, a lot, mainly because, to worsen the situation, the instance delivering the cards was investigated for "selling" 3,000 jobs.<p>You see, some people complained about not finding work or a lot of companies "giving" jobs for people they know.. So there was this idea to create a Government instance that would do arbitrage: Companies would send them job offers. People looking for work would register with the organization. Then the organization would play match-maker and send the companies applicants who correspond to their profile. This is how it was supposed to work to prevent HR people in those companies to sink in nepotism.<p>How it worked in real life though was that the organization hid the offers and sold them to job applicants willing to pay. Beautiful.<p>Again, my problem was that the company wanted to hire me, but I needed the card from the government organization of <i>that</i> specific place, which was investigated for selling jobs to people instead of simply connecting them.<p>I didn't fail to be amused by the irony of this, too. Jobless because the instance that should connect the unemployed to the employers is under investigation for trying to squeeze a profit from it.<p>And then, to make things worse, again, a law was passed to prevent people from being hired if they're not squared away as to their Military Service. We have compulsory conscription here. I tried to avoid it because I thought that the company I was going to work with had an age limit for the position (28 years old) and I was 27 years old. I thought that going to the Military for one year (it used to be 2.5 years) would make me too old, so I decided to apply for the job first. If you fail to show up after three letters, the Military can snatch you as you are (so if you went to buy stuff and, at a check-point, someone stops you and finds out you failed to show up, you are taken on the spot, in the clothes you have with you, to a Military base). I'm not really dodging the Military Service: if my country was at risk and they really needed more people to bear arms and actually kill terrorists, I would do it without question. But most people spend a year there doing nothing and sometimes are sent back for different reasons.<p>As I waited, I decided to work on a project to enable mobile subscribers to send airtime to other subscribers who are on a different network (say from Verizon to AT&T). I started the project to learn Python (github.com/jhadjar/uniflex). I abandoned it because there are limitations only carriers can lift and they lack the incentive to do so (that's why I didn't go the route of USSD commands or added value provider, because I'd eventually need their consent to enable the transfer). I put the code up as it was (it sucks because it was still a rough draft and that was the first thing (useful, real) I write).<p>Now, I'm still looking for work. The only companies worth working with, here, are in the oil business since the salaries other companies offer are petty (I made more in a part-time job with my buddy as a student). And these companies like to hire Engineers fresh out of college, provide expensive training, and then make a return on investment. The ROE is rapidly made since quotes are high and the Engineer's training is paid for rather quickly.<p>Other companies, though, tend to prefer people with experience. Or post ridiculous job offers for people without experience that only require a `mastery` of C, C++, Java, and a bunch of other things, even for a web design position.<p>Reading those offers, I get the impression that people actually do tech in my country. I lived here long enough to know better. It only means those who write those job offers are clueless as to what is required for a specific job, and clueless enough to accept someone fresh out of college saying he has `mastery` of C/C++ (most think it's the same for they only have C classes here) because he wrote a couple of programs in college. We went to the same classes and the people who put `mastery` are the same who capitalize `INCLUDE`.<p>It's also sad that I worked at a school that didn't require I provide a degree, teaching something I don't have a degree for, for a salary that was like 4 times what most those lame companies offer.<p>I'm also working on a project (in Python) that would appeal to companies who do a lot of banking operations (but again, since not all banks offer electronic forms, I need to make them change their forms and there need to be strong incentives so I started with those who already have electronic forms (XLSX)).<p>When I read job offers for Engineering on here or elsewhere, they feel like a dagger in the heart because I don't know anything deep enough. I started programming at 9 and for Electronics in college, but one here ends up worrying more about if his exam sheet is going to be graded by te teacher who doesn't like him, than technical proficiency (just an example: A teacher of mine gave me a failing grade because I didn't write in x86 assembly language "the way she does". We used the A86 compiler for a class, I read the whole doc. She used MASM's style and directives to write stuff for A86. In the exam, I wrote correct code, with comments explaining why I wrote what I wrote the way I wrote it, even citing page numbers of the doc). She gave me 5/20). The system is also rigged: for example, they don't display grades until the period for any possible plea to regrade your paper is expired. Many don't even bother to grade papers and give you an estimation of what they think you could get (many get the same grade they did the semester before, if one gets a high grade when he had a low grade in first semester, it's considered cheating). Of course, you can't complain to anyone since these teachers have been there for 30 years, are buddy of the dean or the Minister (they're not going to jeopardize their relationship for a student who won't be there in a few years), and you're the kind of students who's frequently absent (6 hours daily in transportation to get to and come back from college where most teachers suck and density of information/unit time is tiny is no fun). Just a few examples as to the ways you can waste time dealing with issues instead of focusing.<p>Sometimes I wonder why I haven't studied abroad where you only have to worry about things like exams and papers, you know, normal stuff.<p>Then again, it could be worse and I'm not dead yet. Sorry for the rant but I needed to laugh a little bit. Writing this helped.
How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing	As with most things I think the success of ARM has less to do with its chips or architecture and more to do with its business model and the competition.<p>For decades the combined power of Intel's volume and Window's ubiquity kept a huge amount of resources dedicated to that platform. SPARC, M68K, NS32, VAX, PA-RISC, even Itanium were crushed under the unrelenting focus by third parties on building tools, software, and systems around x86 and later AMD64 architecture chips.<p>What is fascinating is that Intel got into that position by being open, there were no fewer than 12 licensees for its 8086 design, and people had supplanted "expensive, proprietary lock-in" type architectures with more open and cheaper chips. It was the emergence of the PC market, and the great Chip Recession of 1984, where Intel decided if it was going to stay a chip maker, it had to be the <i>best</i> source of its dominant computer chips. I was at Intel at the time and it shifted from partnering, to competing, with the same people who had licensed its chips, with the intent of "reclaiming" the market for CPU chips for itself.<p>You have to realize that at the time the bottom had fallen out of the market, and things like EPROMs and DRAM (both of which Intel made) were being sold on the grey market at below market costs as stocks from bankrupt computer companies made it into the wild. Further competitors like Ok Semiconductor were making better versions of the same chips (lower power, faster clock rates). Intel still had a manufacturing advantage but it could not survive if it couldn't make the margins on its chips hold. It dumped all of its unproductive lines, wrapped patents and licenses around all of its core chips, and then embarked on a long term strategy to kill anyone who wouldn't buy their chips from Intel at the prices that Intel demanded.<p>We can see they were remarkably successful at that, and a series of CEOs have presided over a manufacturing powerhouse that was funded by an unassailable capture of not only software developers but system OEMs as well. They fended off a number of anti-trust lawsuits, and delicately wove their way between former partners like Compaq who were now laying on the ground, mortally wounded.<p>ARM was playing in the embedded space, dominated by the 8051 (an Intel chip) where Intel played the licensing card (just like ARM) licensing its architecture to others who would make their own versions of the chips. As a licensing play they insured their partners would never move "up market" into the desktop space and threaten the cash cow that was x86.<p>The relentless pace of putting more transistors into less space drove an interesting problem for ARM. When you get a process shrink you can do one of two things, you can cut your costs (more die per wafer), or you can keep your costs about the same and increase features (more transistors per die). And the truth is you always did a bit of both. But the challenge with chips is their macro scale parts (the pin pads for example) really couldn't shrink. So you became "pad limited". The ratio of the area dedicated to the pads (which you connected external wires too) and the transistors could not drop below the point where most of your wafer was "pad". If it did so then you're costs flipped and your expensive manufacturing process was producing wafers of mostly pads so not utilizing its capabilities. At the Microprocessor Forum in 2001 the keynote suggested that spending anything more than 10% of your silicon budget on pads was too much. 90+% of your die had to be functional logic or the shrink just didn't make sense.<p>The effect of that was that chips ARM designed really had to do more stuff or they were not going to be cost effective on any silicon process with small feature sizes. And the simplest choice is to add more "big processor" features or additional peripherals.<p>So we had an explosion of "system on chip" products with all sorts of peripherals that continues to this day. And the process feature size keeps getting smaller, and the stuff added keeps growing. The ARM core was so small it could accommodate more peripherals on the same die, that made it cost effective and that made it a good choice for phones which needed long battery life but low cost. The age of phones put everything except the radios on chips (radios being like modems, different for every country, were not cost effective to add to the chip until software defined radio (SDR) became a thing. And the success as a phone platform pushed the need for tools, and the need for tools got more of the computer ecosystem focussed on building things for the ARM instruction set.<p>At that point step two became inevitable. Phones got better and better and more computer like, they need more and more of the things that "desktop" type computers need. You have a supplier (ARM) which is not trying to protect an entrenched business basically doing all it can to widen its markets. And a company like Apple, who wasn't trying to protect its desktop/laptop market share pushing the architecture as far as it can. More tools, more focus, more investment from others to support it, and like a fire that starts as a glowing ember near a convenient source of tinder, the blaze grows until the effects of the fire are creating its own wind and allowing it to grow bigger and stronger. Even after Intel woke up to the fact that the forest around their x86 architecture was on fire, I don't think they had enough time to put it out.<p>So here we are with ARM chips which are comparable in software support and feature set of Intel's low end desktop CPUs. But without the Intel "tax" which is the extra margin Intel could demand being the only player, and immune to Intel's ability to attack by patents or license shenanigans. Intel is in full on defense, paying tablet vendors like Lenovo to use their chips in ARM tablets, supporting the cost of building out their own IoT infrastructure with Galileo, and doing all they can to keep ARM out of their castle, the data center. Like DEC and its VAX line, or Sun and its SPARC line, they are doomed.<p>Looking at the performance of the iPad pro it is pretty clear you can build a chromebook or a laptop that would meet the needs of the mass market with an ARM architecture machine. And because ARM licensees can add features <i>anywhere</i> in the architecture including places like the frontside bus[1] which is tightly controlled space in x86 land, you will be able to provide features faster than x86 OEMs can convince Intel they need them. And that will change things in a pretty profound (and I think positive) way. Not the least of which might be having the opportunity to buy a lap top that isn't pre-backdoored by the chip manufacturer with its SMM.<p>[1] Literally if you buy a bus analyzer (a sophisticated logic analyzer) from Agilent or Tektronix and hook it to the Intel frontside bus, it won't display the signals until you enter the NDA # you got from Intel! That is pretty tightly controlled.
Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (2009)	As a maker-turn-manager I've become skeptical of this perspective. I think it's indulgent and misdirected. Yes, if <i>I</i> as a manager schedule <i>your</i> time, I'm probably not going to schedule it for your best performance. But I don't think the problem that as a manager I don't leave you giant blocks of uninterrupted time. It's that as a manager I tend to interrupt your time with meetings that serve <i>my</i> role, and a manager's role tends to be focused on prediction, expectations, upward-directed planning, balancing work, status, risk... all things that aren't even intended to improve actual execution. In theory of course a manager is supposed to be focused on team performance and execution, but the heaviest pressure on a manager is about how the team fits into the larger organization, not how the team works.<p>If a maker's days are interrupted by meetings that are genuinely structured to improve their execution, I don't think the interruption is very concerning, and may be beneficial. This theory about a Maker's Schedule, and these theories around attention, make these positive interruptions less likely to happen – the maker's become skittish about all meetings, become reclusive, sometimes causing a downward spiral because the maker <i>actually needs</i> those meetings and becomes more reclusive out of shame because the maker is confused and performing poorly. Defensively the maker reacts against the structure that remains – the structure of meetings created by the manager, meetings which aren't supportive, where the maker is not sufficiently engaged to feel confident in repurposing the meeting... but the dysfunction is that in the face of these meetings a better response would be more meetings, better meetings, meetings where the makers leave the meeting ahead of where they started instead of behind. But don't expect the managers to call those meetings – frankly as a manager I often can't make those meetings happen even when I want to.<p>I'll also copy a post I wrote on the topic (<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+IanBicking/posts/jgJCdMkzyBE" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/u/0/+IanBicking/posts/jgJCdMkzyBE</a>):<p>I'm somewhat pro-meeting, which maybe puts me at odds with the cultural norms of developers.<p>I think I realize some of the problem. Meetings tend to be called by managers. Managers have management goals. Process, deadlines, coordination, etc. The developer sits around in case they provide some important input on one of those topics, or to give status, or to commit to a deadline. Nothing in that kind of meeting helps the developer's work. And the developer tries their best to withhold, to protect their own work, but also to protect the project which actually needs that output.<p>In a developer-oriented meeting the topics would be decisions to make, architectural choices to consider, noting places of tension where a creative solution could be helpful. In a developer meeting it is reasonable to take some time to look at code. To do a bit of research – right in the meeting – to answer a question. To brainstorm ideas. If a problem is hard, it is reasonable that everyone go silent for a minute and ponder the problem.<p>In The New Science of Building Great Teams (<a href="https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams" rel="nofollow">https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-te...</a>) they discuss some evidence-based observations about communication patterns. In it they suggest that high levels of communication lead to more productivity. By developer sensibilities, <i>very</i> high levels. But mostly peer interactions – developers interacting with developers.<p>I'd really extend this to all the people engaged in making the product, design, user experience, user research, development, probably support and other roles. In an ideal model there would be dozens of meetings, as different sets of these people came together to talk about what is relevant to those groups of people. These meetings would not have clear and firm agendas, the product is the agenda, finding the agenda is some of the work of the meeting.<p>It's easy to blame management for the unproductive meetings. We're calling these snooze-fest status meetings. But I'd turn it around: professionals shouldn't depend on management to initiate meetings. Sure management can try; I try to setup meetings I think will be productive for other people. The Standup is the quintessential example. But we know where those so often end up: as yet another management-led status meeting. And it's a form without a clear purpose. Who should be in the standup? What should we talk about? When those things are defined by management we get management-style answers. Even better than trying to fix the standup, keep it from being necessary: make the meetings that help everyone do their work, where the topic is always execution and not prediction or planning or status.<p>With Project Managers and other professions focused on planning there is a danger that we defer to the specialists. But everything needs to be planned. The next line of code I write has to be planned. Developers have to be planners, every one of them.
A letter to our daughter	It is a lot of promises that are hard to keep.<p>They think they can just throw money at a problem and it will eventually go away given enough time.<p>They think people in communities will give up their bigotry against certain groups without a fight. They think everyone in the future will adopt the same worldview that they have. They think that they can solve poverty by giving everyone an Internet connection on the planet and most people who are poor are illiterate and can't read and write.<p>Like I said a lot of promises.<p>Some problems can't be solved with money, it takes innovation, it takes a new way of thinking, it takes doing things in a way nobody thought of yet.<p>Students who are poor and have family problems have emotional and psychological problems that hinder their learning. No matter how much money you spend on their school, as Gates has learned, their test scores don't go up. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/09/how-much-bill-gatess-disappointing-small-schools-effort-really-cost/" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/...</a><p>This effort by the Gates Foundation proves that building better schools does not give the students a better education.<p>You see they made the mistake of throwing money at a problem in order to solve it. Five years later and a disappointment in what they had created.<p>Parents of the students get by with low paying jobs, because there is a wealth inequality in our nation. It leads to poverty, family issues, emotional and psychological problems none of which building new schools could address. All of which factor into having a hard time learning and getting better test scores.<p>Why is there a wealth inequality and people have to settle for low paying jobs?<p>Technology has automated most of the good paying jobs so they can be done with computers for free. Microsoft and Facebook for example earn money from technology that does work for others for free and earns money. Websites can operate 24/7 and replace people who take phone calls or work at a desk to fill out forms.<p>Also we used to have factory jobs until we shipped those jobs to China because the labor cost less over there.<p>Getting a good education is only possible if you have a good enough credit rating to get a student loan, if your family is poor and struggles and misses paying bills, you will have a bad credit rating and not be able to get a student loan for college. Not getting good enough grades will lead to a lack of scholarships and other things.<p>People who can't get a college education face a life of hardship working low paying jobs just to get by. Not everyone can become a computer programmer after being a dropout, and then join a startup. Some have to work retail jobs in the service industry and 2 or 3 of those jobs. Not having time to raise their children properly. Not able to help with homework because they work overtime to get enough money to pay the bills.<p>These factors have not been addressed in the future plans for fixing our education system.<p>Sure you can learn a lot on the Internet and even use it to earn money, but most people just use it for entertainment value and communication. So there are distractions to learning on the Internet. But what happens when the freelance market suddenly gets 3 billion more lower wage contractors in it all competing for the limited amount of contracts?<p>I wish I knew how to solve these problems, but I learned from experience that you can't just throw money at them and solve them.<p>You need the government to help out with some sort of basic income program to lift people out of poverty as good paying jobs are scarce because of automation or AI advances. I expect that to get worse in the future.<p>You need better mental health clinics to address the emotional and psychological problems associated with poverty for the students to be able to learn better. You need to find money for tutors to help them with homework when their parents cannot. You need to teach poor students stress management and test anxiety management so that they can o better in tests and learn better study habits and score higher.<p>I've found at least with my son, that the Internet is a distraction for him. Time he could have spent studying for tests, he instead watches Youtube videos and plays video games. I've tried to help him as best as I can, but now he is failing chemistry as a junior in high school but passing his other classes because they are not as hard.<p>We are one of those poor families because I ended up on disability in 2003 and don't earn as much as I used to as a programmer. There is only so much I can help my son, he makes decisions for himself, but I cannot force him to study more or do better on his tests. I feel as if I didn't go on disability we'd be better off and I'd be able to hire a chemistry tutor for him to get his grades up. I forgot as I took chemistry in 1985, and it was so long ago. It is harder to raise a child than you think, esp if you are on a limited income. The school he goes to is a good one with good teachers and modern equipment and they use iPads for ebooks and learning, but it is not enough and still students struggle with their classes.<p>No matter what you do there will still be problems as no system is perfect, and students will still get low mtest grades no matter how good a personalized system you develop. The Dewey System was developed for personalized learning and it failed. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey</a><p>Most of what they are trying to do has already been tried and failed. It is like trying to go against human nature and change the way human beings behave so they can learn better. But human beings cannot be reprogrammed like robots, and almost all of these theories go with the case that human beings can be reprogrammed like robots to create a better community for better learning.<p>It is like trying to solve a social problem using technology thinking, you need to think in terms of society and the way people work, which is not the same way technology works. You need to lead social reforms in communities in a way that makes sense to everybody and not just people on a certain political spectrum that leaves out all others. You will face a resistance to change, as many won't want to change. People will come up with conspiracy theories over the changes, etc.<p>It is a good start to build a different system of education and try to make new communities for education for everyone, but money alone won't solve it, you need the cooperation of everyone in the community to change the way their human nature works and give up on the old ways of doing things. Some won't want to give up on the old ways.
Should kids learn to code?	Should kids learn to code?<p>That's a great question. I also wonder if adults should learn to code, or my peers who would be young adults.<p>I'm 24. I started programming when I was 10 years old by reading a 'For Dummies' book teaching Basic. I hardly read the book because it came with a CD with the language and the language's help system had tutorials which I jumped into right away.<p>I spent the next four years developing video games in Basic. I learned C and continued to make games and also started working on other types of simulation. I've picked up web programming incidentally, taken courses in high school, worked as a programmer, researcher, and software engineer, majored in computer science in college, and have a steady job as a software engineer.<p>Earning my degree has been amazing for me because it's introduced me to highly technical aspects of the field that would otherwise be inaccessible to me or present large barriers to entry.<p>An interesting trend is for school systems to embrace computer programming / computer science as a skill and teach it as a class or to introduce it into the curriculum in general -<p><pre><code> > Britain became the first ... to introduce compulsory computer science on the school curriculum for all children aged five to 16. </code></pre> Equally, though, this could be off-putting for many kids. Depending on how it is introduced, it might scare away those who would otherwise be interested in programming or less so another design field in computer science. Oddly enough:<p><pre><code> > “One 13-year-old told me she would rather be in garbage disposal than work in technology,” </code></pre> It's really surprising that this sentiment isn't more widely felt. Maybe it is the sort of tech-bubble, get-rich-quick, new technology enthusiasm and excitement that gets people to push through the initial, `this is boring, difficult, and unfulfilling' feeling that I would really anticipate from anyone making a cold dive into code.<p>In fact, I've had the opportunity to mentor some kids around the ages of 10-12 and that's exactly the response I've seen to the programming or code side of development, where they will be increasingly excited to design applications in a much, much higher level way. But directing software design should really be considered a lower field than implementing it, in my very humble opinion.<p>And this point, about some being disaffected by being compelled to learn something, underscores another unfortunate fact - and that is no matter how someone is introduced to computer science or computer programming - something will be outside of their control.<p>Some start by programming in Python or JavaScript, some start with C (many engineers) or Java, others have began with Fortran or Basic or Visual Basic, and others begin to learn computer science with Scheme. There are so many vastly different programming languages and platforms that exist, and even different <i>programming paradigms</i>, and each is easier to use or understand to different minds.<p>But it would take an expert oracle to know what the best introduction is for every individual to give them the best chance of success in computer science. Some scientists can't even agree on what text editor to use.<p><pre><code> > Puzzlingly, though, IT had the highest unemployment rate of any subject analysed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. </code></pre> Here is another annoying fact. In the midst of a rise of bootcamps, there are still those who can't find jobs. And the fact that so many people can jump into monthly groups to learn to "program" doesn't mean that there is a stable, sustainable system for them to work in.<p>If it is what I believe it is essentially web design or scripting education that's going around, there's really only a few months of work for any group of graduates, and the opportunity to float along the top at any organization that takes them on.<p>To imply that a bootcamper will become a major technical lead in any kind of reasonable time or with anywhere near the same level of effort as a regular graduate seems extremely disingenuous, and the fact that six figure salaries are being touted as results from these camps seems to show a real economic failure.<p><pre><code> > The coding bootcamps springing up in London and Edinburgh are essentially a pop-up solution. </code></pre> That would be an accurate description, although I might be cynical.<p><pre><code> > ... Scratch, a computer language developed specifically for young children. </code></pre> I've seen Scratch and I think it's fantastic. Along with Logo and other platforms for introducing logic and computation, I think it's perfect for children and new-comers. Compare for example the sort of weights and blocks that some children are introduced to when learning algebra initially.<p><pre><code> > Perhaps that is the single most honest argument for teaching everyone to code: to give everyone an equal shot </code></pre> That's definitely a fair point, but there's never going to be a way for this to be true universally and that is just a fact. The ecosystem for programming and development is varied and depending on what you want to do, it's going to require vastly different skill sets.<p>Another reality is that there are so many people doing so many different things and technology is such a competitive field that there is almost a guarantee that someone, somewhere is attempting to achieve the same thing in a complete different approach. Who has the fair advantage?<p>Then it's explained that having experience or skills with computer programming, 'knowing how to code,' or being introduced to the field results in `Aha!' moments like ...<p><pre><code> > "‘It would be so cool if this existed,’ and then implementing it the same day – it’s like a superpower," </code></pre> In reality, if you have a complicated idea for something that you want to see created.. it's going to take work. If you have a simple idea, then yes, it may be simple to create! And it is empowering to have the skills to create or begin to create something, or to know where to find those resources and how to begin.<p>Then this article ends on this point:<p><pre><code> > "How many young people ... have what it takes to be great developers? ... "But they won’t be, unless we give them the chance. </code></pre> This is probably the core idea to education, school, training, and jobs. In order to find opportunities... they must exist, and in order to achieve skills they must be attainable or at least known to someone.<p>But in the same vein, how many people would make excellent astronauts if there were a much broader space program? It's something where there's always a trade-off in time and skill between anything a person might become employed doing.<p>Shameless plug, part of why I developed the Duck programming language was to make a very accessible programming environment, and I still intend to expand it as best I can to allow easy programming! I'm also working on a new language that is lower-level and it intends to facilitate clean, efficient and safe programming while encouraging higher-level paradigms like functional programming. There aren't a lot of functional, imperative languages out there that still avoid automatic memory management, and I think that's a loss.
Science-fictional shibboleths	I love this stuff. I'll quibble with a few things.<p>(1) Conspiracies<p>I totally disagree. I find long-lived conspiracies quite believable, but with the caveat that they must be socially realistic and have plausible operating principles.<p>First of all, a long-lived complex conspiracy cannot remain <i>totally</i> secret. That's not plausible. Something's going to leak. But it can act and/or distract (disinformation, etc.) so as to limit the damage and exposure brought about by these leaks. Keep in mind that in today's information overload world the information might be out there but if it's not clamoring for attention it will be ignored. When was the last time you Googled the secret initiatory practices of the Order of the Blahblahblah?<p>But more importantly: people do not engage in long term coordinated complex action without motive, and just "eeeevil!!" or even just profit or power are not sufficient motives to keep people in a coherent "always-cooperate" game theoretic mode with one another for that long. If power and profit are the motive then the group will dissolve through internal strife. Other motives are needed.<p>A long-lived complex conspiracy therefore rapidly converges with religion or cult. It must have a Doctrine(tm), an initiation process, some form of eschatology either real or metaphysical, etc. If it's a really nasty cult-driven-conspiracy it might employ cult mind control techniques. These as we know from the real world can be devastatingly effective. Whole massive groups of people have been convinced to commit suicide (Jonestown), so why couldn't they be convinced to perpetuate a lasting criminal or "parapolitical" conspiracy even at risk to themselves and their own personal fortune or power?<p>A plausible Big Bad X-Files Conspiracy therefore must be a cult and is going to look and operate like a cult. It's going to have internal cult jargon and crazy doctrines that will sound shockingly batshit to outsiders but that internally actually serve as belief-and-language-based social signaling. (Galactic emperor Xenu, etc.) If it's a conspiracy that lasts longer than a life span then it must have a doctrine that transcends the personality of its leadership and some mechanism for transfer of kingship. It's going to have totally brainwashed True Believers following manipulative and obsessed upper management for whom the cult is a proxy for their personal ego. It's going to have some process for both initiating new members and purging itself of dissent. The later is going to look like the shame-driven practices you see in manipulative cults in which the dissenter is first shamed and vilified before being banished or killed.<p>Profit or power are not sufficient motives, but a "carrot and stick" can be a part of cult mind control. Membership may have its benefits if the cult is powerful, rich, or well-connected, and once one has accepted these favors they are a "made man" indebted to the cult. Blackmail can also play a role. Many gangs and mafia groups require members to commit a crime or misdeed in order to join, and revelation of that crime or misdeed can later be dangled as punishment.<p>Fundamentally a long-lived conspiracy with coherent goals is going to be a cult that operates a lot like the mafia. In fact it's not uncommon for mafia like criminal conspiracies to have racial identity doctrines, honor codes, a romantic image of themselves, and other mythologies that serve at the very least as social glue. Many began with political goals -- the true Mafia were if my memory serves me originally a political resistance. Combine that with some crazy-ass religion or political eschatology and you've got your cigarette smoking man and his compatriots nailed.<p>I actually take an opposite tack on conspiracies: while I think the woo-woo variety of conspiracy theory is woo, I also think there's a kind of faux-rationalistic over-reaction in skeptic circles that amounts to "coherent group motive denialism." Conspire just means "to act together," and secrecy through flat silence or through distraction is definitely possible within certain realistic bounds. Hell, if nobody wanted to ever be secret we never would have invented encryption!<p>Finally though -- it is true that nothing remains the same forever. At some point one of two things is going to happen: the conspiracy/cult is going to act in a big way and in so doing both reveal itself and immanentize its eschaton, or it's going to fade away and dissolve into socioeconomic background radiation. If the group is strongly motivated the former is more likely, <i>especially</i> if it feels "the time is nigh" (it has enough power) or conversely if it feels itself losing power and feels forced to act. Sometimes the latter is driven by the leadership's need to maintain internal credibility. If people start doubting then they must escalate. (Some propose that ISIS is now launching international terror for exactly this reason, though they are far from secret. But the same principle applies.)<p>... and remember that end-justifies-the-mean fanatics can be <i>very very bad</i>, so we're well into plausible villain territory. If the end justifies the mean and the ideology provides a moral 'out', people will do insanely evil stuff... like... I dunno... tell people gas chambers are showers? Open fire on cafes? Force children to drink poison? Only the author's personal depravity is the limit to what they might imagine such a group plausibly doing when the chips are down.<p>Who knows, maybe that's a big part of the story? What happens when your dismissed-as-wacko conspiracy nut is proven <i>dramatically</i> "as in breaking news" correct? Or maybe your conspiracy theorists' investigations actually prod the group into paranoia-driven action? Such a group is likely more paranoid than the foil hatters that might chase them.<p>An alternative plot twist I thought up once for the X-Files and that would fit into the emerging 'rational fiction' trope is if Mulder discovered that while (most of) the paranormal stuff wasn't real and the aliens weren't invading... <i>the conspiracy that The Smoking Man belonged to believed alien invasion was nigh</i> and was all the more dangerous as a result. The stuff that did turn out to be real might have a rational (but perhaps still very SF) explanation... and the conspiracy plot revolves around how its existence has inspired insane paranoia among an element of our intelligence apparatus who are utterly convinced it's a sign of impending alien invasion. Think of it as a more elaborate SF-based version of a comet inspiring a dangerous doomsday cult. The big finale could have been Mulder now struggling to find a credible way to reveal the truth about UFOs (which might still have a neat SF edge... von Neumann probes?) to the world not just for truth's sake but to stop the impending global-scale Jonestown meltdown of the conspiracy.<p>(2) World-controlling corporations<p>I sort of agree and disagree. A world-controlling corporation is plausible but will have in becoming such a thing become a government. Therefore you have a similar convergence path here as you do with conspiracy -> long lived conspiracy -> cult. Corporation -> mega-powerful totalistic corporation -> nation state.<p>To become a government requires that the corp evolve new traits like a national mythology, the adoption of governmental function and ritual, and a support base in the general population. The latter is important: for this to happen, someone has to think it's a good idea!<p>It's not impossible that a corporate entity could undergo such a metamorphosis while retaining some of its original mega-corp DNA. But it would most certainly no longer be a corporation in the traditional sense. It would have some sort of national identity.<p>The socioeconomic, political, or technological forces that might push a corporation down this road and lead to it emerging as a government/nation might be quite interesting. It's not at all implausible given that Congress has something like a 15% approval rating.<p>Here's a back story for you: an aggressive Uber-like startup invents an economically plausible win/win way to shrink the exploding wealth disparity in developed nations... maybe something based on an innovation in game theory. But to make it work they need to change a few laws. Fast forward a hundred years and you have a global socialist state presided over by something that is now a government but retains the organizational DNA of an Uber-like growth company. For its brand of game theoretic win/win socialism to keep working it <i>must</i> meet certain numbers, which leads in practice to some kind of nutty/weird Keynesianism. ... and of course dissenters are <i>provably</i> (via game theory) threatening the well being of all.<p>That's quite plausible and no idiot ball is required.<p>(3) Space travel<p>I disagree that routine space travel is implausible, but I do agree that if you do it and have any <i>hard SF</i> aspirations then you must read up on physics and orbital mechanics. You've got to make a genuine attempt to make it physically plausible... unless of course you're going the SF-flavored-fantasy route of Star Wars in which case that's okay too. In that case it's got to at least be in-world consistent and not terribly cliche.<p>I do agree that MacGuffins like He3 are unlikely. Really interesting original motives for space travel and/or settlement are much better. These could include necessity (Seveneves), politics (escaping global dystopia), religion (or desire to freely practice such in a world where that's forbidden), weird but plausible economics (after two generations of global Japan-style stagnation, the World Central Bank decides a big space economy would make a better stimulus package than WWIII and launches a PR effort to sell it, etc.), a massive discovery that demands a major exploration effort, etc.<p>One that I've toyed around with is this: that in an almost post-scarcity and incredibly rich society people might do space travel for the same reason they climb Everest or try to break deep sea diving records... to have fun and show off. Implausible today but not implausible in an economy 10X larger or where technology like reusable spacecraft has geometrically reduced cost. Space travel and attempts at space settlement could be a <i>sport</i>. Think a cross between extreme mountaineering and Nascar.
New Style of Police Training Aims to Produce Guardians, Not Warriors	Police need to just behave more like firefighters.<p>Not only that, but I think that a lot more cops need to be out on <i>foot</i>. Not bikes, not segways, none of that. They should be out walking around, talking to people. IMHO, I should know who the cops assigned to my neighborhood are.<p>Here's a thing that happened last week that highlights a problem I have with the cops:<p>At about 1:30 in the morning, my dog starts doing her dog thing and informing me that IMMINENT DOOM is upon us in the form of somebody being outside of the house. I get up and walk to the kitchen to find that, yes, indeed somebody is outside of the door trying to get in, which is a <i>scary</i> feeling. I don't have a peephole on that door, it's the middle of the night, and they aren't knocking, they're trying to get the handle to open.<p>Now, luckily I'm a pretty huge guy, so while this was scary, it didn't really seem life threatening, (they weren't trying to bust through the door, just trying to come inside, so probably just a very disoriented person). Eventually, they left, and I went back to bed.<p>A few minutes later, however, we heard a car alarm go off next door, indicating that the person had just moved on to the neighbor's house, which is really sad, because there is an old lady that lives next door, who might not brush off the idea of somebody trying to come into her house as readily as I could.<p>I go outside and find out that the person trying to come in was a ~20 year old girl who couldn't have weighed more than 110lbs soaking wet. Basically the least threatening person imaginable, but she <i>was</i> trying to get into the neighbor's house.<p>One part of my life involves volunteering for a group of people who deal specifically with this sort of thing at a big dessert party that lots of people in SF have probably heard of. My mode switched from being worried about the lady next door, to being worried about the obviously confused kid trying to get into somebody's house.<p>I loudly convinced her to come and talk to me away from the lady-next-door's house (so as to make sure that the lady inside, who I am sure was scared, could hear that everything was alright), and we started trying to figure out where she was supposed to be, and a plan to get her to that place safely. Sidenote: turns out she just has some really shitty friends who more or less ditched her and went home.<p>While I was talking to her, the cops showed up (presumably my neighbor called them), and I got to see how they would have handled the situation.<p>There was a guy just riding his bike by the neighbor's house, and the cops started YELLING at him<p>"What are you doing?"<p>"Just riding home."<p>"Huh, why are you here? Why are you riding here? Huh? Why here? What are you doing? Is this your house? What are you doing? Do you know you can't be here? This is an alleyway you can't ride here [EVERYBODY rides their bike in the alley, which is practically a bike path], why are you here? This is illegal. What are you doing here?"<p>Just started machine-gunning questions at this poor dude who happened to be riding by at the wrong time.<p>Eventually, they figured out that the girl I was talking to was the person that they were looking for. I explained to them who she was, what she was doing, and where she needed to be.<p>The thing that absolutely FLOORED me was that they refused to give her a ride home. They wanted to stick this obviously disoriented, possibly drugged, girl into a cab (a fucking CAB! Yikes!), and make her into the cabby's problem (hey, get into this random car and hopefully this drugged up girl will make it home safe!)<p>Luckily they did NOT do this, because the girl said she didn't have any cash. The ended up calling some sort of non-police-police van who gave her a ride to [hopefully] her house. (It was their Crisis Intervention Team, I think. Like people who show up and talk to people who have just had a traumatic experience, I guess they weren't busy, and had time to give this girl a ride).<p>--<p>Watching the whole thing was just sad to me. Not only was the FIRST response that the cops had to start yelling at some dude, but when presented with a REAL opportunity to improve somebody's safety (this girl), they either didn't want to, or were not allowed to.<p>Keeping some disoriented girl safe in the middle of the night seems like the cliche of what cops are supposed to be doing, and here when presented with the opportunity, they wouldn't do it.<p>Pathetic.
Common Probability Distributions: The Data Scientist’s Crib Sheet	Nicely done.<p>There is an important point that the article makes although only implicitly: If have some data and want to know what the probability distribution is, then hopefully know enough good things about where the data came from basically to <i>know</i>, even without looking at the data, what the probability distribution <i>must</i> be. The article gave such ways to know.<p>A biggie point: In practice this way of <i>knowing</i> is not only powerful but, really, nearly the only little platform you have to stand on to know how your data is distributed.<p>Here is an example one step beyond the article: You have a Web site, and users arrive. Okay, each user has their own complicated life, maybe use the Internet only in the morning, only in the evening, have nearly a fixed list of sites they go to, only get to your site from links at other sites they do see regularly, etc. That is, each user can have wildly complicated, unique personal behaviors on the internet.<p>Still, the arrivals at your site will be as in a Poisson process, that is, the number of arrivals in the next minute will have the Poisson distribution and the time until the next arrival will have the exponential distribution. Why? A classic result called the <i>renewal theorem</i>. There is a careful proof in the second volume (the one difficult to read) on probability by W. Feller.<p>So, the arrivals at your Web site from user user #1, Joe, is some complicated, unknowable <i>stochastic arrival process</i>. Fine. Joe has a complicated life. User #2, Mary, also has a complicated life but has essentially nothing to do with Joe (Joe is a nerd, and Mary is pretty!). So, Mary acts <i>independently</i> of Joe. Similarly for users #2, 3, ..., 2 billion. Then the arrivals at your Web site are the sum of those 2 billion complicated, unique, with details unknowable, independent arrival processes. Then, with a few more meager assumptions, presto, bingo, the renewal theorem says that the arrivals at your site form a Poisson arrival process.<p>There's a terrific chapter on the Poisson process in E. Cinlar's introduction to stochastic processes. Terrific. Some of what you can say, knowing that you have a Poisson process, is amazing. All with no or meager attention to the data and, instead, from knowing you have a Poisson process, e.g., from the renewal theorem from a sum of many independent arrival processes.<p>Bigger lesson: The renewal theorem is true in the limit of a sum of many independent arrival processes. So, it is a <i>limit theorem</i>. Then, more generally, many of the crown jewels of probability are limit theorems that say what happens in the <i>big picture</i> when it is a limit of some kind of smaller things about which have nearly no ability to understand. So, astoundingly, such limit theorems show that the effects of some universe of detail, maybe even <i>big data</i>, just wash out. Often very powerful stuff. A big part of a good course in probability is the full collection of classic limit theorems -- astounding, powerful stuff in there. Wait until discover martingales -- totally mind blowing that any such powerful things could be true, but they are!<p>Final lesson: It's possible also to take from the article and from much of introductory lessons in statistics an implicit lesson that is wrong and even dangerous: That lesson is that, given some data, right away, ASAP, do not pass GO, do not collect $100, and ASAP rush to find the probability distribution. Well, if can find the distribution via something like the Poisson process outlined above, <i>terrific</i>. But usually can't do that. Instead just have the data, just the darned data. Maybe even <i>big data</i>. Then, sure, can get a histogram and look at it. Okay, no harm done so far. But, then, maybe, from the implicit but dangerous lesson, feel an urge, a need, a compulsion, a strong drive to find <i>the distribution</i> of that data, go through some huge list of increasingly bizarre well known probability distributions looking for a <i>fit</i>, etc. Mostly, don't do that.<p>Or, yes, there is a probability distribution, but, usually in practice, especially when you are given data without any additional information that will let you conclude something like Poisson above, beyond just that histogram, you don't have much chance of finding or approximating the probability distribution in any way that stands to be useful. Or, mostly just get the histogram and stop there.<p>Next, all the above holds for one dimensional data, that is, single numbers. But if your data comes in pairs of numbers, say, points on a plane, or, for some positive integer <i>n</i>, <i>n</i>-tuples, then your desire to find <i>the distribution</i> is much, much less promising. Indeed, just getting a histogram is much less promising. For <i>n</i> > 2, already histograms are tough to see or work with.<p>But, fear not: The field of applied probability and statistics is just awash in techniques where you don't need anything like precise data on distributions!<p>Succinct version of this lesson: Yes, the probability distribution exists, but commonly you can't really find it and commonly you don't need to find it.
Japan’s 105-Hour Workweek	This is mainly second-hand information. I haven't worked at a Japanese company, the closest I've gotten was interviews and a sort of off the record job offer. I have lived in the country for 1 year though, so I definitely saw the actual hours friends were at work or busy because of work.<p>1. Japanese business culture sees labor laws as guidelines.<p>2. Being overworked (meaning enduring or working extra hours) is seen as a "good" thing.<p>3. Doing anything to sabotage the team effort (including working fewer hours, not being available, not asking to help others) is seen as the worst thing you could do.<p>4. Being granted a week off by your company is seen as generous (even though you may be allocated 2 or more weeks a year). The corollary to this is not taking your allocated vacation hours is seen as a good thing.<p>5. You don't miss work due to a cold, you put on a mask and show up anyway.<p>6. Punctuality is in some ways more important than doing the actual job. This is why people go through great efforts to jam into a single train in order to not be late by even 5 minutes.<p>7. Apologies are expected, more than reasons or explanations. The message your superior wants to hear isn't that you screwed up, it is that you are inferior and have no excuse and he is superior to you (hence an apology). This is a legacy of Japan's feudal days; Japanese large corporations are essentially the transformation of what used to be feudal powers.<p>8. Confrontation is avoided at great lengths. This is why Japanese have a hard time of saying "no". This implies that if your boss asks for work to be done, you will undoubtedly agree without complaint.<p>9. Women are paid significantly less than men, but the trade off is a woman can quit her job to rear children and not be "penalized" from a social standpoint. Men get paid more than women but Japanese culture expects that the man of the family will pay for his wife and children in full through retirement even if the woman doesn't work a single day.<p>10. Since men are the de facto breadwinner, and women often don't work to take care of the household/children, men are expected (even by their own families) to work longer hours in order to advance the entire family. It is not uncommon for the father of a family to live/work in a city 2-3 hours away from where his family resides.<p>11. "Black" company (in Japanese) is a term that refers to businesses that have mandatory overtime (12+ hour days). I guesstimate roughly half of all companies in Japan are Black companies.<p>12. Companies often have "Nomikai" (drinking parties). They are not mandatory per se, but like everything in Japan, social pressure is often used to force people to attend. This is considered a work function even though no actual work takes place.<p>13. Most employees in Japan are part of "sales". This doesn't imply selling a product, rather it means wining and dining to the customer (Business to Business). This includes things like taking the customer on dinners, karaoke, golf, etc all "on the house". Failure to do this mean strain on the customer relationship. Strain on the relationship implies loss of business.<p>14. There's a "right" way of doing everything. Japan is a society that values process and manners. For example when you, a Japanese national, go on an interview, and must enter an interview room, you first knock exactly 3 times, yell "excuse me", wait for an invitation, open the door, yell again "pardon me", then enter the room, promptly close the door, wait to be invited again to take a seat, then proceed to take the seat. Failure to do this correctly exactly as listed looks bad.<p>15. Japanese (the language) continues to require honorific/humble language <i>in addition</i> to polite language. In school, children must address students senior to themselves using <i>polite</i> language. In the workplace, employees must be able to address superiors and customers using honorific/humble language (a step above polite language, imagine talking to a king in the old days with English). Distant acquaintances and strangers must also be addressed with at a minimum polite language. Casual language is reserved for friends and family only. To be fair, this isn't just unique to Japan but is common in many East-Asian and nearby cultures.<p>16. If you want to avoid this hellish landscape and remain in Japan and still be respected, you do have one and only one option. Do well on your college entrance exams in high school, get into the top tier schools, then apply to the top companies and highly desired positions. This will spare you of regular mandatory overtime during your adult life, allow you to have better than average salary, and still be highly respected in society despite only working may an average 10 hours a weekday. Doing something else (like going abroad) is not seen as the "normal" way. Not being normal is not good. The only exceptions are English teachers, translators, and obviously affluent families (that would have been fine anyway). University students can also get away with study abroad, assuming they don't go more than a year and join the rest of their peers in the same job hunting style at the end of it. But these students may have already accepted that they are unlikely to land a good job so study abroad is seen as a way to delay the inevitable.<p>17. More and more Japanese are slowly just beginning to say "fuck it". This is leading to interesting subcultures. For example the term called "freeters" (shortening of English free-timers) is a culture of young Japanese that refuse to work standard salary jobs and instead work multiple part time jobs often taking breaks in employment to enjoy free time. More 20s and 30s Japanese are taking advantage of working holiday visa arrangements with other countries as an attempt to expatriate. More and more Japanese are negotiating or purposely deciding to only take jobs where they are allowed a fixed number of hours (often the cost is a reduction in pay or a not so great work assignment). But these groups are still very much the minority and there are definite sacrifices these people have made (or they're just mentally crazy) in the eyes of the typical Japanese.
The slowing in population growth in Africa has been less than anticipated	The comments are better than the article itself.<p>From: NdiliMfumu Dec 14th, 03:10<p>Today's problems with overpopulation are directly related to Mankind's evolution, as are many other modern discontents:<p>Prior to the modern era (especially, prior to the beginning of organized agriculture in the Middle East, 12,000 years ago), Mankind was a predominantly nomadic beast who wandered about, following natural herds and eating whatever fruits, nuts and other small vegetables he could find, whenever he couldn't fell another water buffalo or gazelle.<p>In this condition, food was generally scarce, disease common and rampant, children frequently taken by the passing lion or wave of dysentery, and the population constantly under threat. It made sense for us to evolve to be continuously fecund, always seeking meat, salt and sweets (fruits), and to avoid anything foul, bitter or unduly acidic. People tended to be lean and stringy, eager to sock away a bit of fat or sodium for the next dry and desperate week ahead.<p>We were not used to regular access to food, drink, salt or sugar, nor were we quite used to seeing our numbers grow.<p>Ah, then, we learned settled agriculture and everything began to change. Suddenly, there was a much more certain supply of food and drink. Sweets became more commonplace. Salt was easier to come by. And there was ever so much more opportunity for sex, now that the new girl just moved in next door.<p>Over the centuries after the onset of settled agriculture, human populations grew rather steadily. From merely about 25,000 souls in 50,000 BCE, we grew to around 100,000,000 souls around the year 1 CE. This is an intrinsic rate of population growth of only 0.016 % per year. Hardly much, but enough to be very successful as a species over a long period. Yet, it pales in comparison to the modern rate of intrinsic population growth, which has often been above 2.5% per year.<p>What has happened in the meantime? The Industrial Revolution enabled human populations to intensively urbanize, elevating millions from abject poverty, bringing in its train electricity, among other things, and the development of artificial ammonia production. This was critical.<p>Together with artificial fertilizer and increasing agricultural mechanization, farm productivity bounded and food became increasingly cheap in most parts of the world during the last 200 years. At the same time, SANITARY practices (especially, sewage system development and water purification projects) deprived the River Styx of legions of children who would otherwise have died of dysentery and early childhood respiratory illness. All this came about long before modern medicine could penetrate into most parts of the world, and well before antibiotics were developed and could play their role.<p>Between 1800 and 1950 (when penicillin began to become much more prevalent), death rates plummeted and the intrinsic rate of population growth exploded. At the same time, Mankind began to fall ill from diseases of excess: Excess salt leading to hypertension, excess sugar and fat tending towards morbid obesity and adult-onset diabetes, excess nicotine tending to heart attack, stroke and cancer.<p>What we see, here, are very swift cultural, economic and political changes sweeping over the Human Condition, much faster than can be accommodated by the usual evolutionary processes, alone. The Human Genome simply cannot respond quickly enough to doff the tendency to want more: More food, more sex, more sugar, more fat, more stimulation. All those things which for millennia we longed for, now, we have in great surfeit.<p>The tendency for wealthier, urbanized families to have fewer children and to start later is a direct reflection of the population pressure experienced by large numbers of people living in close quarters. We can help this along by encouraging people to continue leaving the countryside: Raise taxes on idle farmland and pastureland, on rural homes, and on train/bus rides terminating in the hinterland !<p>Similarly, give families income support and training to relocate into cities. Offer them apartments, jobs, healthcare and continuous education. Pay them to forego having more children, and to educate the ones they have better. Offer particularly young women money and apartments to stay single and childless until they're at least 25 years old thereby cutting their fecundity in half. And of course, make reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion services, broadly available, safe and cheap for young women.<p>The current and continuing crisis of world-wide deleterious climate change is, like overpopulation, a direct reflection of our evolutionary challenge and current inadequacy. Were it not for the 7.32 BN of us already alive in such vast numbers, there would be many more fish in the seas, much more oil in the ground and much less carbon in the atmosphere. Time for a thorough-going and purposeful change: Let’s not leave it to evolution, lest we go the way of the dinosaurs !<p>Continuing fecundity in Africa is the direct result of the general lack of urbanization, there, as compared with other continents, as well as cultural values emphasizing fecundity and large families, and the general level of poverty and illiteracy.<p>But this is rapidly changing, as the article points out.<p>As African nations lift themselves from poverty and progressively urbanize, e.g., Nigeria, today, fecundity drops and the intrinsic rate of population growth along with it. Nigerian women, especially those who live in Lagos and other large cities (e.g., Abuja, Port Harcourt, Benin City, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna) are increasingly interested in getting an education, making money and deferring marriage. Deferring the start of childrearing has a dramatic effect on overall fecundity. Deferring a first pregnancy to the age of 25 cuts an average woman's lifetime fecundity in half.<p>The major impediments to successful population control are largely culturally determined resistance -- especially male chauvinism, heterosexism, paternalism and religiously-driven moral imperatives to "be fruitful and multiply" (this, largely an attempt on the part of these religions to secure and increase their numbers by indoctrinating newborns in the faith).<p>But all these impediments tend to fall by the wayside, when young women and families enter into urban areas: The anomie of the cities assists young people in escaping the control of their parents and their clergy. "Traditional values" tend to fall victim to "modernism". "Contraception" is no longer a dirty word. Liberality and social mobility go hand in hand. Staid and stoic traditionalist parents tend to shut up, when their well-educated daughters are sending home then rent cheque from Lagos !<p>Africa's population will bound towards 2 billion or more by the end of the 21st century, but then it will stabilize. By that time, if we're lucky, the Earth will host more than 12 BN souls, and we shall be straining the world's resources to the limit.<p>If we have some real luck, hydrogen fusion power will replace fossil fuels and nuclear fission, entirely. We will devote the new, cheap and nearly limitless power to cleaning up the environment, sucking the carbon out of the atmosphere and burying it in the deep seas, planting billions of trees, and building tall and narrow cities, leaving vast tracts of open land to the animals, the insects and the other flora and fauna. We shall swing from mile-high elevators much like our distant ancestors swung through tropical forests.<p>And we shall begin to colonize the Moon, Mars and other regions of space, as well.<p>Time for a thorough-going change!
What does a GB of Internet service really cost? The worst case scenario (2011)	There's more than a few problems with this particular assessment as it relates to "what we pay" and what kind of service we can expect for that price.<p>On the cost side, I suspect the cost of support, service and customer acquisition significantly affects the cost/GB. I used to switch between UVerse and Comcast every 6-12 months (the point at which the promotional prices ended) because it was very easy to do so and they didn't have a requirement that I remain for a contractual period of time.<p>However, even given all of this, "what we pay" <i>is barely related</i> to "what it costs", at least in most of the US. In the majority of markets there is often only <i>one</i> service provider that provides service at speeds in excess of 25Mbps. Sometimes, there is two, but in the state that I live in, the choice is often "Cable Provider" vs "Phone Provider". If you're lucky, your phone provider is AT&T on the newer network (with those giant boxes in each of our subdivisions -- no FIOS here) and they can deliver more than 25Mbps (inbound) and the other is Comcast at up to 100Mbps. Both have caps (unless you are a business subscriber) with AT&Ts at 150GB or 250GB depending on the service and Comcast at 250GB. A small number of areas have an additional cable provider (usually Wide Open West) that offer reasonable speeds and I <i>think</i> WoW doesn't do caps but I'm not sure.<p>The price you pay from each of these providers will be different depending on how many competing providers exist in the area. AT&T U-Verse at much higher speeds costs less in my house than AT&T U-Verse in my family's cottage up north (it tops out at 12Mbps with 150GB caps).<p>Until there is competition offering uncapped service (and customer demand for it), it doesn't really matter what the cost is. The folks at these companies charge what they can get away with given the market they're operating in, which in many markets is either an absolute monopoly (me, up north with AT&T) or them sharing the market with a single competitor who is able to deliver faster or slower service than them with identical data caps. The cost for entering a residential market is high, riddled with regulation and practical concerns, and the companies have lobbied hard for restrictive state laws that prohibit municipalities from providing a competing service.<p>Prior to them setting up this whole "pay for unlimited service" arrangement, I ran afoul of the 250GB cap and immediately switched to Comcast Business. The difference is <i>stark</i>. I had some service done with AT&T that resulted in one of the AT&T guys putting a shovel through the Comcast Business wire at 4:30 in the afternoon. I called them up and they sent someone to my house at 6:30 PM. I also get a special phone number, not open 24-hours, but I rarely talk to more than one person about the problem I'm experiencing and the hold times are minimal. He fixed the service (at no charge -- despite it being a competitor that <i>caused</i> the problem). That was one experience, but I've called support a few times and I've always had my issues addressed <i>quickly</i>. When I was a residential customer, waiting several days for a service call was normal.<p>I pay more than <i>twice</i> as much as the residential service at $130/mo for the same speeds, but I have no data cap and routinely use 2-3 TB/mo according to my router. I'm on the same wires, using the same company, paying a lot more, and getting no caps, and what I'd characterize as exceptional customer service. This almost irritates me <i>more</i>. It's not an issue of being unable to provide this kind of service to everyone, or an issue of network capacity, it's an issue of being unwilling to provide this kind of service to everyone because the market dictates that they don't need to in order to be (very) profitable.<p>Now, I suspect that the small businesses that they target this service at probably don't use the kind of bandwidth or have the performance requirements that I do (I'm in the 2-3TB/mo range). My dad's 9-person company was happy with IDSL at 1Mbps bidirectional until two years ago and would probably still be on it if Comcast hadn't wired up the park and undercut the other providers by half, so they're competing for a different kind of customer in small business. And this may bean that the small business market actually has <i>more</i> competition since many are willing to accept slower service offerings as identical products (or maybe the manufacturing non-tech heavy small businesses in my area are just that way).
Ask HN: The Struggles of Poverty and Trying to become a programmer from 0	I am currently struggling with similar tough situation.I see some helpful advice here but honestly, its easier said than done.<p>-I am a latina, working in retail, no support of any kind whatsoever, surviving and on top of that with an expensive autoimmune medical condition. My job is in retail working long stressful hours, no benefits, no vacations. That leaves almost no time to study or hack around because I need to work in order to survive. Many things regarding web development requires owning a Mac computer that many people can't afford or taking some basics classes around which are not free. Nowadays, if you have internet access and a simple computer that should be enough. Guess what? Many people cant even pay for those basics needs. I just bought a Mac with money I don't have...hopefully it will pay in the future. But there are people even in the US with less choices than your average person. For example, many people lack credit access and money to buy computers, have internet access, buy books, go to places...hard to believe but it's true. When I first was diagnosed with my medical condition, I did not have insurance or financial help and all I needed was less than $2000 for my medical tests. No one helped me financially even when asked for help. I lost my hair, couldn't go to work so I did not earn money for those days, had some skin rashes due to my conditions. How can I be able to meet people like that? or study? I spent my few savings on all that. Thankfully, I recovered and my medical situation is now manageable. But It was a painful situation...I am afraid to face the same situation in the future: Health vs rent? Because eating became my third choice...<p>I applied to many free hack/development schools just to be denied from all of them. The last one I applied at the beginning of December 2015 just denied me I believe for not completing a bunch of tests/quizzes in order to get in. Guess why I couldn't finished? I was working long hours during holidays and did not have a computer and they required a mac. So I rushed to get one just to complete my tasks, didn't get sleep in order to advance some tests, and put some internet and the Mac on a credit card(at least now I have access to one but It wasn't always like that). When I put my internet to begin working on those entrance quizzes which are really long tasks, I saw my denial email. That was 2 days ago...I allowed myself to cry that whole day. Today, my plan is to keep my mac computer and try to pay if off little by little and study from free sources.<p>I live in NYC, my bills are not expensive because I have learned to budget after my health vs rent situation 2 years ago...but it's tiring to live with so many constrains.It's tiring to not have vacations AT ALL not even holidays off. I understand that my situation could be worse if I didn't plan my steps everyday. I just pray things don't get worse for me, especially health-wise.<p>This is what I recommend since you live in a big city like me:<p>-Try to eliminate your debt if you have any so you can get easier access to stuff in the future like loans. credit card, set up internet accounts, etc. -Try to get a credit card by doing #1 and buy yourself a refurbished or cheap Mac computer as many schools/teaching tools are really requiring a Mac -Get access to public library and have a card -try to get cheap internet access by shopping around. I don't have cable tv just cheap internet -Read free sources online and get free ebooks about programming -Check around for free development schools/IT programs in your city. NYC offers some or with minimal financing...apply if you can.Apply to all of them and don't give up...within your city that is. -Go to meetup groups and try to network.<p>NYC Fellowships just denied me, I don't qualify for Per Scholas here in NYC since I am currently working and need my job to survive...Treehouse is not longer free with public library access as it used to be. I fell into any possible crack in every situation. I feel forgotten by everyone in every situation and I am afraid. But I don't have much choice but to keep fighting.<p>I don't have friends in the industry, I don't have a mentor or someone to guide me in my journey. I have no financial help. All I know is that I love computers and programming, I have to survive and I need money to cover my unpredictable medical condition and I only have my own help for all that.Also, I am tired of working every day of the year. I want at least JULY 4th, Christmas and New Years off.Or even a week vacation...I want to leave my soul sucking job...these are " basics" things but many people lack them.For me, just having one of them , it's a privilege. I finally got my hair back and my skin rashes are more manageable, so now I am ready to meet new people and be more presentable.Better keep up now because I feel my time is limited due to my health condition. Who knows when I will lose my hair again and all that? I better be positive about my situation and don't stress myself more about my struggles.<p>Just believe in yourself, don't forget what you want and your needs, keep fighting and don't give up. Don't dwell in painful situations and don't allow yourself to cry for more that a day. Don't look back, just look forward but don't forget the reasons you are fighting for this. Don't really wait for a break, just go after what you want...<p>Hopefully, your situation turns around. Keep us updated...
OpenBSD Jumpstart: Learn to Tame OpenBSD Quickly	Very nice, here's the plain text version instead of slide format.<p>Learn to tame OpenBSD quickly.<p>December 24, 2015<p>History<p>Forked from NetBSD. Theo De Raadt is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD project. The first OpenBSD release (1.1/CVS) appear on October 18, 1995.<p>Why use OpenBSD ?<p><pre><code> UNIX-like Get the last version of OpenSSH, OpenSMTPD, OpenNTPD, OpenBGPD, OpenOSPFD, LibreSSL Get the last PF (Packet Filter) features Security focused Operating System Thorough documentation Cryptography </code></pre> Forked from NetBSD. Theo De Raadt is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD project. The first OpenBSD release (1.1/CVS) appear on October 18, 1995.<p>OpenBSD Version numbers<p><pre><code> Six month release cycle New release is incremented by 0.1 </code></pre> OpenBSD's Flavors<p><pre><code> -release: The version of OpenBSD shipped every six months -current: Development just after the release -stable: Release, plus patches (support ~ 1 year) </code></pre> Installation<p>Really simple, ready in 5 minutes (KISS).<p>Get more information: <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html</a><p>Networking (Files)<p><pre><code> File Contain /etc/myname Default hostname. /etc/hostname.if Configuration for each network interface, for example: /etc/hostname.bge0 /etc/mygate Default gateway. /etc/resolv.conf Resolver (DNS). /etc/hosts Known hosts on the network. </code></pre> Networking<p><pre><code> # See available network cards: /sbin/ifconfig # Restart networking service: /bin/sh /etc/netstart # Set DHCP for 're0' interface, on the fly: /sbin/dhclient re0 </code></pre> Networking (Routing)<p><pre><code> # Show the routing table (ipv4): /usr/bin/netstat -rnf inet # Show the routing table (ipv6): /usr/bin/netstat -rnf inet6 # Delete all gateway entries from the routing table: /sbin/route -n flush </code></pre> Networking (set at startup)<p>Example 1: configure static IP address for re0.<p><pre><code> ## file: /etc/hostname.re0 inet 192.168.0.58 255.255.255.0 # For more information, read the manual: hostname.if(5) </code></pre> Don't forget to run 'sh /etc/netstart re0' to apply changes to running system.<p>Example 2: configure DHCP for bge0.<p><pre><code> ## file: /etc/hostname.bge0 dhcp # For more information, read the manual: hostname.if(5) </code></pre> Don't forget to run 'sh /etc/netstart bge0' to apply changes to running system.<p>Example 3: configure wireless.<p><pre><code> ## file: /etc/hostname.iwn0 nwid ACCESS_POINT_NAME wpakey THE_SECRET_KEY dhcp # For more information, read the manual: hostname.if(5) </code></pre> Don't forget to run 'sh /etc/netstart iwn0' to apply changes to running system.<p>PF (Packet Filter)<p><pre><code> Ruleset: /etc/pf.conf </code></pre> Useful commands.<p><pre><code> # Disable PF /sbin/pfctl -d # Enable PF and load the rules /sbin/pfctl -ef /etc/pf.conf # Just load the rules (apply changes) /sbin/pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf # View the loaded rules /sbin/pfctl -s rules </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: pfctl(8)<p>Pf ruleset sample<p><pre><code> ## file: /etc/pf.conf # Protect a laptop (allow only ping/ssh from anywhere) set skip on lo set fingerprints "/dev/null" block log all pass in on egress inet proto icmp all icmp-type echoreq pass in on egress inet proto tcp from any to any port ssh pass out # For more information, read the manual: pf.conf(5) </code></pre> Debug PF with tcpdump(8)<p><pre><code> /usr/sbin/tcpdump -nettti pflog0 </code></pre> Manage users<p>Manually<p><pre><code> /usr/sbin/user [add\|del\|info\|mod] user_name </code></pre> The interactive way<p><pre><code> # Add users /usr/sbin/adduser # Remove users /usr/sbin/rmuser </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: adduser(8)<p>Manage Groups<p><pre><code> File: /etc/group /usr/sbin/group [add\|del\|info\|mod] group_name </code></pre> Members in 'wheel' group can use su(1) to become 'root'.<p>For more information, read the manual: group(8,5)<p>sudo replaced with doas(1)<p><pre><code> ## file: /etc/doas.conf # Permit the user 'Marc' to reboot the box permit nopass marc as root cmd reboot </code></pre> Marc can now reboot the box:<p><pre><code> $ doas reboot </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: doas.conf(5)<p>Install Packages<p><pre><code> export PKG_PATH=http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.8/packages/amd64/ # OR use 'installpath' variable in /etc/pkg.conf: installpath=http://ftp2.fr.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/%c/packages/%a/ # Add sudo package /usr/sbin/pkg_add sudo </code></pre> Some packages provide configuration and other information in a file located in '/usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes'.<p>For more information, read the manual: pkg.conf(5)<p>Packages<p><pre><code> # List packages installed /usr/sbin/pkg_info # View install-message for a specific package /usr/sbin/pkg_info -M package_name # Remove a Package /usr/sbin/pkg_delete package_name # Delete unused dependencies /usr/sbin/pkg_delete -a </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: packages(7)<p>Install non-free firmware packages<p><pre><code> /usr/sbin/fw_update </code></pre> Firmware is downloaded from release-specific directories at: <a href="http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/" rel="nofollow">http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/</a><p>Manage daemons, services<p><pre><code> File: /etc/rc.conf.local /usr/sbin/rcctl [enable\|disable\|start\|stop\|reload\|restart] daemon_name # Examples /usr/sbin/rcctl enable ipsec /usr/sbin/rcctl enable isakmpd /usr/sbin/rcctl set isakmpd flags -K /usr/sbin/rcctl start isakmpd </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: rcctl(8)<p>Run a script at startup<p><pre><code> File: /etc/rc.local </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: rc.local(8)<p>Update OpenBSD<p>Any security or reliability fixes can be found at: <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/errata.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsd.org/errata.html</a><p>You can also use the openup tool from M:tier<p>Upgrade OpenBSD<p>To upgrade 5.6 to 5.8, you need to follow instructions:<p><a href="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade57.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade57.html</a> & <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade58.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade58.html</a><p>OpenBSD Filesystem<p><pre><code> The most important: / Root directory. /home User home directories. /root Default home directory for the superuser. /mnt A temporary mount point. /etc System configuration files and scripts. /etc/examples Example configuration files for base system daemons. /etc/skel (dot) files for new accounts. /etc/signify Key files used for signify(1). /tmp Cleaned after a reboot. /var/tmp Symbolic link to the system /tmp. /var/log Log files. /var/run pid, socket files, utmp, dmesg.boot /var/db Database files. /var/www Configuration files for httpd(8). /usr/local Used for third packages installed. /usr/src BSD and/or local source files. </code></pre> For more information, read the manual: hier(7)<p>OpenBSD Kernels<p><pre><code> /bsd Pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot-time). /bsd.mp Pure kernel executable for multiprocessor machines. /bsd.rd Installation kernel. The built-in RAM disk contains utilities which can be run without an external file system, so this kernel is useful for limited system maintenance too. </code></pre> Tune the system<p><pre><code> sysctl(8) get or set kernel state config(8) modify a kernel </code></pre> Need more help ?<p><pre><code> FAQ: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ Manual page: afterboot(8) Mailing list: misc@ </code></pre> Presentations & Papers<p><pre><code> http://www.openbsd.org/papers/ </code></pre> Supporting OpenBSD<p><pre><code> Donations [1] OpenBSD Foundation [2] OpenBSD Store [3] </code></pre> Thank you. Feedback: contact@<p>[1] <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.openbsdstore.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.openbsdstore.com/</a>
The Ivy League, Mental Illness, and the Meaning of Life (2014)	> And I think we see that in the last 50 years, the meritocracy has created a world that’s getting better and better for the meritocracy and worse and worse for everyone else.<p>But weren't you saying just the opposite? That being part of the elite, which here you call "meritocracy" because you're playing a card trick, drives people crazy?<p>Here's what I think: You're talking to the elite (if you weren't, you wouldn't be in the Atlantic), and you know said elite are more comfortable thinking of themselves in terms of "meritocracy" (even though one of your theses is that there's no meaningful merit involved), and you also know that pretending to care about unequal distribution of social benefits is currently in fashion among your audience (hence the preference for "meritocracy", because it implies that your audience's unequal share is earned). Keeping all three of these plates spinning at once is difficult; the sentence I quoted is them all hitting the ground at once.<p>>Davis: Some criticize this kind of self-reflection as narcissistic[...]<p>>Deresiewicz: [...]the main point is to know yourself so you know what you want in the world. You can decide, what is the best work for me, what is the best career for me, what are the rewards that I really want. And maybe you’ll end up saying that I do need a certain level of wealth, but you will know it because you will have come to know yourself.<p>Nope. Nothing narcissistic here. You know, in ages past when countries had explicit aristocracies rather than the implicit ones which deposed and replaced them, "the main point" as you put it was to serve others, rather than oneself. Can't imagine what brought that to mind just now, though. Totally unrelated to anything, no doubt.<p>>Gaining self-knowledge isn’t a simple or predictable process. Are there certain things that can only be learned outside the classroom?<p>Could there possibly be any <i>wronger</i> question to ask?<p>>Aside from the classes themselves, the fact that we’ve created a system where kids are constantly busy, and have no time for solitude or reflection, is going to take its toll. We need to create a situation where kids feel like they don’t have to be “on” all the time.<p>Are you sure? What it sounds like you're saying is that "we" have been doing the best "we" can for decades, and the result is barely tolerable. Are you sure it wouldn't help more if you just stopped creating situations? If the problem is that you're raising your kids inside a Skinner box, why would you think the solution is to make the walls less opaque? Are these the only terms in which you can think? You don't need to answer that one.<p>>When I taught humanities classes, I never talked about self-reflection, and I never invited students to talk about their feelings or their backgrounds or their experiences.<p>Well, you got that right, at least, if only by accident. And it has to have been by accident, because you think you got it wrong. The context couches this as a failure on your part, but why would it be? Why would you think that someone <i>else's</i> self-reflection should have anything to do with <i>you</i>? You don't need to answer that one, either.<p>So how does this amazing article finish? With its subject telling us about his own college experience, in the course of which comes this marvel, which I've emphasized so you don't miss it:<p>>I drifted for two or three years after college until I reached <i>a cinematic moment in my life</i>[...]<p>Why <i>cinematic</i>? Because we've all seen this movie. To call it "transformative" would be erroneous, because a plot twist doesn't change the shape of the plot, it's part of the story all along; to call it an "epiphany" would be the same, plus stupid, because we all know God is dead. Indeed, part of the interview describes how academia has tried to fill the former social role of religion and failed at it.<p>But this possibly quite significant point is glossed over entirely because it's not important to Deresiewicz's movie and therefore not important to the article or the audience, who are (presumed to be) in much the same state as the subject: their problem isn't that they've failed to live the movie plot they thought they wanted, it's that they've <i>succeeded</i> at it and found themselves nonetheless unfulfilled. Which is fine as far as it goes, what a shame for them but who cares, right? Except they've managed to inflict the same disaster on the next generation, because they are not only narcissistic but incredibly stupid besides.<p>And, having recognized the existence and nature of this error, what do they feel really matters? Is it that their descendants, their students, their supposed protegees, are going to have to find their way out of this clusterfuck on their own because everyone who might be expected to help them is too self-absorbed to bother and too stupid to succeed at it anyway? Of course not. No, what matters is who gets the blame, specifically that it be anyone but they themselves:<p>>But the take home message is that everyone has to liberate themselves from this system. Education should be an act of liberation. We need to make a better system but ultimately everybody has to claim their freedom for themselves.<p>These are literally the last words in the article. Do you think that's an accident? Because it's not an accident.
How Calico, Google-Backed Research Lab for Aging Research, Operates	Some more insight from this, an audio interview with Aubrey de Grey (SENS Research Foundation) and Brian Kennedy (Buck Institute):<p><a href="http://mendelspod.com/podcasts/brian-kennedy-and-aubrey-de-grey-their-converging-approaches-aging-research" rel="nofollow">http://mendelspod.com/podcasts/brian-kennedy-and-aubrey-de-g...</a><p>Which, being nice, I've transcribed some of:<p>Moderator: What response have both of you had to the entrance of Calico, the Google company, and Human Longevity, Craig Venter's new company?<p>Aubrey: It's a complicated question. I'll talk about Human Longevity first. In my opinion they are not really working on what we're working on. They are working on personalized medicine, trying to optimize therapies that essentially already exist using analysis of large amounts of genetic data.<p>Moderator: So a similar company to other companies that are out there, with a fancier name?<p>Aubrey: I would say that definitely their hearts are in the right place, but they are a regular, perfectly normal company. They want to make profits fairly soon. Calico have set themselves up as a completely unusual company with the goal of doing something very long-term, however long it takes, they want to actually fix aging. They said so - Larry Page was perfectly clear about that. The question is how are they going about it, and that's getting really interesting. The first thing that they've done, which I feel is an absolutely spectacularly good move, is to bifurcate their work into a relatively short-term track and a long-term track. The short term track involves drug discovery for age-related diseases, doing deals with big companies like Abbvie, and so on. That's all very wonderful and all very lucrative in the relatively short term, and has more or less nothing to do with the mission for which Calico was set up - but it is a fabulous way to insulate the stuff that they do that is to do with why Calico was set up from shareholder pressure. It gets a little more complicated though. So then on the long term side, the stuff being led by David Botstein and Cynthia Kenyon, the question is how are they going about their mission. Of course an awful lot of this unknown because they are a secretive company, but from the perspective of whom they are hiring, and what kinds of work those people have done in the past, one can certainly say that they are not just focusing on one approach. They are interested in diversity. My only real concern is that they may be emphasizing a curiosity-driven long term exploratory approach to an unnecessary degree. I'm all for finding out more and more about aging, but I'm also all for using what we've already found out to the best of our ability to try stuff and see what we can do. I should emphasize that this is only my impression from a very limited amount of information available, but my impression is that it is perhaps turning into an excessively curiosity-driven, excessively basic science, inadequately translational outfit. And that's kind of what I feared when Botstein came along in the first place, because he's on record as saying he doesn't have a translational bone in his body. Now Brian could obviously say a lot more if he wants to, as he's done a deal with Calico.<p>Brian: Let me start by saying that I think its great that these big companies are getting into the game. Almost no matter what happens that is going to help the field get more people, more private sector people involved, maybe get Big Pharma involved, and so I think it is a good thing. I can't say too much about Calico because we have a relationship with them, but I will say that I think it is an interesting challenge when all of a sudden a lot of money is on the table, and very good people are hired to say "go solve this problem," and they haven't been thinking about that problem until a month ago. So I think what we're going to see with Calico is that they're going to continue to evolve as they go forward, and I think it will be very interesting to see the kinds of stuff they choose to do, and it may be very different two years or three years from now.<p>Moderator: You were saying in the panel we were just at that you thought it was a game-changer.<p>Brian: I think it adds great momentum, and I think it will be equally important to really get Big Pharma to get into this game too. It is easy to say you've got a ton of money, but what is a ton of money? If you're going to start doing real clinical trials, phase III clinical trials, it takes more than a ton of money; Big Pharma has to come in. Getting Abbvie involved is a good step, but it would also be good if everyone else starts saying this is the place to be.
Ask HN: What's the new best practise security model in the enterprise?	This definitely more an infrastructure question -- specific to your organization's workflow, internal policies, existing software, priorities and politics -- than a general 'where do I implement {kerberos, RSA SecurID, off-site audit trails, etc}. You won't get a one-size fits all solution, as it totally depends on 1) the industry you're working in, 2) the internal compliance policies you have to deal with, 3) the country you're operating in, 4) the operating policies you have to follow in order to stay compliant with the clients professional liability insurance policy/policies.<p>>> "lots change as you try to build a complete system" I mean this is why in the enterprise, changing one line of code can take 2 weeks of conference calls (in-house legal often has to be brought in, the original stakeholder of the project has to be brought in and odds are he's gone so whoever inherited the project has to be brought in, if you're making a fundamental change to the system often third-party auditors from the big 4 are requested to sign-off on the logistics of the change (especially if you're a publically traded company operating within the US).<p>RE: Purchase ordering systems - this has been standardized via multiple standards, but most of the companies I've consulted with have one integrated system (usually SAP, Dynamics, or one of the other handful of big-name brands), and they all speak the EDI standard[1], or if not, you'll certainly have Connector modules. I.e., BizTalk (if you're on a MS Dynamics stack, that's what you'll be using for workflow) has a SAP connector, SAP has a connector for Epicor, etc. With respect to security in terms of server<->server PO negotiation, read this[2] if you're on the MS stack. SAP R/3,4 (and B1, and AIO) all take care of the issuing of the PO, validating incoming POs (i.e., the SAP FSCM module will take care of customer management to see if the credit line is available for the customer, and all that; the FI/CO stuff will take care of balancing the accounting journals); the workflows [defined within BizTalk for MS or using custom ABAP modules that were placed in during your SAP implementation], the security negotiation is usually done via AS2 (see: [2]) or through one of a few 3rd party EDI transaction entities (in the same way that there are like 4 major CC companies, like-so with those EDI value-added transactors). x.509 and ActiveDirectory are almost always the standard re: authentication[3]<p>CRM's are historically purchased as a module that plugs into your ERP.<p><i>Lemur and Let's Encrypt have _nothing_ to do with anything enterprise and belong nowhere near it.</i> (The fact that you even posed this question makes me really concerned) LE is great for the average Joe developer because it democratized SSL cert generation, but even if a VeriSign SSL is 100$ that's, what? half an hour of a consultants time? My clients get that warm feeling every time they see a brand-name as a line-item on their invoice. <i>Managers are all about mitigating risk.</i> This is why you have VMware instances running 30 year old software simulating DEC Alphas, and why consultants who have skillsets in REXX and JCL can bill higher than associates in BigLaw. <i>Any project has risk attached to it, an integration/re-write project has avoidable risk. Delegate the risk factor out by getting the CIO to sign off on a restructuring program that's done by consultants so if it fails you can blame Accenture or IBM Consulting.</i> I would never, ever take on a project like that, even at triple my rate, because it sounds like you're already entrenched in a fractured system and in my experience those projects fail. I never take any work that I'm 100% sure I can complete because one major mess up and my reputation is shot. And this is the type of integration I do for a living. [Read this if you take nothing else away from my advice - [4]].<p>Even if you can write a 30 line Ruby script that integrates all of your systems into one magical, fluid operation, if there's even a slight chance of failure, you will be the one who assumes responsibility. Furthermore, 6 months down the line when middle-management and/or upper management is evaluating your performance, this is what they'll remember.<p>Your company is an enterprise. You have a fractured knowledge base with 'wildly different authentication [schemes]'. Bring in consultants and don't risk your career.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X12_Document_List" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X12_Document_List</a> Enjoy spending the next 2 years reading. [2] <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb743507.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb743507.aspx</a> [3] Here it is in SAP Netweaver (not to be confused with R/3, the actual SAP) - it's fairly similar though in the methodology though as is any of the other ERP / CRM's. <a href="http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/EN/d3/1dd4516c518645a59e5cff2628a5c1/content.htm" rel="nofollow">http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/EN/d3/1dd4516c5186...</a> [4] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10639309" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10639309</a> Read my post here on why rolling your own solution is bad for your customer, and even worse for you.
Ask HN: What is your advise to move up the ladder? Any anecdotes?	I'm curious if you discussed your desire to move into a management position with your supervisor. If you did discuss it, what, if any, feedback did you get?<p>Based on your statements in your question, the frustration is obvious, so is a sense of entitlement, like you've earned this right but it's not happening for you.<p>I am sorry that you are feeling like that, it's a terrible place to be and it can drive you to make some really stupid decisions. Hopefully, in simply asking this here has helped you relieve some of the stress, if not, maybe the following will be of some help.<p>This is not a direct answer, but should give you some ideas and thoughts to ponder, plus a couple of next steps.<p>Here are some of the themes I'm seeing in your question:<p>* Too much stuff to learn when it comes to coding<p>* Want to spend more time on personal projects instead of on technology treadmill<p>* Feel like you can complete coding tasks quickly<p>Let's address these themes:<p>I'm going to treat leadership / management interchangeably here, even though there are some serious differences between the two roles. For the purposes of being a line manager, they can be treated interchangeably.<p>Moving into a leadership role, whether you're looking for a tech lead or a management role, does not stop the first bullet point above. If anything, you have to be aware of all of the new trends enough to make a judgement call on it's validity, maturity and use-cases. You need to know this because you'll have your reports coming to you on a regular basis wanting to use some of these techniques / tools / languages / etc. How do you say no without offending your report? On the flip side, you'll have your manager(s) coming to you asking if something is a good idea. How do you explain the tradeoffs if you're a one-trick pony?<p>To the second bullet: you have, significantly, more time as an individual contributor than as a manager. As a manager, you have to make sure everyone is on target with what they need to do, run 1-1s to make sure the people are satisfied / happy and are not planning to resign shortly, report up the progress, report down the needs of the bosses. You are, perpetually, stuck between trying to communicate up, down and across the organization, while sitting in a lot of meetings (assuming a large org) and being on the hook to get more stuff done. This is doubly so if you are new to management. The hard truth is that the role doesn't matter, you have to know where to draw the line(s) and have a life. It's a constant tradeoff, do you pick up a new hobby or go out with your friends or learn the latest framework / language / algorithm / etc.<p>Your ability to code or get engineering tasks done quickly has very little to do with your ability to lead / manage. You need to learn new skills, mostly around communication, relationship building, messaging, ownership, delegation, accountability of others, etc. Just because you are a good developer does not mean you'll be a good manager. I would argue that most developers should never be allowed to lead as the skills and roles are so different, they are not transferrable. This means that you're starting from scratch, again. By the way, as you get promoted, you're constantly starting from scratch, unless you are, already, doing some of the things your manager is doing.<p>None of this directly answers your question, as there is no direct answer or how-to guide, it is very industry- and organization-specific.<p>Being a manager at a startup is very very different from being a manager at a large corporation. Moving into that role is, also, a different process. In some ways, moving into a leadership role at a startup has more to do with raw leadership skills then anything else; you see a problem, you own solving it - rinse and repeat, boom you're a leader now. By the way, replace __boom__ with months, potentially.<p>In a larger company, it's more involved as managers are expensive, both in terms of salary and training / knowledge acquisition. Imagine the disruption to the team, the delivery flow, unofficial communication channels (aka social glue), etc. when a manager leaves.<p>To be perfectly blunt, if you have ask the question, you need to really think about what it means to be a manager / leader. Look at how your role models came to be leaders, what paths did they take? Based on what you stated, your goals are position and money, that will make you a terrible manager, if you don't care about the people. You'll have a hard time retaining people or producing results in any high-performing organization as you won't be able to motivate anyone based on those drivers.<p>Another thought, position is meaningless in a high-quality tech environment. Power does not come, just, from the title, it comes from the group differing to you because of respect. Having worked at places where the position/title alone denoted power, it's a crappy place to be.<p>My suggestion, as to the next steps, is to:<p>* Reflect on the instances when you were put in charge of something and how people reacted to you, how they treated you and how you treated them<p>* Have several coffee dates with managers / leaders in your organization (don't go outside of your org) You are looking for people doing the role you would move into as your next step and their managers. Tell them you're interested in being a manager and what lessons they learned, what their day looks like, what keeps them awake at night, etc. You want to learn as much as you can from them and get your name out there. This is part of building relationships but also information gathering. This will tell you if you actually want the job and are willing to put up with the politics and dealing with people without the context of code to help you.<p>* Sit down with your manager in your next 1-1 and explain what you're seeking and ask for help to move into that role.<p>Also, read Managing Humans by Michael Lopp. It will give you a good idea about what it's like to manage engineers.
Let’s Move Beyond Open Data Portals	Sorry...I just have to disagree with the OP. Several years ago, Socrata stopped by where I worked (a news organization) and told us of their idea to build a portal of city governments everywhere that would host datasets. They were new at the time and I just thought they were bonkers.<p>Now, I can't believe what you can find on the various data portals. There's a lot of shit data but that's because lots of organizations collect shit data. But for the organizations that <i>do</i> have data, Socrata is such a huge step from what existed before.<p>I'll ignore the many situations in which agencies just didn't put out data at all. Dallas, Texas is one exception. It has been posting its crime data for years. Except it was on a FTP site with a convoluted structure. And it wasn't all in one file. So you had to write a script that spidered the subdirectories, downloaded the files, unzipped them, and concatenated them (and I don't think they were a straight-up concatenation).<p>Now, it's just all on one page from which you can export the data as bulk CSV [1]. Because Socrata's REST API is so straightforward, you can just script your data requests to hit the right end points. But not only is there the incident data, there's the narrative data [2] (which had also been on the FTP site, but required its own spidering), and there's tables I hadn't seen before, such as [3] suspects and real-time active calls [4]<p>On top of it, the police department has even decided to put up the data for their <i>officer-involved-shootings</i>. Mind you, they were <i>already</i> ahead of the game, nationwide, last year when they created a parseable (via scraper) webpage with HTML tables and PDFs. They certainly didn't have to make their data even easier to get, but they did [5]<p>Texas has always been generally good about public records because of their broad sunshine law. But it's not that the law turned them all into free-data-hippies right away...the agencies just have a tradition of doing it -- it helps alot if you're a Texas employee and you've seen how everyone else just agrees to potentially damaging records requests, and yet no one gets stressed out.<p>I have to think that Socrata, just by being <i>there</i> as an option, not just in Dallas, but everywhere, has made bureaucrats more aware of how data sharing can just be...<i>done</i>. Certainly, there are always officials who will push back, because they're power-control-freaks or because they have something to hide. But plenty of bureaucrats don't really care...they've just been told by their IT people that putting up data in an easy way would cost too much and be too much of a security compromise. Now that there's an option of a general data portal, there's fewer reasons to say no.<p>Just to give you an idea of how technically clueless many bureaucrats are (and I don't really blame them, but their agencies for not prioritizing tech training)...it is still not unheard of to be denied access to machine-readable data -- e.g. they <i>print out a spreadsheet</i> and fax it to you, instead of just sending you the XLS -- because they think that if they give you the spreadsheet, you can "alter the data".<p>Yes, it really is that dumb.<p>edit: to the author's credit, he's not saying that open data portals should be closed, just that governments should move beyond them. That's a nice sentiment, but in reality, it's an idea that takes away resources from <i>improving</i> data portals.<p>From TFA:<p>> <i>Now we actually give that directly to Waze, so they can reroute people dynamically. Indeed, this is a good open data story — taking the data to where people are —but there’s something more interesting: it’s a two-way street. Not only does Waze now share pothole and road condition data it collects regularly through its app, they went one step further. They began to proactively collect and share data in the interest public safety.</i><p>But <i>that can already be done</i> with the existing LA data portal and its REST API. Why does the city of Los Angeles have to give Waze anything other than the GET endpoint, from which Waze engineers can download as they like. And not just Waze, but everyone else, in equal measure. So there's nothing <i>wrong</i> with what the author wants, he just doesn't appear to think that with APIs, developers can create far better and far more resources than what the city could do itself.<p>And no, the city (unless it has a magical source of revenue) can't do both building out more "human" data applications while improving their open data pipelines. The latter has much, much further to go before the city can spend IT money on building out new apps.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-Data-RMS-Incidents/tbnj-w5hb" rel="nofollow">https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-D...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Bulk-Police-Narrative/inke-qqax" rel="nofollow">https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Bulk-Police-Narrative/...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-Data-Unknown-Suspects/jitt-qwwh" rel="nofollow">https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-D...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.dallasopendata.com/dataset/Dallas-Police-Active-Calls/9fxf-t2tr" rel="nofollow">https://www.dallasopendata.com/dataset/Dallas-Police-Active-...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-Data-Officer-Involved-Shootin/4gmt-jyx2" rel="nofollow">https://www.dallasopendata.com/Police/Dallas-Police-Public-D...</a>
It's time for the US to use the metric system	Getting closer, but we aren't there yet.<p>Truth is, there is a TON of industrial machinery, tooling, fasteners, and more centered on Imperial units. Increasingly, new projects are happening in SI units too. This may start to snowball in the near future. Some of this is driven by global networking effects. Common units are a must, and global engineering efforts are less efficient with Imperial units.<p>Most of the new work in the major vertical industries is now Metric (SI). That's been a long, painful transition. They still carry a lot of ongoing, sustaining engineering and a supply chain supporting it and it's Imperial units however. I'm not sure the author really appreciates the weight of this legacy. It grows a little lighter every year, but it's still very significant and very costly.<p>In the US today, there are ~200 to 250K small to mid sized manufacturers. These remain all over the map, and they typically are the last to adopt new units and technology. It's not that they are lazy, or unable, though unable is a factor. It is all about that investment making sense for them. Often, it just doesn't. If what they have works and they can compete they will do that. Machinery investments are often significant and multi-decade long service life is expected.<p>Older machinery often doesn't work in dual units, and when it doesn't, conversions are error prone and confusing to everyone in manufacturing, which leads to the problems of dual units, duplicate drawings, etc... It's often easier to either continue with Imperial units, or target some switch over date to minimize the problem, and when older machinery remains capable, incentives to phase it out are low. Incentives to rework / upgrade it can be attractive though, depending.<p>It's a lot better than it was in the 80's and 90's, when I began to have some direct familiarity with manufacturing. Back then, I was a prototype mechanic for a while, and maybe 1 out of 100 jobs was metric. Back then, the first thing most often done was a conversion and check. It was rare to work in the Metric units directly. Most test and measure equipment in use, as well as the machines, were Imperial units and often didn't even have the capability to switch.<p>I just toured a nice mid sized shop recently. Almost all the equipment in the building was dual unit capable, with a nice mix of units seen in the drawings and data on the shop floor. Some older machines were running new, reasonably advanced controllers too. (Yes, I looked some of that over out of interest as I will be sending that shop some work in Metric.)<p>The company I manage has just started it's first couple of Metric projects. Reason: comparability with robotics, where Metric dominates.<p>If you ask me, my hunch is that we will see a more significant incentive to switch formally when robotic automation has matured in the small to mid-sized manufacturing market, and the last of the old guard machines has gone past it's useful service life and is phased out.<p>This may be accelerated by new, small, lean, localized manufacturing coming on line about now. It's growing more practical to setup shop and serve niche ecosystems and still make money. This is a ripe target for new business, new machinery, and that's all very highly likely to at least support metric (SI) units.<p>All of the useful software is dual unit now. That has been a non issue for well over a decade. Legacy software can take forever to cycle out of manufacturing, and it's finally happening en-masse. Really old stuff, DOS and older, is almost never seen now, meaning the tools from the 90's is in aggressive phase out and with that, the last of the single unit software solutions goes out the door.<p>Until then, there will be more than enough inertia backing Imperial units.<p>Maybe 10, 20 years at the earliest? We might be able to take a step, like preferred units, depending on how we want to handle our huge Imperial unit based legacy.<p>All that said, if we want a jobs program, just pass a mandate and fund the crap out it. We will pay hard for a decade, but we will have largely switched too. I don't see that happening, though it would be good for us to do, largely because we will carve out lots of stuff for cost reasons, and we will do that, because investment spending is poorly differentiated from other kinds of spending in the US right now, taking meaningful legislation and the funding needed for it off the table hard. A well thought out plan has the potential for real economic stimulus as well as some gains in terms of overall manufacturing capacity and efficiency. From a pure competitive standpoint, this kind of investment could be a great idea.<p>Barring some real change in how we think about spending overall (fat chance!), ongoing and incremental industry improvement driven by global network effects will nudge us there, bit by bit.<p>Good as it gets right now kids.
Ask HN: I'm a dull person since software doesn't excite me anymore. What to do?	Now I'm humming that Father John Misty song that goes "people are boring, but you're something else completely..."<p>This isn't much of a cheer up but lots of people are dull in this sense. Maybe they've worked at the DMV for 40 years. Or they've been dealing with local politics all their life. Maybe they have a hobby but in all likelihood that's boring, too—tell me more about your ski trip or your pottery...<p>In first person, skiing is awesome, but it's useless for being an "interesting person." Some people are interesting from a varied life experience, and some people bore everyone to death with their fascinating anecdotes. There are other factors and the focus on having "wasted one's life" is, I think, a red herring.<p>Because the real problem doesn't seem to be how to be interesting but how to be <i>interested</i>. If you're moderately burned out then your capacity for interest fades. Enjoyment becomes less enjoyable.<p>I sometimes watch a video with the psychotherapist Adam Phillips who talks about the need to find one's appetite. It's a good notion because it's counter to the quasi-Buddhist ideal of non-desire that's floating around, and it's also not just telling you to "enjoy" yourself in the obvious ways—but to really locate your appetite as if you don't really know where it is or how it works.<p>I would suggest that boredom with software can be a useful attitude. The proliferation of infrastructural complexity doesn't benefit end users, and for any given purpose there is value in minimizing the amount of necessary software to achieve it. Code is technical debt; that's why everyone loves to remove lines of it.<p>So your incentive as an engineer who sees software as a burden is in many ways aligned with good business. This might make you curious about ways to simplify and write less code. That's a huge topic and the focus of some of the smartest people in the field. Maybe it's even the primary topic of computer engineering.<p>Townes van Zandt sang "life's mostly wasting time," but I'd say it's mostly dealing with bullshit and problems. Work is like this: something is messed up and you need to fix it. There may be a grander vision motivating your work, but there will always be days when that's far off and you're just down in the muck with your hands dirty from CORBA stack traces and horrible complicated "logic" (to use the industry euphemism for the growing accumulations of special cases and workarounds). At this point it's good to have a repertoire of attitudes that includes the role of a technician who puts on her gloves and jacket and goes down into the mess holding her breath.<p>Then there are two more things.<p>The first is the real possibility that your current place of employment is not a good fit. Maybe you would be more engaged at an early startup, or more inspired somewhere with a more diverse staff, or you might need different terms like Wednesdays off, half time telecommute, or whatever other arrangement. I don't know and it might take experimentation. If your boss is sympathetic, hopefully you can work something out, or you can find another place.<p>The other thing is mental health broadly speaking. Lots of people in IT have "issues" and you can find dozens of courageous conference talks with personal stories of mental unwellness. Working people in general for obvious reasons can become dissatisfied with life, especially those whose job involve sitting still at the same desk every day—dealing with broken shit.<p>The state of affairs societally is obviously broken, and hopefully the next few years will have more recognition of this—talk of reduced hours and even basic income schemes are becoming normalized and viable. Still, political shifts notwithstanding, you need to take real measures in your life to combat the tendencies toward overwork, overdistraction, and the spiral of boredom.<p>It's a spiral because it involves feedback loops that demand either strong effort or clever judo to escape. There are bootstrapping problems involved when your problem is that you don't want to do stuff. Malignant problems exacerbate themselves: lack of interest leads to fear of dullness leads to nonactivity.<p>For all of this last point my primary advice is to talk to a professional in mental health. This is what they do. In some cases they might recommend a medicinal method of bootstrapping, if you're okay with that and if you need it. But they also work with things like thought patterns and general counselling. Experienced therapists will have talked to hundreds of people with similar problems.<p>Secondarily, while I sympathize and recognize your situation, I'll respectfully disagree that lack of hobbies makes a person dull. For an obvious contraindicator, this thread itself shows that you have questions to ask that people find relevant. Mental content isn't everything. As a human you're endowed with the capacities of consciousness that we all share and that's the basis for curiosity, not some amount of learned facts or skills.<p>I mean, you don't need anyone's permission to start traveling, and all travelers start from this state of ignorance, yet their basic human receptiveness makes them capable of curiosity, and that makes them "interesting" as travelers.<p>If you're not clinically depressed, if you can wake up in a hostel room and after a cup of coffee feel basically alright, you can go out in any foreign city and look around. You don't need to be knowledgable about architecture or politics, but if you're in Bangkok and see the king on billboards everywhere you'll get curious and sooner or later you've learned about the history of Thai monarchism, maybe even read <i>The King Never Smiles</i>, and then when Southeast Asia comes up, you're suddenly the guy with the interesting knowledge, and all you had to do was follow your natural curiosity.<p>I've saved this for last but consider meditation—in the very simple sense of sitting down quietly in the morning or evening, maybe with a cup of tea or something. It's all dressed in flowery metaphysics and people get excited about it but it's such a simple thing, to sit quietly. I don't keep up with the science, but I don't need statistical surveys to know that sitting quietly now and then is good for me. It's obvious. It can feel excruciating when you're mind is racing and you're bored or full of self-loathing or whatever, but beneath all that thinking activity you're strengthening a deeper capacity—and after 15 minutes, you have a new perspective, bad moods can dissipate, anxious thoughts dispersed, like Adam on the first morning (as Whitman wrote).<p>I'm way far into pretentious zone with meditation and Walt Whitman but whatever. Best wishes.
Show HN: Fisherman – Plugin manager and CLI toolkit for fish shell	So, to answer the most important question, WHY do I want this thing?<p>Long wall of text ahead, but I promise this covers a lot.<p>---<p>If you are only using fish, you are missing out the ability to effectively share plugins, prompts, configs, missing completions, documentation for external utilities, plain old scripts or bundle of scripts.<p>If you are using Oh My Fish (OMF) / Wahoo or Tacklebox, you may be already doing some of the above, just very poorly.<p>---<p><i></i><i>So</i><i></i>, I want to create shell scripts, snippets or let's call them utilities that follow the [UNIX guidelines](<a href="http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap12.html" rel="nofollow">http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_...</a>) for option parsing, fish auto-completion out of the box, with bundled documentation using the traditional `man(1)` pages like a boss, and I want my scripts to come not only in the form of `.fish` files, but I want to ship them bundled with scripts in other languages too sometimes, maybe Awk or Perl, or if you are cool, Python. Then I want to commit that to a GitHub repository, or as a Gist, or to BitBucket, GitLabs or my own server if I want.<p>---<p>Fisherman makes this process very easy and it also gives me access to an external ["index"](<a href="https://github.com/fisherman/fisher-index" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/fisherman/fisher-index</a>) to where I can publish these utilities, let's better call them now <i></i>plugins<i></i> so that others can discover my stuff without having to know the URL in advance.<p>Fisherman is not like, say `brew` where you typically share one or more binaries, that's a true package manager indeed.<p>---<p>Fisherman, however, is about sharing snippets, prompts, configurations, initialization scripts, like I said above, that kind of stuff. In the Fisherman jargon, I am rolling all that into a bun and calling it "plugin".<p>---<p>To Fisherman they are all the same, they <i></i>should<i></i> be, and if that's not the case your "framework", "manager", whatever, is not doing you any service.<p>---<p>There are several different setups that Fisherman understands and can process. Why? Because there are already existing snippets and plugins with their own idiosyncrasies. The same ones I mentioned above. Also people creating stuff in fish and releasing it without a particular "framework" in mind.<p>---<p>Fisherman recognizes packages from all of those dimensions and lets you install them and use them as you wish. Without strange restrictions that these other "frameworks" often pose on you, like strange name conventions or strict URL forms. It _will even__ try to guess the URL and correct your mistakes sometimes.<p>---<p>You can also "install" stuff locally and it will symlink a directory to Fisherman's configuration directory so that you can develop, test and iterate :repeat: fast and without having to do anything but `(1)` creating a directory and `(2)` typing `fisher install .` or `fisher install <my_path>`. You can commit your changes to a Git repo and that will not affect the process. It just works™.<p>---<p>But also you get a builtin (obviously it's builtin) <i></i>cache system<i></i> to let you install stuff while you are offline (assuming you already downloaded the _stuff_ first) and that segues into Fisherman's simplest, but IMO best feature, the <i></i><i>flat tree</i><i></i> :evergreen_tree:.<p>Here is the thing, Fisherman is as fast as <i></i><i>no</i>* Fisherman.<p>The [initialization script](<a href="https://github.com/fisherman/fisherman/blob/master/config.fish" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/fisherman/fisherman/blob/master/config.fi...</a>) basically declares a few variables and evaluates only config files that <i></i>you<i></i> allow Fisherman to evaluate. Period.<p>---<p>On the other hand, legacy OMF and modern OMF, Wahoo and Tacklebox mutate a variable to add / remove paths as you install / uninstall plugins. This is slower than loading all your functions into a single directory and telling fish to load only that.<p>---<p>But wait, you say, a flat tree means every function will be public and there ought to be name collisions and what not. Well, that's how it has always been. If you were under the impression there was such thing as private function scope, I am sorry, there isn't.<p>* <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25088699/make-fish-functions-private" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25088699/make-fish-functi...</a><p>* <a href="https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1799" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1799</a><p>---<p>This is a "deficiency" (or feature maybe?) of the language and there is no way around the implications of this. You create a function and then remove it from the scope, but that does not change the fact _that function_ will replace any other function with the same name.<p>---<p>Now, you can always add prefixes to your functions or use underscores at the beginning of the function name like most folks do anyway. So, by using an underscore you express your intention to mark this function as private, but it's just as "public" as any other.<p>Well, if fish has no private function scope, then it makes sense to use a flat tree for speed.<p>---<p>In the case of OMF and admitedly Wahoo too, things are even worse :sweat_smile: because these two boys use fish [_event handlers_](<a href="http://fishshell.com/docs/current/commands.html#emit" rel="nofollow">http://fishshell.com/docs/current/commands.html#emit</a>) during their initialization process, and since fish <i></i><i>does not</i>* automatically load files with events (there is just no convention for this ATM), they need to source <i></i>every single<i></i> `.fish` file inside <i></i>each<i></i> plugin's directory and inmediately `emit EVENT_NAME` adding yet another step in the process.<p>---<p>Events are great for communicating between different components / areas in a complex application, and I originally thought of using them in Fisherman despite the (arguably small) performance overhead, but desisted when I realized whatever happens inside an event handler, does not leak. They are essentially black holes and useless if you want to parse any output generated inside the handler / function.<p>---<p>One of Fisherman features is UNIX stinkiness. I don't think the UNIX philosophy (whatever that was) is a creed unbreakble doctrine, but I like to write my functions and utilities so that they can be plug / plumb into one another easily. That's why everything is a "stream" and all the commands Fisherman ships with read the standard input and do what you would expect if you are already familiar in how UNIX typically works. This is one of the principles I based while writing this, so it's everywhere. It's also [here](<a href="https://github.com/bucaran/getopts" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/bucaran/getopts</a>). That is used in Fisherman to make sophisticated CLI apps. It's written in sed/awk and it's <i></i>really<i></i> fast.<p>---<p>This is not even close to all Fisherman has to offer. There other cool things like the [search](<a href="https://github.com/fisherman/fisherman/wiki#search-point_left" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/fisherman/fisherman/wiki#search-point_lef...</a>) command that parses the index file and lets you query plugins like you would expect from any modern tool. In OMF/Wahoo (Tacklebox has nothing) you only get a name.<p>---<p>In Fisherman every plugin gets a well deserved `name`, `url`, `description`, any number of `tags` and an `author`'s name. Makes sense.<p>---<p>And if you install a plugin from an "unknown" URL (one not in [fisher-index](<a href="https://github.com/fisherman/fisher-index/blob/master/INDEX" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/fisherman/fisher-index/blob/master/INDEX</a>), Fisherman will complete the information the best it can querying the Git repository, exhausting all the possibilities, so there's always data. It even looks at the URL itself and tries to guess stuff.<p>---<p>This "index" thing, is just a plain text flat database written in a human readable format. One cool thing is, the index is <i></i>always<i></i> kept up to date, unlike in OMF where you need to update in order to learn about the new goods. So, you don't have to update <i></i>the entire<i></i> application just to see what new packages are available, you are always querying the latest index.<p>---<p>A few other features that to mind is Fishfiles (dependency manifest file) that allows plugins to declare dependencies to other plugins and keep track of what plugins you have installed or not in your system.<p>---<p>BTW, OMF uses a more naive, but still similar, `bundle` file. Fisherman recognizes this and works with it too. No questions asked :+1:<p>---<p>Finally, the bundled <i></i>help<i></i> is phenomenal. Everything ships in glorious `man(1)` pages. You are not alone. Every single feature is thoroughly documented like it should be and now the Wiki is also pretty nice with the screencasts for each command.
Ask HN: What is your company's on-call rotation like?	Hi,<p>My company does 24/7 devops for some clientele. We are a team of 6 for reference. We have been doing this for many years since before "devops" was the term for it. Some of the platforms we have also built for these clients, and some we simply manage, or we have only built+manage the automation.<p>In terms of answering your question:<p>- expected duties. In terms of what we are selling the client there is a long specific list of what exactly we can provide the client. In practice however the list is exhausting, and intended 1/2 for CYA, and we will fix whatever issues arise. Some of that is seeing things that need work/adjustment/tuning/optimizing before problems arise, and then as you can imagine the whole being-on-call thing means that you must be an expert at resolving issues that no one saw coming. In terms of SLA stuff, we are supposed to be on-scene (digitally) in 15 minutes, but we are never that slow.<p>- how deep. Think of it in phases. When something needs fixing, you must quantify the urgency. If there is an urgent fix needed this is ground zero. You do whatever you can, if that involves waking people up, or checking out code bases that are new to you and patching some developers code in the middle of the night, its all on the table. In ground zero mode, you do whatever it takes. Once the bandaid/fix/solution is in place to "stop the bleeding" as I like to say, then there is follow ups, that may include working with the client to have them implement the elegant permanent fix, or if they are in over their head, sometimes that lands on us too. But it serves no-one to have a bandaid that is going to just get ripped off every night. So we see the problem from A-Z, even if our offramp is on B, or M. If it's not urgent, we will just wait for tomorrow to discuss with the client, it falls out of the scope of on-call.<p>- priority. Well, on-call work is billed and agreed different to ticket work since we are primarily a consulting company. So these are different buckets. But we also have our own products that we own 100%, and the priority is quite easy. If something is broken/down/about-to-break, it trumps everything else. Regular tickets are great, but they are meaningless if the platform for which your developing them against can't stay functional. On-call work rarely has a "queue" or even really a ticket system.<p>- there is no "complete in time" it's either done or you failed. I say this, having failed too, and it sucks, but it is what it is. If something breaks, and you can't fix it, you don't just go home. But.. sometimes you do, but you walk away from the scene with your tail in-between your legs, no one plans for that.<p>- managing other teams risk. Communication. Putting energy in ahead of time, and bringing things up before they break is huge. Also if you say "Hey you should turn left, there is a cliff!", and the client is insistent on turning right, this can do two things. A - they know and hopefully its recorded in an email or in a meeting that you wanted to turn left. B - if your absolutely certain they are going to run over a cliff, but your still on the line / have to support the darn thing anyway, you can quietly put a bunch of pillows at the bottom of the ravine, and prepare for the inevitable. When the car goes over the cliff, and everything almost grinds to a halt, and you manage to have been correct about it, but also managed to bail them out, you score a lot of gratitude from the client, and ongoing future relations.<p>This is all from the point of "consulting" mostly, but I have done this same type of work for many large companies directly on their payroll too, it all applies, and the bigger the company the more it's like consulting in some way also, because bigger companies are more compartmentalized. I have also done this in many small startups where your all just one small team.<p>Holidays and vacations are important, but they will never truly be the same after years of this. We are pretty good at it now, and we really do try to keep everyone up to speed with where "the bodies are buried" with all of our clients infrastructure. That is the hardest part. Everyone can look at a perfectly groomed wiki or set of 100% refined chef/puppet cookbooks/modules, but the world isn't perfect. So the hard part is learning how to take the punches with elegance, and people need a break. It really does take at least 3-4 people to have a not-insane 24/7 schedule.<p>We generally plan about 1-3 weeks ahead depending on the time of year and put it into our scheduling system, which is also the system that does our paging. We rotate weekends, and work it out amongst ourselves. Some people have things like date nights that we know about and try hard to not screw up.<p>Don't build your pager system yourself, you have enough stuff to do. I won't plug them because I don't want this to sound like an advert, but do yourself a favor and pay the money to a company that specializes in bubbling up alerts to notifications that can do phone/sms/email/ios/android/push/etc. These have really helped us manage the insanity & schedule.<p>If there is any advice, simply don't be frightened to say when you don't know something, even if your tasked with fixing it. There is little room for ego when your the one that ultimately has to be responsible. Being on call means you can't pass the buck, and the sooner you know what you don't know, the sooner you're able to learn it!<p>Edit: Typos
There are no secure smartphones	That's right. Focus on the baseband is kind of the new fad in mainstream ITSEC. These problems are long-known in high-assurance as the cert requires <i>all things that can compute, store, or do I/O</i> to be assessed. The reason is that, historically, these were all where attacks came in. I'm pretty tired but I can do at least a few points here.<p>1. Software. The phones run complex, low-assurance software in unsafe language and inherently-insecure architecture. A stream of attacks and leaks came out of these. The model for high-assurance was either physical separation with trusted chip mediating or separation kernels + user-mode virtualization of Android, etc so security-critical stuff ran outside that. There was strong mediation of inter-partition communications.<p>2. Firmware of any chip in the system, esp boot firmware. These were privileged, often thrown together even more, and might survive reinstall of other components.<p>3. Baseband standards. Security engineer Clive Robinson detailed many times of Schneier's blog the long history between intelligence services (mainly British) and carriers, with the former wielding influence on standards. Some aspects of cellular stacks were straight designed to facilitate their activities. On top of that, the baseband would have to be certified against such requirements and this allowed extra leverage given lost sales if no certification.<p>4. Baseband software. This is the one you hear about most. They hack baseband software, then hack your phone with it.<p>5. Baseband hardware. One can disguise a flaw here as debugging stuff left over or whatever. Additionally, baseband has RF capabilities that we predicted could be used in TEMPEST-style attacks on other chips. Not sure if that has happened yet.<p>6. Main SOC is complex without much security. It might be subverted or attacked. With subversion, it might just be a low-quality counterfeit. Additionally, MMU or IOMMU might fail due to errata. Old MULTICS evaluation showed sometimes one can just keep accessing stuff all day waiting for a logic or timing-related failure to allow access. They got in. More complex stuff might have similar weaknesses. I know Intel does and fights efforts to get specifics.<p>7. Mixed-signal design ends up in a lot of modern stuff, including mobile SOC's. Another hardware guru that taught me ASIC issues said he'd split his security functions (or trade secrets) between digital and analog so the analog effects were critical for operation. Slowed reverse engineering because their digital customers didn't even see the analog circuits with digital tools nor could understand them. He regularly encountered malicious or at least deceptive behavior in 3rd party I.P. that similarly used mixed-signal tricks. I've speculated before on putting a backdoor in the analog circuits modulating the power that enhances power analysis attacks. Lots of potential for mixed-signal attacks that are little explored.<p>8. Peripheral hardware is subverted, counterfeit, or has similar problems as above. Look at a smartphone breakdown sometime to be amazed at how many chips are in it. Analog circuitry and RF schemes as well.<p>9. EMSEC. The phone itself is often an antenna from my understanding. There's passive and active EMSEC attacks that can extract keys, etc. Now, you might say "Might as well record audio if they're that close." Nah, they get the master secret and they have everything in many designs. EMSEC issues here were serious in the past: old STU-III's were considered compromised (master leaked) if certain cellphones got within like 20 ft of them because cell signals forced secrets to leak. Can't know how much of this problem has gotten better or worse with modern designs.<p>10. Remote update. If your stack supports it, then this is an obvious attack vector if carrier is malicious or compelled to be.<p>11. Apps themselves if store review, permission model, and/or architecture is weak. Debatable how so except for architecture: definitely weak. Again, better designs in niche markets used separation kernels with apps split between untrusted stuff (incl GUI) in OS and security part outside OS. Would require extra infrastructure and tooling for mainstream stuff, though, plus adoption by providers. I'm not really seeing either in mainstream providers. ;)<p>That's just off the top of my head from prior work trying to secure mobile or in hardware. My mobile solution, developed quite some time ago, fit in a suitcase due to the physical separation and interface requirements. My last attempt to put it in a phone still needed a trusted keyboard & enough chips that I designed (not implemented) it based on Nokia 9000 Communicator. Something w/ modern functions, form-factor, <i>and</i> deals with above? Good luck...<p>All smartphones are insecure. Even the secure ones. I've seen good ideas and proposals but no secure[ish] design is implemented outside <i>maybe</i> Type 1 stuff like Sectera Edge. Even it cheats that I can tell with physical separation and robust firmware. It's also huge thanks to EMSEC & milspec. A secure phone will look more like that or the Nokia. You see a slim little Blackphone, iPhone, or whatever offered to you? Point at a random stranger and suggest they might be the sucker the sales rep was looking for.<p>Don't trust any of them. Ditch your mobile or make sure battery is removable. Don't have anything mobile-enabled in your PC. Just avoid wireless in general unless its infrared. Even then it needs to be off by default.
Apple May Be Using Congo Cobalt Mined by Children, Amnesty Says	Sigh. Why are people even surprised? This won't change and can't change until we stop yelling "think of the children!" and only demanding for the suppliers to do a better job.<p>Yes some suppliers might be able to do a better job but many cases they also simply can't it's just the nature of doing business with under-developed countries.<p>Similar processes like the Kimberly process that was supposed to stop the trade in conflict diamonds have utterly failed and this is an industry that is built around artificial scarcity which just was dying for an excuse to further limit the production of diamonds to jack up the price.<p>There is very little any supplier can do to actually address this problem, this isn't some large scale mining operation that uses children this is for the most part unofficial mining. Unofficial mining (AKA the official past time of small scale African warlords) is pretty much a bunch of people taking over abandoned mining sites, dump sites for mining waste, sites that were deemed to be uneconomical to develop or just being down stream from the actual mine.<p>While it's true that these sites are often taken over by some gang of former child soldiers and their master (we all liked Beasts of No Nation) more often than not these days unofficial mining is conducted by communities, villages, and individuals who do not hold any one at gun point.<p>These unofficial mining operations do not produce any substantial amount of note (individually, however there could be 1000's of small scale mining operations vs only a handful of large scale official ones which means that anywhere between 10-50% of a given product might be mined unofficially) but they do produce enough to say feed a village (or to buy the wanna be warlord a BMW from the 80's even diamonds are sold for not even cents on the dollar, every 1$ in uncut stones that ends up in the hands of the miner is inflated to 1000 to 10000 by the time it ends up at tiffany's).<p>Those unofficial mining operations are getting mixed with what the big actual mining operation produce and end up in the supply chain, this can happen at so many points that there is no way to enforce any process which will guarantee that the supply is clean of conflict, child labor or any other social decree.<p>Even if you take out the child labor part which while horrid is by far not the worse part that can happen to a child in Africa, the conditions in the official mining operations for registered adult miners are also appalling and so far beyond what most of us could even imagine human beings being able to withstand on a daily basis.<p>So instead of yelling that we should vote with our wallets until those supply chains will be clean we need to realize that they will never be clean as long as you are dealing with a region such as the Congo. Instead of making another pointless process which will just going to be circumvented at all levels while jacking up the price for the end consumer (which every one in the supply chain, especially as it gets closer to the source will just pocket the difference). Companies should put the money that consumers would end up paying into programs that might actually work and not into the endless pit of bribes that any certification process would turn out to be when facing the unmovable object which is reality.<p>Apple can switch a supplier and it will, but it won't find a clean one as no such supplier exists even if they'll find the most expensive one with the best intentions. Because the local population which runs these operations will always have the upper hand and as long as the conditions exist that make it more likely for children to end up digging up rare earths for your smartphone or diamonds for your tennis bracelet this won't change.<p>I hope the day would come where a company like Apple could be brave enough to come out and say look we can't buy Cobalt which wasn't mined by kids, but we made a calculation that if we could it would be 17% more expensive so we are jacking our own prices by 17% and transferring the difference to X Y and Z in hopes that in 20 years we could buy Cobalt which was not only not mined by children but also mined by miners with life expectancy which is longer than our yearly product cycle.<p>But as long as people would keep on yelling boycott this and boycott that it will never happen and the only thing Apple can do is to continue to play the pass the hot potato game with it's suppliers (which will continue to restructure and change names to be put back into that list) and maybe have Tim Cook do an apologetic we are the world cover...
Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity	Am I the only one who has trouble with touch interfaces in general? Ever since my burnout I developed tremors in my fingers (I'm only 35) they got less but I don't expect them to ever completely disappear.<p>When I got my first smartphone, a Galaxy S4, which is nearly all-touchscreen to the edges and only 8mm thick, I found them absolute <i>hell</i> to use. Despite that I love the elegance of <i>idea</i> of touch-interfaces. If it's on, I must hold it by the 8mm sides to not press all sorts of things, which is very hard to keep steady. Meaning I can't do two-thumb-typing, or take sharp pictures, having to steady it against/in my hand I press the power button by accident, it just sucks. Many things take longer and it's not cool to be confronted with every few minutes.<p>Three-finger touch gestures are going to be awful for who who can't reliably bring three fingers down on the touchpad at the same time or can't quite rest their hand ready for that. Either the OS will occasionally register a bunch of one- and two-finger events before all three hit, or the OS will have to wait and analyse what's the intent and incur latency--at which point you're no longer doing <i>anyone</i> a favour, not the young dexterous power users, nor the twitchy and the elderly.<p>A lot of people ITT praise this guy's "design" skills, but I'm not entirely clear what particular field of design? His graphics design skills are pretty okay (not my taste but it looks good), but his user interface/interaction design skills ... I can't even judge because he doesn't display them?<p>All he writes about, even on the "Design Process" page is basically graphics design, mockups and daydreaming. This is what people in the industry call, <i>a cute hobby</i>. Where are the user tests? Where's the stories? Videos? Theory?<p>How do children ages 9-11 work with that (long) menu list that supposedly "is easily scannable"? (answer: they don't)<p>How do the elderly feel about three-finger touch gestures? (probably not very sexy)<p>What about when the menu list is translated to other languages? Doubt that even crossed his mind. But try it out, an exercise: An application with big menus that you are very familiar with (for me GIMP, but otherwise perhaps LibreOffice, or whatever). Switch the interface from English to a second language you speak well, even/especially if that language is your mother tongue. What happened to "easily scannable"?<p>Now switch the interface to a script you can't even read, Persian or Cyrillic. If you can still somewhat blindly perform some tasks and relatively easily find your way to switch back, the interface is doing pretty good. I have a fun Xposed plugin for Cyanogenmod called "HODOR", which hooks into the OS and changes <i>all the words</i> everywhere to read "HODOR". It's hilarious. To switch back you need to start Xposed, browse two levels of menus and reboot your phone. There's only two points where I need to <i>guess</i> (memorize), which I think is not bad for Cyanogenmod's UX design. This is what the final reboot dialog looks like: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/Yjf4Gc0.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/Yjf4Gc0.jpg</a> (asking whether I want regular or soft reboot, recovery or download and to OK/Cancel).<p>On the Design Process page he says "during the creation of Neo, I put a big focus on research", but then all he shows is more daydreaming and mockups. Where <i>is</i> the research?<p>This is a neat portfolio for a graphics designer but as far as user interaction design goes, all I see is someone that doesn't take the field seriously.<p>Something that is slightly worrying in the general case (also for graphics designers), all the descriptions I see him <i>telling</i> how it should be from his point of view, nothing about other users, nothing about users that are not like him. I admit that's just my impression from reading these few pages. But that's exactly what a portfolio should provide.<p>No stories about him sitting down with at least 20 random (not self-selected) people interacting with his mockups (assuming they're interactive), doing tasks, taking notes and/or video, and documenting especially the failures and the changes they provoked. That means either he hasn't done actual research, or he deems it not important enough to write about on his portfolio (very unlikel,y given the troves of information it provides if you actually do it).<p>Even if he didn't test on other people, I'd expect the "Design Process" page to at least talk about, his design process. It's just screenshots of early iterations. "Early on I identified the three most important topics as navigation, file management and input"--cool, how did you do that? Intuition is not a process! In particular it's not a skill that someone at the start of their career can plausibly demonstrate (either you can clearly explain steps how you got there or you have a long history of intuitively being right about such things).
Is marriage a broken model? Neil Strauss on non-monogamy	To me, asking "Is it natural to be faithful to one person for life?" is about as valid as asking "Is it natural for man to lie with man?" Who gives a shit what is "natural"? We're homo sapiens. We can do what we want.<p>My wife and I are completely monogamous and we <i>like</i> it that way. Oh sure, I see attractive women on the street or have conversations with them in various scenarios and I feel that old feeling of "wow". But there's a lot more to having a relationship than that. I don't know what to call it, but there is a quality to our relationship that extends past just being "roommates" who sleep together. I've known quite a few people who have been unfaithful in their relationships. And I think where they have failed to be faithful is in failing to find that "more" in their primary relationship.<p>I think where cheating happens is when you have a relationship that is fundamentally narcissistic, where it's all about you, where it's not really about the other person but what the other person does for you. In that sort of relationship, swapping that person out for another is easy. And we know in general that narcissism is on the rise, so I don't think it's any surprise to see that cheating is on the rise. To ask if monogamy is "natural" is basically carte blanche accepting that narcissism <i>is</i> natural, plus nothing we should change about ourselves.<p>I had never had this deep level of connection that I have with my wife with any of my past girlfriends. When I felt that feeling that a person <i>could</i> be swapped out like that, when I felt an urge to flirt with another woman I had just met in a bar, instead of cheating on my girlfriend, I broke up with her. And that's another place where I think people get in trouble with their relationships. Most people seem to think it's important to always be in a relationship. I never did. I cut them off early if I felt reservations about the relationship. I didn't exactly know what I was looking for all those years, but if I wasn't aware that I had found it after a month, it was done. And I thought it was unfair to both me and her to continue a relationship I knew was ultimately going nowhere, no matter how much I enjoyed the sex at the time, or being seen in a relationship (I used to get a lot of flak from certain people about being single). I think if more people were not afraid of being single, fewer people would cheat. Not just because you can't cheat on a partner that doesn't exist, but because people who are in relationships will be more secure in them, not clinging to them just because they fear singlehood. But I think people are getting more afraid of singlehood, so I don't think that will happen anytime soon.<p>Being unfaithful is a difficult proposition for me to understand now, because I know I can't have the kind of relationship with a new person that I've built with my wife. I get pleasure out of making her happy. She clearly is the same. And it feeds on each other. Sure, there are women who are more physically attractive. I'm certain my wife finds certain other men more physically attractive than me. But that's not the only criteria to a relationship. With whom else am I going to have arguments about Star Wars (her) vs Star Trek (me)? Who else is going to put up with my farts and nose picking? Who else is going to be the mother of my baby boy? I don't cheat because I don't <i>want</i> anyone else, because what I want is my wife and the relationship we have.<p>If our relationship is "unnatural", I don't really care. It's freaking awesome, whatever it is.<p>If you've never experienced it, it's difficult to understand what it's about. So when I see people talking about "monogamy isn't natural" or I hear about people cheating, it just seems like a very obvious case of never having had a really deep relationship in their lives.<p>And if you've been in relationships and have not had a deep relationship, despite being with someone for years, I'd start asking yourself some tough questions about why that is the case. Are with a person you truly care about and want to have around you, or are you just in the relationship to be in <i>a</i> relationship? It's a hell of a thing, inviting another person into your life and making one life out of two. You have to and get to be extremely picky about it. You have to be able to bend, too. You have to learn what is actually important to you and what is just window dressing. And you have to be emotionally available enough to let the other person do the same to you. And if you get lucky, the two will coincide and you'll have that great relationship.<p>So I guess what I'm saying is I don't get how you can lay these problems at the feet of marriage itself. When you say "marriage is broken", what you're saying is that the marriage itself is what caused the issue, because otherwise, two people could live together into perpetuity "unmarried" and in this model they wouldn't have problems. It's like blaming the Ikea for bad furniture when you didn't follow the assembly instructions correctly. You're not supposed to get married in a bad relationship. Most people have bad relationships. How is that at all a problem with marriage? He even so much as admits that it's a people problem. So again, why the continued rhetoric "marriage is broken"?
Ask HN: How to become good enough in UX to sell your apps?	tldr: iterate, iterate, iterate.<p>Learning how to generate and test design hypotheses both with and without users is really important. I too am programmer and design did not come naturally at first; I had to develop it through practice (and much failure and dead code). I realized after a while developing good UX is not a linear process its cyclic. I'll share some HCI practices that I found worked well for me. These are the steps I usually when making apps for clients or for myself.<p>Before beginning a project I always like to have solid answers to two these questions. They pretty much motivate all my design choices. - Who is going to use your app? What drives and motivates them to use your app specifically (i.e. why would they use your app and not something else)? - What do they do right now to solve this problem? What is their next best option? What are the problems with the existing solution?<p>Next I'll make prototypes. Usually I start with paper and pencil or Powerpoint in a very low fidelity. Though it is tempting, I never write a single line of code until maybe a week or two into this process. Right now, your focus should be in exploring as much of the design space rather than committing to one single possibility - nothing is too crazy or outlandish at this stage. Don't use a ruler or be neat - just get it out so you can understand and evaluate it later. Don't worry about the technicalities of how things will be implemented you can worry about that later.<p>Once I have enough ideas I pick my 3 winners. The way I do this depends on the specific problem and its constraints - you should base this on the two important questions I mentioned first. For example, if your user is unfamiliar with technolgy, readability and simplicity might take priority over adding a useful but complicated feature. But if he's a developer, you might keep the jargon and add the features to enhance his experience. Don't stress over this process too much because in the end, this is all just based on just your own educated guesses.<p>Then I make a powerpoint mockup of my favorite idea - basically just slides linking to other slides, with different pictures and animations to make it look like an app. This next step is all about verifying your beliefs and ideas about what you picked. I try to make this as real as possible, adding slides to simulate page loading, using actual iOS or android icons and fonts in my designs but that is a personal choice. Use this mockup to evaluate and test with some users and/or the clients - the things that sometimes you assume or overlook about your users or the problems will surprise you. Consider the feedback and update your assumptions. Now reevaluate your original designs (even the ones you maybe threw out) and fix your mockup. Test it with some users 2-3 times again till no more important issues remain.<p>Now you write your code. This will be your first prototype. Try to be quick and use familiar technology as far as possible. You should have no problems converting your PowerPoint reference to code since you've done it a hundred times before. Add some sort of analytics / tracking so that you can measure important metrics in your app when it comes time to test.<p>Now find a set of users that you would like to test your app with - you could ask friends on HN or Facebook, post on Amazon MTurk or go door to door. Try to get your testers to be as close to the target demographic of your users - ideally your testers ARE your users but sometimes you can't be picky. Show your testers the app and get them to use it. If you can, get them to talk aloud as they use it, describing their thoughts process and action in a think aloud. If you can record this process in a video/audio or screen recording so that you can review it later.<p>Now organize that feedback and analyze it. What is the most common complaint/request your users have right now? Are the problems due to design or implementation? What are the differences between your initial mockup and your prototype and how do they affect the result? Based on this analysis improve your designs, update your code. Do it again a few times if necessary. Once your testers are reasonably happy release it to your actual users and see what they say - chances are by now you should have caught and fixed a lot of the design problems that were too domain specific or hard to discover for you alone and your users will be a lot happier!
Report: Star Wars toymakers were directed to exclude female characters	Time and time again, western media corporations prove they have no fucking idea how to market their productions to fans.<p>Problem:<p>Western corporations treat the consumer as some sheep to whom you show some advertising and then they are supposed to react accordingly and purchase their stuff. You show the advertisement for the movie and then consumers are supposed to pay you to watch the movie. You show them the movie and then they are supposed to go buy the toys you make available on store shelves. They treat the consumers as a simple black box with an input for advertising and an output where money comes out. And time and again people prove they are not this simple revenue generating mechanism. And whenever they prove this, western companies are baffled, unprepared, and ultimately blame it on the consumers by starting anti-piracy crusades and trademark protection crusades. Many pages could be linked here to prove the utter stupidity of these companies, but maybe in a grandchild post. The market and these companies are not efficient. They just barely manage to make a humongous profit. This is typical of any monopoly. The market is inefficient, the market actors are inefficient and the monopolizing actor makes a profit (most often not as much as an actor could possibly make if the market was healthy) to the detriment of all other actors.<p>Solution:<p>They are even more pitiable when compared to the state of affairs in places like Japan. The media industry for anime, manga and all related things understands there needs to be a symbiosis between the source (usually or eventually a company) of original content and the fans. Once a company releases something it becomes part of an ecosystem around that content. They are no longer the sole provider in that ecosystem. And this serves to keep the ecosystem healthy. Fan content keeps the community active and buzzing during the periods between releases by the original source.<p>Let's take one company acting in such ecosystems for example. More precisely one range of products(Nendoroids) for one year(2015) from one company (Good Smile Company). For those unfamiliar, Nendoroids are high quality posable figurines (with a few articulations and interchangeable parts) of super-deformed(chibi) versions of characters. For the particular issue of gender representation of characters a rough count leads to around ~125 female figurines and ~50 male figurines released in 2015 which results in a ratio of about 5/2. Note that the target audience also isn't segregated into male or female. The target customer is simply Japanese.<p>To showcase their agility in the ecosystem let's take a much more narrow example. The Mikudayo figurine. This is a figurine with a lot of fan history behind it. It starts with Hatsune Miku who started as the box art mascot for a voicebank for the vocal music synthesis software Vocaloid. Fans in turn created an entire character around this one picture sparking an entire phenomenon that spread through the entire world (I may write a tangent explaining a bit the Miku phenomenon). Good Smile Company crated a Nendoroid figurine for Miku in the specific style of the line. Eventually, a fan based an entire costume on the Nendoroid version of the character and wore the costume at a convention. The result was rather grotesque, but the sheer discrepancy between the cuteness of the Nendoroid figurine and the eeriness of the life size costume version sparked a phenomenon around this new version of the character that turned into a new character of its own called Mikudayo. Subsequently Good Smile Company released a figurine of exactly this new character.<p>Such a chain of events is mostly unthinkable in the west.<p>- The Mikudayo figurine would never have been launched because of the murkiness of the trademark issues.<p>- The Mikudayo phenomenon would have been squashed and people sued for infringing the original trademarks and misrepresenting the character.<p>- The Hatsune Miku phenomenon would have been squashed and people sued for infringing the original trademarks by creating fan content that mislead people into thinking Miku was anything else than a piece of software (People new to the phenomenon usually mistakenly associate Miku and Vocaloid in general with the hologram not the voicebank and the software. Trademarks were designed to prevent exactly this.).<p>- The Vocaloid software would never have been made or would never have succeed, because the very idea of making your voice available for everyone on the planet to create songs with is baffling and outrageous to artists in the west.<p>And yet the ecosystem around this phenomenon (Miku) is healthily spreading and growing and all actors are making a profit even if there is rampant copyright and trademark infringement.<p>The only western company that seems to get it a bit is Hasbro. They aren't really actively targeting their fanbase but at least unlike others they aren't cracking down on fan content too hard. (And it's a good thing they are not targeting their fanbase because their biases around what the demographic of the fanbase would want would make them change the content and abandon the very strengths that made people fans in the first place) Hasbro has on their hands a completely unexpected phenomenon of an unprecedented growth and scale. This phenomenon is called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the volume and demographics of the fanbase is something Hasbro could never have anticipated.<p>Looking at the length of the comment maybe I should turn this into a blog post of it's own. But it's not like I said anything new. Maybe I should end this by saying that we should make these companies that treat consumers as a money spewing black box fail. Alas, it may actually have no effect since there actually are a lot of sheep that will just buy what is given to them, and any of our efforts ignored with the decrease in sales blamed on piracy.
How to prolong your phone's life in a power outage	If you have a newer Samsung Phone, the "Ultra Power Saving Mode" is absolutely insane great!<p>The phone will standby for 20 some days, able to take SMS or a call the whole time, on a full charge. Light SMS use will not impact this much at all. I've used this on occasion to stay mobile for about a week on one charge, using the phone for SMS, light Internet and some calls. Was curious just how far one could stretch something like this.<p>In this mode, BTW, Chrome will still do a lot of things, such as play mp3 files, view many documents, can access a browser e-mail portal, and so forth. Most of the phone is disabled, but you still get SMS and calls, in addition to Chrome. Be sure and make a link to your data directories in advance, so it's easy to nav the filesystem in Chrome.<p>They missed some things:<p>1. Airplane mode. Use it to go long stretches, or to rapid charge off other devices. This is also very useful when connections are spotty. The phone will spend energy seeking networks. If you know where to get a connection, airplane mode helps a lot when you know you are not where there is a connection, or you don't need one for a stretch.<p>2. Turn off bluetooth and wi-fi. You probably won't need either of those, if you really need a phone.<p>3. Turn off advanced features, such as "keep screen active when I'm looking at it" kinds of modes. You can use the power button to toggle this and manage the use of the screen down to bare minimums.<p>One example might be, turning off your lock screen, so the phone is just active when you want it to be. This is CPU and display time you could use for a call, so ditch it for a little while.<p>Making a call means, tapping screen or power to access the GUI, initiate the call quickly, on your first ring, tap power to kill the screen, and you complete your call on a dark phone to maximize the battery savings.<p>4. On some phones, a power on can take as much as a few percent of the battery capacity. Measure this now, and you can balance standby techniques (airplane and low power type modes) with operating the phone at important times.<p>You may find turning the phone off to be a good balance. It's not on my device, due to how crazy good the "Ultra Low Power Saving Mode" is. My older Moto Droid consumed 4 percent on restart.<p>5. This one may be difficult, or unavailable, but there are apps out there to manage the radio too. You can put the thing in simple "1x" data mode, no 3G / 4G, etc... and get longer calls on less power, depending on a lot of things. Doing this on the Note phones doesn't make sense, particularly the newer ones that have aggressive power savings, but it did matter on my Moto Droid phones. Mattered a lot. This will limit you to first gen data, which is basically dialup modem type speeds, SMS and calls, but some phones also run considerably longer.<p>6. If you can't disable advance things, like "pocket detect", just don't carry the thing around.<p>7. All of the monitoring type functionality, like "OK Google" consumes power too. Ditch it where possible. Often, a power saving mode does this for you.<p>8. Keep the phone temp near average, "normal" A power on when the phone is cold will take more of the battery than when it's all normal, room or body temp. This can matter when you are down to that last few percent and need to make one more call. You've shut it down at say, 5 percent.<p>If you turn it on when it's really cold, the phone may see 3 percent, for example. It might start up, then shut right back down, or only operate for a short time. Warm the phone with your body, then attempt this for a bit longer run / call time. Battery potential varies by temp.<p>9. Do your testing and charging now.<p>I like to explore this stuff when I get a new device. I'll do "stretch" times just to understand what the dynamics are. Sometimes, I'm off in remote places, or things happen. Both of those are not the time to be working understand how this all works for you and your phone.<p>10. If you can remove the battery entirely during long "save the phone stretches" do it. Some phones continue to sip at the battery when powered off. Be sure phone and battery are as warm as you are, when you do want to power that phone back up.<p>11. Automatic brightness may be a savings too. Turn it off, then set the display to it's minimums. You can always find some dark to use the phone. This can be a very significant savings.<p>12. Turn off location, etc... unless you may need it, and when you do, turn it on then.<p>13. Consider learning how to turn the phone on in safe mode. This generally does not launch power hungry apps. It can be a lean way to operate the phone for a long no power stretch.<p>14. It's all about priorities. Everything costs something, and you want to maximize the phone functionality you need. This is written with the assumption that priority is calls and SMS.
Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?	Three tips come to mind:<p>1. Get enough sleep. You've only written three paragraphs and there are already a lot of suggestions that you need more ("I don't feel as productive as others", "I just drop dead in bed" when well-rested people usually take 15-30 to fall asleep, "I felt like I was inches away from becoming part of the zombie horde.")<p>Coding pretty intensively uses your short-term memory: "I need to take this query which I prepared above and execute it on those variables, wait, this key from the database gets renamed to that on the front-end, okay, test it... dictionary does not have the right key on line 189? What's over there? Oh, I forgot to do this critical preprocessing step, jump back to my code, 3 lines before, add the function call, test again -- what the crap is that, switch back to editor, aha, missed a semicolon here...". Each of those actions requires you to not be overwhelmed by the number of details you have to remember, whether it's where your tool for testing is located, or what the preprocessing function was called, or what have you.<p>When you're even a little sleep-deprived, your short-term memory decreases dramatically -- if most normal humans can only juggle 7 balls (7 big details or crucial tasks occupying their memory), missing a few hours of sleep brings it down to 4 or 3. So of course everything looks two times bigger.<p>Sleep deprivation also causes you to lean on substances like sugar and caffeine, and those substances tend to cause procrastination "I'll browse Reddit until this kicks in" -- until their effects wear off and leave you right back where you started with a bunch of nothing done. You can mitigate this somewhat by giving yourself a short task to do before the caffeine kicks in, even if it's an asinine one like "write down what you want to do today." Speaking of the which...<p>2. Write shit down, set alarms, otherwise use harebrained tools.<p>Those 7 balls that you can juggle need to incorporate just about everything that is happening in both personal and professional life -- not just code. If those things are in the mix, then you're not as effective. Just like how you should set an alarm for "time to start brushing my teeth and getting ready to go to bed" so that you can get enough sleep, you can set an alarm for "at this time I need to stop everything and call the couch company to send someone to fix the couch at home." Write those things down somewhere, set an alarm to look at that list and do the things on it.<p>3. Kill context-switches. Either lie your ass off about them or say "no" up front or be honest -- whatever is necessary to kill them.<p>Take your hands, open them in front of you, spread out your fingers, interleave them. That is 8 work tasks spread out over some distance L. Maybe it's 8 hours of the day working on two projects, Right and Left. One gets concluded at 4pm, the other at 5pm. We'll assume you got started at 8am and ignore an hour for lunch.<p>Now separate your hands and collapse your fingers. Put your right hand above your left hand, touching. Still 8 fingers in a row, but now you notice that your Left project is released at 12pm before lunch, while your Right project is still released at 5pm after. You just improved your average time-to-completion by 2 hours with no stress, and no improvement in efficiency: you just rushed one project out, then focused on the other.<p>Now interleave your fingers again and remember how each of those switches between projects feels. You've got 7 in there, yes? Each one doesn't feel good, does it? Because you've got to stop juggling one set of balls, put it all down, and slowly start juggling this other set of balls. Each context switch eats up mental energy. (It also eats up time -- if you need 15 minutes to really get up to speed, then the 7 context switches eat up almost 2 extra hours of your day. So there <i>is</i> an undisclosed efficiency gain here.)<p>If management forces on you to be working on the two things at once with constant status updates, strongly consider lying your butt off. (Of course, first show your boss the trick with the fingers, it usually convinces them.) Because if management is asking you to do worse work slower so that they can be polite to two of their separate clients, then management has failed. They're supposed to buffer you from all of that crap.<p>If you can't lie and you can't convince your management, try a firm "no." Just say "I'm on this high-stakes Project Left right now, I can't take on Project Right right now, maybe when Project Left is over I can. Fortunately I think Project Left will be done by end-of-day today, possibly before, so if you really can't find someone else, I may be able to start Project Right today." A "no" always goes better with a nice timetable that suggests that the task will still get accomplished in a timely manner.<p>Similarly, ignore those "trends" when you're coding. Trends are another project with another context switch. Don't interleave it with anything else.
Google achieves AI 'breakthrough' by beating Go champion	my summary (may be wrong): they create a convolutional neural network with 13 layers to select moves (given a game position, it outputs a probability distribution over all legal moves, trying to assign higher probabilities to better moves). They train the network on databases of expert matches, save a copy of the trained network as 'SL' then train it further by playing it against randomly selected previous iterations of itself. Then they use the history of the move-selecting network playing against itself to generate a new training set consisting of 30 million game positions and the outcome of that game, with each of the 30 million positions coming from a separate game. They use this training set to train a new convolutional neural network (with 13 layers again, i think) to appraise the value of a board position (given a board position, it outputs a single scalar that attempt to predict the game outcome of that board position).<p>They also train ANOTHER move-predicting classifier called the 'fast rollout' policy; the reason for another one is that the fast rollout policy is supposed to be very fast to run, unlike the neural nets. The fast rollout policy is a linear softmax of small pattern features (move matches one or more response features, Move saves stone(s) from capture, Move is 8-connected to previous move, Move matches nakade patterns at captured stone, Move matches 12-point diamond pattern near previous move, move matches 3x3 pattern around candidate move). When a feature is "move matches some pattern", i don't understand if they mean that "match any pattern" is the feature, or if each possible pattern is its own feature; i suspect the latter, even though that's a zillion features to compute. The feature weights of the fast rollout classifier are trained on a database of expert games.<p>Now they will use three of those classifiers, the 'SL' neural network (the saved network that tried to learn which move an expert would have made, before further training against itself), and the board-position-value-predicting network, plus the 'rollout' policy.<p>The next part, the Monte Carlo Tree Search combined with the neural networks, is kinda complicated and i don't fully understand it, so the following is likely to be wrong. The idea of Monte Carlo Tree Search is to estimate the value of a board position by simulating all or part of game in which both players in the simulation are running as their policy a classifier without lookahead (eg within the rollout simulation, neither player does any lookahead at each step); this simulation is (eventually) done many times and the results are averaged together. Each time the Monte Carlo simulation is done, the policy is updated.<p>In order to take one turn in the real game, the program does zillions of iterations; in each iteration, it simulates a game-within-a-game:<p>It simulates a game where the players use the current policy, which is represented as a tree of game states whose root is the current actual game state, whose edges are potential moves, and whose nodes or edges are labeled with the current policy's estimated values for game states (plus a factor encouraging exploration of unexplored or underexplored board states).<p>When the simulation has visited the parent of a 'leaf node' (a game state which has not yet been analyzed but which is a child of a node which is not a leaf node) more than some threshold, the leaf node is added to a queue for an asynchronous process to 'expand the leaf node' (analyze it) (the visit-count-before-expansion threshold is adaptively adjusted to keep the queue short). This process estimates the value of the leaf node via a linear combination of (a) the board-position-value-predicting network's output and (b) the outcome of running a simulation of the rest of the game (a game within a game within a game) with both players using the 'fast rollout' policy. Then, the SL neural network is used to give initial estimates of the value of each move from that board position (because you only have to run SL once to get an estimate for all possible moves from that board position, whereas it would take a long time to recurse into each of the many possible successor board positions and run the board-position-value-predicting network for each of these).<p>Because the expansion of a leaf node (including running SL) is asynchronous, in the mean time the node is 'expanded' and a 'tree policy' is used to give a quick estimate of the value of each possible move from the leaf node board state. The tree policy is like the quick rollout policy but with a few more features (move allows stones to be captured, manhattan distance to two previous moves, Move matches 12-point diamond pattern centered around candidate move).<p>At the end of each iteration, the action values of all (non-leaf) nodes visited are updated, and a 'visit count' for each of these nodes is updated.<p>At the end of all of these iterations, the program actually plays the move that had the maximium visit count in the monte carlo tree search ("this is less sensitive to outliers than maximizing action-value").<p>some more details:<p><pre><code> During monte carlo tree search, they also use a heuristic called 'last good reply' which is sorta similar to caching. the move-predicting networks are for the most part just fed the board state as input, but they also get a computed feature "the outcome of a ladder search" because Go is symmetric w/r/t rotations of the board, the move-predicting networks are wrapped by a procedure that either randomly selects a rotation, or runs them for all rotations and averages the results (depending on whether or not the network is being used for monte carlo tree search or not)</code></pre>
The letter the Feds sent to Theranos [pdf]	To start with, I am a clinical lab medical director and clinical pathologist. I've commented on Theranos a few times before on HN. That said, I think three things have been missed in all of this<p>1) There are a lot of bad labs out there like Theranos, and Theranos' story is thus only unique because of how pumped up it got. Clinical labs are "old economy" businesses, and the idea that someone could sprinkle "new economy" fairy dust and turn it into an Uber or Netflix success story is more about the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley, the general lack of scientific interest or rigor in clinical diagnostics in the tech industry, a somewhat Aspergey yet charismatic CEO, black turtlenecks, and friendship with important ex-government officials and VC folks than anything special about what was going on in their laboratory. Plenty of labs have been caught and shut down for what Theranos has done, and while I didn't think that it was actually occurring there, I am not terribly surprised.<p>2) The magic of their Edison box, even if it had turned out to work, was not nearly as impressive if you know anything about how clinical labs operate today. The claims that they have made (can do tests on MICROLITERS and have imprecision LESS THAN 5-10%!) are actually standard these days for many assays. As a lab director, I was always disturbed by the lay press puff pieces that said things about Theranos that were totally uninteresting and unimpressive to anyone knowledgeable...what clearly happened was that no one at Forbes, etc.. actually asked anyone who works in a clinical lab to comment. The commentary always focused more on the phenomenon of Theranos, rather than the substance...probably because the substance was super boring.<p>3) What has consistently been missed, and is still missed today, is that even if Theranos' technology worked and their labs weren't being run with a criminal disregard for standard laboratory practice, is that Theranos' business objectives would STILL be a horrible idea. Their push to democratize health information, to do more testing early to prevent disease rather than detect late, to test for lots of things in healthy people to increase "wellness", etc... is all total bullshit. With few exceptions, lab tests are for sick people, and testing healthy people with lots of tests simply consumes money and generates false positive results that are expensive to work up. Also, there are NO TESTS for all of the conditions (cancers, etc...) that they claim to be helping you detect early. Getting your sodium and potassium levels weekly won't help you avoid kidney disease, cancer, or diabetes, but it will make your pocketbook shrink and it will give you some falsely abnormal values 1 in 20 times you do it. This has been the true play of Theranos, which is to do a massive amount of testing on well people, marketed directly to healthly people without the advice of doctors, with the intent of arming a bunch of worried well people with an avalanche of insignificant noisy information to present to their physicians. This helps no one other than Theranos.<p>I have often seen a lot of objections to (3) from people on HN, especially tech-sorts who think that they are better able to handle data than the average person. However, this is fundamentally flawed. For those who are interested in Bayesian analyses, consider the utility of any test when the pre-test probability is low - the answer is that positive results are almost always false positives, or at least difficult to interpret. The answer is not getting more tests, even if it's cheap. Lab tests these days ARE cheap...it's the clinical followup that is expensive.<p>I will be very interested to see how this all plays out now. The big players, Labcorp and Quest, have both tried the direct-to-consumer/in-drugstore model for testing, and amusingly actually shut their offerings down years ago because of lack of interest. The truth of the matter is that making health information more available to people sounds great, but really, the only people who end up collecting that information are affluent, worried-well people who should be discouraged from testing in the first place. The people who need more routine testing are poor, socially-underserved and neglected people with chronic illnesses, but I do not think that Theranos is planning on opening test facilities in Flint, Michigan to give Hemoglobin A1c monitoring tests for free to the elderly impoverished people there. To the contrary, they've tried to open in areas where they can get customers who they can trap into believing that they need lab tests like they need step counts from a fitbit. Hopefully, this bump in the road will caution others trying to do the same thing, but I really doubt it.
Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?	Rethink the current epistemological approach to medicine and the biological sciences.<p>-<p><i>What's broken:</i><p>These fields are awash in a sea of data and knowledge. Much of it unfortunately rests upon a shaky empirical foundation. Reconciling new information with existing information is extremely difficult. Ensuring the integrity of the empirical tree, atop which virtually all new research rests—even more difficult.<p>The process by which scientific knowledge is shared and reviewed—research papers—is at best an antiquated and inefficient mode of collaboration.<p>Modern drug discovery is extremely expensive. While advances in bioinformatics and computational power certainly help, they are not a magic bullet. Absent complete confidence that a particular drug will achieve perfect efficacy while not causing unintended consequences, extensive study is required. Studies are extremely expensive to conduct and represent a significant portion of drug discovery costs.<p>The entire premise of pharmaceuticals may be fundamentally flawed. Expending insane amounts of money in search of magic molecular combinations that target very specific conditions, without complete efficacy, via mechanisms that are often not fully understood, and are burdened with a myriad of interactions and adverse events.<p>The terminology used in medicine and biomedical sciences—<i>cells, proteins, antibodies, antigens, receptors, viruses, fungi, bacteria, paralysis, inflammation, encephalopathy, neurons, dendrites, axons</i>—all of these aren't actual <i>things</i> but rather human-created constructs purposed to assist us in grasping what we're trying to understand. These constructs, while often quite accurate and helpful—do not necessarily map neatly to what's actually happening, nor do they necessarily lend themselves to understanding complex interactions between other constructs.<p>Empiricism works great until the tree becomes very deep and complex. Then it's problematic. Especially so if the methods for maintaining and growing that tree are far from perfect. At worst, the entire system becomes a hindrance.<p>-<p><i>How to start fixing it:</i><p>This isn't a rant against modern medicine. On the contrary, achieving the best results <i>right now</i> with an incomplete understanding, a probabilistic approach (to steal Peter Thiel's terminology) is the best course of action. Studies for example are probabilistic.<p>Medicine as it exists today has done an admirable job of making the world a far less miserable and deadly place. However, I fear the current approach may not be suitable for achieving mastery of the human body. The depth of empiricism and complexity of knowledge at that level may extend far beyond human mental capability.<p>To illustrate this point, assume therapeutic nano bots suddenly popped into existence today, straight out of science fiction. No built-in behavior, but fully programmable at a low level. Using them to cure cancer would be an admirable goal, except for the fact it'd probably be incredibly difficult if not impossible to do considering our current knowledge.<p>Mastering the human body isn't much different. It might require eschewing the probabilistic approach and replacing it with a mechanical approach. Surgeons largely use a mechanical approach in their work, and that's a major part of why they're so successful. At the scale of bones, muscle, and organs the human body really isn't much different from say, a turbofan engine in terms of complexity. Dealing with systemic disease processes on a microscopic scale however, things become far more difficult. While there are many remarkable successes in this area, there's still a long way to go before achieving complete mastery.<p>As counter-intuitive as it sounds, it may also be necessary to eschew—or at least cease to completely rely upon—the vast tree of existing empirical constructs we've created. Just as a convolutional neural network isn't aware that the photograph it's uncannily redrawing in the style of <i>Picasso</i> contains human faces, a biomedical application utilizing a similar principle may not need to know what cells are—even as it kills cancer.<p>Conversely, pretend a bunch of really smart people are locked in a room with just a microscope and an encyclopedic amount of samples. These people somehow have <i>zero</i> knowledge of biology, <i>none at all</i>. After a sufficiently long period of time they'd probably come up with an epistemic model somewhat similar to existing biology, but one that would be completely alien in its terminology, perhaps radically differing in certain key areas—possibly for the better. If they had a way to collaborate from the beginning that was far less cumbersome than research papers, it's probably a good bet their resulting epistemic model would far exceed that of existing biology.<p>The human body is an incredibly complex product of evolution, and as such it is not easily understood by human minds. We're basically compiler output that's trying to reverse engineer itself.<p>I'm not suggesting AGI as a solution—just that it would be prudent to apply state-of-the-art weak AI in a fashion that's as decoupled as possible from the current epistemic model, because such constructs impose far too many assumptions that might be very wrong in some fundamental way. Ironically the use of weak AI to achieve mastery of the human body would constitute a probabilistic approach, albeit in an extreme form. If a mechanical understanding did follow, it might be very simple or elegant in nature.
Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?	Here's the other medical condition in dire need for intelligent solutions. See my other post for details. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11002063" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11002063</a><p>Acoustic Neuroma:<p>This is a benign tumor that grows around the auditory nerve between the brain and ear organs. It squeezes the nerve to the point where hearing on that side is eventually lost. This leads to SSD (single-side-deafness) which can be a debilitating condition.<p>One does not realize just how useful having two working ears happens to be. SSD causes two significant problems.<p>The first is the loss of the ability to locate the source of sounds. Your kid calls for help? You have no clue where they are. Someone calls you at the office? Same thing. You literally can't locate sounds.<p>The other problem is the inability of the brain to run its "noise reduction" routines on sounds coming in. I know people with SSD who, in a busy restaurant, literally can't hear the person sitting in front of them. The brain is able to process sound from both ears and allow the listener to cognitively focus on a desired source. It's a mini phased array with a powerful processor. Take away one of the two available microphones and the loss of capabilities is significant.<p>Another potential side effect of Acoustic Neuromas is that they can affect the facial nerve for one half of your face. If this happens, the muscles on half the face go limp and the entire half of your face droops.<p>Current "solutions" don't guarantee the preservation of hearing, hearing recovery or the preservation/protection of the facial nerve.<p>The first "solution" is to drill a ~ 1 inch hole on the skull right behind the ear and remove the tumor. Of course, the nerve is cut out with the tumor. So, SSD forever. The hole is filled with fat. A metal plate is used to cover the hole. A stud is screwed into your skull and a little box handed to you.<p>This box is a bone conduction transducer. It has a microphone and transducer that will vibrate your skull. The idea is that your skull will conduct this sound from one side to the other so you can hear sounds from both sides. Of course, you lost the phased array, so hearing this sound, while perhaps useful, might just add to the noise. And, of course, it probably won't be full fidelity. You get to walk around with a pager bolted to the back of your skull [1]. There are other, less invasive, solutions [2] but none that fix the underlying problems. The BAHA devices mean you have this stud --which looks like the end of a spark plug-- screwed into your skull. Skin infections and other problems are some of the issues patients have to deal with.<p>Believe it or not there's a whole building in Los Angeles dedicated to the above-described butchery. I believe it's run by a USC professor (or ex, don't remember). I believe the procedures start somewhere around $50K.<p>The next "solution" is endoscopic surgery. Not as brutal. They drill a 1 cm hole on your skull, go in and chip away at the tumor. Practitioners can be more careful and do their best to avoid damaging the acoustic and facial nerves. Yet, nobody will guarantee this. Complete loss of hearing is very likely and facial drooping could happen just as well. While less intrusive than a huge hole and a metal plate, this surgery does not seem to offer improvements in results. You are still likely to be offered a BAHA bone conduction device as an add-on. My guess is this procedure runs somewhere in the $80K+ range.<p>The third approach is to use Gamma Ray Surgery. This is commonly used for Cancer patients. The tumor is mapped via MRI. The patient's head is then bolted to a table under the Gamma Ray machine and the tumor's blood supply is zapped. The goal is to kill it and keep it from growing. Due to dose limits the treatment takes several weeks. I don't really know how much it costs.<p>This approach does not invade the cranial cavity, which is good --you can still go scuba diving. It can be precise enough that the nerves are not touched at all. In other words, some hearing could come back and facial feeling/control as well. Yet, nobody will guarantee any of it. Part of this is due to medical liability laws in the US, a whole other subject. BAHA devices might still be offered.<p>What is needed for people afflicted with this condition could take many forms:<p>- Early detection: This is a slow growing tumor. Can it be predicted through DNA or other testing? Is there an easy way to find markers and attack the tumor when it is at the 2 mm stage rather than waiting for the patient to notice hearing loss only to find a 3 cm tumor in their skull?<p>- Better treatment: Can Gamma Ray (or some other non-invasive approach) be improved/perfected in such a way that the tumor can be killed off more effectively while avoiding damage to the nerves and perhaps even restore natural hearing?<p>- Better devices: Surely there has to be a better and more intelligent approach to restoring some sound perception than bolting a stud into the patient's skull or shoving an uncomfortable lump of plastic into their ear.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone-anchored_hearing_aid" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone-anchored_hearing_aid</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.transear.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.transear.com/</a>
Police position bodycam P.O.V to make suspect look like he was resisting	This "stop resisting" scenario can often be a set piece. I see a few comments in this thread hinting at that.<p>I have some direct, personal experience with this. Short story is the police came to my home over an erroneous domestic violence report. The truth is my wife and daughter were having one of those moments and did a lot of yelling, and it sounded bad. Nothing criminal, just a really smart and pissed off 14 year old saying vile things.<p>I come home, see the mess, send everyone off to their corners in order to start the cool down so I can help sort it out. Decide maybe I'll take a step outside and drink my coffee, and there they are. Three very annoyed officers who very clearly believe I did something.<p>We had a chat, they wanted in the home, I denied that, and they were not going to deal with that AT ALL. My reason was adopted foster kids and how that can play out when cops end up in the home. They worry, as they should. But, I could not get this explanation in, due to the fact that the police were more interested in "running their script" than they were policing.<p>They ended up touching me, saying, "you are under arrest" and at that point, I completely relaxed. Not to the point where they would have to carry me, just very obviously non-confrontational. I had no issue with getting cuffed, questioned, etc... part of a crappy process.<p>They, however, wanted more. So I got a knee in my back and slammed into the driveway hard. Really hard, like "jesus, this is happening to me, an ordinary, geeky, non threatening white guy?" hard. (and I'm not a racist, my son is black, and I think in these terms having had a lot of experiences with said son, just saying...)<p>I remained limp, and they started working me over, clearly intending to teach me a lesson; namely, they get to do what they want to do, rights or not, due process or not. There was a witness, which was a good thing, and that witness is important for this next bit too:<p>So, there I am, not doing anything. Notably, the moment they assaulted me, they started shouting, "stop resisting", which was puzzling to me. There never was any resisting. When I didn't deliver, they grabbed my arms, yanking me back and forth. To an observer, who didn't know me, this looks a whole lot like somebody fighting arrest!<p>Of course, nobody in the family had any idea prior to this mess.<p>They did the yanking around, then when it was time to cuff me, they tried pain holds on my hands. Why? Punitive is my guess, because I did nothing, until those. And the only thing I did was maintain my body position to avoid pain and damage. (My wife worked as an outreach worker and I had been the training dummy for these holds and knew them cold, able to avoid them without doing anything hostile.)<p>This cycle happened a couple times, and during it, I responded to most of the "stop resisting" directives with something snarky like, "are you gentlemen done?", or "make sure you get all the anger out so we can talk like adults", etc...<p>Yes, I know. This did not do me any favors, but to be frank, I was so angry, hurting, and shocked at this game playing out that the snark was coping. I really didn't want to do anything to lash out, nor anything dangerous, so snark it was.<p>Eventually, they wrapped it up. The whole "rag doll" act was maybe a minute? Two tops?<p>My brother in law was observing, and they wanted him gone. Thankfully, he simply observed and did not "take a walk over here to talk", quietly affirming his intent to comply with their request once the action was over. He made it clear he was watching, and only watching.<p>Once it was done, I was in the car, hurt, bleeding from a head slam or two in response to the snark, looking around in wonder over how what should have been a rational conversation ended up such a mess!<p>Well, maybe this isn't so short. Sorry.<p>Anyway, my wife comes out, they get all their questions answered, but they had done what they did to me. So, they really couldn't just drop it. I had to go downtown, and they more or less were obligated to justify doing what they did, leaving me with a trip to the intake wing of the jail and a quick, very late night release. (that was not fun either)<p>Interestingly, she called them on it, basically saying they could drop it, let me go, and we can just all go our own way, or they will be in court explaining the whole thing...<p>So, it's a set piece when they want it to be. And in my case, it was punitive. I simply didn't comply with an order they gave me, which was to allow entry into my home. And they wanted me to understand doing that was expensive. No joke.<p>When we got the police report copies, it was like bizarro world! When I could, after walking home late that night, I typed up the whole thing. 11 pages, no sugar coating, just memory dump to capture all that had happened.<p>Their report didn't compare at all. It was hard to see it was the same event! Claims I had a gun. Claims I was using profanity and disparaging them. (the latter was true, but not even laced with disrespect, more like, "really? you should be ashamed" at worst, and only while I was being assaulted), and it went on and on...<p>Here's the thing: I had a witness and was in good standing with my community. Coaching kid sports, model adoptive parent, employed, no record, the works. They had the three of them present, and could write anything they wanted.<p>And they fabricated all of it, fabricated what onlookers may see, fabricated their testimony in court, the works. (and that still galls me having to watch them lie in my trial with impunity)<p>My attorney explained it this way:<p>Most people won't fight it. They won't have the money for an attorney, they will feel deep shame over having to go to work looking like a prize fighter who lost big, and it's just a hassle all around.<p>On their end, they work out a quick and dirty process they can use every time. It's quick, and most importantly, is structured to maximize the pain of others involved, and minimize their liability. Most of the time, it works great. One person's word against three fine officers? Who wins?<p>Exactly.<p>So I did the trial, and the entire time they were trying to get it moved to Federal Court (WTF is it with that?), delaying proceedings, making me appear say 20 times at least, offering bench probation, offering community court, and raising the ante to be sure I took the max risk with a trial.<p>95 percent of people fold on all of that. I didn't, and was found not-guilty, had to file a tort to get my expenses back, and after about 8 months, it was over. Painful financially, painful physically, and annoying as hell having to structure work around so many legal entanglements they came up with.<p>The other thing my attorney explained was the difference between well trained professionals and thugs.<p>Pros will use deescalation techniques to manage the scenario down and have that rational conversation. Most likely result is paperwork and everybody moves on. The thugs are all about compliance and thuggery.<p>The thugs are cheap and effective. All they need to do is teach them liability managed means and methods and set 'em loose as bruisers to keep the peace.<p>My incident was in the early '00's Today, cell phone cameras, social media, etc... have changed the game and we are seeing so many more incidents play out. These incidents have been going on (attorney told me that too), but we just didn't hear about all that many. Now we do.<p>The body cams are a direct threat to the thugs. The liability management goes out the window, and those set piece tricks they use do too. Expect them to resist this to the maximum degree.<p>But also expect to have to understand how they got to be thugs! It's the training and the overall culture and directives they get from their superiors. It's not OK to just blame the street cops. What they are doing, if they are doing thuggery, is wrong. Make no mistake. But, they are being TOLD to do that, and it's that we need to face head on.<p>In my town, thuggery got started when a new police chief took over. That person is gone, lots of damage done, and the current chief is doing good, but a damaged department is a really tough problem. It will take a decade to clean it up and get the people to trust them to do policing again.<p>Those costs are huge! And that's what cheap thuggery costs us, IMHO.<p>I'm fine. So many other people are not. They have records, were damaged physically, or worse.<p>Just know there are good policing efforts out there too. They use deescalation, they train professionals, they pay them, and they have the trust of the community they protect and serve. They are no longer the norm.<p>If you ask me, all this recording of events is necessary. There will be a lot of pain resulting from doing it too, but we need to feel that pain, if we are to muster the political will to return our police to the "protect and serve" doctrine, not the "escalation of force to compliance" doctrine doing so much harm today.<p>On that last note, "escalation of force to compliance" is the majority standard in policing today. It means do what you are told, or you will be punished. It also means not doing what you are told can result in death[1], and that's BY DESIGN too. Remember that.<p>Now, perhaps you may see these events in a new light. Why those cops are corrupting the monitoring tech is driven by more than just their own character issues. A lot more.<p>[1]...if that seems over the top, I agree. However, what I put here comes from my case and a few good, frank and open conversations with an experienced criminal attorney.<p>In my case, they presented that doctrine, and it contained levels of force, up through deadly force, constrained only by compliance. If they don't get their way, they continue to use more force, until they do, or it's moot. No joke.
Idea Debt	<p><pre><code> .................................................... \|\| \| \|\| \| \|\| \| Idea \| \| \| Debt \| \ \| \| \ \| \| \ \| \| \ \| \| `. \| \| `b \| \| \ \| \| `. \| \| ' _ \| \| "o \| \| `.. \| \| `-. \| \| `-.._ \| \| `--.. \| \| `'"---............\| \| \| '`'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Technical Debt </code></pre> The less you plan and think about an idea, the more technical debt you will accumulate.
The master, the expert, the programmer – Zed Shaw	Mastery could be developed if tools and techniques were not imposed by the will of business for a cheap army of monkey coders. I agree with the thesis, I reject the conclusion.<p>I used to do savate. No master. It is just about winning a dirty fight in the street in 1vsN and french boxing (the sportive side) being able to practice without breaking your weapon (body) while improving. Fast to learn and use.<p>The high points of this martial art are : fewers moves, good direct and peripheral vision in case another opponents appears, and efficiency to be able to take on the next opponent fast.<p>For me programming nowadays is like a bad martial art.<p>Before you even can fight your problems you are given the wrong assumptions and weapons about fighting.<p>1) real life street fight is not 1v1 fight. The same can be said about people learning to write and not maintain code.<p>2) real life practicing and hard work are necessary much more than theorical crap. CS studies are like learning dogmatic theories from people who never where on the streets.<p>3) Apprenticeship is way to low. You cannot self teach you the good move. You need real fighters to learn. Cops where doing savate as much as thugs, they are very good teachers. Knowledge backed by practices that works worth more than academic knowledge. (the french federation sux though)<p>4) MMA/UFC bullshit: the arena given to coder for their work is organized by companies wishing an army of cheap interchangeable monkey competitive coders pouring blood. The "preset" of the ring for coding of companies is ridiculous. A good fighter would strive at not putting himself in useless danger and taking the risk of breaking himself. Winning one fight and taking the risk of breaking yourself on the long run is stupid. And sometimes not fighting is the good way to not loose (numerical inferiority)<p>5) Incorrect priorities. Street fight is not in kimono and bare foot with nice "ready to fight" signals. It requires a shot of adrenaline and learning to become violent in one instant. Companies wants submissions and standardisation to lower the costs of hiring. Good programmers are versatile and like creativity they are unpredictable & strong willed by nature of the job.<p>6) the weapon' choice. Savate defense learn you to turn common objects like every day jackets, keys, U lock into weapons to face versatile situation. Modern computing requires framework that are as convenient and common as agrar tools from the middle age, or using a trebuchet.<p>7) respect diversity. Men are powerful, women are flexible. Savate embraces the difference and gives path for anyone to develop efficiency through their own strength. There is no other "one best way" than the one that proves to fit your quality and make you win through constant practice and learning in respect of YOUR style. There are as many boxes as there are boxers. Conventions sux.<p>8) it is not always about kicking. Coding has become the central activity of coders. Feints, moving, observations, tricks are important too. Nowadays coders are blinded from observing the business context in which they must code, putting them in a position of blindness where they must program defensively without having specifications that match the real problem. Try to fight deaf and blind. They are just punching in the dark believing they can fight.<p>9) constant adaptation. Once hired coders are not encourage to continue their practice and keep a good hygiene. They are in constant fights without places for evolving. Also they are not trained to deal with the versatility of situations and encourage to cooperate. Thanks to the HR. They loose their skills fast.<p>I do agree that mastership should appear one day. I disagree given the unfair competition between small businesses and big businesses imposing wrong views on what coding is that there is a solution in corporate business.<p>I used to believe in free software until corporate interests pushed wrong stuff like systemd into the system.<p>The conditions are purposefully maintained because companies and academics don't want masters to spread disruptive knowledge that could make them lose their dominant position.<p>If coding is martial art, than you have to look at the conflict here to understand.<p>It is an economical conflicts between the bosses that have the money and the coders that have the creativity. And the purpose of companies is to avoid that coders can master their art. Doxa vs praxein.<p>And when you see sillicon valley no poaching agreement, you can see the fight is rigged.<p>However botnets, cyber criminality is proving that the even a script kiddies can be dangerously efficient once they are freed from organizational rigged conditions.<p>And that is why criminality beats our actual corporations.<p>It is because I did not liked to be beaten by thugs I learned to fight. But nowadays, I also fear the cops.<p>The first thing in a combat is to analyse the situation and identify correctly people really ill intentioned towards you and not care about their look or talk.
Free Money (Sarah Perry on Basic Income)	Experiments limited in time (and in too small a space too) are no good to determine what would really happen if universal perpetual income was established.<p>The two predictions made in this 5-year experiment are indeed obvious.<p>But there's a big difference between a 5-year subsidies, and a life-time guarantee.<p>As there is a big difference between universal perpetual living income and any variant. Any tampering changes completely the nature of the psychological effects obtained.<p>Imposing any condition distorts the results because now people can make choices about fulfilling those conditions or not, in order to obtain the income or not, depending on what's best for their own situation (and not what's best for the society at large).<p>Imposing time or "space" restrictions obviously distorts the results. To the limit, I'll give you a universal living income just for you and just for one day. Will you change anything to your life choices? No way. At most, if you're already not enslaved (by an employer, by customers, whatever), you might take a day off, but nothing will change. Limited to 5 years won't change your long term prospects (as getting a well paid job that will not last won't change your long term prospects either). For "space" restrictions, what is actually meant, is the set of people who would receive this "universal" income. That is, if it is not universal. If you restrict to one person, (even if you make it perpetual and otherwise unconditional, and a living income or even better), then it won't change anything for the society at large. Actually it may even be deleterious for the single person, as we can witness with numerous "experiments" of lotery winners, or even, inherited fortunes (but perhaps here the problem is more in the "way beyond" living income). Limiting it to the people in a village is problematic, because again, there's the question of choice given to people to come into that village, or get out for something else. At the level of a country it might be more feasible. But not in the European Union, and not in the USA, since they are basically sets of borderless countries, that cannot prevent anybody to come in and get this "universal" income. Again, altering the notion with a condition that allows for a choice to fulfill this condition or not to benefit from it or not changes completely the outcome. At least, with real countries meaning with real borders, if people are prevented to migrate in great distabilising numbers, then this could be arranged. But eventually, it would need to be really universal.<p>And of course, amongst the tampering a lot of people would want to apply on the notion to break it and to discredit it, would be to make it not a living income, that is, not an income enough to live with dignity, and not just to survive. That means that beyond food, clothes, house, it should be enough to provide a minimum of cultural and social access. Thankfully, nowadays with tools such as the Internet, television and telephone, which are rather cheap, it can be afforded by everybody. (Don't expect to buy the latest top-notch iPhone each year, but you can get the equivalent culture and social access thru devices 20 or 30 times cheaper).<p>This is when you enact this full, untampered, _universal_ (at least coutry-wide with borders with strict migration controls), perpetual, living income, that you switch to a different situation where a different living psychology and life choices can be realized.<p>Basically, my prediction with the untampered universal perpetual living income will be something like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9eVz4wBBgU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9eVz4wBBgU</a> big time. (You can see the importance of cultural and social access).<p>It looks to me rather silly to ask oneself whether people will stop working, become enterpreneur, or other questions like that, because they're about current categories. UUPLI would actually change radically those categories.<p>The important questions to ask would be whether that would make for a stable system, whether people would be happier, and how a system establised based on UUPLI would react to intents of tampering and altering it.<p>For example, one direct effect UUPLI would have is that it would change the balance in the current employer-employee negociation, notably in the lowest salary categories. I would consider it a good thing for the society and for the concerned people (even indirectly concerned), that cheap jobs be harder to fill. Either the cheap job is useful and needed socially, and then it should be better retributed, or automatized (notably for dangerous or slog work), or it should not be done. But one small category may not be happy about it: the 0.1% who are profiting from those jobs. They may try to negociate even lower salaries, but this can work only if they have a leverage in this negociation, like if the basic income is insufficient for a decent human life, and therefore if people are forced to accept such a job for even less pay! (Hence the living income must not be tampered and must be enough (or slightly more than enough) to have a descent life.<p>Others would want to impose conditions (eg. having a working condition, where they would force you to have a working activity to get the income). Given the current conditions of unemployment, this would basically be forced labor for the unfortunate, (and I'm wondering what they'll make them work at, if they cannot find the jobs on the free market already, will they have them dig holes to fill them back???)<p>So beside the only relevant questions worth studying are how to prevent the perversion of the project by the immediate tampering attempts from the obvious "enemies" of the project, and once established, how to ensure the stability of the system and how to have it react against attempts to pervert it later.
Records: Python library for making raw SQL queries to Postgres databases	I have something similar, that I think "goes further" than this, which I use as part of my Python Cydia backends. I got extremely addicted to using the moral equivalent of TCL's uplevel, inspect.currentframe(-...), to build interfaces in Python where I don't have to pull out parameters. My "cyql" interface (which is barely anything, really: just a thin wrapper for psycopg2, which is itself excellent; in Clojure I wrap a slightly modified copy of the PostgreSQL JDBC driver to provide an even better implementation that does "compile"-time type SQL statement verification), uses this to allow me to remove what feels like <i>all</i> of the boilerplate.<p><a href="http://gitweb.saurik.com/cyql.git" rel="nofollow">http://gitweb.saurik.com/cyql.git</a><p>In addition to .run (which returns the number of affected rows) and .all (which returns an array of ordered dicts?), I have .has (which returns a bool and wraps an exists query), .gen (which returns a generator and iterates a cursor), and .one (which verifies you only got back a single row and returns just that row). I also have easy support for transactions (either on an existing connection or in one line as part of making a connection), easily turning off synchronous commit (for log tables), and I carefully manage autocommit to make certain that I am using the minimum number of possible SQL statements to the server (which I care about a lot).<p><a href="http://gitweb.saurik.com/cyql.git/blob/HEAD:/__init__.py" rel="nofollow">http://gitweb.saurik.com/cyql.git/blob/HEAD:/__init__.py</a><p>That said, I agree with the post by masklinn below: neither the linked library nor my library are solving problems that I believe are worth inheriting code from someone else over. There is some basic configuration of psycopg2 which is necessary, but the underlying library itself is what works here. I have spent over a decade thinking about how I like to build SQL interfaces, and have now implemented a similar interface for myself in numerous languages, each time evolving the design slightly (and sometimes having enough of an epiphany that I go back and retrofit some of the older ones), but it ends up being built around the way I think about stuff.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053877" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053877</a><p>And that also means that as I learn more and "level up", I start making different decisions. My implementation in Clojure stresses stored procedures a lot more, as while it took me a long time to really figure out how to use them in my workflow, I now see them as exceedingly correct and feel a lot of the code I've written in the past where I had tons of free statements is essentially "what I wrote from back when I didn't know how to use the database to organize my API layer" (though I still haven't worked out some of the tooling around shifting to stored procedures, and have been distracted with other higher-level problems the last couple years).<p>Essentially, I'm arguing that the same will happen to you. Put differently: some problems are hard, and some problems are easy; I find a lot of libraries that seem to be solving easy problems that new developers think are hard, and a lot of libraries that pretend to solve a hard problem, but only because the problem looked easy and the result doesn't actually work (such as the PostgreSQL drivers that were available in Ruby for a long time, which were all unusably bad). Wrapping something that works well so it is slightly easier for you to use can be valuable if it is upstreamed into the original project, but even then is likely to be something you will paper over yourself in time as you will think about the problem differently than they did.<p><pre><code> # at the top of the code somewhere dsn = {'port': ..., 'user': '...', 'password': '...', 'database': '...'} with cyql.connect(dsn) as sql: provider, account, key = sql.one(''' select "payment"."provider", "payment"."account", "payment"."transaction" from "cydia"."payment" where "payment"."id" = %(payment_id)s ''') with cyql.connect(dsn) as sql: sql.run(''' update "cydia"."token" set "token" = %(token)s, "email" = %(email)s, "country" = %(country)s, "shipping" = %(shipping)s, "billing" = %(billing)s, "data" = %(data)s where "id" = %(token_id)s and "token" is null ''')</code></pre>
Why I No Longer Use MVC Frameworks	Searching through the comments here, only one of them mentions SAM, which is the point of the article. Some nuanced thought about what's going on here is therefore warranted. So let's start with old-school Smalltalk's MVC: this was a message-passing system consisting of three types of concurrent processes:<p><pre><code> * models maintain a list of "subscribers" that they regularly send certain messages to, in response to the messages that they receive from the outside world. This can as always involve the internal state that each process maintains. * views subscribe to models and then present a graphical description of the messages they receive. * controllers listen to user-interface events from the view, and use it to send messages to models. </code></pre> These have transformed mightily in the intervening years; a model these days often refers to some form of schema for data structures which are returned by services; controllers often query those services and provide them to the view; views may define their own service-queries. Often there is no clear notion of subscription except possibly subscribing to events from the GUI, which is the responsibility of the controller; the controller basically handles everything which isn't either the structuring of data or the organization of the display components.<p>SAM appears to be coming from the latter developments and is concerned with an associated explosion: Every view and interaction more or less gets its own service on the back-end, providing a sprawling codebase which resists refactors; they also get their own controllers which maintain them.<p>In the SAM idea, the model now reprises its earlier notion of managing subscribers and containing business logic: however it is now "dumbed down" from its potentially-very-general Smalltalk definition: the model is instead meant to hold and maintain a single data-structure. (Can there be multiple concurrent models?) The model apparently only receives requests for an all-at-once update, but it may decide to transform its state `new_state = f(old_state, proposed_state)`. Presumably then it again tells its subscribers about the new state if it is not identical to the old state. (Each view is expected to compute the diff itself, probably?)<p>A "state" in SAM appears to be identified with a "view": a "state-representation" is a function from a model to a DOM. Your GUI consists of a bunch of these, and hypothetically we can diff the DOM trees to better understand what needs to change on an update of the related model properties; the "view" is basically just a bunch of representations of the underlying state with some "actions." These "actions" are not actually parallel processes at all but do take the classical responsibility of the "controller", routing user-interface events to messages to send to the model. The apparent point here is that they should correspondingly be very "dumb" controllers: they just create a transformed version of the data that they received from the model and then send it back to the model as a "nomination" for a possible change.<p>Finally there appears to be a strange next-action callback which may be part of every "view update." (It's not clear where this lives -- in the "action"?) I am not entirely sure why this exists, but it may be that the algebra of actions without this callback is merely an applicative functor, not a full monad. The essential idea here is that the function apparently can compute a follow-up action if such needs to happen.<p>If I'm understanding this correctly, then a simple app which seems relatively hard to structure this way would contain:<p><pre><code> * a counter stored in a database, * a button which should ideally increment that counter, * a display showing the current value of the counter, * a notification window telling you when your click has updated the counter. </code></pre> I'm using a counter since it's got a nice algebra for dealing with coincident updates; if someone else updates the counter then your update commutes with theirs, saving the client-side complexity.<p>Without a framework, we would simply define two endpoints: GET /count (or so) gets the current count; POST /increment will increment the current counter and will say "Success! The current count is now: ____", telling you what you changed the count to.<p>Here it seems like you need three models. First we have the server-side model of what's going on:<p><pre><code> server model Counter: private count, Subscribers message increment(intended_count): if intended_count == count + 1: count += 1 Subscribers.notifyAll() return ('success', count) else: return ('failure', count) message count(): return count </code></pre> The requirement that we only nominate new versions of the underlying data-structure means that we cannot just define the appropriate increment service which always succeeds, but must instead tell the client that the request has failed sometimes. Then there are two models on the client side: one holds a list of outstanding requests to increment (updated by actions, retrying any failures) and the other one holds the currently-cached value of the server-side data (because we need to update this by both the former client-model's update events as well as by some automatic process). You would probably condense these in practice into one model, however they are different concerns. The former model, however, is absolutely required, as it provides a way for the "notification window view" to appear and disappear when one of the requests has succeeded.<p>This seems unnecessarily complicated given the simple solution in terms of two API endpoints -- however it does indeed fulfill its desire for lower API bloat and some separation of concerns.
The fall and rise and rise of chat networks	I got curious and researched the history of IM, the decline of the old networks, and the rise of the new.<p>Anecdotally, I got into college (in the US) right as Facebook and Gmail opened up to everyone, and my peer group created a "professional presence" of Facebook and Gmail for our college lives, slowly leaving our myspace/AIM/WLM lives with the crazy hair and skinny jeans behind. My experience was not unique; this phenomenon has been researched by others [1][2][3][4]. Soon, Facebook and Google introduced chat, and nearly everyone I wanted to talk to was on one or both of those networks.<p>During my research, I was surprised to learn that AIM was in fact present at the iOS appstore's launch, but I suppose there wasn't much overlap between a typical AIM user and a typical iOS user at the time.<p>I also found an infographic from 2014 that charts some of these dates and compares the active user counts of the IM networks over the years [5].<p>Here's a chronological timeline of selected milestones in the IM/social space:<p>2005-09 - Meebo launches offering web access to AIM, WLM, Yahoo<p>2006-02-07 - Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live<p>2006-03 - Nielsen/Netratings survey for active users: AIM 53M, WLM 27M, Yahoo 22M<p>2006-07-12 - seamless interop starts between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger<p>2006-09 - Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges)<p>2007-07-07 - Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only)<p>2007-05-09 - Windows Live Messenger released for Xbox 360 (with dashboard update)<p>2007-12-06 - Google Talk gets limited AIM interop<p>2008-04 - Facebook chat goes live<p>2008-04-19 - Facebook overtakes Myspace in Alexa ranking<p>2008-07-11 - iOS App Store launches, AIM for iOS released<p>2008-08-26 - Facebook hits 100 million active users<p>2008-09-23 - Android 1.0 launches<p>2008-11-11 - Google Talk introduces voice and video calling<p>2008-12-22 - Meebo integrates with Facebook chat and Myspace IM<p>2009-03-31 - Skype released for iOS, Skype network has 42 million active users<p>2009-04-08 - Facebook hits 200 million active users<p>2009-06 - iOS gets push notifications<p>2009-09-15 - Facebook hits 300 million active users<p>2009-11 - WhatsApp released for iOS<p>2010-01 - WhatsApp released for BlackBerry<p>2010-02-05 - Facebook hits 400 million active users<p>2010-05 - WhatsApp released for Symbian<p>2010-05-20 - Android gets push notifications<p>2010-06-21 - FaceTime released with iOS 4<p>2010-06-21 - Windows Live Messenger released for iOS<p>2010-07-21 - Facebook hits 500 million active users<p>2010-08 - WhatsApp released for Android<p>2010-09-30 - Windows Live Messenger starts interop with Facebook Chat<p>2010-10 - Kik released<p>2010-12-02 - Viber released for iOS<p>2011-01-05 - Facebook hits 600 million active users<p>2011-01 - WeChat released<p>2011-01 - Skype for iOS introduces video calling<p>2011-04 - Facebook introduces voice calling<p>2011-05 - Viber released for Android<p>2011-05-30 - Facebook hits 700 million active users<p>2011-06 - LINE released<p>2011-07 - Facebook introduces video calling<p>2011-07 - Snapchat released for iOS<p>2011-09-22 - Facebook hits 800 million active users<p>2011-10-12 - iMessage released with iOS 5<p>2011-10-13 - Microsoft finishes acquiring Skype<p>2012-04-24 - Facebook hits 900 million active users<p>2012-07-11 - Meebo is acquired by Google and shut down<p>2012-10-29 - Snapchat released for Android<p>While it's tempting to accuse AIM, MSN, and Yahoo for being incompetent and not catching up to the "mobile era", they in fact did pursue this market as much as they were able. In truth, early iOS and Android were inferior platforms for a chat app. Push notifications were absent, data rates were expensive, and the average smartphone user at this time was not very likely to use those networks anyway.<p>Based on this info, I reason that it was truly Facebook that killed incumbent IM networks, at least in the US. Between the release of the iOS App Store and the introduction of push notifications for Android, Facebook grew by more than 300 million active users. This coincided with exodus of users from Myspace to Facebook; many of those users likely having used AIM, MSN, or Yahoo messenger in the past, now found themselves in a much larger network that also offered chat. Since Facebook largely subsumed everyone a person knew in real life, these users only had to go back to the old IM networks to chat with people they didn't know in real life, setting the stage for the weakening of connections and these networks' decline.<p>By 2010, Facebook, or at least awareness of it, was mainstream. At the end of 2008, the Webster's New World Dictionary named "overshare" as the word of the year [6], while in 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose "unfriend" [7]. For people new to the IM landscape, the old networks were dying and full of "old people" now in their 20s and 30s, so new networks surfacing around this time were appealing. This contributed to the grown of Kik and Snapchat, while people for cheaper alternatives to texting and voice calls drove the adoption of Viber, WhatsApp, and Skype. iMessage went live in late 2011, offering with FaceTime a built-in rich chat on iOS, successfully capturing an audience that would've surely gotten a third-party app otherwise. Later, Hangouts on Android emulated this strategy.<p>Skype is a remarkable special case. Microsoft managed to squander the popularity of MSN/WLM with its confusing product strategy, then it acquired a VOIP product that targeted a different customer base. Not content with running the two products separately, they deprecated WLM and encouraged everyone to migrate to Skype, which didn't happen. Later, they leveraged Skype as the built-in IM for their OS, while still committed to keeping it cross-platform. It could very well be a trojan-horse into the Microsoft ecosystem, but it's essentially entirely separate, completely unlike Google Hangouts.<p>So now we're living in a time when smartphones come with IM out of the box, nearly every social network is gaining IM functionality (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.), and the new wave of circa-2011 chat apps are diversifying into social networks (Snapchat) or platforms themselves (Kik, Viber, WeChat, LINE). You actively use more than product capable of IM, but rarely by choice and mostly by acclimation. Ironically, this situation benefits platforms the more closed they are, an intuition that's made clear by complete decline of interoperability between platforms in the past. IM is ubiquitious, leaving old "IM only" networks owned by corporations who can't figure out what they're doing (AOL, Yahoo) utterly irrelevant.<p>Sources:<p>[1] 2012 <a href="http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/30/2_111/99.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/30/2_111/99.full....</a><p>[2] 2011-06-22 <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_27/b4235053917570.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_27/b42350539...</a><p>[3] 2007-07-11 <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19717700/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19717700/</a><p>[4] 2009-03-16 <a href="http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Facebook-Traffic-More-Than-Doubles/story.xhtml?story_id=10000BCLMR0W&full_skip=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Facebook-Traffic-More-Than-Do...</a><p>[5] 2014-10-22 <a href="http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-messengers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-mess...</a><p>[6] 2008-12-01 <a href="https://wordoftheyear.wordpress.com/tag/websters-new-world/" rel="nofollow">https://wordoftheyear.wordpress.com/tag/websters-new-world/</a><p>[7] 2009-11-16 <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/</a>
SF tech bro: ‘I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, despair of homeless’	I'm from San Francisco. I grew up here and I've lived here most of my life.<p>After high school, for about four and a half years, I was homeless.<p>I'm really good at programming computers, if it wasn't for that I might be homeless still.<p>I had emotional and social problems that I've been able to overcome. I'm one of the lucky ones. Many of the people I knew are dead, but in this age of instant connectivity and paranoia about surveillance I'll never know the fates of most my friends. We might as well be a lost tribe, uncontacted in the primeval forest. Except of course, that we weren't lost. Our lives played out in the same great concrete jungle/stage that yours does. Very few people wanted to find us.<p>That brings up an important thing, and this is as good a place to say it as any.<p>From the utmost bottom of my heart: Thank you.<p>To all those who gave of themselves and helped a random, smelly, weird homeless kid who you'll never see again, THANK YOU. I owe you my life. If it wasn't for the people who live the truth of our inherent connection with each other, who are moved by compassion and empathy to help selflessly, without asking for anything in return, I would certainly be dead, or worse: homeless and crazy in San Francisco. (heh heh)<p>I'll never cease from helping everyone around me so long as I draw breath because I owe the world my life.<p>If you have not been as fortunate as I have then here is the reason why you should do the same anyway:<p>We are one.<p>That homeless person there? That's YOU.<p>She's your mother, he's your father, that guy mumbling and shitting over there, he's your own son.<p>This is both metaphysical and very physical and real. The idea that we are separate individuals who can cordon off the parts of the world that we don't like is not real, not true. It's a "category one" error.<p>Here's a secret I learned on the street: The single most horrible sin we commit daily is to pass by a homeless person without acknowledging that person's humanity.<p>It's a monstrous crime.<p>You feel it every time, deep down, and it hurts, right there in your very soul.<p>It hurts.<p>There's nothing you can do or say, no ration argument you can make, that can obviate that bond. Nothing breaks it. As long as you draw breath you are owned and owed, one of us. Truly there are no individuals, to think so is fantasy, to live it, nightmare.<p>It seems like you grow callous but you don't, not really. Down under all that other B.S., not even that deep really, you feel it still. To turn away from another is like killing a part of yourself.<p>Homelessness is a symptom of a sick society. It's <i>not</i> the city government's problem, it's the whole city's problem, indeed the whole nation, the whole planet. We have emotional scars that prevent us from forming a coherent response to the situation (that's the only way so much money could be spent and have so little effect on the problem.) The issue isn't a matter of money (we have SO MUCH) it's a matter of spirit.<p>The individual homeless people would disappear as if by magic if we could just get our minds aligned with our hearts, because there is plenty of actual help and resources.<p>The very essence of the homelessness problem is that we, as a society, have to "break ourselves" and become humble. That's the only way for us to be vulnerable enough to reach out and heal the psychic and spiritual wounds at the root of it. An example: Try to imagine D. Trump manning a homeless food serving line. He's wearing an apron and spooning out hearty soup to people and he really <i>gets</i> it. What doea THAT do for your noggin?<p>P.S. Bonus campfire story: Here's hoping <i>YOU</i> never get, like, schizophrenia or something and wind up homeless yourself. It could happen. One of the scariest things that can happen to you is to get to know a few homeless people who were once <i>JUST LIKE YOU</i>! Mwoooo-hahhahahaha! Homelessness is something that only ever happens to someone else. Right? Nothing so tragic could ever happen to YOU to break you down and leave YOU shambling and covered in your own mess in a city full of people who don't care. Of course not, you're a good person. Homeless never happens to good people. That wouldn't make sense, would it? That wouldn't be fair. We all know the world is a fair place, right?<p>Let's talk about something else.
How a Reporter Pierced the Hype Behind Theranos	> ...Theranos also played a role in the passage of an Arizona law that allows people to get blood tests without a doctor’s order. Carreyrou: That was controversial, because there are many in the medical profession [...] who say, "Well, how is that progress?" [...] more likely than not, they're going to need a doctor's opinion to decipher them.<p>This is a good point. Diabetics usually go to the doctor 1-3 times a day to have bloodwork done. Surprisingly, despite how open the medical field is from a regulatory, technological and informational standpoint we have done almost nothing to combat the complexity of tests taken regularly by most of the population. I would have overlooked this and I am glad the author brought this up, maybe it would be possible for users to be trained on some of the newer technology being rolled out in the medical field like the Facsimile Machine (often called FAX or sometimes by the synecdoche XeroX) to communicate with highly skilled professionals, to interpret the data. It is likely that every person would fall outside of a standard bell curve so it would be impossible to teach anyone how to interpret the test, but we could set our sites on leveraging FAX in the future.<p>> How a Reporter Pierced the Hype ...<p>This is great reporting and a perfectionist usecase for new media. The journalist was able to quickly go on wikipedia to create a paragraph of color, and then link to the interview so that readers would be able to immeadiately hear how this reporter had broken the hype machine over a 20 minute interview at an offsite location. Maybe, unlike everyone else, you actualy don't have 20 minutes to listen to this interview, perfect contingency here 3 bullet points.<p>Much like the author, I skipped around through the clip pulling random qoutes, the reporter is asked:<p><i>A number of reports got tips and yoiu were the one to purse this. Other reporters got tips as well but you pursued this?</i><p>Not knowing much about how the Peer review system, I called my colleague G. oog LeSearch Barr who confirmed peer review is basically the only important thing about conducting science, and the system is renowned for it's perfection.<p>The reporter did say 2 people in the community had spoken out, which to be fair, is quite reasonable. He was pragmatic about waiting to fully engage with the story until, and I am paraphrasing but editorializing much less than one would think:<p>The 9 Billion in 2014 is a big valuation.<p>How did this unicorn get money?<p>What people saw other than Holme's pitch isn't clear. I have <i>heard</i> the company didn't offer anything about how the technology worked.<p>After a lot of reporting, I talked to a lot of employees who were in a position to know, I determined that 350 blood samples 15 were run on their machine.<p>---<p>Now it is important to realize, Theranos didn't use the AMA standard bootstrap medical breakthrough CDN and while not much is known about the internals of the company, it is believed they didn't spin up a AWS Full Scale Research Labratory, they may have not even <i>considered</i> using GO.<p>Now, all that can be forgiven, right? But it is such a shame they didn't just roll this out overnight. It is fucking trivial to build this, you can just use Crimson on Beaker for the front arm and then persist your regularatory data to the USFDADEAFBI?SOMESENATOR.gov/api and get approval.<p>750 million dollars to basically build a crud app seems like a lot of investment. Obviously Holmes, much like her predecessor Alexander the great, had to hire Michael R. Taylor the Head of the FDA to follow her around saying "You are just a human, only a mortal". Notably, this actually should have helped Theranos as Taylor is a renowned scientist who has won a nobel peace prize. He graduated with a degree in political science doing pretty serious research as a staff attorney at the FDA, and working with the private firm that represents the worlds biggest provider of open source seeds, Monsanto.<p>As an aside, Taylor is a New York Times best selling author for his riveting 1988 article entitled "The De Minimis Interpretation of the Delaney Clause: Legal and Policy Rationale", where his interpretation of a 1958 law about the ppm of chemicals, is considered truly breathtaking when read.<p>----<p>She may not succeed, she may (we DO NOT KNOW) have cheated, but what fucking world do we live in if we can preach "Fail Fast" to the 40th uberPetBNBPariscopeAOLtimewarnerTwitterBlockchain-#NOBACKDOOR-google-earth-for-mars-but-with-instagram-filters<p>and tell the people who are fucking trying to push forward the most highly regulated industry forward, which requires not only innovation but capex, and a strong board (Kissinger/etc are there to lobby because you CAN"T EVEN COMPETE without someone connected, much less succeed).<p>So you can question her ethics, her strategy, etc, and if she committed fraud I certainly wouldn't defend that, but if it ends up she took a shot at something big and missed, I vote we let the next guy or girl take a similar shot.
AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep	My name is Giovanni Santostasi. I have a PhD in Physics and I work in the field of neuroscience of sleep at Northwestern University, in particular I'm interested in slow wave sleep. I'm also the leading neuroscientist at brain.fm. Slow wave sleep is the deepest stage of sleep and it is fundamental for learning and cognition (and several other physiological functions like getting rid of toxins in the brain, metabolism and hormonal regulation). Slow wave sleep is one of the most regular rhythmic brain state. It is easy to recognize using an EEG system because it produces very regular bursts of large amplitude and relatively slow oscillations, called slow waves (with a frequency of about 1 Hz). This is one of the most active fields in neuroscience right now. Many experiments in labs around the world have shown that the amplitude of these oscillations are strongly correlated with learning activity during the day. Also performance on cognitive tasks in particular related to memory are strongly correlated with the amplitude of the slow waves. Scientists tried to understand if slow waves were just an epiphenomenon, i.e. if they were the indicators of a fundamental physiological principle or they had a causative role, i.e. if by generating slow waves the brain caused physiological changes that helped the process of memory consolidation in the brain (making memory long stable over long term). Therefore in the last 10 years scientists tried to modify the slow waves using external stimulation. The used initially transcranial direct current stimulation tDCs and obtain amazing results. By creating currents that oscillated at a frequency close to the typical frequency of slow waves (about 1 Hz) they were able to enhance the amplitude of the waves. What was even more amazing that the enhancement in amplitude changed the memory performance of the study participants in a standard memory tests relatively to a sham condition. The change were not just statistical significant but quite dramatic (they enhanced by 20-30 percent the natural benefit in memory due to sleep alone). The results were published in Nature, the most prestigious science journal. In our lab we reproduced and in fact improved these results using acoustic stimulation (using short burst of pink noise synchronized with the brain oscillations during sleep). This and many other experiments repeated in many labs around the world show clearly that the relationship between mental states and brain rhythms is bidirectional, brain states create brain rhythms, but brain rhythms bring the brain to particular brain states. The field of brain stimulation is relatively new in neuroscience as a very active, promising and in fact revolutionary area of research. Sleep is just one area but people are exploring using rhythmic brain stimulation how to increase attention, information processing, improve mood and cognition in older people, helping with ADD. It is unfortunate that in the last decades the idea of using brain waves to enhance brain function has been appropriated by charlatans and new agers. But right now brain rhythms are making a huge come back as a legit scientific study that is bringing break throughs almost on a daily basis. At brain.fm we are simply using the knowledge of this new field of science to improve people well being. We are moving the knowledge from the lab to people daily life. We are not claiming to have a magical tool to enhance focus, attention, sleep. We are doing what good scientists do. Experimenting, trying different things and using the scientific method and an evidence based approach to determine what works and what doesn't work. I believe we are doing much better than most companies in the industry of neuroscience commercial applications because we are focused on testing with scientific means our technology and prove ourselves wrong before we make any claim. When we do is because we see noticeable effects and reasonable repeatability of our findings. I notice several criticisms about the small sample size of our studies. I have to clarify that this is very typical size for pilot experiments that are trying to test new approaches in brain stimulation and other physiological studies in general. The Nature paper I mentioned for tDCs and slow wave sleep had about 17 subjects. Also the p=0.05 as statistical threshold is something that is used all the time in the biomed field. Being a physicist it took me sometime to get adjusted to such small significance (in comparison with what we consider significant in physics) but it is understandable given the complexity of living systems and the great variability in human physiology. And how many companies you know in this industry that can back up their claims with any study at all? Or are interested in testing, experimenting, learning from their mistakes and improve their products continuously from what is learned? We accept your criticism as an input for pushing ourselves in doing better and creating even better products. Be part of this experiment in human enhancement and let us know what you think. Thank you, Giovanni
Show HN: Yet another (faster) way to discover events nearby	OK, thanks to all your comments so far - I'm a bit overwhelmed by the feedback to this kind of "no-brainer idea" (love it) and I wanted to answer them all one by one but this site doesn't let me as it yells "commenting too fast" at me all the time :P<p>SO I'M GOING TO WRAP UP ALL PREVIOUS COMMENTS W/ THE FOLLOWING ANSWERS, HOPE IT WORKS:<p>0. SOLUTION: The one and only Idea behind that was "I want a list of events, NOW - nothing else". I even didn't what to "search" events - I just want them in a list regarding where I am now and what's up next. Period.<p>I too think all others fail at this and it sucks especially when being drunk, travelling or not always using FB to search for events (which sucks, too, I think) and so on. Of course the site is extremely limited and consider it still as a protoype (in version 2 now), but I love it having so as I don't need to spend much time on it to see what's goin'. I built the site primarily for myself and use it almost every day. It works well, here in Zurich, as I'm always on the hunt for interesting people or happenings (tech and non-tech). And it comes ultra-handy when travelling to other cities or countries.<p>1. MARKET: Now, it seems like there's A HUGE DEMAND on fast, lean, lovely and NO BS event discovery sites as the market still doesn't provide anything properly. So I got the impression I'm at least kind of on the right track in solving this issue and hope to be able to improve the site as much as I can to fit that need - would be awesome.<p>2. CONTENT: Most events come from other sites like FB, Eventbrite, meetup etc. via their APIs (funny, but none are scraped!). I implemented dozens of these APIs within the last 2 years and they mostly seem to work fine. The goal was to have a huge diversity and as much content providers on board possible. Actually due to legal restriction (copyright crap - on event info, LOL) this is only a fraction of what I wanted to have implemented, but we'll see ;)<p>There's also tons of individuals who sign up and post their own events (of any kind), which is cool and also subject to huge growth in the not so distant future.<p>Think how cool it would be having postings about happy hours for bars and restaurants etc. - like they mostly do only/mostly on twitter at the moment. These events are mostly too small for Eventbrite & co. as well as most FB stuff but have 'em here could lead to a whole new use case, for example...<p>3. CONTENT CATEGORIES: These are a bit different than on all the other platforms. The intention with this site was to provide ALL KINDS of events, so also stuff like e.g. transportation (flight plans, train scheudules), public (authority) events like "when comes the garbage man" or public holidays, tv schedules (mostly US + UK at the moment) - that's the "media" category or "business" as in trade fairs, weather etc...<p>So categories are here less what the event is about as more of what kind it is - e.g. there might be a congress about climate issuees what makes in mostly an educational, community or business event but not a weather event as the happening is not of kind "weather".<p>4. UX: Yes, it's lean, simple and fast. As some of you mentioned maybe a little too simple or not "loved" enough ;) That's currently the 2nd iteration + I'm not a great designer and I like things ultra-simple. I think I spent more time deleting code and appearances than the opposite (ok "physically" impossible but it felt like that). Might get better, I hope B-)<p>Also, most stuff is build around the browser view of e.g. an iPhone 4 - so 320 x 480px. I wanted everything being still good to use on all those smaller displays and that's what's the site mostly is built around.<p>5. EVENT DISCOVERY: Yes, there is an option to see far future events. But it's currently only when signed in with an registered account (needs only email + PW, though). Then you can select another "moment" (aka `from date`) and a different timeframe too. The account registration stuff comes due to the "trigg" feature where you can also "trigg" events/locations/searches, as in "subscribe to", and get notified by mail (simple implementation, gets better in the future).<p>And yes, it might get a bit crowded in some larger cities as the categorization of imported events is still not so good. Also I noticed that the content quality is one of the biggest issues to cope with when building such a platform. But it seems to get better over time and when you're getting used to category selection to filter in/out e.g. stuff you're (not) interested in at the moment.<p>I also thought about implementing "editor accounts" where people can (voluntarily, at first) add, curate or improve event information and throw own (etrigg sponsored/supported) events/parties - a bit like yelp did in it's early days - if there's anybody interested feel free to drop me an email (providers who want "go large" and others, too): [email protected]<p>OK, I think I'm posting in a few hours again as more comments arrive or maybe HN might let me comment on individual comments and doesn't consider it as spam or something ;)<p>Thanks a lot guys + keep sharing, you rock!<p>If any questions, suggestions or whatever else feel free to contact me at [email protected].
MentalHealthError: an exception occurred	Thanks to Kenneth for sharing, and good to hear he's back.<p>The title seems to be funny because it highlights that mental health mostly isn't about discrete erroneous events, but about the ability for a mind to cope within a world...<p>I was in love with a bipolar woman. We shared an apartment for a few months, not too long after she had emerged from a manic period.<p>Her mania came on when she was alone in a new foreign city, used psychedelics, and became close friends with several people who were... firmly distanced from the reality-based community, let's say. She slept little, hallucinated, had strong ideas that all kinds of random events were connected, centered around her own destiny, and all that stuff.<p>I'm also pretty weird. Like Kenneth, I could attribute much of my erratic productivity to periods of hypomania. Never had any real mania. I'm very interested in semi-esoteric stuff like Buddhist philosophy, Zen Masters, insight meditation, and other things you might guess at.<p>I had a period when I was trying to read kind of arcane philosophy like Deleuze & Guattari's <i>Anti-Oedipus</i> and <i>A Thousand Plateaus</i>... I remember being in my dorm room drinking too much coffee, reading that book or David Foster Wallace's <i>Infinite Jest</i>, or some pirate PDF about Spinoza, or whatever I could find...<p>The D&G books are subtitled "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" and one thing they do is kind of hijack the term "schizophrenia" and use it to designate something like the subconscious creative processes of the mind that seek to connect things, create these proliferating conceptual networks, build ideas atop ideas, change things, experiment, become different, etc...<p>I'm reminded of this because I'm thinking of the way hypomania can be a "positive" and "productive" state as long as you can maintain your health and groundedness... it seems related to how I sometimes feel like I need a slight bit of some kind of insanity or delusions of importance in order to have novel ideas.<p>Like, I'm thinking about a new kind of database, that I imagine is going to be really useful, beautiful, and novel. Sometimes I get what I jokingly call "too much coffee syndrome" and my rather simple idea starts to branch out into some impossibly grand project... like, I don't know, maybe to implement stored procedures, I need to make a new stack-based language with type inference... and content-addressed values... with a new kind of source control system... and a new kind of IDE that will be usable on mobile devices... and so on until I haven't eaten all day...<p>So in that whole sphere of my life, the idea-generating, novelty-demanding me who wants to reformulate basic parameters, invent totally new things, revolutionize everything, explain to everyone the new better way... etc... that's something I have to manage. My ideas aren't <i>insane</i>, I could explain them patiently, and I realize I don't have time to implement them... but the restlessness of my thoughts can be painful.<p>So anyway, partly because of this restlessness and tendencies toward some mild mania, I've taken an interest in mind pacification, especially through meditation.<p>Meditation is attractive because it also comes with connections to all kinds of fascinating theories about the mind, reality, and who knows what, and cultural treasures like Buddhist sutras, Tibetan art, and all kinds of stuff...<p>Here's a pretty plausible scenario:<p>1. You feel restless and anxious.<p>2. You get into meditation.<p>3. You hear about "Zen" and start studying.<p>4. You learn that its founder taught the Lankavatara Sutra.<p>5. You pick up Red Pine's translation from a local hippie store.<p>6. You sit and read Mahamati's praise to the Buddha:<p>> Like a flower in the sky / the world neither ceases nor arises / in the light of your wisdom and compassion / it neither is nor isn't<p>> Transcending mind and consciousness / all things are like illusions / in the light of your wisdom and compassion / they neither are nor aren't<p>> The world is but a dream / neither permanent nor transient / in the light of your wisdom and compassion / it neither is nor isn't<p>> There is no self in being or things / no barriers of passion or knowledge / in the light of your wisdom and compassion / it neither is nor isn't<p>That's fascinating stuff! What does it mean? Clearly it is deeply important, since people say it's the whole basis for Zen, and Zen meditation is obviously deep and profound, since the whole industry of mindfulness tacitly reveres all of Buddhism...<p>This comment is probably a good demonstration of my mind when it's bordering on "too much coffee." I kind of forgot how I was going to tie all this stuff together, and now I'm really hungry.<p>In the relationship I mentioned, I took on a role of helping, which worked fairly well. We made sure to get enough sleep, to get out and be kind of healthy, to just ground ourselves in different ways. It was an educational period of my life, because it helped me realize I need to take care of myself, too.
Dsxyliea	I don't know about other dyslexics but this not what it feels like to me. For me the words don't move they're just different. The letters are often swapped, I could stare at a word for a long time because I can't quite tell what it is.<p>I even looked at the title of this and thought it was spelled right but then something inside my head said "look again". When I went to the site the problem is the words move rapidly and the changes are too obvious. The challenge with my dyslexia is that the words have changed before I see them in subtle ways that trip you up when you start reading.<p>A couple of things I've noticed:<p>* Handwriting is ok for me if it's printed but cursive is almost impossible for me to read.<p>* Using light fonts on a dark background really helps a lot, when I switched my ipad kindle to black background and white font my reading speed went up almost 20x. It felt like I was part of the human race finally and understood what people meant by a "quick enjoyable read".<p>Accidently my work on computers started on old CRT terminals where the fonts where light and the background was dark. Green screens and Orange screens were awesome I was most productive on them. Over time I got sucked into the windows white background and found myself lost again. I literally at one point thought I was loosing my ability to code and that my writing and reading was getting worse. At some point I would ssh into boxes and use vi because I felt more productive, over time I realized the reason was the ssh client I was using was like the old CRT terminals and had black background with colored foreground fonts. Once I figured that out I changed everything I can to this format of dark background and never looked back.<p>I've also noticed as I get tired my dyslexia really kicks in, I start to ask my wife "Is this word spelled right?" and even with spell check I second guess it's suggestions because the words don't "look right". It's strange I can't tell you the letters are swapped or not, I just feel like cognitive dissonance has kicked in.<p>Dyslexia is hard to explain, if you've ever had that feeling where you were talking along and all of a sudden couldn't remember the name of an old friend or something and your train of thought just collapses on this one issue, maybe even you find yourself embarrassed or a feeling of tunnel vision falls over you. This is exactly how I feel, stupid, what's wrong why can't I read this word, I must be an idiot. I've struggled with this feeling all my life, it permeates my life and I have to battle it almost daily. I know I'm not stupid, but growing up unable to read like my classmates and having teachers tell me I'm an idiot did not help much on this front. I think the hardest thing about dyslexia is that until you know you have it and until others believe it you end living in this horrible self doubting and self deprecating world convinced there is something wrong with you and that you're an idiot. This is the secret pain of dyslexia...<p>I was told in High School that I could never be a programmer because my short-term memory and dyslexia would make it impossible for me to be successful. I was devastated because I was already coding in BASIC on a TRS-80 Model I and having so much success, for once I had found a thing I could type wrong things into over and over and not be judged. Then when I got it right it would just "work". No judgement, no "SYNTAX ERROR AGAIN YOU IDIOT". For the first time in my life I felt accepted and smart, I could code for days and build amazing things. But, being told I couldn't do it killed me, I spent days in a haze and then one day it hit me. The person who told me that was the idiot, not me, they weren't programming, I was already doing it, and better than anyone at my entire school. So luckily for me I ignored that and went on to enjoy 35 years of being in technology, writing any language I desire and mastering anything I put my mind to.<p>In the end dyslexia is just a thing, like all of us we are dealt a hand of cards in this life from random genetic expressions to accidents and horrible people who put us down while we are growing up. It's up to us to overcome, to push through and make the best of all the tools we were given in that random lotto and try very hard to learn along the way and hopefully find some love while doing it all.
Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars	Inherent issues with anything battery powered:<p><pre><code> - I have 20 year old grid powered drills, saws, routers, sawzalls, sanders - They all work and in perfect condition - Same period: Three sets of battery powered drills - Technology changes: NiCd to Lithium - Battery pack voltage/form-factor EOL - Aftermarket batteries expensive crap - Good motor, gearbox, chuck discarded - Environmental impact of early EOL? </code></pre> The Tesla scenario:<p><pre><code> - Will they be around in 20 years? - Will there be any parts for current cars? - Will you have access to service manuals, software and information? </code></pre> The battery packs:<p><pre><code> - Technology and chemistry will evolve - No reason to make packs with 20 year old tech - Will Tesla guarantee replacement packs in 10 to 20 years? - Could be vehicle lifetime limiting factor - Shame to crunch a perfectly good chassis, motor, etc. - Potentially significant environmental impact </code></pre> Working on electric cars:<p><pre><code> - Most people not qualified, even most techies - 400~500 V DC systems are deadly dangerous - Electric cars will be the domain of experts, not hobbyists - High voltage, high power, high energy density system can do horrific things in accidents - Who wants to be the responsible party? </code></pre> After market:<p><pre><code> - Potential for advanced after-market companies - More efficient, smaller motor controllers - Smaller, lighter, more energy-dense battery packs - On-board computers and entertainment systems - Might not be viable market for another 20 years - Tesla (and others) likely not interested in doing this themselves, they want to sell new cars </code></pre> Electric car market:<p><pre><code> - In 20 years all makers will have electric cars - Multiple models per maker, multiple choices - Buying from established makers gives you massive sales and support infrastructure - As market grows Tesla might have trouble reaching scale - Tesla has a 3 to 5 year window to become mainstream - If they fail at that they might well become irrelevant - Battery manufacturers (Panasonic, etc.) will support large car makers - Car manufacturers know how to make cars by the millions - Ford made a million F-150 trucks last year - That's just one maker and one model - They have the factories, people, process and product know-how - Electric cars far easier to build than IC cars - Tesla might be reduced to the Ferrari/McLaren of the industry </code></pre> Better for the environment:<p><pre><code> - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty battery manufacturing - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty battery disposal - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty electricity generation - It's like leather: Process is dirty and disgusting but the end product looks beautiful and clean and nobody thinks about how it got there - Where is reality of environmental impact of 100 million pure electric cars when considering the entire chain of events that leads to manufacturing, using and retiring one? - I don't know the answer - Point: Don't be too sure you are "clean" - Maybe you are...by a little bit </code></pre> In all, today, analytically, I don't think electrics make much sense yet. Good for you if you are OK burning cash on one of these things. Thank you. I think.<p>The inflection point for this industry is 100% connected to better battery technology. No other technology matters one bit. We know how to make cars, electric motors, transmissions and electronics. We need better and cheaper batteries.<p>The minute a new battery technology (super-capacitors?) emerges with twice the energy in half the volume at half the cost we will have dozens of pure electrics to choose from. The infrastructure will be built as soon as companies can start making money with them.
Statisticians Find They Can Agree: It’s Time to Stop Misusing P-Values	This is one of the best conversation threads I've ever seen on HN. It's both polite and informative.<p>I want to toss in my own thoughts here.<p>Since I've spent the vast majority of my tech career in the Market Research industry (hello, bias!), I'm tempted to say that one of the most frequent intersections between statistical science and business decisions happens in that world.<p>Product testing, shopper marketing, A/B testing . . . these are pretty common fare these days. But I feel like the MR people are sort of their own worst enemy in many cases.<p>It's a fairly recent development that MR people are even allowed a seat at the table for major product or business decisions. And when the data nerds show up at the meeting, we have to make human communication decisions that are difficult.<p>I can't show up at the C-suite and lecture company executives about the finer points of statistical philosophy. When I'm presenting findings to stake-holders, it's my job to abstract the details and present something that makes a coherent case for a decision, based on the data we have available.<p>It is sinfully attractive to go tell your boss's boss's boss that we have a threshold--a number we can point to. If this number turns out to be smaller than .05, this project is a go.<p>Three months later, you go back to that boss and tell him the number came back and it was .0499999. The boss says, "Okay, go!" And then you are all, "Wait, wait, wait. Hang on a second. Let's talk about this."<p>My god, what have I done?<p>The practical reality of the intersection of statistics and business is a harsh one. We have to do better. In terms of leaky abstractions, the communication of data science to business decision makers is quite possibly the leaky-est of all.<p>Why is it so leaky? I have two points about this.<p>1) Statistics is one of the most existentially depressing fields of study. There is no acceptance; there is no love; there is nothing positive about it. Ever.<p>Statistics is always about rejection and failure. We never accept or affirm a hypothesis. We only ever reject the null hypothesis or we fail to reject it. That's it.<p>2) In business, we tend to be very very sloppy about formulating our hypotheses. Sometimes we don't even really think about them at all.<p>Take a common case for market research. New product testing. We do a rep sample with a decent size (say, 1800 potential product buyers) and we randomly show five different products, one of which is the product the person already owns/uses (because that's called control /s). The other 4 products are variations on a theme with different attributes.<p>What's the null hypothesis here? Does it ever get discussed?<p>What's the alternative hypothesis?<p>The implicit and never-talked-about null is that all things being equal, there is no difference between the distribution of purchase likelihood among all products. The alternative is that there is a real difference on a scale of likely to purchase.<p>The implicit and intuitive assumption is that there is something about that feature set that drives the difference. (I'm looking at you, Max Diff)<p>But that's not real. It's not a part of the test. The only test you can do in that situation is to check if those aggregate distributions are different from each other. The real null is that they are the same, and the alternative is that they are different.<p>All you can do with statistics is tell if two distributions are isomorphic.<p>Now, who wants to try to explain any of that to your CEO? No one does. Your CEO doesn't want it, you don't want it, your girlfriend doesn't want it. No one wants it.<p>So we try to abstract, and I feel like we mostly fail at doing a good job of that.<p>This is getting really long, and I don't want to rant. So to finish up, an idea for more effective uses of data science as it interacts with the business world:<p>I agree, let's stop talking about p values. Let's work harder and funnel the results of those MR studies into practical models of the business' future. Let's take the research and pipe it into Bayesian expected value models.<p>Let's stop showing stacked bar charts to execs and expecting them to make good decisions based on weak evidence we got from hypotheses we didn't really think about in the first place.<p>Some of this might come across as a rant. I hope it is not taken that way. This is a real problem that I've been thinking about for a long time. And I don't mean to step on anyone's toes. I have certainly committed many of the data sins that I'm deriding above.<p>Edited to add:<p>The real workings of statistics are unintuitive. I'm not saying that they are wrong. But in working with people for years now, I understand the confusion. It's a psychological problem. Hypotheses are either not really well though out or not considered in an organized way, in my experience.<p>A hypothesis is not concrete in many practical cases. It's a thought. An idea, perhaps. It's often a thing that floats around in your mind, or maybe you paid some lip service and tossed it into your note-taking app.<p>Data seem much more real. You download a few gigabytes of data and start working on it. It's quite easy to get confused.<p>I have real data! This is tangible stuff. Thinking of things properly and evaluating the probability of your data given the hypothesis is <i>hard</i>. Your data seems much more concrete. These are real people answering real questions about X.<p>Even for people who are really hell-bent on statistical rigor, this is a challenge.
REM vs. EM – The Great Debate	I rarely use rem since I only stopped needing to support IE8 recently. Instead, to deal with the pain of em calculations I use these sass mixins (feel free to use; license CC0 <a href="https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0</a>) (below is my first attempt at "sassdoc," which I happened to discover while preparing this comment):<p><pre><code> $current-font-size: 16; // Remove the units from a value (pretty sure someone else wrote this originally) @function strip-units($number) { @if unit($number) == '' { @return $number; } @return $number / ($number * 0 + 1); } /// Sets font-size and line-height using percentage and unitless values respectively, with support for nesting. /// @param {Number} $new-font-size - Desired new font size in pixels (units ignored) /// @param {Number} $new-line-height - New line height in pixels (units ignored) /// @param {Number} $context-font-size - Current font size where you're including this mixin, if it isn't the global $current-font-size @mixin font-scale($new-font-size, $new-line-height:null, $context-font-size:$current-font-size) { // Set the font size $context-font-size: strip-units($context-font-size); $new-font-size: strip-units($new-font-size); $font-ratio: $new-font-size / $context-font-size; font-size:$font-ratio * 100%; // Set the line height @if $new-line-height != null { $new-line-height: strip-units($new-line-height); // Honestly don't remember why the "+ 0.0001" here: $line-ratio: $new-line-height / $new-font-size + 0.0001; line-height:$line-ratio; } // Include nested content with global $current-font-size set to the new value $last-cfs: $current-font-size; $current-font-size: $new-font-size !global; @content; // Reset the global $current-font-size to what it was before $current-font-size: $last-cfs !global; } /// Convert a pixel length to ems at the current (or given) font size /// @param {Number} $px-length - Length in pixels (units ignored) /// @param {Number} $font-size - Current font size in px, if it isn't the global $current-font-size (units ignored) @function ems($px-length, $font-size:$current-font-size) { $px-length: strip-units($px-length); $font-size: strip-units($font-size); @return ($px-length / $font-size)1em; } </code></pre> (Those are modified slightly and haven't been tested in this exact form.) This lets me do, for example:<p><pre><code> .title { // Make the text in .title 112.5% (18 ÷ 16) with a line-height of 1.22 (22 ÷ 18) @include font-scale(18, 22) { // Give it 15 pixels of padding using em units padding:ems(15); // Make the text of a .subtitle inside a .title 14px (112.5% × (14 ÷ 18) = 87.5%) // (line-height remains 1.22 in this case, working out to 17.11px) .subtitle { @include font-scale(14); // Give .subtitle 5 pixels of padding, but instead of nesting // the mixin again, I'll just tell ems() that the current // font size is 14 directly. padding:ems(5, 14); } } } </code></pre> The nesting isn't attractive and `ems(15)` is a little more typing than `15em` (though not more than `(15/18)×1em`), but I think just using em for everything reduces some cognitive load.<p>It also lets you do some tricks, like you can set the root element of some component to `font-size:(16/1024)100vw` and it'll have a "normal" size when the viewport is 1024px wide but scale up smoothly in every dimension when the viewport is larger (and down when smaller). And you can still scale the whole page, including that component, by changing the font-size of html/body.<p>Thus far I only use rem when I need to override something for an inner element, like if a piece of the aforementioned vw-sized component gets too small when the viewport is less than 640, I would set the font-size for just that piece in a media query using rem, allowing the rest of the component to continue to scale down.
Deep Learning Is Going to Teach Us All the Lesson of Our Lives	<i>All of this is why it’s those most knowledgeable in the AI field who are now actively sounding the alarm for basic income. During a panel discussion at the end of 2015 at Singularity University, prominent data scientist Jeremy Howard asked “Do you want half of people to starve because they literally can’t add economic value, or not?” before going on to suggest, ”If the answer is not, then the smartest way to distribute the wealth is by implementing a universal basic income.”</i><p>People all over the world are adding an incredible amount of economic value to the knowledge economy, it's just being captured completely by Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc.<p><i>First, news publishers have lost control over distribution.<p>Social media and platform companies took over what publishers couldn’t have built even if they wanted to. Now the news is filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictable. The news business is embracing this trend, and digital native entrants like BuzzFeed, Vox, and Fusion have built their presence on the premise that they are working within this system, not against it.<p>Second, the inevitable outcome of this is the increase in power of social media companies.<p>The largest of the platform and social media companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and even second order companies such as Twitter, Snapchat and emerging messaging app companies, have become extremely powerful in terms of controlling who publishes what to whom, and how that publication is monetized.<p>There is a far greater concentration of power in this respect than there ever has been in the past. Networks favor economies of scale, so our careful curation of plurality in media markets such as the UK, disappears at a stroke, and the market dynamics and anti-trust laws the Americans rely on to sort out such anomalies are failing.<p>We need regulation to make sure all citizens gain equal access to the networks of opportunity and services they need. We also need to know that all public speech and expression will be treated transparently, even if they cannot be treated equally. This is a basic requirement for a functioning democracy.<p>For this to happen, there has to be at least some agreement that the responsibilities in this area are shifting. The people who built these platform companies did not set out to do so in order to take over the responsibilities of a free press. In fact, they are rather alarmed that this is the outcome of their engineering success.</i> - <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php</a><p>Silicon Valley has seemingly abandoned the notion of treating intellectual property as a capital good. Facebook is a marketing platform, not a marketplace. The solution is to add actual market value to intellectual property instead of covering operations costs with advertising.<p>If I write a song I can sell it on an open marketplace to competing publishers. It will be treated as a capital good. It can be recorded by numerous recording artists and packaged and resold in myriad other ways. All of that is measurable productivity. All of that lets songwriters, publishers, recording artists and music marketers make real profits and pay their rent.<p>If I write a song and publish it to a private social media platform like Facebook it goes nowhere. It's not a capital good, there is no notion of intellectual property, and I am not financially rewarded for the benefits that it gives to the other users of Facebook. There's no market value for a Facebook post. The only measurable value is from the indirect commerce that it stimulates. Facebook captures all of the profits from selling advertising. Facebook is not a public platform. It is a private, closed platform that we're all stuck with it due to network effects.<p><i>Capital, like energy, is a dormant value. Bringing it to life requires us to go beyond looking at our assets as they are to actively thinking about them as they could be. It requires a process for fixing an asset's economic potential into a form that can be used to initiate additional production.<p>[...]<p>Any asset whose economic and social aspects are not fixed in a formal property system is extremely hard to move in the market. How can the huge amounts of assets changing hands in a modern market economy be controlled, if not through a formal property process? Without such a system, any trade of an asset, say a piece of real estate, requires an enormous effort just to determine the basics of the transaction: Does the seller own the real estate and have the right to transfer it? Can he pledge it? Will the new owner be accepted as such by those who enforce property rights? What are the effective means to exclude other claimants? This is why the exchange of most assets outside the West is restricted to local circles of trading partners.</i> - <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/03/desoto.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/03/desoto.htm</a><p>There's a lot of potential economic energy contained in the non-repetitive cognitive tasks that billions of people are performing on social media every day, it's just not being treated like capital, rather being captured by the private intellectual property industries.<p>Can we please explore some tried-and-true methods of establishing and maintaining marketplaces of intellectual property before we give up and start preaching about silly experiments like basic income?<p>Blindly paying people basic income in order to create intellectual property that is completely captured by Google is literally the dumbest way to distribute wealth through society.<p><i>dumb<p>verb<p>2.<p>literary<p>make dumb or unheard; silence.<p>"a splendor that dazed the mind and dumbed the tongue"</i><p>We need to speak and we need to speak through the free and public exchange of information with measurable value.
I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing	I read this article with deep interest; it presents a pretty negative image of the United Nations as a bureaucratic giant unable to deliver due to a handful of incompetent staff and lack of proper management mechanisms. I am concerned about the negative impacts of such image can have to the wide public and those committed UN staff who are tirelessly working in non-family/hardship duty stations and reaching out to the most vulnerable.<p>I would like instead to share a brighter view, based on my working experience in various parts of the organization (including the Secretariat and other UN agencies)both at the Headquarters and in the field.<p>The UN is an immense political machinery, controlled by Members States, tasked with the most noble and difficult missions that an organization was ever mandated in the history. The UN is also comprised of myriads of different agencies, funds and programme with very different mandates, administrative capacities and organizational culture. It is too simplistic to lump together what is different.<p>Huge organizations, such as the UN, require rules and procedures to ensure transparency to its constituents. Bureaucracy creates these additional, more often cumbersome, layers. Bureaucracy is indeed a pain and, of course, processes can be simplified and streamlined. However, such changes do not come overnight as they require change of mind among the organization's staff, especially the “old guard”.This does not mean that the work of the organization should stop or colleagues should quit. In fact there are ways to "play along with the "administrative vortexes”; for example, a deep knowledge of the rules and regulations, advance planning and proactive actions can accelerate processes. A staff member will not get frustrated or get his/her submission rejected if he/she knew exactly what are the steps required, what documents to submit etc. Yes, we should focus more on the substantive/programmatic work which we are responsible to deliver, but as we are all very knowledgeable and quick to process our salary reimbursement claims, we could also do the same for the required administrative processes that are being mentioned in the article.<p>Once I was asked during an interview how I would overcome bottlenecks caused by bureaucracy. I responded, knowing the procedures, acting on time, using the right templates, following up with the right people, being motivated and having a good dose of patience can help in accelerating the process, at least the part of it I am in control, and will eventually lead to faster results. I did get that job.<p>Recruitment processes take forever. Most of the time this is true and it takes even more time and efforts to deploy competent staff during an emergency. Again, some UN organizations do better than others. For example, some organizations such as UNICEF has "fast track" recruitment procedures for emergency recruitments allowing staff deployment within weeks. UNFPA maintains rosters of pre-vetted candidates that successfully passed 2 days intensive screening. DPKO also keeps roster of pre-screened candidates which enables the organization to deploy staff in 3 months rather than taking 9-12 months as per regular recruitment. It is possible, I have witnesses once my successor being deployed within 3 months from my transfer notification. Indeed there are ways for improvement, especially by learning from where things works better.<p>There is nothing more atrocious than peacekeepers committing abusive acts to the same people they are supposed to protect. This is a major challenge for the UN, as it casts discredits to the entire organization as a whole, including those that are risking their lives daily to create a better world. Therefore, there should be zero tolerance for such abuses and the perpetrators should be properly condemned. At the same time, it is disappointing that most of the media coverage focuses on UN misconduct, committed by a few, rather than on what we do right.<p>However I wish to point out that most of these abuses are carried out by military personnel serving in peacekeeping missions. The UN does not have a standing military force and depends on the willing of countries to deploy their national troops temporary (normally 6-12 months) to serve under the UN flag (and their own flag), and fight someone else's wars. Consequently, these soldiers are national citizens, who bring their own training and culture to the UN, and when they commit these abuses they should be considered as such too. I have witnessed cases when abuses committed by just one or two soldiers resulted in the entire company (hundred soldiers) repatriating.<p>The majority of peacekeepers perform a tremendous job by ensuring peace in war-torns parts of this planet, far from their families, risking their life daily to defend peace but still too often unnoticed. This is what I would like to emphasize.<p>In conclusion, the UN needs constant improvement. It is up to its staff. Those who have served for long can help taking stock of the best practices of the organization's legacy with an eye to future challenges. It is also up to the organization’s newcomers, preferably more from the -outside- such as private sector, government secondment, to bring innovative ideas, enthusiasm and help the UN to keep up with the pace of a fast evolving world.<p>I believe this brighter view of the UN would be more beneficial to bring the necessary change to the United Nations.
We only hire the trendiest	Loved this article. Over a year ago, I decided to leave both my technology stack (in which I had 8 years experience), and the big corporate employment record behind. I had about 10 years of industry experience, and considered myself a generalist - capable in many technology stacks, and highly capable of learning and quickly becoming effective in a new one.<p>Also, I had a nice comfy savings account, so I decided not to work for 6 months while I focused on me-time and learning NewTechnologyStack. I fell in love with it, and havent looked at OldTechnologyStack since. I wrote many demo apps, started making open source contribs, and engaged with NewTechStack communities online. Damn that was fun! I joined local meetup groups and other communities to fill my sponge-like passion for NewTechStack to the max.<p>Let me also state that with OldTechStack, I never, ever had a problem finding a job - really, it usually takes me about a week to land a new job somewhere else in my bustling tech-hub city. My resume with OldTechStack was, well, very trendy. I could often tell in interviews that people were going to hire me based on my resume before they even spoke to me in person, and that the in-person resume was just to reassure themselves that I wasnt bullshitting them. Dont get me wrong, Im a great programmer, but I know I was hired because my resume was nice 'n trendy (with the OldTechStack culture).<p>So, once I started looking for jobs in NewTechStack culture, the reality of the superficial hiring process really set in. Firstly, NewTechStack people have a cultural internalization that OldTechStack really sucks. Mind you, I am <i>not</i> referring to technical folk, but HR people, recruiters, entrepreneurial types, etc. Secondly, I had no idea that taking time off from work made me look really bad to most folks at the base level of recruitment. Because I was not currently employed, I was not making it past many screening interviews. Thirdly, there was this magic phrase, "x many years of <i>PRODUCTION</i> experience in NewTechnologyStack..." that was really screwing me over. Despite the fact that I am proficient in 4-5 major programming languages, and have experience in several more. Despite the fact that I have lots of demonstrable work, both public open source, and my own creations (living at live URLs). Despite that my career experience has given me challenges that are scaled many-powers-of-ten beyond what your rinky-dink logistics app's customers demand. Despite that I interview wonderfully, am willing to do programming challenges for free, and usually deliver above and beyond expectations... Despite basically being a wonderful candidate from your engineering team's perspective, I found myself being rejected for these and many other superficial reasons.<p>Right now I am elated that none of those companies hired me, as I found my way via freelance contracts, and my life could not possibly be more well balanced and I have never been happier in my career. Right now I also work on about 7 different NewTechnologyStack production websites with relatively complex e-commerce and marketplace challenges, as again, I handle generalism well, and well adopt AnyTechnologyStack much better than your "senior dev" with a whopping "5 years production experience."<p>Guess what? Every single company that I interviewed with about 9 months ago is <i>still</i> hiring for the same damned position I applied for. Some of them have even reached out to me on StackOverFlow or other career sites, like a zombie, unknowing that theyve already interviewed this candidate...<p>Why?<p>Because theyre obsessed with an irrational, non-science based, peacock-dance, superficial standard for hiring people, specifically with standards they are not at all knowledgeable of, that they somehow believe will lead them to "hiring the best" and becoming the next Google (with their rinky-dink logistics app with about 4K customers).<p>I am not suggesting some "science based" checklist system take its place. I do think the peacock-dance, and other completely inauthentic behavioral checks, need to be removed from evaluation. Dont get me started on all the dinosaurs still relying on "technical tests" that throw college-level abstract puzzle games at you, which have been scientifically proven to produce false positives as well as false negatives.<p>Pro tip: copy and paste documentation from YourTechnologyStack official site to your blog, write one sentence saying, "please leave a comment below!" and youre instantly more hireable (to recruiters at the screening level) because, well, youre a blogger, and youre clearly engaged in the community.<p>Companies are so obsessed with "hiring the best" that they basically buy a "hiring kit 'n a box" and hope it automates itself, when all theyre doing is creating an absurd gauntlet that rejects lots of great candidates, and leaves them without any hired candidates 6 months later. The "rockstar" programmer, mythical though she/he may be, is still the goose that lays the golden egg and turns your company into NextGoogle.<p>The level of absurdity with the hiring process as a software engineer is obscene. For people who spend most of their professional time dwelling in thought-realms of pure logic, getting hired is a maddeningly illogical process.
My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine	I've been a long time reader of this great news site which gives me a joy to read everyday but today is the only time I have felt compelled to comment on a post.<p>A few years back I had been bottling up a lot of issues and negative thoughts that had just manifested in my head over time and got worse and worse. I couldn't think straight, everything was an effort I literally felt like I was going to feel this way forever. I never considered self-harm and said to myself that I couldn't live with feeling this way day in and day out. I had somewhat of a breakdown (I was around 25 years of age living out of home with my partner) and had to take a week off work. I made the call and ended up getting an appointment with a psychologist later that week.<p>I was convinced I was screwed even after half a dozen appointments - mainly because I was too scared and embarrassed to say what was really bugging me out of fear of judgement by my psychologist (I know, it's their job). I felt like absolute garbage day in and day out and felt sorry for myself and feeling like I deserved better, I let it keep building up and building up and despite going to these appointments I kept shying away from explaining what thoughts and memories were upsetting me. One day I walked into an appointment and I was usually composed and pretty chirpy, this time I just sat down and bawled my eyes out and realized enough was enough. I explained all the negative thoughts that had been bugging me and that was the start of turning things around. I extensively credit my psychologist for helping me get my issues together and helping me finally get on the path to learning how to deal with these issues and overcome them.<p>I thought I was really depressed, when I really had severe anxiety and not much in terms of what constituted for 'depression' - I know the two can go hand in hand and one can be labelled as the other and so on. I kept at it and over the course of about 30 appointments over several years I was taught strategies on how to deal with negative thoughts, anxiety and so forth. I was in a job I didn't like one bit, living out of home with little money and whilst I was beginning to get on top of my anxiety issues which were dragging me down so heavily I knew I had to move on professionally.<p>I reduced my work load to part time, started studying Computer Science at University (my old job was non IT) which I have absolutely loved from the very beginning and am about two thirds through my degree. I was lucky enough to get some part time work as a developer with someone I know who needed a bit of help which I still do today. Since starting this new job I have felt like compared to the position I was into a year prior literally nothing could of gone better for me. I look back at myself two years ago in a job I really did not enjoy with constant severe anxiety looming over me everyday to the point where I didn't even have the courage to catch up with some of my closest friends. It dictated my life but I said enough was enough and I wasn't going to let it control me anymore.<p>It's taken me a lot of practice and persistence to be able to control the flood of negative thoughts that come to me daily and I still on the odd day struggle pretty bad. Like I mentioned above I haven't even finished my degree yet but am working as a part time programmer which I could not be more happy about as it is giving me great experience however I'm incredibly tough on myself to be as valuable to my employer as possible. Programming is something that from what I have discovered, experience plays a major part in how well you can do it - I currently have very little experience but put expectations on myself that I should be able to work as fast and have code as excellent and at a the same level of quality as my co-worker who has more years experience than me. It's an area where my anxiety tries to find a way in to get to me to drag me down and something that I have to consistently need to keep on-top of but at the end of the day I'm glad that I am finally doing something I am truly passionate about.<p>The main reason I have written this is because I want to encourage people who are feeling down for an extended period of time to seek help. You may not see it at the time, and I didn't believe me - but you can feel better. It scares me to think of where I would be had I not of walked into my psychologists office a few years back. It's the hardest thing I had ever done but it was the best thing I have ever done.<p>I maybe rambled on a bit too much but just wanted to share.<p>Thanks.
Shakespeare in the Bush (1966)	This is hard to summarize into a TLDR, but I'll try. The general summary: an anthropologist gets mired in a village during a timeframe where there is nothing to do but drink beer and talk; she therefore tries to tell the story of Hamlet. This is complicated by the fact that their culture has a different social structure, and a different model of the supernatural. In their model of the supernatural there are just witches, who are always male, who can create purely-visual hallucinations (called "omens", they cannot "walk" or "speak"), animate dead corpses ("zombies"), afflict people with temporary insanity ("madness"), and drown people. (Yes, nobody drowns unless cursed to do so by a witch.) The rest of this comment is a synopsis of the Hamlet variant they create, arranged into play order.<p>Much like we view technology, for these people witchcraft is not necessarily negative but can also be done for the good of others. King Hamlet (Hamlet's dead father) thus becomes the Omen, a (veridical and therefore good!) vision sent by some witch-elder who understood the truth of his death at the hands of his brother Claudius, but was afraid of Claudius' new power. (There is a brief confusion because in the original story he walks and talks, suggesting a zombie, but they settle on him being an omen and the original story was simply wrong about him walking or talking.) Claudius's two big sins are his sin of fratricide in the past and later a sin of afflicting Hamlet with madness. Notably when he marries Hamlet's mom the tribe basically yawns "yeah, and?" -- this is so obviously the right thing to do that they don't make any further comment; of course your brother marries your wife if you die, for who else is going to support her?<p>The tribe is okay with the nameless elder sending the Omen to soldiers and then to Horatio, and because Horatio is a "scholar" he is therefore automatically a witch, so it makes some sense that he can interact with the Omen. However the tribe is surprised that he does not refer the problem to an elder of the tribe as they need someone more wise to the dangers of witchcraft, instead referring it straight to Hamlet. But they go along with this, Hamlet sees the Omen which tells him that his father died from poisoning. However Hamlet is wise enough to know that false omens exist from evil witches, so he resolves to determine the truth of the Omen.<p>Now either events have to be reordered or somewhere before the storytelling, chief Claudius bewitches Hamlet with madness. Certainly he is mad when he interacts with his beloved Ophelia, and then he talks with his schoolmates and comes up with the idea for the storyteller friend they've brought with them to do a storytelling for Claudius which will determine the truth of the Omen. In response to this story, chief Claudius in his outrage and fear apparently continues to bewitch Hamlet with madness, but also sends Hamlet's mother to find out what he knows -- and of course he sends Polonius the elder (still Ophelia's father) to listen in, not trusting her to be totally honest with him. Hamlet's criminal audacity in scolding his mother is chalked up to madness. Then Polonius stirs and Hamlet claims that he sees a rat, but when he says "a rat?!" it is understood as a hunter's ritual warning to potential human victims standing in the way of the arrow, kind of like a demolitioner's "fire in the hole!", where if you hear a response you should almost certainly abort whatever you're doing. To save Polonius's reputation the narrator therefore explains that he responds "It's Polonius!" after Hamlet's "It's a rat!" but Hamlet kills him anyway because he's been afflicted with madness and thinks it's his chance to kill Claudius.<p>With Polonius gone you'll remember that his daughter Ophelia drowns. But since drowning requires witchcraft, the explanation given is that this was a treacherous act by Laertes (Polonius's son, Ophelia's brother), who was of course sent off to France where he boozed and gambled away his money irresponsibly. The explanation was that when he came back home, broke and in massive debt, he saw that his dad couldn't give him more money because he's dead, and he couldn't sell his sister for a handsome bride price because she's being actively courted by a chief's son and nobody wants to potentially piss off a future chief. So Laertes did the only thing he could do to raise a lot of money on short notice, afflicting her with the curse of drowning so as to sell her innocent body to malevolent witches to zombify as they willed. This is why he jumps into Ophelia's grave (to get her body out for the selling) and Hamlet jumps in afterwards because he senses the foul witchcraft afoot. Laertes therefore is pissed at Hamlet for robbing him of any benefit of killing his sister.<p>Claudius sees that Laertes is powerful enough in witchcraft to kill his own sister, and that is why he sets up this duel where both Hamlet and Laertes will kill each other, one by sword, the other by the poisoned cup of victory beer. The finale remains otherwise untouched and everyone dies, although again Hamlet's presumably killing Claudius out of madness instilled by Claudius, and we're never told how they reacted to a rival chief (Fortinbras) taking over everything afterwards.
Immutability is not enough	I think this is an example of something I see often, where a particular idea (e.g. immutability, interfaces, modularity, etc.) gets confused with a particular feature of a particular language which shares the same name. In this case, the author's code isn't using immutability; it just-so-happens to be creating an object called "Immutable.Map".<p>Following the author's terminology, mutability is when we replace the contents of a memory location with different values, e.g.:<p><pre><code> Time \| RAM ------+-------------------------------- 0 \| foo 1 \| bar 2 \| baz . . . </code></pre> The author is using the term immutable to mean never replacing the contents of a memory location, so in their view this is immutability:<p><pre><code> Time \| RAM 1 \| RAM 2 \| RAM 3 \| ------+-------+-------+-------+--... 0 \| foo \| \| \| 1 \| foo \| bar \| \| 2 \| foo \| bar \| baz \| . . . . . . . . . . . . </code></pre> However, this is really just an implementation detail; Javascript programming isn't really about values in RAM (unlike, e.g. C where pointers are first-class values in the language). Instead, Javascript is conceptually built around variables, objects, scope, etc. So let's see how these RAM details translate to the values of variables.<p>The "mutable" version:<p><pre><code> Time \| "state" var ------+------------- 0 \| foo 1 \| bar 2 \| baz . . . </code></pre> The "immutable" version:<p><pre><code> Time \| "state" var 0 \| "state" var 1 \| "state" var 2 \| ------+---------------+---------------+---------------+--... 0 \| foo \| \| \| 1 \| foo \| bar \| \| 2 \| foo \| bar \| baz \| . . . . . . . . . . . . </code></pre> So far so good. However, scope plays a large part in Javascript programming: we can only access variables which are in scope, and what's more the <i>same</i> variable name can refer to <i>different</i> values depending on the scope we're in. This is where the author confuses the <i>concept</i> of immutability with the name of a library they just-so-happen to be using. Their code keeps generating new scopes, in which the variable name "state" refers to a different value than in the previous scopes. Conceptually, the variable "state" is not immutable because it keeps referring to different things, even though the implementation details could be argued to be immutable.<p>As an analogy, consider a display which shows the current value of a stock price. That is certainly not immutable, and trying to use that reading to perform calculations will be tricky since it keeps changing. This is like the author's original, mutable "state" variable.<p>Now consider a plotter drawing a graph of how that price varies over time:<p><pre><code> \| \| _--. ____ Price \| / \ / \ \|__/ \__; \__/ \| +----------------------------------- Time ^ \| Now </code></pre> This is like the author's "immutable" version, where values are never changed once they're defined. This seems more useful for performing calculations, however, because the author keeps creating new scopes, they have no access to these old values! We have no access to the graph paper, we're only allowed to see the current position of the pen; which is exactly the same as if we only had the original display!<p>If we take scope into account, we actually get the following:<p>Mutable version:<p><pre><code> Time \| Scope \| Current "state" ------+-------+----------------- 0 \| 0 \| foo 1 \| 0 \| bar 2 \| 0 \| baz . . . . . . </code></pre> Immutable version:<p><pre><code> Time \| Scope \| Current "state" \| "state" var 0 \| "state" var 1 \| "state" var 2 \| ------+-------+-----------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+--... 0 \| 0 \| foo \| foo \| \| \| 1 \| 1 \| bar \| foo \| bar \| \| 2 \| 2 \| baz \| foo \| bar \| baz \| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </code></pre> I do think the author has a few good points to make; however, I don't think it's an argument between being mutable vs. being immutable, so much as one between being implicit vs. being explicit.
WordPress Plugin Possible Cause in Mossack Fonseca Breach	This article is speculative and does the security community a huge disservice. There is nothing interesting about this research, outside of spreading FUD via marketing scamy techniques like using link bait taking advantage of something that has global attention.<p>Allow me to explain why and how I’ve come to this conclusion:<p>1 - It all starts with the email they sent out:<p>“We performed an analysis of MF's network and it seems that the breach may have been caused by an outdated WordPress plugin: Revolution Slider. It turns out that not updating your WordPress plugins may result in the fall of world leaders and the largest data breach to journalists in history.”<p>I get it, they need people to click...<p>2 - In the Forbes article they reference, it reads:<p>“its portal used by customers to access sensitive data was most likely run on a three-year-old version of Drupal, 7.23. That platform has at least 25 known vulnerabilities at the time of writing, two of which could have been used by a hacker to upload their own code to the server and start hoovering up data.”<p>but of those 25 potential vulnerabilities, the key one according to WordFence was:<p>“Viewing this link on the current MF website to a Revolution Slider file reveals the version of revslider they are running is 2.1.7. Versions of Revslider all the way up to 3.0.95 are vulnerable to attack.”<p>I don’t buy it... the Drupal vulnerability at that time was actually more serious... as referenced in the same Forbes article: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2014/10/30/did-drupal-drop-the-ball-users-who-didnt-update-within-7-hours-should-assume-theyve-been-hacked/#61c209a63478" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2014/10/30/did-dr...</a><p>3 - In the same Forbes article they reference it states:<p>“In a letter, dated April 1 and posted on Wikileaks’Twitter profile, the firm told customers it was investigating an email server hack.”<p>So naturally, WordFence needed to connect the dots for the readers:<p>“Their web server was on the same network as their mail servers based in Panama.”<p>and here:<p>“Looking at their IP history on Netcraft shows that their IP was on the same network as their mail servers.”<p>Got it, they’re on the same network… but nowhere to they describe the process for traversing the network and any potential roadblocks they’d find… but then later after connecting the dots to the mail server, they revert to the data in the portal.. explained later...<p>4 - They create this video showing how to use a script to exploit the RevSlider vuln. They then type a number of commands to show you how exhaustive the control us:<p>Commands like:<p>- ls -la (listing what’s in a folder) - pwd (showing what directory they are in)<p>and to really show their control they navigate to /var/www/html (in other words to the same exact directory they’re supposed to have access to under the user they have control of). They then proceed to make statements how “they have full control of the server”. They have control of the web directory which is what they would have access too. To have full access to the server they’d need to show some form of privilege escalation that gives actual control of the server…<p>The argument the author makes to this point on his blog states:<p>“In the case of MF, they made client data accessible via a web interface to their customers. That means a web server had access to client data. So, as per my explanation above, all they had to do was break into the web server as www-data or whatever user the web server ran as and they have client data.”<p>So what's the point of the email reference above, if it was on the web server as they theorize?<p>Additionally, this only makes sense if the portal was on the same web server. There is no proof that the “portal” is on the same server as the web server. I understand why they didn't, using their own tool they didn't have the information: <a href="http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=portal.mossfon.com" rel="nofollow">http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=portal.mossfon.c...</a><p>If the vector was Drupal, it’d be more realistic that they leveraged a SQLi vulnerability to siphon the data if that was the vector at all… On that same note, if the user was the same web user, how is that known? Because they don’t update their website doesn’t mean they don’t apply basic sysadmin steps.. again, it’s speculative on both side, but that’s the issue when you don’t know enough…<p>Additionally, this is a lot of data we’re talking about.. It'd be very curious if they managed to store that amoutn of data on a web server and not some form of database server…<p>5 - In the same video they show how they can see the network cards are attached by using ifconfig… but again show no examples of how that information was used to tunnel into the rest of the environment and how they would have gone about doing something like that…. from their own admission, they show how the mail servers were on the same network, but that itself doesn’t make them susceptible.. there are a number of things that have to happen to be successful… The web server could be on it’s own DMZ, there could be a number of firewalls isolating parts of the network, there could be a number of things….<p>Additionally, they speculate it was WordPress … the platform for their main website, when in reality Drupal was the CMS used for the client portal.. wouldn’t it be more realistic to think it’d be Drupal where the real data resides?<p>6 - There are also statements to how attackers work.. using automated scripts to scan websites for potential vulnerabilities like Revsliders… while it’s true… the logic is flawed… these crawlers pull thousands of websites at any given time… a site like “mossfon.com” is not a high value target, unless it’s being targeted.. these scripts are automated, so are most of their attacks which will automatically upload their scripts and payloads… if the lists are scanned they’re looking for valuable targets, unfortunately mossfon.com isn’t one, unless you know what it is… this logic defies reason and understanding of how attacks happen…<p>In any event, those are my thoughts... unfortunate...<p>Thanks! - Truth Finder
How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub	CMU grad here (EE, CE, Math '89). My wife is a native Pittsburgher. Her parents still live in the house she was born in – which I believe is not uncommon in this city. Anyway, I have her perspective too. Met wife shortly after graduating, got married, moved to Toronto to study neuroscience. After our daughter was born, we moved back to Pittsburgh to be with the grandparents. Can't say enough about how great an experience that was for our daughter. Pittsburgh is still very much a family town with deep roots and deep history. Daughter didn't go to CMU (had worked on robots there in HS and wanted a change) but if she had, she would have been 4th generation. Grandparents are great. Consider that you young adults coupling down. Are the soon-to-be grandparents in San Francisco?<p>Having lived and traveled plenty, I think I can give a pretty honest assessment of Pittsburgh. The first thing I need to share is that this is a racist city. Granted, things have improved from the 80s when most of my Pittsburgh-born friends would think nothing of using the n-word. But I dismayed how often I still hear it from thirty-somethings. It is something I've never experienced outside of Pittsburgh. Check out "The most racist places in America, according to Google" in the Washington Post. A city can be amazing in many ways, but it is going to take a serious hit in terms of attracting a global diverse tech community with that shortcoming.<p>But now for the good stuff. First, as PG discussed and others did mention, Pittsburgh is now a great food city. I think it easily holds its own against cities much larger. Seconds (and related to first) the city is getting more diverse. The fact that the universities have become so diverse (~80 non-Anglo-Saxon) plays a manor role in this transition. Most of these people will not stay in Pittsburgh, but their presence does change the culture. More and more are staying or moving here to start their careers.<p>On the tech front, things have been slowly improving. CMU and Pitt have always fostered tech spin-offs, but things are really changing now with Google, Apple, Facebook, and Uber setting up research centers. Without a doubt, this is going to change Pittsburgh. You can already see the changes with the construction of hundreds of $2000+/mo apartments in what used to be the "ghetto". I am hopeful that this will change one of the current shortcomings of the local tech scene – that this is an "eds and meds" town, and if you want to get funded, you are more likely to meet with success if your business in that space.<p>Pittsburgh has MANY cool, walkable neighborhoods. This is a huge draw for young adults. There are up-and-coming hip, walkable neighborhoods were you can still buy a nice house for $80K. FIOS is readily available. Taxes are pretty average. The weather is relatively mild (granted, I came from upstate NY). The geography is beautiful - the rivers, the hills, the parks, etc. We have an excellent system of bike trails. I'll be biking to DC later this spring.<p>Pittsburgh is very active on the city-data forums. There is no better place to put your finger on the pulse of a community in my opinion. You'll find many threads on the issues I've discussed here. I remember reading a couple threads worth paraphrasing. In one, someone commented that Pittsburgh must be a very rich city because it has more mansions than any other city. He clearly didn't understand the history of Pittsburgh and how much wealth was created during the industrialization of the early 20th century. But his assessment is accurate in that the city has WAY more than its fair share of mansions build during the timeframe when houses were built big and beautiful by craftsmen who cared. If you do move to Pittsburgh, do yourself and the city a favor and buy one of these diamonds in the rough and renovate. Another lasting legacy of the robber-baron era is that Pittsburgh has an amazing arts and cultural heritage.<p>In another interesting city-data thread, the discussion was on how Pittsburgh is still a place where people of average means can still live a middle-class life. The reason is two-fold. First, the cost of living is relatively low. But just as important is that Pittsburgh is a very hardworking and entrepreneurial city. This is the city that, in a sense, built itself and also much of the rest of the country. Steel, electricity, glass, etc. – they all came from Pittsburgh. That work ethic is still very much present. People here work hard, play hard, drink hard, and love their sports teams.<p>Sorry for the long post, but since so much of what I read on this thread wasn't about Pittsburgh, I felt I had to help shift the balance back. Finally, check out pittsburghtoday.org which will tell you most everything, data-wise, that you'd want to know.
Live Stream: How to Start a Hard Tech Startup with Sam Altman, 6:00 EST	Preliminary notes jotted down on the fly. If something seems odd or silly, I probably didn't hear well or mixed things up.<p><i>YC: - 11 years.<p>- 1200 startups.<p>- Recently started to fund "hard tech" (few are funding them).<p></i>How to start a hard tech company:<p>- What do you need to do differently than a software startup:<p><pre><code> - The least amount possible. You're not that different. - Same principles apply. - They were first segregated at YC. Turned out to be bad. - Most important change: - YC & the market don't care: Create value or fail. - Don't think you're that different: - "But my idea takes 10 years!": - What can be done in 3 months? - Consistent incremental wins compound. - 10% every week for years. - Find something small and get it done. </code></pre> - Advantage:<p><pre><code> - 11,000th photosharing app is hard. - Competitive advantage (4 nuclear fusion companies in North America). - Tesla, SpaceX, etc. cf. Michael E. Porter. </code></pre> - Pay attention to what software companies did well/right:<p><pre><code> - If in doubt about a field, 2 important things (good indicators): - Cost down. - Cycle time is getting shorter. </code></pre> - Difference:<p><pre><code> - SW companies are usually "clearer" than HW. </code></pre> - It's a great time to start a HW company. Make sure:<p><pre><code> - Weekly wins. - Keep costs down. </code></pre> - Make peace with the "world":<p><pre><code> - "Big companies don't play by the rules": - Make peace with that. - No excuses. - Your duty as a founder to get that 10%/small wins consistently. - Keeping cycle times down is important because: - Maintains momentum. - Avoids mistakes (typically made by bigger companies). - Establish a culture of winning from the beginning, no matter how small. - Momentum attracts good people: - People want to join a winning team. - How?: - SW startups drive cycle time down by getting closer to the customer. </code></pre> - Detours:<p><pre><code> - Sometimes you can't reach "final" goal directly. - ex: Tesla - Roadster (revenue) --> Model S --> Model X --> Model 3. - Not from 0 to mass produced car. SpaceX: Not from 0 to colony on Mars. - Even if you're not in YC, you can adopt this model. - More people fail because of "grandeur" than because they did small things. </code></pre> - Raising capital:<p><pre><code> - Too much money can kill you. (ruins your focus, for example). - Statistically (YC): - Companies that raised $40MM tended to fail. </code></pre> - Business side:<p><pre><code> - Don't be all hardcore science and bad at everything else. - Someone should take care of the business side. - Not hard: you can do science, you can do business. - It can be boring for some, but it needs to be tended to. </code></pre> - Many will do the thing everyone is doing. Think of a worthy problem. (?)<p>- U.S. Context:<p><pre><code> - Centuries of abundance and massive growth. - Not so much recently (2%) --> Democracy works badly in this context. - The only hope is innovation (and a more important growth).</code></pre>
Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later	1) pomodoro will fix your procrastination. just say you will do like 6 pomodoros a day and you will be more productive than 8 hours of multitasking. work up from there.<p>2) "working on the project that I know I must work on to accomplish my goals" sounds like a fundamental mis-step. what makes you think things will change once you achieve those goals? are you certain your goals are what should be your goals?<p>3) buy a 12 kg kettlebell (i don't care how beast you are, 12 kg is enough to start or you're gonna fuck your back). fuck around with it for half an hour every night watching TV like 2-3 hours before bed. don't do a regimen, or a program or any of that bs, you're not van damme and you never will be. just fuck around with it and have fun. eat an egg and drink a craft beer go to sleep. move to 16 kg, you should see mental and physical results in a week.<p>4) some people saying stop fapping? that's absurd, fap every day if possible, good for your testosterone. although, maybe stay away from the dehumanizing kink shit, that definitely gave me interpersonal problems for a while. I see a connection between personal relationships and fapping, but not productivity so much. besides, there will come a day when you can't do it more than once every few days, or once a week, or whatever, and believe me it's fucking depressing. there is absolutely no reason to not fap.<p>5) screen killers like lux f.lux etc. that gradually shut all your screens down in intensity as the night goes on. blue light sends wake up chemicals, wake up chemicals for 18 hours a day will fuck you up.<p>6) if you drink more than 10 beers a night, try cutting it down by 1 per week until you're at a normal person level. it's a bitch and a half to get to sleep, but it really does feel great the next day. but if you go from 10-0 in a day it will feel like fucking ebola. quit smoking cigarettes.<p>7) if you don't smoke weed, smoke some and watch youtube tutorials on like whittling, don't take notes. if you do smoke weed, go sober a day and go to the park to read a book. both of those are amazing after prolonged time of being the other state. adderall, cocaine, anything from the amphetamine family is not your friend. benzos, ketamine, anything from the barituate family is not your friend. mushrooms are your friend. ecstasy / lsd i have mixed feelings on. basically find anything that gets your eyes wide open _and makes you feel awake_. The goal is to feel childlike wonder, _NOT EUPHORIA_ euphoria is a dangerous emotion and should be shunned.<p>8) drink your weight in ounces of water each day. It is difficult.<p>9) walk, but not like chore walking running jogging fitbit bullshit. just opt for the stairs, or park at the far end of the lot. people say you should meditate like half an hour a day, but that's just because we're so fucking busy optimizing our movements all the time that we can't think in between actions.<p>10) similarly disable facebook and twitter and instagram and whatever they've made in the last 5 years I don't know about. Mine are all deleted, you don't have to do that, but when they are installed, and you get notifications on your phone, you are in a state of anxiety at all times of the day because you feel good when you get a notification so you're always waiting for one and pop-psychology pop-psychology pop-psychology. Around day 3 or 4 of having it off it starts to feel good, like really fucking good. I'm well known as "the guy that sends emails" and people love it. similarly with browser notifications, system notifications, etc. If it beeps at you or rumbles at you, it is offensive.<p>11) self help books, ted talks, anything that makes money from things being wrong in the world and promising to make it better is a fucking waste of space. Avoid these things at all costs. you intrinsically know what is wrong, you just have severe cognitive dissonance naming it so you psychologically pretend you don't. if you're going to read something to make you feel better, the answer is to read something that has nothing to do with anything, it's not work so don't read a machine learning text, it's not a social game so don't read whatever is on the NYT bestseller list in the sci fi section, read something that's purely fun. I'm in the middle of a textbook on ancient chinese history. Or watch some conspiracy theory videos. Or start growing designer peppers. Again, the goal is anything that opens your eyes wide.<p>Not being able to focus is a common problem that happens when your entire life revolves around one thing, one routine, one goal, one person, one whatever. You just need to do something, anything that's not that one thing, whether it's playing catch with a 12kg metal ball, getting high and watching some redneck whittling wood for half an hour, or reading a hundred pages about the Yuan Dynasty of China. You need to turn off -- so stop letting bright blue lights, email chimes on your cell phone, rushing up and down elevators and hunting for the most efficient parking spaces dictate your actions, intentionally say "fuck you" to that. Also chemical balance is a thing and almost everything I've said directly has an effect on that balance.
Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later	My entire life has been spent dealing with this issue.<p>One of the unavoidable facts of life is uncertainty. You don't know whether any particular course of action will get you where you want to go. A lot of times, you're not even sure you know where you want to go.<p>Let's call these two issues "uncertainty of effort" and "uncertainty of goals".<p>For goals, there are externally-derived goals, and internally-derived ones. You can put this on a spectrum. Your dad tells you you need to get a job, you know you need a job and independence and all that, but the fact that your dad is hounding you places this on the 'externally-derived' part of the spectrum.<p>Essentially, when you wait until the last minute, the goal is pushed all the way to the external side of the equation. What you want is the capacity to act on internally-derived goals, progress on these feels like you're "going places," and "getting your shit together," and all that.<p>Pushing goals over in the internal direction is all about finding motivation. The motivation to accomplish external goals is clear, it's outside of yourself, you know exactly what's going to happen if you put it off any longer, you'll lose your job / house whatever. The motivation to accomplish internally-derived goals has to come from within.<p>This is where I find the thinking behind Maslow's hierarchy of needs useful. Sit and meditate for a bit to locate where on the hierarchy you are <i>right now</i>. Do you need to eat something? Do you need social interaction? Treat this need as a box you have to fill and go fill the box with whatever it is you've just determined you needed. Congratulations, you have just accomplished an internally-derived goal. Finding life satisfaction is really a system of boxes that need to all be filled before you can check this one off.<p>You can sit and think and come up with various types of needs. You'll have immediate needs and long-term needs. Also needs where the path to getting what you want is clear, and needs where the path isn't so clear. List these all on a sheet of paper along with their classification. Immediate / long-term, clear path / unclear.<p>Lack of motivation derives from not satisfying immediate needs. Your very subconscious is resisting you, and it's always a bad idea to act against your subconscious. You need to identify what it is your subconscious wants and then you'll be naturally motivated to go get it. Something that nerdier types always neglect is social interaction. Also sunshine and activity. Once you've identified something that sounds nice, take the <i>easiest and most available path to getting it</i>. There's no point in challenging yourself if you have a lack of motivation, unless it's actually a challenge that you need.<p>Finally, there's effort uncertainty. Once you fix the motivation problem, you'll run into the next issue, that you have no idea what to do to accomplish the goals that you have. You have several tools for tackling this. The first and most useful that I reach for, I call fishing for lessons. You don't know what will work, but you will have a model of how the world works. That model is wrong in some way, keeping you from what you want. You just have to find out how it's wrong.<p>Root around in your brain until you come up with a statement like, "If I do X, it should get me closer to Y because of Z." Now you have a testable expression. You have 3 relationships there, between X and Y, between X and Z, and between Y and Z. One of two or all three of these relationships that you think are causal are in fact not related at all, and it's your job to find out.<p>It doesn't even have to relate to your goals. You can also analyze the reasons why you think you can't accomplish your goal. "If I ask Marcy out, she'll turn me down because she only likes jocks." My guess would be that last part of the statement is false, and would be the first thing that I'd test. Not by asking her out, but by asking her what kinds of guys she goes out with. You can test all the things you believe about Marcy by talking to her, more social people call that "getting to know her," and is probably the best approach one can think of if you were interested in her romantically.<p>We feel daunted by goals that we don't feel we can accomplish because the way we think about the world is inconsistent and wrong. The way out is to substitute those wrong beliefs with correct ones, and the only way to find out the correct ones is to let the world tell you. Everybody says failure is the best, but what they don't say is that failure doesn't have to suck. If you do things for the express purpose of testing out whether the way you believe the world is actually works or not, finding out you're wrong is a happy occasion, because that directly leads into more goal-accomplishment ability.
The Story of Magic Leap	TL;DR :<p>Magic Leap is a secretive startup based in Florida.<p>The author describes his experience interacting with, among other things, an 8-inch robot drone, which seems, but is not real - it's rather a simulation made visible by a VR kit. VR overlaid on the real world is called mixed reality (MR).<p>He saw other things with these magical goggles, and they looked very real.<p>Magic Leap is not the only company creating MR technology, but it's the most advanced, as proven by several notable investors, including Google, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, which poured 1.4 billion dollars into it so far, while the company has not released a beta version of its product yet.<p>All major tech players have whole groups dedicated to artificial reality, as well as 230 other companies, working on hardware and content. The author has seen most of them.<p>The expectations of Virtual Reality are very high - the Matrix, the Metaverse, the Oasis. The author experienced VR first in 1989 with Jaron Lanier in California, exploring a virtual world with him through a special glove. He named it Virtual Reality, and all the elements were there: head-mounted display, glove tracking, multiperson social immersion.<p>Mass market VR was not imminent, though, mostly because of high costs. Thank to smartphones, the cost of many components - gyroscopes, screens, CPUs - has shrunk now. In fact, in 2012, Oculus Rift launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a VR headset prototype, and was then acquired by Facebook for 2 billion dollars in 2014.<p>Lanier estimates that you would have needed a million dollar in 1990 to achieve what you can achieve today with a smartphone.<p>Virtual reality is creating the next evolution of the Internet, an internet of experiences - experiences that feel genuine, even if they are simulated, because of two things: "presence" (objects seem to be real), and (a personal feeling of living an) "experience".<p>This will lead to a Wikipedia of experiences, such as traveling, or terror at the edge of an erupting volcano, or shared experiences. Kent Bye, founder of the podcast "Voices of VR", says that VR talks to our subconscious mind.<p>The author mentions a great subconscious experience with "the Void" at the 2016 TED conference. The three co-founders have experiences with stage magic, a theme park, and a haunted house, and mixed them to create "the Void".<p>You wear a 12-pound vest, you roam free in a large room, and navigate an Indiana Jones-like adventure. You have the illusion of a larger space in which to move around thank to a trick called "redirected walking" and redirected touching. Stairs, as an example, can be made to feel endless if they drop down as you walk upward.<p>Most VR headsets today also include "dynamic binaural" - 3D audio, which is more than stereo, which is fixed in space. This also helps prevent motion sickness.<p>Good VR also includes touch, as Jason Jerald, author of what people call the VR book, says. Most VR kit use controllers, as gloves are not sufficiently advanced yet.<p>Magic Leap is the most impressive on the visual front.<p>Founder Rony Abovitz was a misfit enthralled by science fiction and robots, with a career in biomedical engineering. He is warm, casual, full of ideas.<p>In 2008 his company, Mako, went public, and sold in 2013 for 1.65 billion dollars.<p>He then invented a whole fictional world on another planet, called Hour Blue, and hired Weta Workshop, a special effects house, to build it, and in 2012 he did setup a company to develop this immersive world: Magic Leap.<p>Abovitz saw Artificial Reality as part machine, part flesh, tricking the brain to created a "chain of persuasion". He then proceeded to build a display to realize it. Displays put at 1 inch from your eyes don't offer a good illusion of focus; Magic Leap's solution creates the illusion of depth in a convincing way.<p>Still, competition for Magic Leap is formidable, such as Hololens by Microsoft, or Meta. All three project images onto a semitransparent material; for Magic Leap, pixels disappear - for example when watching a movie in it. You can have browsers flouting around as well: Hololens, in fact, wants to replace the various screens in a typical office. At Magic Leap, instead, they will soon abandon desktop screens altogether in favor of virtual displays, even at the company itself, within a year. Famoous movie director Peter Jackson agrees: VR can be a virgin territory to tell stories, and he finds Mixed Reality more exciting than VR.<p>It could be a form of education, entertainment, and tourism, and in ten years MR devices can be used more than smartphones.<p>Blockbuster MR and VR worlds will require the highest level of world-building. Weta is working with Magic Leap to develop a small virtual world called Dr. Grordbort’s, based on sculpted ray guns, an effort led by Richard Taylor.<p>Artificial Reality will need world builders like Taylor and Jackson to invent the grammar of VR and MR. In tests with volunteers, Microsoft's Minecraft developers discovered that performing the same role in VR - the so-called "you-person view" - feels far more intimate than it does in first-person on a flatscreen, and emotionally taxing. A break is often needed within an hour.<p>The best experiences for the author had a strong social element.<p>The "bat-flinch" test tells you the quality of VR: If you stood next to someone who was holding a virtual baseball bat and they swung the bat at you, would you duck?<p>But a better test for VR is the poker game test: do you feel sufficient subtle eye contact, body language, and social presence that you can tell if they’re bluffing?<p>The author visited an Oculus demo at Facebook’s campus, and Palmer Luckey, Oculus’ creator, joined in, and his avatar had the same body language in a demo called Toybox.<p>Very soon, perhaps in five years, the bounded worlds within virtual reality will begin to be networked together into distributed virtual worlds. Magic Leap (among others) is working on protocols that save a mapped "real" place in the cloud so it doesn’t have to be remapped for each encounter.<p>The computing needs for this should not be underestimated.<p>Every virtual world is potentially a total surveillance state.<p>This comprehensive tracking of your behavior inside these worlds could be used to sell you things, to redirect your attention, to track your interests.<p>The familiar puzzles of this data collection will occupy us as a society in the near future.<p>The creation of a global artificial reality is an enormous project, and its adoption will start slowly.<p>Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz who led his company’s early investment in Magic Leap, thinks VR will follow the flywheel effect: sluggish to start, then nearly unstoppable.<p>There’s no getting around the fact that everyone looks like a dork wearing a head-mounted display - same problem that Google Glass and the Segway had.<p>Physical safety for VR headsets is also a concern, while MR can mitigate the problem.<p>The VR industry is waiting for its Doug Engelbart to invent the equivalent of the mouse.<p>Nearly all of the non-movie VR experiences uploaded to date were created using a computer-game engine from either Unity or Unreal - both of which have demoed a VR version that permits users to make VR in VR.<p>The author had a lot of fun in VR using an app called Tilt Brush, purchased by Google, with which you can paint in 3D and view it with your headset.<p>His aha was that at its root, VR is as much a creation tool as a consumption tool.<p>Fame awaits the genius who figures out the elegant VR interface for VR creation.<p>Right now the field of view in mixed-reality devices is too narrow.<p>All mixed-reality systems labor under a second challenge that VR systems don’t: lighting should keep the illusion that a given object is real - a weak link in the chain of persuasion.<p>It’s hard to overstate the benefit of wearing a lightweight device that is not tethered to a fixed location.<p>Most engineers working on VR mention one of two books: Snow Crash or Ready Player One.<p>At Magic Leap, Abovitz hired Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash, as chief futurist because “he has an engineer’s mind fused with that of a great writer.”<p>Stephenson compared the challenge of VR to crossing a treacherous valley to reach new heights. He admires Abovitz because he is willing to “slog through that valley.”<p>It’s too early to know what virtual reality is or what it will be. The real way to the future might be biology.<p>Not immediately, but within 15 years, the bulk of our work and play time will touch the virtual to some degree.<p>Only a few companies will dominate the VR networks because, as is so common in networks, success is self-reinforcing.<p>After a long gestation, VR is good enough to improve quickly. It’s real.<p>end of TL;DR.<p>Question: would it be useful to have a service that gives you the TL;DR of a long article like this? If so, would you pay for it?
Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?	Hi n13,<p>>What's my story.<p>My father was a chemical engineer. He got an MBA and switched to investment banking and then to financial stock analysis. Back in the 80s, he had something similar to ValueLine and would go through them looking for P/E and EPS filters. We had racks of these financial metric newsletters and a couple of interns running this from home. Occasionally I would help out. This was my first introduction to stocks.<p>My dad then switched to private investment banking. He would come home and tell us stories about startups, how he invested and so on. Then he started writing financial articles for newspapers. Mainly on Technical analysis. Some days, he would be too busy to do it and I would write the articles. I was his tech support for the graphical charting packages. The technical charting packages were also my "fruit fly"/muse for learning new languages. Every time I wanted to learn a language, I would re-implement my charting package. Dad fancies himself an astrologer so for a while there were articles on stocks and astrology. "You must be a Virgo - cause your wallet is so thick ;)"<p>At one point, he was the owner/editor of a newspaper publication himself and we had the union workers protesting outside our residence for a day on some matter. The newspaper died fairly quickly when we couldn't find advertising to support it.<p>One event from this period that sticks out. Like twelve years old are wont to do, I'd asked for a bicycle. My dad usually responds to these with - "If I invest in the bike, what will we get back?" I have better answers now. Anyway, he bought me a really unappealing cheap, robust bike that I was ashamed to drive with my friends. It never got much use.<p>So by the time I graduated college, I knew roughly what stocks were. I had written technical charting analysis packages, understood EPS and P/E and knew that you only put money into something if you get more money back.<p>For my master's thesis I worked on Genetic programming and growing technical analysis indicators to trade stocks.<p>This is a formidable head start but my investing record is quite pitiful. I understand a lot of the terms but not how to apply them successfully. I've found quite a few ways to fail and am now comfortable sticking with invest funds.<p>But I continue to invest and read up on investing. I believe it is the easiest way for me to reach my "magic number". And I enjoy the process. But most of my money is in index funds.<p>-----------------------------<p>Advise: On reflection, I can recommend the following.<p>1. Get a broad 30,000 foot view of the different investing philosophies (Technical analysis, Fundamental analysis, value investing, special situations, Dividend investing, etc.). Evaluate these schools against each other and against yourself. For example - I started out as a technical investor, but it made no logical sense to me. So I switched to momentum investing and sucked at that. Now I'm trying value investing on for size. Some of these methodologies will fit your personality and others will not. The book recommendations made in this thread help. Random walk down wall street says markets are efficient so don't try to beat them. Fisher's book will have you picking stocks. Some of these arguments will resonate with you and others won't. Try on these philosophies. "Strong opinions weakly held" comes to mind.<p>2. For value investing - forget the technical jargon and Investopedia. Approach the stock from a HN/startup/VC point of view. Imagine you are buying a business. If this company asked for your money, would you give it? What questions would you ask as a VC?<p>- What is the market size?<p>- Are the users growing?<p>- What is the infrastructure cost?<p>- What is the exit strategy?<p>- Who are the competitors?<p>- What are the risks?<p>Shark tank does a good job making this sort of mental modelling accessible in video form.<p>You only need the finance terms to answer these questions. But the first task is to ask the right questions.<p>The problem you'll find is that most public traded companies do lots of things and it gets confusing. Find the 1-3 most important things to focus on or look for smaller companies.<p>3. As others have recommended, take a stock and make a recommendation. Write out an analysis of whether you would buy or sell. Then look at the analyst reports for that stock. Look at seekingalpha.com articles. What did you miss? What insight did you have that nobody else did? This is the hard work of having an opinion that cannot be done from videos. Investing is a contact sport for ideas and you need to understand the feel of the soccer ball on your feet.<p>4. Be realistic. What kind of returns are you expecting? Anything more than 10-15% is unrealistic in the early days. Even if the return exists, would you be willing to risk enough in that one opportunity to make an overall difference in your net-worth? This is where portfolio management comes in. The more you diversify, the less risk and return you have. The less you diversify, the more certain you have to be in your abilities. For those of us who are unsure, getting to that point of certainty is long road.<p>-------------<p>Good luck - you have a wonderfully interesting road in front of you that will keep you excited for years.
Tech Shares Fail to Join the Party	Full text, because people are having issues. BTW: Use the "web" link, but open it in incognito.<p>Technology sharesare struggling to regain favor with investors, even as the rest of the U.S. stock market is back near record heights.<p>Many of the industry’s leading companies have followed up a rocky start to the year with weak earnings reports this week and are warning of more bleeding to come.<p>Business conditions for old-line tech stalwarts like International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp. have grown tougher, while Microsoft Corp. and Google parent Alphabet Inc.disappointed investors with their results this week. In addition, one of the sector’s key sources of support—successful stock-market debuts by highly anticipated tech companies—also has dried up.<p>The result has been a selloff. Technology companies in the S&P 500 fell 1.9% Friday, nearly erasing the sector’s gains for 2016. Alphabet’s 5.4% fall Friday was its biggest since October 2012 and wiped out $29 billion from its market capitalization.<p>Investors have pulled a net $4.5 billion from technology mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in 2016 through the end of March, according to Morningstar. That follows three years of net inflows.<p>“The market is near all-time highs again, but I don’t feel good,” said David Rudow, a senior equity analyst at Thrivent Asset Management. “There’s some good stuff out there, but it’s not like things are rosy and things are booming, especially in tech.”<p><a href="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AL125_TECHST_9U_20160422180907.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AL125_TECHST_9...</a><p>A slew of technology companies is scheduled to report results next week, including Apple Inc., Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc., whose stock has risen by double-digits the past two years. Apple is currently projected to be the largest contributor to the tech sector’s first-quarter earnings decline, according to FactSet.<p>The initial-public-offering market, which typically juices tech companies’ stock prices, also dealt a blow to the sector this week. SecureWorks Corp. ended a four-month-long drought in U.S.-listed technology IPOs this week. But the cybersecurity firm’s debut came at a lower-than-expected size and valuation, and its stock opened its first day of trading lower and ended the day flat.<p>“The technology IPO market was slow last year and will continue to be slow this year,” said Colin Stewart, head of technology global equity capital markets at Morgan Stanley.<p>A strong debut by a new company can justify to investors that its public peers also deserve higher share prices. In the past year, however, shares of newly public tech firms have wobbled. A number of closely watched tech IPOs are trading below their IPO prices.<p>Gregory Becker, president and chief executive of SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, which works with start-up tech companies, said on a conference call Thursday that IPO markets could remain weak for some time. Lower valuations for privately held tech companies could instead drive M&A activity, he said.<p>There are now at least 146 private companies valued by venture firms at $1 billion or more, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Bankers and investors predict that only a minority of those companies would consider debuting this year. Several mutual funds have been slashing the valuations of privately held companies recently. “If I had a great company that didn’t need the capital but could go public, this isn’t the time to take it out,” said Tripp Jones, a general partner at the venture-capital firm August Capital.<p>Even as publicly traded tech companies have traded lower, investors in private companies and executives worry that companies will struggle to match or exceed their most recent private valuations. Yet late-stage private capital has been drying up, which could push companies that need funding to go public.<p>“Companies are going to have to tap the public markets, because the alternatives in the private markets are going to be punitively dilutive,” Mr. Jones said.<p>Executives on recent corporate earnings calls have highlighted a slowdown in tech spending due to concerns about the health of the global economy, which adds to uneasiness, analysts said. Fears of slowing global growth shook financial markets at the start of 2016, leading to a dropoff in business spending.<p>The slowing of spending on tech isn’t necessarily going to last forever, said Hari Srinivasan, research analyst for the Neuberger Berman Global Equity Research Department.<p>“If the global environment doesn’t go through any shocks and continues to recover slowly we could see tech spending come back in the second half of the year,” he said.<p>The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 15% from the start of the year to Feb. 11, while the S&P 500 fell about 11% during that period. While both indexes have bounced off their lows, the Nasdaq still remains in the red for 2016. It’s a big reversal from past years. In 2015 the Nasdaq ended the year up 5.7%, while it rose 13% in 2014—outperforming the S&P 500.<p>Even with recent declines, the technology sector isn’t cheap, analysts say, which makes it harder to justify scooping up shares. Technology companies in the S&P 500 currently trade at an enterprise value—which includes debt and equity—that is 11.6 times its past 12 months of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, according to FactSet. That is up from a year earlier and well above the group’s 10-year average of 9.8 times.
Engineer salary negotiation: from $120K to $250K offer	I find the beginning of the story more interesting than the end:<p>> Of the 20+ applications I sent, I was rejected from every single one without so much as a technical screen. One recruiter from Udacity did actually get on the phone with me—I had pointed out a CSS error on their website in my application and uploaded a private Youtube video showing them how to fix it. The recruiter thanked me and we joked about it, only for him to later tell me they weren’t looking for anyone with my skillset. Again, without even a technical screen.<p>> I began plumbing my network. I had one big advantage I hadn’t yet leveraged: the students I’d taught. Many of them were working at very strong companies, though they were mostly very junior. At least with their referrals, I’d be able to crack open that window.<p>> Every student I asked was more than excited to refer me. Finally, I had fast-tracked myself into the processes at several awesome companies: Shift, FutureAdvisor, PagerDuty, and Twilio.<p>> I was rejected at all of them. Again, without even a technical screen.<p>> somehow, through the flurry of rejections, a referral from a classmate of mine who was working at 23AndMe came through. He had paired with me during our cohort and spoke very highly of me, so they scheduled me for a technical phone screen.<p>> I was nervous, but once I got on the phone and got rolling on some concrete questions, I crushed everything my interviewer asked me. He was blown away. He told me he’d never heard as thorough of a technical analysis on this problem before, and immediately invited me to do an onsite at their headquarters in Mountain View.<p>> I killed the onsite. And when I say killed, I mean murdered with such ruthless brutality that my children’s children will carry the sin with them. To this day, it’s the onsite that I felt most confident in. I remember pacing back and forth at the CalTrain station as I awaited my train back to San Francisco, savoring how masterfully I deconstructed each and every question they posed to me. It seemed like everyone who’d interviewed me was ebullient at how quickly and rigorously I’d answered all their questions.<p>> Finally, it seemed like I’d cracked the code.<p>> A week and a half later I open my inbox, and there fresh and white, a reply from my 23AndMe recruiter. The subject: 23AndMe. I open it up to read:<p><pre><code> Thank you for your patience and your time to meet with our SWE team. We appreciate the opportunity to consider you for employment with 23andMe. I want to update you on our search and let you know at this time we are moving ahead with another candidate. </code></pre> > I applied to the all the big hiring websites. Hired rejected me from their platform. I got no bites anywhere on AngelList or LinkedIn—not even cold e-mails from recruiters. Nothing from WhiteTruffle or SmartHires.<p>> I asked friends, students, anyone I knew for referrals. I started reaching out to non-engineers. I asked anyone at all who worked at all at a tech company I found compelling.<p>> [...]<p>> Now that I had offers in hand, it was time to turn the crank. I reached out to every company I was talking to and told them I’d just received several offers, but was very much interested in moving forward. With that, suddenly recruiters started tripping over themselves to get me on site. I was no longer the ugly boy at the party.<p>> I started mowing down onsites. My performance and experience were no different, yet I was treated completely differently. Phone screen from Google. Gusto raised their offer. Phone screen from Stripe. Yelp raised their offer. TripleByte raised their offer. Then the phone screen at Google converted to onsite.<p>My immediate reaction to this is "I can't wait to hear someone say 'the market for developers is so hot right now'".<p>They say nothing is more attractive to women than the quality of already-having-a-girlfriend (or wife). It means some other girl already did the hard work of evaluating you and you passed.<p>So I conclude a couple of things from this:<p>- these companies have absolutely no idea what they're looking for in an employee, and they know that. So they hire based almost exclusively on whether you have a job offer from somebody else. That somebody else obviously thought you were (or weren't...) good enough, and their judgment beats ours!<p>- these companies seem to be terrified of hiring anyone who might not work out. Judging by their behavior, the cost they suffer from hiring someone without a competing offer in hand must be enormous, far more than the full cost of employing an engineer. This makes sense in the dating context, given the tradition of marriage ("no backsies"). It makes less sense to me in the employer-employee context. What's going on? Whatever this gigantic impediment to letting someone go if they're not <i>the perfect fit</i> for your job opening might be, it's driving the whole abusive process.
Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance?	I will attempt to answer your question directly, rather than going off on a tangent or creating some nuanced, "deeper insights," response - since by my reading of the responses so far, I see people writing very emotionally toward what they perceive are the ills embedded in the system. Everyone already knows that healthcare is screwed up in the US, right?<p>Take the case of an employer with 50,000+ employees. Why 50,000+? Because as of mid-2015 this is the only set of employers where the economics have shown that wellness programs create an ROI. Below that, accountants have not been able to demonstrate a clear economic investment across the board, it is much more on a case-by-case basis. So if you are below 50,000 employees, the answer to your question would be, "In general, there is nothing in it economically for employers, other than they feel good, their HR department is being hornswoggled by salespeople, or they have done some clear, good accounting with a record of wellness programs going back years which have demonstrated some positive correlation between better health and some indicator for the bottom line of their business."<p>If you are talking about the 50,000+ employee category, then in general there are economic benefits which can be proven in the world of accounting.<p>Health insurance companies (or more appropriately termed, Health Management Organizations, HMOs) quote out a given employer's rates based upon the risk pool made up of all of the employees. There is little to no leak of information between the HMO and an employer, because the information used is classified as Personal Health Information (PHI), which has very strict standards for how it is stored, the loss or misappropriation of which is a felony that can result in prison time. The employer does not see this PHI - that information is shared between healthcare providers (hospitals and clinics) and the HMOs. So when an employer goes to an HMO to get a quote, the HMO takes all of the PHI they have on the individuals within that employer's organization, and creates a quote based upon how they see that risk pool.<p>If an employer with a large number of employees, let's say Nationwide Red Dot Retail Store, Inc. (NRDS Inc), partakes in a given wellness program, they will receive a discount on that underwriting based upon the types of wellness programs they provide for their employees. These discount offerings are determined by data scientists and project managers who work at the HMO, and are geared toward maximizing profit for the HMO. For example, those data scientists may find that by offering people $20 to all employees to participate in a health survey, the number of smokers within that pool of employees goes down by 0.5%, which means that the cost to cover them goes down by 1%, which means they would offer some discount less than 1% to NRDS Inc. However, the accountants and data scientists at NRDS Inc., are no dummies, so they may take a look and see that their employee turnover rate is X%, so that particular offering doesn't make sense of them economically, because by next quarter they will have a whole new set of smokers they will have to pay money to, as a part of the wellness program, only to have them leave 3-4 months later.<p>Wellness programs are meant to use psychology to trick, not force, people into changing their health habits. People do not react well to being forced into things. Americans particularly, do not react well to being forced into things. You may read some other responses to this question giving you an impression that people are being penalized for their decisions and choices.<p>Here's a straw-man argument for you: let's say there was a country called, "Amazing Programmerlandia Island," and you could hire the most incredible, genius, friendly programmers who know tons of languages to help you with your startup there for $10/hour. There's just one problem. About 50% of them love to do Crocodil, and it is illegal to check whether they are addicts before you hire them, and illegal to fire them just because they do Crocodil, and you have to pay for rehabs. Would you take any opportunity you could to, "hack," the system and try to lower the number of potential Crocodil addicts in your employee pool with some back-door system? Of course you would, this is Amazing Programmerlandia we're talking about here, tons of money to be made for just a tiny investment!<p>This spurious example basically demonstrates the mindset of HR departments when they buy into wellness programs. The economics change based upon the size of the company, and the numbers a company may have - it is not an, "across the board thing."<p>To find out more about the ROI of Wellness Programs, I recommend you Google individual companies names, and reports on the ROI from that particular company, from that company's point of view, not from the HMO's point of view, or from an independent paper (from a place like RAND) or from the Government. I could see the Federal Government funding studies which support wellness programs regardless of their true ROI, and asking the HMOs what they think is like askign the fox to guard the chicken coop.<p>There is no real tax benefits that I am aware of for engaging in wellness programs, the potential returns are only based upon lowered underwriting costs - although if I am wrong on that, please correct me.
Infosec's Jerk Problem (2013)	>Put bluntly: to others, we’re jerks. If you don’t think this is a problem, you can stop reading here.<p>Well, that's a great way to have an honest dialogue.<p>> You fume for several minutes, cursing all developers everywhere, but no response is forthcoming. Angrily, you stand up and march over to his cube, ready to give him a piece of your mind.<p>At this point, all you've done in response to finding a serious security issue is to send an email with a very poorly worded and vague title. Why are you getting upset that nobody has reacted to it within a few minutes? I'm also curious as to why Bob would think this email to be unimportant, does InfoSec just use one email subject for everything?<p>If something's important, people generally turn to <i>synchronous</i> communications, where we can verify that our audience has processed whatever it is we need to tell them. Async communication works just fine on smaller time slices, like chat/IM, but email overall tends to have relatively high latency, especially if you need to communicate a serious security issue.<p>> Many in the Infosec community are fond of casting the security world as “us versus them,”...<p>Wait. Is this a joke? Isn't "us versus them" the canonical <i>wrong</i> way to frame just about anything? At the very least, it's obviously the wrong way to approach InfoSec, in addition to virtually any other collaborative effort. This should be obvious if only because you need to work with other people. Conflict does not cooperation make.<p>> ...he gets lots of “urgent” security emails that turn out to be Windows patches, admonitions to change his password, policy reminders and so on.<p>That right there is entirely on InfoSec. They're not only boy-who-cried-wolfing, they're doing so with vague subject titles. But that's okay, InfoSec is going to get very upset anyway, because they've failed to properly communicate the severity of the situation, and people are acting accordingly.<p>> ...and Bob’s demand that you explain the vulnerability is met with your impatient demand to “just do it.”<p>Ouch. Why does InfoSec not want to share the wonders of 0days? Seriously, one of the most fun things to do is dissect, or read others' dissections of, an 0day. This is great knowledge to share, and I would applaud any developer who takes an interest in security by wishing to understand what security issues are, especially 0days.<p>Additionally, rejecting someone's request for additional information about a task you've given them is almost universally a bad thing to do. If it's not feasible to grant them the information they desire, it's on you to properly communicate that, don't just rebuff their request. Transparency is great for teamwork.<p>> Bob... can’t deal with this now, he’s too busy, it’s not his problem (there are other devs, right?) and you should take it up with his manager.<p>I actually thing this is valid. If a developer does honestly feel to busy, going to their manager (who should be in the loop for security issues anyway) seems like a reasonable escalation. If it's actually an urgent issue, it should be valid to disrupt the manager's day with it just as much as it is to disrupt the developers day.<p>It seems like it's the same response a developer would give to someone freaking out about a serious bug in their code. If it's a serious issue (developer, for whatever reasons, is unconvinced) then you should take it up with their manager. That's not to say the developer is correct in being unconvinced, but arguing that route is less timely and less likely to actually work.<p>> The jaundiced attitude among Infosec mentioned above...<p>When I first read the article, I thought the author was knowingly straw-manning, hence their opening warning about jerks. This seems to indicate otherwise, as the author is seriously referencing their story as something remotely realistic. Either the author's story was a terrible straw man, or I'm very ignorant of how unprofessional my professional compatriots are.<p>Regardless, the author lays out the solutions:<p>> Practice active kindness.<p>That's horoscope level advice. It is good to be nice, but it's not exactly feasible to do all the time to everyone or we'd have solved a great many problems in society a long time ago. Generally speaking, being nice requires some emotional effort, and not everybody has the same capacity for that as everyone else, and those that can afford to do it probably already do. Although I suppose I could believe that an adult capable of being nice all the time simply isn't doing so because nobody suggested to do so...<p>> Seek to understand and make this clear.<p>Always great advice, like being kind, but far more actionable and sadly, far more applicative. Yes, communication is critical when working with others, especially when attempting to delegate tasks to others. This <i>should</i> be obvious, but I've found many people to not take this seriously. If you need something done, it's on you to ensure whoever you delegate the task to understands it at least as well as you. You can't fault them for your inability to properly communicate.<p>One of the saddest things to see is when two or more parties get upset at their own failures at communicating. For example: Bob shouts across the office "Hey Alice, do X" but Alice is listening to music and doesn't hear. Some time passes, then Bob gets upset that Alice has not done X, and Alice gets upset at Bob for being upset that Alice has not done X. Now we've got two parties, both upset over an unfortunate circumstance, with no resolution in sight. Had Bob attempted to confirm his communication, this whole situation could have been avoided. Alice could also do her part by not being upset by Bob's failure at communicating, but emotions are fickle and it's hard to defend yourself stoically when your attackers are fuming with emotions.<p>Additionally, had Bob confirmed his communication, in the event Alice had still not performed X, Bob can escalate to whatever authority is appropriate with the evidence of Alice's understanding of his request, increasing the odds for meaningful resolution (at least from Bob's perspective).<p>> Be flexible. Recalibrate “urgent.”<p>The boy who cried wolf.<p>> Create stakeholders...<p>I'd be a little concerned with teams arbitrarily deciding their security goals. They should 100% be involved in the process, but leaving them entirely to their own devices would incentivize them to have terrible security, as that's generally the easiest thing to do.<p>>... and spread security knowledge.<p>This is good advice, and it's sad to think it is useful advice. If you're ever in a situation in your life where you need to communicate to another person a task to be performed, you should be more than willing to share information about said task in order to aid in the delegate's efforts. It's an obviously useful thing to do, and it's sad to imagine adults making it through life, surely having many tasks delegated to them by this point, and not understand how valuable additional information about the task can be.<p>I would be highly concerned if my coworkers did not already understand this. While we all can't have our dream jobs/offices/employers, compromising on communication abilities is pretty much always going to have both bad and unpredictable consequences (you can't easily predict how someone's going to react to (mis)information from poor communication).<p>> Fixing Infosec’s jerk problem benefits everyone: us, the people we deal with, and ultimately the security of the system — and since that’s our long-term goal, we should actively seek to fix the problem.<p>I think the easy solution here is to fire those jerks. Seriously. Talk to them about things, ask them why they're doing what they're doing, but this <i>isn't</i> a systemic issue. This is a personal issue. People being jerks can (and will) happen anywhere people are present, and the solution isn't to group everyone in a large category together and then proclaim it a categorical issue that they all must work to resolve. Find the bad apples, deal with them as you would in any other situation. Communicate to them that what they're doing is both technically (security issues are not being fixed in a timely manner) and personally (they're failing to communicate on multiple levels and upsetting people) ineffective. Ensure they understand that their actions are not desirable and are creating a hostile workplace (I never thought I'd say that non-sarcastically...). If they keep doing what they're doing, let them go. If they harbor animosity towards being repressed, let them go. There's a wealth of wonderful people in the world, seek them out instead. Be selective, it doesn't take a large security team to be effective, especially when developers are a part of the security effort (which they should be !!!!11).
Feynman: Simulating Physics with Computers (1981) [pdf]	I found this: <a href="https://magnusopium.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/deleuzes-bergson-and-the-einstein-debate/" rel="nofollow">https://magnusopium.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/deleuzes-bergso...</a><p>I have no idea if it's a fair summary of D&G.<p>I don't really want to touch on anything having to do with scriptures in the most general sense (vedas, charkras, nadis, and the works that describe them); I don't think they are likely to have any utility in understanding gravitation, acceleration, or uniform linear motion at all, and if there is anything in there, it is probably easier to re-discover in a modern theoretical framework than to translate.<p>Instead, the interesting thing is the Achilles-vs-tortoise argument in a context in approximately 1920 but before the work by Lemaître, Friedmann, Robertson and Walker that led to the underpinnings of the standard cosmology, and most particularly before the late 1920s when the Hubble flow was described and found to apply to all then-known distant galaxies.<p>Einstein in 1920 had a personal bias towards a static universe for a variety of reasons, although in part that is because evidence at the time did not disfavour one. In such a universe, making some assumptions about the behaviour of its non-gravitational content, there is probably no "universal clock", and so a resort to GR in an Achilles-vs-hare argument likely would not prove illuminating (and would be much harder to do quickly).<p>However, our universe is so close to being isotropic and homogeneous (as far as we can tell) that we almost certainly can rely upon the scale factor from the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker model to be equally valid for all observers. There are additionally relic fields which manifest the scale factor (e.g., the average temperature of the CMB radiation).<p>The resolution to Achilles-vs-hare is that both can agree on the scale factor at the boundary conditions, namely, when they are together at the start of the race and when they are together again after the race has ended. What they will disagree on is only the amount of wristwatch time has elapsed.<p>The tortoise has simply travelled much further in <i>spacetime</i> than Achilles, and all observers at both boundary conditions will agree with that, no matter how they have travelled from the start to the end. Even more strongly, any observer who can place the pair of them together start of the race at time a(t_start) and the pair of them together at a(t_end) will agree that the tortoise has travelled further in spacetime, although their count of the elapsed time in, say, picoseconds, between a(t_start) and a(t_end) may be unique.<p>But even if we drop the examination of the scale factor, and we resort only to Special Relativity, we can see with a Minkowski diagram (available in 1920!) that the slopes of the race are different. The tortoise's slope is more vertical (where the y axis is the vertical axis is the timelike axis). If we choose convenient units where c=1 and we use seconds as the coordinates (so, actual seconds on the y axis, light-seconds on the x axis, but with light travelling at one light second per second by choice of units), and we use a metric like ds^2 = cdt^2 - dx^2, and Achilles takes 300 seconds to run from origin to finish (on the x axis) while the tortoise takes 3000 seconds to run from origin to finish (on the y axis), "s" is much bigger for the tortoise from start to finish, but approximately the same when you trace from boundary condition (the pair together at the start) to boundary condition (the pair together at the end). But, using just SR, the less time Achilles takes to run the race, the smaller his "s" is compared to the tortoise's. He is travelling a shorter distance in <i>spacetime</i>, even though the number of ticks along the x axis are the same for him and for tortoise, and we can calculate the exact difference in distance using the Lorentz formula.<p>We are not required to use the flat space metric, or Euclidean coordinates (heck, what's the difference between between "x" and "r" (from polar coordinates) in the example above?); general covariance (from General Relativity) <i>guarantees</i> that no matter what set of smooth coordinates we use, or what units we use, faster Achilles traverses less spacetime between the boundary conditions than slower tortoise.<p>The critical point that I do not see in the debate is that the fixing of the boundary conditions are important (and we now know this because of work done since Einstein's death, particularly since the development of 3+1 formalisms). The critical boundaries are when the pair are together again, not when either of the pair is at the start gate and the end ribbon.<p>To us in 2016, this is a simple Cauchy problem. However, in 1920 it would have been at least novel (IIRC, Hadamard's lectures hadn't happened yet, for example) and certainly not a first choice tool to resolve a seeming paradox.<p>edit: I reread the article at the top and realize I should substitute April 1922 for 1920 (and various approximations) above. I don't think the exact date is terribly important; the key thing is that April 1922 is before the Hubble flow was understood, and before initial-values-surface/boundary-conditions approaches and close relatives were in use in a GR context.
Death by GPS	No one sets out to spend two months drinking out of mud puddles and getting your husband killed. I get that, I won't pile on with "morons, don't rely on your GPS", because that doesn't help anything but my own sense of superiority. That said, I sometimes wonder if there shouldn't be a little one-pager that comes with your GPS. No one will read it, of course. I'm not exactly sure what it would say, either. But a few points to consider...<p>Observe your surroundings. If you begin to start to feel the slightest discomfort with the route you're on, consider turning back. Please reference "sunk cost fallacy". The time you lose backtracking is nothing in comparison to the time lost if you're <i>dead</i>. Or to be less dramatic, it might take a day for a tow truck to get to you, if they can get to you at all.<p>And always be prepared to turn back. Hell, I do it all the time; did it just this weekend, in fact. Wanted to go over Stampede Pass in the camper van with the dogs, camp, do some hiking, see the ghost town of Lester. Big plans! Warm spring, mid-May, should be good. Nope, turned back by snow. Might have been able to make it, but on those tires? Meh, go camp somewhere else, no fun to be had digging your van out of the snow ten feet at a time. More so on the bike: point A to point B on forest roads, map says it should go all the way through. Sometimes I'm turned back by gated roads. Sometimes, like the stories in this articles, the road turns to two dirt tracks separated by tall grass, to trail, to what once was a narrow trail and is now overgrown with saplings. And yet I still catch myself thinking, "park the bike, walk ahead a few hundred feet, see if it gets any better". Despite being somewhere no tow truck will come, with a 600lb. bike (heavy, for the uninitiated) ridden by a scrawny marathon runner who's going to have a shitload of fun picking said bike up when he drops it. Don't be a dumbass like me; turn around.<p>If you are well and truly lost, <i>stay where you are</i>. I'm not talking the "oh, we missed our turn" kind of lost. I'm talking, "without backtracking, I have no <i>real</i> idea where I am in relation to a major road or decent-sized town...or even a house" lost. If you find yourself hoping the road gets better, hoping <i>this</i> road will take you where you want to go, and hoping it will just all work out if you keep going, <i>STOP</i>. Maybe not until Search and Rescue finds you, but at least stop for an hour and get your bearings. Good bearings, so that you can point at a map (if you had one) and say with 90% confidence, "that's where we're at". Figure out your plan, 'cuz the current one ain't working. And do not leave your vehicle. Time and again I read these stories of "GPS took them down a snow-covered forest road, and they got stuck" that end with someone dying because they walked to get help. You're obviously already lost, you're not going to unlost by walking around ill-equipped.<p>Call in to work, call the friends you're supposed to meet, call off that client meeting, because you're going to be late or not make it at all. Seriously, just give up those thoughts right now. The time for "making up time" is over. You fucked up, and now you're late. Continuing on is not going to undo that fact. For one, you have insufficient information to conclude that you stand any chance of arriving on time. You don't even know where you are, how do you know how long it will take to arrive? So go ahead and backtrack, because you're plans are shot. Or go on over that mountain pass in mid-Novemember, the GPS says there's a road, and you might still make it. Just kidding, no you won't. You'll get stuck, try to walk to get help, and freeze to death on the way.<p>That's what my pamphlet might look like anyway. I often wonder how folks get themselves in these situations, and the best theory I have is that we have enough everyday convenience that we forget the parts of the U. S and Canada (let alone the world) that are still very remote and very dangerous for the unprepared. Many of us live where there's always a gas station, always a cell signal, always some landmark to give us guidance as to where we are. Road signs to tell us where to go, guardrails to keep us falling off a cliff. As the folks in this article found out, the western U. S. is a place where it is very easy to get yourself into trouble if you take all of those assumptions with you down a dirt road. Gas might be 100 miles away (whoops, that station closed ten years ago, hope you have enough to make it 50 more miles), you probably won't have a cell signal, and once you're off U. S. and state highways all bets are off as to road conditions or if the road even exists anymore.<p>After all this typing, it just occurred to me how some of these tragedies could be avoided, and in one sentence: if you're not a local, not experienced in off-pavement driving (especially in the mountains), and are not equipped to spend a few nights out there if you absolutely had to, then the <i>instant</i> the road turns to dirt, turn around; no exceptions. For the folks that drive off bridges, sorry, my only advice is to turn in your keys.
Ask HN: How long did it take you to get your first dev job?	My first post-university job is nearly 30 years ago, so it was different climate back then. However when I first started out, my interviewing skills were very poor. I must have gone to 10 or so interviews without getting an offer. I ended up going to the library and reading some books on how to do job interviews. It was really helpful. From that point on I tended to get offers from between a third and a half of the people I interview with.<p>A couple of quick pointers. First, when you are just out of school, you are likely to have no reasonable experience. So the question you have to ask yourself is why would someone want to hire you? Some likely answers: because you are cheap, because you have potential, because the team needs some inexperienced people to balance the experience they already have. You might be able to think of other reasons.<p>Once you understand why someone might want to hire you, you should write your CV/resume so that these things are obvious to the person potentially hiring you. Ideally you should write a CV and cover letter specifically for each job you are going for. That seems like a lot of work, doesn't it? And it means having to do research about the place you are applying to so that you can adjust your CV appropriately. You should treat looking for a job <i>as your job</i>. Spend 8 hours a day on it -- doing research about all the companies in the area you want to work for, hand crafting each CV and cover letter, writing a blog, programming and making a portfolio, etc, etc.<p>If you do a good job, you should get interviews. Now the most important thing to realize about an interview is that by the time you get there, the job is yours. What interviewers are looking for is: did you lie on your CV, are you incapable of doing real work, is your character going to clash with their culture? Your job in the interview is to show that all the answers are "no".<p>The first one should be easy: Did you lie on your CV? However, exaggerating even by being clueless can easily lose you the job. I once interviewed someone who put emacs on their CV. Of course I don't really care what editor someone uses, but emacs is potentially a fairly big investment and so interesting to me as an interviewer. We had a pair programming section to the interview and I set up a machine with emacs for him (since that is what he claimed to prefer). He didn't know how to open a file with emacs. He had simply used it once before and haphazardly added it to his CV, without realizing the potential downside. As an interviewer, you want to try to dismiss stuff like that, but it leaves a really bad impression that is hard to shake.<p>The second one: are you incapable of doing work? From my own experience this time. I took 5 years off to teach English in Japan after 20 years as a programmer. I worked on my own projects in my spare time, so I felt pretty confident in getting back into the industry. In my first interview I came up against the dreaded whiteboard coding challenge and I froze. I couldn't code to save my life. Again, as much as the interviewers want to give you some slack, this is pretty much going to lose you the job. Personally I hate that kind of interview and think it is ineffective, but that doesn't matter. Your job is to look good. So make sure you practice. Grab coding challenges off the net and do one every day. If you have some friends who are also looking for work, get together to do it so that you can practice in front of people.<p>Finally, are you going to be a problem for cultural fit? I'll give you a kind of trick here. Interviewing people is really hard, tiring and frustrating. Trying to come up with good questions that probe what you are looking for is difficult. The absolute worst is when you have a candidate that is just staring at you and answering questions with monosyllabic answers.<p>The trick is that you don't have to wait for a question to give an answer. In fact, you should always try to segue every question that is asked into a direction that is favourable to you. For example, if someone asks you if you learned about the software development life cycle in school, but let's say that you feel your strengths are in coding you can say something like, "Yes. I learned quite a lot about traditional SDLC in school. In fact, in my compiler course I tried to apply the concepts to this compiler I was writing. It was quite a fun project. " and then talk about your fun project. Don't stonewall the question (as my example probably implies). Answer it fully, but always lead the interviewer on to a subject that you want to talk about.<p>An interview should be like a tea party. It should be light, fun, and engaging. If you are constantly talking about things that are interesting to you, your passion will show through. Like I said, when you are right out of school, you have virtually no useful experience so the interviewer is looking for something else -- a spark -- that will make them feel like hiring you. If you leave the interview and the interviewer is thinking, "Wow. That was a lot of fun.", you will almost certainly get an offer. (Very occasionally you may end up in an interview for which no candidates can be hired. It sometimes happens that for political reasons senior management requires an interview to happen, but that middle management will refuse to hire anyone -- or vice versa. So the "fun == job" is not always the case).<p>So how long will it take? If you are cold calling then getting an interview for every 20 applications is probably not too bad. If you are responding to ads that are specifically looking for new grads, then I would worry a bit about my CV if I don't get a 1 in 5 rate of interviews per application. If you are meeting people and they ask for your CV, you should be expecting a good 80% of them to set up an interview. Make sure to get their contact details to follow up if you are not getting called back (sometimes they just get busy and after a week or two assume must already have a job).<p>When you get to the interview stage it is your job to loose (as I said). Sometimes it is obvious to both sides that there is not a good fit. Be confident and don't worry when this happens. I've even terminated interviews early when it was clearly a bad fit (one time a recruiter sent me to a Windows job interview when I only had X-Windows experience -- I voluntarily left that interview after 15 minutes and then turfed the recruiter ;-) ). There are still lots of jobs out there, so don't get into a panic and try to get every job.<p>You should count on something like 1 in 3 interviews ending up in a situation where both sides want to move forward. If you find that this isn't happening for you (for example if you do 5 or 6 interviews in a row without a job offer) you know that you need to work on your interview skills.<p>So doing the numbers, I don't think you have to panic. However, I might start to look at trying to improve the numbers of CVs you send out. And if you are meeting people and giving out your CV, I would try to improve your conversion rate for interviews for that. I would concentrate a lot in the next 2 months because there <i>is</i> a time when you will appear "stale". If you get up to 5 or 6 months without a job offer, then some people are going to wonder why it is taking you so long. This can work against you. Several times in my career I have intentionally taken 6 months off after a job and it's always a bit of a struggle to get people to understand why you have that gap.<p>Anyway, good luck. Keep working at it!
Airbnb: Building a Visual Language, Behind the scenes of our new design system	TL;DR I like Airbnb but there's lots of poor experiences that affect 2 people. Design is hard. I have experienced frustration related to the design of Airbnb. I complain.<p>This seems really interesting. If it can help improve the Airbnb UI/UX - I'm ALL for it. I've been hosting for over 5 years and travelling for 6 on Airbnb. I like the 'voice' of Airbnb in general and love the company and service. Take the following rant as feedback - because I've experienced the changes in your app over the years. And some of them have driven me crazy. Also - every time I have to call Airbnb or send in suggestions I say "I'm happy to speak with a PM or designer about how I use the app/service" but never get taken up on the offer (As a PM myself - I understand why) so this will act as my feedback outlet :)<p>A challenge Airbnb faces is that many interactions on the site are SCARY. This post from a few weeks back was really insightful about designing to address users implicit fears of screwing up. <a href="http://product.hubspot.com/blog/designing-for-anxieties" rel="nofollow">http://product.hubspot.com/blog/designing-for-anxieties</a><p>The comments below are coming from frustration with a service that brings me almost $30k each year and has opened new possibilities for my family (pre-emptive note to Airbnb haters: my place is not in SF). I write this comment from an Airbnb loft I'm currently staying at.<p>Still, to this day - I am occasionally shocked at how poor certain experiences are within the app. Not just that - but as changes roll out - there are some serious issues that just don't seem to be "thought about".<p>### New Features<p>The most recent example - I realize it is a beta feature - "Smart" pricing (I use quotes because I would more likely use 'dumb'). Who thought it would be a good idea to let a user shoot themself in the foot by allowing the combination of Instant Book AND Beta 'Smart' Pricing together? Result: July 4th weekend booked for less than half of what it was booked for last year (I suspect the algo doesn't evaluate previous data for my property, whatever etc.) The result is: I never trust ANYTHING about pricing from Airbnb. It is so consistently off base, and I consistently get booked when I have prices twice as high as the system suggests. The other result - an unhappy traveller I need to apologize to. User Pain within Airbnb is sometimes doubled - because TWO people are experiencing something shitty.<p>### Navigation on Web<p>What inspired he navigation pane on the left - and then the placement in the top right corner of sub-navigation (ie: go to calendar, change the pricing) - in non-differentiated colors so it conveniently blends in, in an area you wouldn't expect as navigation?<p>### Incentives/Penalties<p>So, I need to cancel a reso because your system screwed up (this has happened multiple times - most often because of an unclear or ambiguous UI) I get where the penalties are rooted in - you need to punish cancellations, etc. However, by not letting me get a new booking on those days that got canceled - my incentive is now to basically wait on a reservation request from HomeAway/VRBO/CL that is twice as much as the original booking - and THEN cancel closer to their reservation date. That's bad dis-incentive. Bad experience for me AND the guest.<p>### Help<p>I get it - Airbnb doesn't want people calling the support line. Have you ever evaluated how many clicks people hit while they are looking for help and want to contact a human (not even by phone, try to find where you create a case - this has been improved recently). Then, the help is fragmented too. Oh, have an issue that needs resolution go to entirely different place (oh, and no link to the resolution page on the case submission page - another 8 clicks of exploration). In fact I have navigated Airbnb before by using google to search for the page I know existed in the app, but can't find it.<p>### Contexts<p>So, your iOS app has a handy - "Switch to Travelling Mode". I like. I don't like that it is now completely inconsistent with the web version - as in, I go to my dropdown menu and it shows new messages and has a "View Inbox" link, then within THAT screen I have a toggle between travel and host mode. It messes with my Mental Model of your navigation when alternating between the app and the web. Either make an aggregated inbox on the iOS app OR have a 'host mode' on the web version for example. Since launching the app a while back, having separate apps for distinct functions has become a 'thing' and I could see that working out well in this situation too.<p>### Transparency/Clarity<p>I get it, Airbnb doesn't want to bring attention to the fees they charge both me AND my guest. Showing the fee you extract doesn't make a user feel good. HOWEVER - when I am making a deal with someone with a new price, Airbnb only displays to me what fees <i>I</i> will pay. If I tell someone, yes, I'll give $100 off: so new price is $300. Airbnb only shows MY total...so i click "Send Offer" the guest receives it and it is NOT $300 - it's something like $326 because the fee charged to the guest is invisible to me as I adjust the price. The UX does TRY to tell me on emails 'what the guest pays' - but it's not true: I only see what they pay BEFORE the fee is tacked on. Once again a shitty experience for TWO people compounding the annoyance and crappy feelings. Just show me in your neat little price calculator what the actual total price my guest will end up seeing/paying. It makes me look like an idiot otherwise. I send too many messages to guests saying "Sorry Airbnb has confusing XYZ, this is why it happened...". Several have complained to me - once I actually fiddled with my price to get it to the exact number a guest and I had agreed upon. I had to send them special offers 3 times to get to the right price, even then it was off by a bit.<p>### SuperHost One feature of the program is that "Superhosts get priority support when they call Airbnb.". Ah, Shucks - that's so nice! I challenge YOU to find Airbnb's phone number anywhere on the internets. For me - when typing a search in Google for "Airbnb" - the suggestion "Airbnb phone number" shows up as the as item number 5, which leads me to believe I'm not the only one who is frustrated. Pro-tip: @airbnbhelp works faster than submitting a case very often.<p>As I'm sure you're aware - there is so much more to do!<p>I want to end on a positive note! Airbnb has:<p>- courteous support people, they call back and are understanding. They feel human. Not a cog in the machine.<p>- The service has greatly improved its capabilities over time, I am actually confident many issues above will eventually be fixed by airbnb - I appreciate their iterative approach.<p>- Opened new travel possibilities and enabled me to own a house where my child can learn about, enjoy and appreciate the wonder of the outdoors<p>- Design thought leaders and puts effort into their improvements - and is shaking up the status quo.<p>Coolest Airbnb place I've stayed at: Tiny House in Redmond, WA. 320 sq ft. If you go to visit Microsoft campus for a business trip - it's 8 mins from HQ: <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/3603003" rel="nofollow">https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/3603003</a><p>If you've read this far, Thanks! If you work at Airbnb and want to chat about anything regarding your service - hit me up.
Goldman Sachs Dumps Numerical-Ranking System for Employees	Well, I can't read the article because I've chosen to focus my newspaper subscriptions on other, better, eh, 'peach-colored' newspapers.. but I worked in investment banking in IT for a number of years. Pretty much almost 10.<p>I've been thinking about stack ranking for a long time. In one place I worked, a large rival of Goldman, you would be ranked (secretly) on a curve, typically from 1-5. If you were the manager of a group of, say, 6 people, you couldn't just give everyone a 5 or a 1. You had to even it out, pepper in a few different numbers in that range. Maybe you had one 4 or one 5, say. This would go up to your manager, who would, in addition to rating you with your peers, would take a look at what you rates your employees and 'adjust', ensuring that the curve is adhered to, maybe moving numbers up or down depending on how they felt about your employees and also as compared to other groups (since it's a hierachy, a pyramid where each layer up managers more groupings of people).<p>This system was applied to the layoff selection (1's are out, some 2's are downgraded to 1's as the rankings made their way up the chain of command), and may have applied to bonus system as well (which is more complex). There were layoffs at least yearly, most years. Goldman is worse because the reputation was to always cull the bottom 5%, and I heard 10%, of staff yearly and (in good economic times) get a new fresh set of people not long after that.<p>Regardless, the takeaways of a system like this is that, regardless of your INDIVIDUAL performance, what matters is your performance relative to your peers. There are few issues with this.<p>The first issue with this is that the ranking system like above, or any ranking system, makes a lot more sense when you're in a role that has tangibly quantifiable measurements. For example, sales, or -- especially, in a place like GS -- bond or equity or other trading. In either one, if I make the company 1M, and you make it 1.2M, it's clear you added more value.<p>Well, what about IT staff? Is it lines of code? No, of course not. So there are these nebulous, subjective measurements pretending to be something more useful than they are. Performance reviews, the impact/importance of the projects you completed (which you didn't even get to CHOOSE, in most cases), and (at the place I worked) items like letters from senior managers about you that were positive, all counted.<p>The second issue is that competition doesn't necessarily make the work done better or more efficiently. The worst part for me was competing with people on my team. Instead of the team competing with other teams (if we want to ideologically just adopt the notion that competition makes everything more efficient and effective [which I think is overstated heavily], at least team competitions are a little better), we would compete with one another.<p>There are two ways to compete. I work harder, or better, or perform better than you. The second way is, we perform the same, or I perform the same, but I undercut you somehow. What's an example of undercutting? Well, let's say that on conference calls when it was your turn to speak I'd take knowledge about your project and use that to show that I know more publicly, or let's say that you undercut me by taking over my project and that of others, to show the boss how smart you are, etc. Most managers are so busy themselves that they don't have time to notice these things, which seem like petty infighting / childishness in their eyes. I saw the 'project takeover' scenario happen everywhere I've worked in these competitive environments. I saw one guy take over a bunch of people's projects, find himself overworked, complained, and got himself staff to work under him.<p>Hey, it's not easy to figure out what to do with regards to ranking, or whether to do it at all. When you're a full-time IT worker or professional in America, you get a salary, but it kind of doesn't say your hours in your contract; or if it does and is (rarely) enforced, at the end of the day in a competitive environment it's not fair if some people have to pull the weight of others. So there has to be some differentiator. On the other hand, what I've seen in IT is a downward spiral of misery. There's always someone on the team who puts in 60 hours a week so he can show how smart he/she is, trying to get that bonus or promotion above you.<p>And it's entirely possible that the above is more pronounced in the large, Northeastern American city (and industry) I live and work in.
Why the Best Companies and Developers Give Away Almost Everything They Do	I disagree with the premise that the best companies and developers give away almost everything they do.<p>There's a lot of code from Google that's not open source - for whatever reasons. Where are all the C++ big data tools that google uses internally. Why is big data ecosystem centered around hadoop in Java from guy at Yahoo. Where is the source code for borg, bigtable, chubby, or most of the tools mentioned in their research papers? Where are the specs for their tensor flow fpgas. Does Google open source all the custom linux kernel patches they have to drive low latency networking and containers? Where's the source for the stuff that lets google...be google? Given that, which the author does acknowledge toward end of article, using Google as one of the poster childs for open source seems like a weak candidate to me (in terms of open sourcing all the things facebook seems like they open source more of their core infra but maybe that's just me buying into the marketing).<p>Most video game code isn't open source. Is any intel/AMD cpu code open source? Is the source code for stuff I interact with (routers, switches, telecom, traffic lights - anything) open source? There's Cisco iOS and I know I've worked with telecom switches that run proprietary unixes. Is QNX open source? Hell is the code by Nasa open source? I'm not even going to get into the arguement about is Android better off open source or not compared to iOS.<p>I think the people who write this closed source code could be amazing developers. I think the companies who write a lot of this closed sourced code are amazing companies. I think a lot of what drives tech forward is the result of closed source development.<p>I think the authors points about doing open source development as a good way to grow your career as a developer or for a company to get free dev work and a pool of highly hiring candidates are true, I just don't know why it had to start with what I view as a false assertion that discounts the literal world of nonopen source code that powers your life, done by highly skilled developers.<p>Also my post kind of jumps all over the place but I think the authors does too. I really think this whole article by the author could be boiled down to 1/2 the length just focusing on a few core points about open source that would have made the arguements stronger (I felt the author covered his bases in a few places that made the overall point weaker). Below is my summary of authors article.<p>Intro<p><pre><code> 1. Think of programmers you know 2. A lot of them do open source work. 3. Why do they (big companies/big name progammers) do this work?(Possibly skip points 1, 2, 3 to start with, I thin they're pretty weak) 4. A lot of big tech companies open source code. Why? </code></pre> Reasons To Open Source<p><pre><code> 1. Let's skip mastery - I'm not sure how teaching somehow became the same thing as open sourcing) 2. The work you do package a good open source project is likely to improve the project quality. 3. Open sourcing your work invites new eyeballs to look over your code and offer free improvements beyond the improvement you just got packaging the software. 4. Labor (see 3, not really sure how this got split off from quality). 5. Both as an employee and a company, open sourcing your work is a way to get your name out there. 6. I'd skip this point "In other words, open source projects are simply more fun and more satisfying to work on." as that's really debatable. </code></pre> Rebuttals To Why I Don't Open Source<p><pre><code> 1. No time > Make time noob btw I learnt Ajax by myself and got a sick job 2. No one cares about my work > Even if no one cares, open sourcing it will make it better (see the whole reasons to open source cmon get w/ it) 3. Someone will steal my work > My bad u right companies don't open source their core business code. But mostly people won't steal. Not sure where the line is between the 2 so I'll just mention both to cover my bases </code></pre> Culture of Sharing<p><pre><code> 1. Sharing is a good way to be selfish and get your name out there (see pt 5, reasons to open source) 2. Open source is why silicon valley beating wall street (this point is completely unsubstantiated and to me very weak since wall street hft does a lot of cutting edge tech work, and who's even arguing silicon valley is beating wall street?). Weird dig to end article on.</code></pre>
How to win the coding interview	The author says,<p>> When you get the job you will never have to code on a whiteboard, but I guarantee you this, there will come a time when we are banging our heads against a problem and there is a deadline looming and we’re tired and people are pissed at us and money and jobs and reputations are all on the line. When that time comes, we’re going to have to get into a boardroom, hop on a whiteboard, and figure things out. Fast.<p>and then proceeds to describe still giving you coding challenges on a whiteboard. I kept reading, but bookmarked this spot as the location at which the author lost credibility, and the rest of the article confirmed it.<p>If you want to test how well someone can collaborate with you (after all, that is what is described in the needless trumped up intro to the whiteboard sections -- just simple collaboration as happens everywhere in every job and is in no way unique to programming), then ask them problems that <i>are</i> suitable for a whiteboard discussion.<p>It's not the whiteboard itself that is the problem. It's the combination of a task that is intrinsically ill-suited to be done on a whiteboard and the requirement to do it on a whiteboard. It's like asking a football player to audition for you by playing football with hockey equipment on.<p>There are lots of good questions to talk about on a whiteboard. Sketching out graphs is a good activity. For example you might ask someone how life expectancy varies with age and ask them to draw some pictures. Now you can see what it's like to work with them, get the assumptions out in the open, etc. You can't actually do that if they are preoccupied with syntactical correctness -- and if you tell them to program in pseudo code then you'd better be happy with a psuedo answer that sweeps some parts of the solution under the rug or assumes that some minutiae details would be otherwise fleshed out later on and are not required to be literally correct in the whiteboard case.<p>Coding questions are just poor questions to ask for whiteboard sessions. That "we're all up against the deadline, cramming into the conference room trying to work shit out on the whiteboard at the last minute" situation is practically the last place on earth where minutiae syntactical correctness on the whiteboard matters.<p>The author is defending <i>general whiteboard discussions</i> but then saying that coding exercises, which are not at all like general whiteboard discussions, are appropriate for whiteboard interviews.<p>The section about coding at a computer is also frustrating. The author places a huge emphasis on asking questions, but it basically amounts to a sort of "guess the teacher's password" problem. The author has "good questions" in mind, that are secret and hidden from the candidate, and will secretly penalize you if you don't ask "good questions." Personally, I would see the server side / client side Javascript question as a waste of time and really immaterial to the given programming task (palindrome detection). Even asking "is the empty string valid?" is a waste of time. Honestly, in an interview I don't care which assumption you make about that as long as you tell me that you're making it.<p>But worst of all is the Cerberus red flag statement "write this code as if it was going into production." I can tell you that as a candidate, I would still be polite and try my hardest to work out the interview question, but I would have already rejected this company full stop. When you write code for production, it is a team effort and your interactions with the team, the business, the product all matter. A person who is injected into a foreign social situation, under lots of stress and pressure to put their best foot forward, etc., <i>and also knows nothing about what you consider to be 'production' code</i> is in no position to write 'production' code for you on some Mickey Mouse palindrome problem (literally a problem culled from the absolutely dystopia-level full of shit book 'Cracking the Coding Interview' -- meaning it is as not-productiony a problem as you can possibly select, akin to asking for a production-grade FizzBuzz solution).<p>This tells me that the interviewer has an extremely narrow and short-sighted view of 'production' code. They think it is something that can happen in a vacuum as long as you have a computer and a textbook problem to solve. They are not self-aware enough to understand that they come in with preconceived <i>cultural</i> notions of what 'production' means, and that realistically this is not at all a test of "coding to spec" or someone's coding talent, it's just yet another status game testing whether or not the person randomly conforms to whatever magic culture expectations they are being covertly judged against.
Linear Programming: How Does It Work?	How does it work?<p>For the set of real numbers R and some positive integer n, the problem starts with a set F that is the intersection of finitely many closed half spaces in R^n. Each such half space is from a <i>constraint</i> that is a linear inequality with relation either >= or <=.<p>Then the set F is a closed, convex subset of R^n. Set F is called the <i>feasible region</i>.<p>In addition, are given a linear function z: R^n --> R, the <i>objective</i> function. Then the problem is to find a point x in F that makes z(x) as large as possible. Such point x in R^n is said to be <i>optimal</i>. Even if optimal point x exists, it may not be unique. Indeed, if there is more than one optimal solution, then there are infinitely many, and the set of all optimal solutions forms a closed, convex subset of feasible region F.<p>If set F is empty, then the problem is <i>infeasible</i> and there is no optimal solution. Else set F is non-empty and the problem is <i>feasible</i>. Any point in set F is said to be a <i>feasible</i> point.<p>If the problem is feasible, then it may be that function z is unbounded above on F. Then the problem is <i>unbounded</i> and there is no optimal solution. If the problem is feasible and not unbounded, then it is feasible and <i>bounded</i>.<p>It is a theorem, not trivial to prove, that if the problem feasible and bounded, then it has an optimal solution.<p>Given points x, y in R^n and real number t in the interval [0,1], the point<p>w = tx + (1-t)y<p>is a <i>convex combination</i> of the points x and y. Easily the set of all convex combinations of points x and y is closed and convex.<p>Suppose C is a convex subset of R^n, x is in C, and x is not a convex combination of two other points in C. Then point x is an <i>extreme</i> point of convex set C.<p>It is a theorem that if the linear program has an optimal solution, then it has at least one optimal solution that is an extreme point of the feasible region F. So, in looking for optimal solutions, it is sufficient to look only at extreme points of the feasible region F.<p>It is a theorem that the feasible region F has only finitely many extreme points.<p>The classic algorithm for finding optimal solutions is the Dantzig <i>simplex</i> algorithm.<p>Intuitively and geometrically the algorithm starts at an extreme point of the feasible region and moves, one <i>iteration</i> at a time, to <i>adjacent</i> extreme points (and adjusts what it regards as the <i>basic</i> variables) until it satisfies a sufficient condition for optimality. With appropriate refinement of the simplex algorithm, it is always able to achieve this sufficient condition.<p>Algebraically, the simplex algorithm is a small but clever modification of Gauss elimination for solution of systems of linear equations. Each iteration of the algorithm corresponds to some elementary row operations on the system of linear equations.<p>There are more technical details, but the above is a good outline and overview of the core math.<p>Some of the consequences of the linear programming and some of the properties of the simplex algorithm yield a nice collection of inequalities, theorems of the alternative, the saddle point theorem and optimal strategies of two person game theory, etc. E.g., in the game paper, scissors, and rock, play each of the tree moves with probability 1/3rd and independent of all the past. Then in the long run will break even.<p>Is the simplex algorithm a <i>polynomial</i> algorithm? Apparently not: There is a classic example problem of Klee and Minty that shows that at least one version of the algorithm is exponential. In practice, however, the simplex algorithm runs in time linear in the number of half spaces. There are more details in some now classic work of K. Borgward.<p>Is there a polynomial algorithm for linear programming? Yes.<p>In practice, the simplex algorithm has many refinements and extensions.<p>If we ask that the components of an optimal solution x be integers, then the problem is <i>integer linear programming</i> and is in NP-complete. One solution approach is via branch and bound where we solve an ordinary linear program at each node of a large tree. But that approach is not a bad as it might sound since usually one more solution is just a little work from what was left over from the last solution -- the simplex algorithm has lots of such modifications.<p>Another problem is least cost flows on a directed graph (network) with on each arc a maximum flow and a cost per unit of flow. There the simplex algorithm takes on a special form that commonly permits astoundingly fast solutions of astoundingly large problems. Moreover, if the arc capacities are all integers, then, starting with an integer feasible solution, the simplex algorithm maintains integer solutions and will find an optimal integer solution -- we get integer programming for no extra effort.<p>We can also use linear programming as a tool in solving convex problems, nonlinear problems, make use of Lagrange multipliers, achieve the Kuhn-Tucker necessary conditions, etc.<p>Some of the promise of linear programming is from how common are linear expressions, especially in business, accounting, budgeting, business planning, etc.<p>Dantzig worked out his simplex algorithm in the late 1940s at Rand Corporation working on the logistic problem of the USAF of how best to deploy a military force rapidly to a distant location.<p>An early commercial success was feed mixing for livestock: Given a list of feeds and the nutritional content and prices of each and given what total nutritional content want for the livestock, find how much of each feed to buy to feed the livestock at least cost. There are rumors that Ralston Purina runs linear programs daily when mixing feeds.<p>Another problem of early high interest was how to ship from some factories to some warehouses to get each warehouse what they needed, take from each factory only what they had, and minimize total shipping cost. Well, now we know that this is a special case of the least cost flow problem that we can do so well solving. An early statement of this problem, the <i>transhipment</i> problem, resulted in a Nobel prize in economics.<p>Another early success was operating an oil refinery: So, given crude oil supplies, which differ in chemistry and price, and refinery products, which differ in price, find what crude oil supplies to use and what products to make to maximize profit. Apparently eventually this problem was refined to make use of nonlinear programming, e.g., by C. Floudas.<p>One use of linear programming is for scheduling. E.g., consider the original FedEx: Given 90 US cities with loads to be picked up and loads in Memphis to be delivered. Given 33 airplanes, say, all Dassault DA-20 Fanjet Falcons. Now, way which airplanes go to which cities in what order to move all the loads, obey all safety and engineering constraints, arrive within specified time windows at each of the airports, and minimize direct operating costs.<p>So, it looks like a huge, non-linear, integer problem. But, can attack the problem in two steps where the first is just some enumeration likely doable with some nonlinear arithmetic and the second is just some 0-1 integer linear programming which likely has an okay chance of good results.<p>So, the first step is just to get a list of what a single airplane might do, that is, what cities it might visit and in what order. So, just write the code: Try all the reasonable sets of cities in reasonable order (e.g., don't waste time on evaluating absurd cases like having one plane serve NYC, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, and LA, in that order). Then for each reasonable candidate for what one plane might do, do the nonlinear arithmetic to find the costs. For a given set of cities served, keep only the one order of the cities that minimizes the costs. The result will be a list of some 100,000 or so cases for what one plane might do, the cost of the case, and the cities served (right, cheat a little -- argue that if an plane stops at a city, then it delivers everything the city gets and picks up everything the city has to ship, etc.). So, with 90 cities and 100,000 cases set up a linear program with 100,000 variables and 90 constraints. That is, for each of the 90 cities, want some one of the 100,000 cases to serve that city. So, each of the 100,000 columns has just 0s and 1s, a 0 if that case does not serve that city and a 1 if it does.<p>This is an old approach and is called 0-1 integer linear programming set covering. Yes, likely it is in NP-complete. But there is a also a good chance that save 5, 10, maybe 15% of direct operating costs over other approaches.<p>Can do a lot of scheduling problems with such approaches.<p>For linear programming software, can consider, say, R. Bixby and his work Gurobi.<p>At times I have had good success with the old IBM Optimization Subroutine Library (OSL). E.g., once with some <i>Lagrangian relaxation</i>, I got a feasible solution within 0.025% of optimality to a 0-1 integer linear programming problem with 40,000 constraints and 600,000 variables in 905 seconds on a 90 MHz PC!
HuffPo: Violence Against Trump Is Logical	This doesn't seem very well put into a single thing to me.<p>a paragraph by paragraph summary, which will be followed by why I disagree:<p>[summary starts here]<p>Trump is bad because he encourages oppression. People react to this in some ways that are not violent, and in some ways that are violent. "This isn't a coincidence."<p>Trump has incited violence, and his supporters have been violent in oppression flavored ways. Trump defies the norms of politics in a bad way, and groups try to make it seem like it is normal politics. Because Trump has encouraged violence, and violated norms of political discourse, it should not be surprising that people respond "in kind". Even if you think using violence is bad, you should agree that normalizing trump is bad. Violence reduced normalizing trump. Apparently liberals think that using violence is somehow worse than the bad things trump is doing / the normalization of trump.<p>Some people are saying that using violence to go against trump being normalized is bad, and people who say that it is good are criticized/punished. The people saying that it is bad are wrong because they blame the people responding with violence instead of the thing that the people being violent are responding to, they misunderstand the purpose of the violence, and they are like young children who don't know that sometimes violence is better than nonviolence for accomplishing things. [i.e. they are stupid/uneducated/childish for thinking that]<p>For the first part of that, it is ok to use violence because trump is moving the Overton Window, and is generally radically bad. Treating trumpishness like something that should be responded to in a way that respects norms in politics causes it to be more accepted as being a legitimate political viewpoint. This is unlike Cruz, who is also very bad, but is bad in a normal way.<p>Politicians and "liberals" act like the goal in resisting trump is to make trump not be elected president, but the real goal is to make it so the ideals associated with trump (trumpishness) do not become politically accepted as normal.<p>Trump is a result of republicans supporting oppression, and also "attacking the credibility of media, scientists, and the federal government". Stopping these systems of oppression is more long term than preventing trump from being elected. We can see why violence is useful in anti-fascism things from its usefulness in Europe as part of anti-fascism things.<p>Third, violence is useful because it helped reduce oppression in the past, as can be seen from a list of examples. [list not included in this summary] Fascism wasn't stopped in Europe because people elected a non-fascist but because other countries defeated the fascist countries in war. Also Hillary is a market centrist.<p>It is "problematic" for "people with privilege" to say that the use of violence to oppose trumpishness is wrong or illogical. Whether you would use violence doesn't impact your ability to understand justifications for it. Privileged people who argue that using violence is bad are oppressing those people who are too oppressed to be able to afford to determine if something other than violence would be enough to protect them.<p>[end of summary]<p>tl;dr: Author of article is a Marxist. Says that its fine for violence against trumpishness because oppression.<p>(note: I tried to be relatively fair in my summary, but because I disagree with the article, I cannot really be wholly objective about what it is saying, so if you are reading my summary instead of the article, bear that in mind I guess. Quotes are indicating that I am using the same wording in the summary as the article uses. Things in brackets are side notes.)<p>Worse than that, they are a Marxist that didn't even bother to put the things they were saying together. The main part where they make any sort of argument to attempt to morally justify the use of violence is just in the last paragraph. The rest of it mostly only argues that violence is useful. Well /duh!/ it is "useful"! Why do they think people use it? There are ends it can accomplish. When people are saying that violence is bad unless certain conditions are met, they aren't saying that it can't accomplish ends. They are saying it is wrong or bad.<p>OK but really, look over the paragraphs or my summaries of the paragraphs, and see which ones actually make points that the article uses to support its claim and which actually connects them to it.<p>It makes some attempt to make the reader more sympathetic to using violence to oppose trumpishness by pointing out the violence used by proponents of trump/trumpishness, but it does not actually say that this is a justification. Just that it is not surprising, or things like that. ( Seems like moral relativist / nihilist stuff. Moral relativism and moral nihilism can both go fall down a well.)<p>Now, some of the things that they say seem like good points, but none of these are things that actually justify using violence for a political cause.<p>It is true that trumpishness seems to reflect a cause or change in the overton window in a harmful direction.<p>But the thing about political norms of discourse, is that each group generally views its opponents views as being harmful! If everyone considered an opposing view being harmful to be sufficient to justify violence, then all groups would consider violence against all of their opponents to be justified! That would make for either a very violent political setting, or a setting where one group is sufficiently dominant, and likely not because that group is the one that is most correct.<p>I have already said that violence being "useful" is not enough to justify it.<p>The article is full of things along the lines of "even if you personally would not use violence [...] ". This reeks, or at least smells, of moral relativism. Moral relativism can go fall down a well.<p>Use of violence in a particular situation is either justified or it is not. If it is not justified in a certain situation, it does not matter if one "does not have the privilege to consider" whether violence is permissible. It either is or it isn't.<p>Further, if someone truly could not take the time, or whatever resource the author supposes they lack, to consider whether violence is justified, what possible harm would there be in someone else arguing that it is not justified? Either the oppressed person cannot consider the argument, and the argument has no bearing on them, or they can, and therefore they can consider it after all. I suppose the idea might be that the line of reasoning would cause other people to treat them in a harmful way, but, which people would do that? Who are the people who would be treating someone badly because they disaprove of that person's use of political violence? If it would be some large organization such as the police, or perhaps their boss at their work, I don't think that even the opposite argument instead of the one argument would cause these institutions to treat the person differently. Otherwise, what is the impact? If it is not the impact, is the author claiming that arguing against violence is inherently wrong even if it has no practical consequences? Surely this is not what they mean.<p>tl;dr2:<p>Author barely makes any arguments towards their point, the one they make are not any good. Author seems to define ethics based on oppression vs oppressed, etc.
Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail	as a 26yr old female Electrical Engineer getting involved with entrepreneurship and doing my own software startup, I agree there is too much controversy, talk and fear surrounding being a female in tech.<p>Don't get me wrong, it is isolating in general but after working for two startups, one bought out by a foreign company and another now has billions in funding, doing software analytics on the trading floor through summer internships in college, and going to a predominately male college for engineering, 70% males overall, and 99% male in my major, I can say I have a diversity of experience even within the tech field and also years of experience working at single companies before moving on, I can say a few things that I think echo what she is saying<p>1. Most of the people speaking the most about female controversey are not coders, or engineers or in the nitty gritty of tech. While I appreciate their empathy and willingness to latch onto a cause and speak for us, they often get it wrong, and recently have done so much so that they scare the MAJORITY of men to feeling uncomfortable talking about it. What do I mean? onto point #2<p>1a. Sorry, before I go to Point 2, another way journalists or people wanting to speak out on our behalf (female women in tech) get it wrong is by assuming we want to change the culture to be this outgoing, social fashion forward world. Actually, alot of us are introverted geeks and like doing the same thing other male engineers do. I definitely think wheather you were or are a cheerleader sorority girl who likes to bake and throw parties or an introverted star wars nerd and each one is an engineer, either should feel equally comfortable at a new tech company and not isolated by the culture, but anecdotally I happen to be an extreme introvert, and the excessive socializing and advice or notion that if we have an environment where we can all be super girly like omg together is the vibe I get from alot of female focused events in tech. It's actually overwhelming and makes me feel more out of place than not. Listen to us, not imposing your idea of how we might feel onto us. Get a good profile of what females are saying who are IN tech, and if there is a difference between that and the ones who are latching onto the idea of it or operating in auxiliary roles surrounding tech. These women are just as important, and are are still subject to sexism working around male dominated industries, but if you want more women IN tech, instead of talking about tech but not in it, listen to the women IN it, you might be surprised.<p>EXAMPLE<p>Here is one example where both genders are contributing to the problem but making it harder for women IN tech. my friend is a Biomed Engineer who prototyped and developed her hardware. Keeping her anonymous on here, but she went to a big tech conference in the bay area and was approached by three men asking if she was a "showgirl" at the conference as a starter to the conversation. Of all the things you could possibly say right? How offensive to a female engineer with over 30 pending patents running a multi million dollar company and two engineering degrees under her belt. Welp, those guys are in the wrong, but also why are there showgirls at tech conferences. because hot girls attract geeks to the boothe. But MEN hired these showgirls, and WOMEN are actually fufilling those roles. So both parties are at fault.<p>Who suffers? The people who suffer are the ACTUAL female engineers who would love to go to a conference and not have it be assumed they are there in an auxiliary tech role until proven otherwise.<p>once my friend described who she was, both of the guys felt really bad, even embarassed and apologized profusely. They ended up being cool guys she is still friends with. they learned a lesson, but they have also been heavily conditioned by males and females who are both willing particpants in establishing a stereotype that is demeaning to women actually in tech.<p>2. Most men I've met and worked with in tech are absolutely fine. It is that in general outlier cases good and back stick out in our heads. If there are 200 employees at a company and only 2 females in my department of 40, probably over a 6 months period the chances are I'm going to be made to feel uncomfortable whether intentionally or not by one person atleast. I'm not saying it's acceptable or ok, or that steps shouldn't be taken to fix it, I'm saying 19/20 guys I work with in a random sampling are just fine, and don't make being a girl a thing, and treat me just the same, or if anything are excited to see women in tech and go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. It's then in your discretion to stand on your own two feet and not take advantage of that, because some women do, which brings me to...<p>3. There are some women who abuse their minority status. I'm NOT saying women who have spoken out about being treated poorly are the ones who are abusive, or that they are lying. It is usually ones that have nothing to complain about and the situations are much more nuanced. I'm sorry people will get mad at me about this statement but I feel comfortable saying it as I've observed it and I work in tech and I'm not going to lie to remain politically correct. Both males and females are capable of abusing their position. Not all males do it, not all females do it. So hating men or making them terrified of saying the wrong thing if anything is just going to make you feel more isolated.<p>There are also women who still have queen B syndrome and like being the only female around, and actively bully other women. This is so obnoxious. However, in my varied experience in tech, I can say one key indicator of a real female engineer, is that most of us would LOVE a female friend because we don't have many. Females that view male dominated workplaces as a fun new playground because of all the men, are constantly having coworker boyfriends, and view other women as competition, instead of empathizing with them, have probably not experienced the long term years of being in college engineering classes and doing their homework and not having female friends, and the desire to be treated as an equal instead of put on a pedastool or having to prove themselves. Real females doing real work in tech know what it's like to be isolated, and when we get together as females, we are all super super grateful for it, and we all feel uncomfortable going to glitzy girl focused events where we are bombarded by girls not in tech telling us how things should be. This has been my experience.<p>4. While some of us can't choose who we work for and with, if you are a female IN Tech, not marketing or some soft auxiliary department of a developed company, but you code or prototype electronics or hardware or engineer something, then you are valuable enough that you can move onto thousands of other companies if you don't find one with a culture that fits your comfort zone. Not just because you are a talented brilliant ambitious female, but because you are a talented brilliant ambitious engineer, and they are in great need in any gender, but being a female is always a great added diversity and step into equality for EVERYONE, not just females. AGAIN, it's not ok women should ever have to feel uncomfortable but we live in the real world and not everything is fair, not just for women, but for alot of situations and people in general.<p>CLOSING COMMENTS<p>In life in general, forget being a women or startups, a good rule of thumb, and one I took way too long to learn myself in my personal and professional life, if you don't like how you are being treated, then start hanging around different people.<p>I have plenty of male engineer friends who are low key, we geek out together, order pizza, watch tv, code, switch knowledge, music and talk about latest tech stuff, and its totally chill. What and who makes you feel comfortable but also gets you excited about learning and obtaining your goals? hang around them and your work life and personal life will be better. It's the same as if you want to stop drinking but your friends only method or venue for socializing is drinking, well it's not going to be super fun for you, so hang out with people who gel with your same lifestyle.<p>I definitely have my frustrations, but my successes and friends male and female far outweigh my desire to spend most of my time feeling negatively. This is coming from a girl who has been through some troubling times with male coworkers. It's not that is hasnt been harder, its just that I have so many things I want to do, I'd rather "show them" by being successful and acheiving my goals than fighting a legal battle. I am glad some women have chosen the legal path, but I actually would be upset if someone chastized me for not spending all my time in court. There are lots of way to bring tech forward with everyone, not just articles and legal battles. Sometimes, just being a good role model, the girl you wish you had to hang with 5 years ago when you had no female friends, goes alot farther in the world of tech females who actually need a friend, not just people reading the hottest news. Any new girl I meet in my company or department or otherwise who is an engineer or software developer, I atleast attempt to make friends and go out to lunch or a grab a drink with them , let them know I'm available to chat or otherwise, and every time I've been endlessly thanked saying I'm the only female friend they have. Well, now I have like 5 awesome female engineer friends and we all are friends as a group now, it's not much, its not enough, but its more than we ever had and it's all we have time for, because you know, we are also coding, starting companies and doing all the same things males do so we are not over here just being social butterflies. As cliche as it sounds, and something I never would have believed about myself years ago when I was feeling isolated, is that I focused on being the change I wanted to see in the world, and the role model I wish I had when I was fresh out of college, instead of fighting legal battles. Sometimes thats the right thing to do, sometimes my path is a good one too, and I don't regret it.<p>I've had to abandoned some groups, and in one case a company because I was around egotistical chovenistic males who challenged me on everything and even worse it was all subconscious sexism so it was not even easy to address. no its not ok, but I decided to instead of fighting for it for years and years, to move onto something better for me, and now I can spend the majority of my time coding and working on my goals, instead of fighting against people. It was the best decision I've ever made, I'm able to be alot more technically advanced, and by holding my head high and deciding I could do better, instead of tearing other people down.<p>Atleast three of those guys have come to me years later to apologize (with no prodding on my part), tell me I was a good player on the team, and I know from females who joined that same team later, they are treated very well. Those guys straightened up because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do, is know you deserve better, walk away and discover a place that fosters your worth. If you have real tech skills, this will always be an option for you as a woman, or a man. It's ok to stand up and "fight" and it all depends on your situation. I should have had more support in mine, but honestly I think I made the right choice by just moving onto something better.<p>FINAL NOTE<p>She is right, don't be scared. JUST DO IT. If you can actually code or prototype, then do it. Perform, let your product speak for itself and noone can argue with you. That is the cool thing about coding or being an engineer, if it works and people are paying for it, who cares if youre a girl, or a transgender, or have purple hair, wear tennis shoes to work, or if you are a hippopotamus. It's not going to be easy, it's going to be WORTH it, and there may be some extra barriers, but how rewarding for you to be a trailblazer.<p>I never thought of myself that way until people started calling me a trailblazer or a "badass" years out of college and now that I think about it, hey yeh, I've been through some pretty hard times but damn this is cool, minority or not, I love what I do and nothing is going to stop me. In fact, I had no idea when I first went into this that anyone would want to stop me, or feel threatened by me, and honestly, that is the hard part.<p>THE HARD PART<p>The hard part is realizing that some people are actually not supportive of you, subconsciously or not, alot of the anger on your part comes from the confusion surrounding the challenge of understanding this concept, because if youre an awesome person who doesnt need to tear other people down to have success, this isn't going to be intuitive for you to understand other people are actually that lame. Once you realize yes these warped people in self denial who project their own insecurities onto you DO exist, and probably always will in some form or fashion, then you can be like "oh, no I'm better than that sorry". Sometimes again, legal is a good way, sometimes not.<p>Just do you and find that confidence. if you don't have it, dig deeper, if youre reading this youre already way ahead of the game and have nothing to feel insecure about. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond and how you let it effect your opinion of yourself or your subconscious belief about your capabilities.<p>Have that attitude, and support other girls around you, focus on your work and not people, and youll be amazed. In the words of Dr. Suess "oh the places youll go.."
It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app	I don't think "web apps" are as problematic today than they were several years ago. I don't say this because I hope web apps will be the future of app development, but because together with a few other devs we have built such an app at the company I work for. I think the result is a success but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to write about our experience yet. I hope I will have the time to so anytime soon.<p>Yes the development costs are super important, especially for small companies / startups. As important is the performance of your app(s) and also super important is the usability of such an app. If the development costs are much higher than building native apps besides your website, then you failed. If your app is slow and unresponsive then you failed. If your users dislike the app because it is not smooth like a native app and feels sluggish then you failed.<p>But does this mean that building mobile web apps is impossible, I don’t think so. We did several things that helped us to keep the costs as low as possible and for sure much lower than if we would have written server, apps and client code using different languages / frameworks and libraries.<p>Our server side code, the code of our web apps as well as (obviously) our client (browser) code are written in javascript. We have used typescript to write all our code, this allowed us to use the latest ES6 features and gave us features like strict typing. The ES6 features we have most used are promises and classes. Typescript compiles our ES6 code into ES5 UMD modules. We choosed Visual Studio as IDE as it compiles typescript on the fly, which allowed as to quickly test new code almost in real time. We also used the node js tools for visual studio which allowed us to use the node js debugger from within our IDE. Setting breakpoints (typescript creates Javascript to TypeScript source maps), reading stack traces or watching variables was a piece of cake.<p>We have built an isomorphic website first. Our server side got built on top of express js (node js). All our modules and libraries are UMD modules, which means that more than 95% of the code we wrote is the same that we use on the server and in the client. We have built a server views renderer using Backbone and domino. Our collections and models are the same on the server and in the client, the only difference are the adapters we wrote to make ajax or server side requests. We use the same router on the server and in the client, which means the first page that gets served is always built on the server but the next pages are built in the client. This also means that crawlers can harvest our pages but for users we only retrieve the data needed to build the pages from server and do all other work in the client, which makes the pages load very quickly. We also had to write a cache library once, the only difference again are their adapters, the server adapter of our caching library saves objects into redis while our client adapter saves them in IndexedDB. A lot of things needed to built the pages get cached too, so each template, each translation and so on only needs to get fetched once by the client and can be reused until we publish an updated version of the item.<p>Our web apps are built using phonegap. Again 95% of the code of our apps is the same as the code that is being used by the client (browsers). Obviously we had to write clean and powerful code to ensure that our apps come as close as possible to the speed that people expect from a native app. We had to track every minor memory leak, especially those that occur when binding events to ensure that our apps use a minimum of memory. This was not only important for the web apps but also for the node js code. A memory leak is something you really don’t want to have when writing a nodejs app ;).<p>I think what helped us to keep the costs low, was that we used the same language and therefore resulting code for the client, server and apps. But this did not only allow us to work quickly, it will also allow us to add new features quickly in the future. If we now write a new feature, as soon as we release it, it will be available to users that use our website as well as users that are using our Android / iOS apps either on their phone or tablet. The same is true for bugs, if we find a bug in the client and fix it, it will be fixed for all our platforms.<p>The other big advantage was that all the know-how we had but especially the one we acquired during the time we needed to build our project did benefit all our platforms. We didn’t have to optimize our Java code for Android our Objective-C or Swift code for iOS and our PHP, Ruby or .Net code for the server. We just needed to optimize our Javascript code. We reduced the amount of platform / language specific problems to a minimum. It is really great when all your devs use (speak) the same language ;).
A deportation at the UK border	If you ever feel like being dehumanized in the most senseless fashion, immigration is definitely the way to go.<p>Currently an immigrant in Canada, I recently went through a bit of an ordeal. I've been a Temporary Foreign Worker for a few years now, and every year or so, you are required to renew your work permit. So far, this is pretty standard. My first work permit was issues in about five days under a special clause for French speakers, allowing my to forego the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). It went really smoothly overall.<p>The next year, I renewed my work permit, only this time around it took three and a half months. The clause for French speakers had been renamed and moved to a different set of documents, but I had found it. My original work permit had expired while waiting for the renewed one, but at least I was on implied status, so I could work, though I no longer had access to free healthcare, nor could I leave the country (as it would mean losing implied status).<p>Then last year, I went through the same motions to renew my work permit. This time, it took even longer than the previous time and the same "implied status" thing applied. Four and a half months later, I received a message telling me that as of a specific date, the same date I received the message, I no longer had status, because of a missing form from my employer. As it turned out, Canadian immigrations had changed the rules the previous year, and employers were now required to submit a fee along with a form to essentially prove they wanted to hire you (different from an LMIA). This is quite obviously a money-grabbing scheme, but let's not get caught up. I was never made aware of this change in the rules, and clearly my employer didn't pick up on it, yet I was the one paying the consequences. This is all knowing that the conditions of my employment have remained completely unchanged during my whole time in Canada.<p>Not knowing what was going to happen, I was pretty distraught. On top of that, my original application fees had essentially gone down the drain, and I had to re-submit my application and the associated fees, including a premium to restore my status (all within thirty days), all the while receiving no income and not being eligible for Employment Insurance (which I pay, but ironically am not entitled to, since no work = no status = no benefits). I thought I could at least leave the country and go work somewhere else for a while, but that would have invalidated my work permit altogether, a risk I could not take.<p>So I went through the motions, again, getting and submitting information I had already provided countless times. My friends and family kept asking how long it was going to take, to which I had absolutely no answer, nor any recourse to get any sort of clarifications. I had no idea how long my money would last or what my life would become (I've very much settled here, relationship, friends, etc.). Trying to find reassurance through other people or on the Internet ended up achieving the opposite (some of the stories you can read on immigration forums just want to make you cry).<p>A few months later, my work permit was thankfully restored. I now have to mention my work permit refusal and restoration in all immigration-related matters, in the same section that asks you whether you've been associated to terrorists, have murdered somebody and the likes.<p>There are many situations far worse than mine, people having their immigration applications cancelled out of the blue, people unable to work but stuck in the country for up to a few a years at a time, not knowing what the outcome will be, etc.<p>The uncertainty and opaqueness of the whole process is truly mind-boggling. It is genuinely impossible to find a single, reliable source of information. The Canadian Immigration website contains a lot of conflicting and outdated information, lots of links don't work, the language is wildly inconsistent, and more. Calling Canadian immigration will have you on hold for extended periods of time, to eventually be told in one form or another that they won't provide you with any information that's not explicitly on the website. Should you ask for any clarifications, or god forbid point to a problem with the information that's provided, you will systematically be told to seek private help. This essentially means finding immigration lawyers, who I learnt later (from an immigration lawyer friend as I did/could not hire one) do most of their work based on precedent, as immigration law is so unpredictable.<p>This is actually an absurdly compact version of the whole story. I could have mentioned the inherent stress of never knowing whether you have done something wrong, the profiling of immigrants in the name of equality, the rampant abuse of the immigration system by elected officials, the government-backed ponzi scheme for immigrant qualifications, and many more. Hopefully though, for those who are new to this game, this is enough to digest for now.
The Most and Least Expensive Cars to Maintain	I found it interesting that the Chrysler Sebring was listed as the most expensive car to maintain. The first car I purchased for myself was a 1995 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible. I was 17 years old and had saved up money from a business my father had started for me when I was 13 years old and due to my dear Dad working in the industry, I was able to buy it on the "C-Lot"[0] for $12,000 (not bad with an all leather interior and 8,000 miles ... or so I thought). During the 5 long years I owned it, I went through not one, but <i>three</i> $2,400 transmission rebuilds. I was young and wasn't smart enough to know to ditch the car after the first. Nor did I know there was an 800 number I could have called that would almost certainly have resulted in a discounted/free repair for the first (which happened about 2,000 miles outside of the warranty period) or the two others (which happened within 1.5 years of each other).<p>This car soured Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth vehicles for me for life. I have <i>never</i> considered another car from that brand and I wasn't at all surprised to see many Chrysler vehicles on the high-cost list.<p>It was also nice to see several American made cars on that list[1], including my Ford Fusion. I own a 2012 model (last year before a substantial redesign[also 1]) with 100,000 miles on it and it has <i>never</i> required service other than routine maintenance (and a few more alignments than I'm used to, but I almost <i>never</i> drive being a work-at-home guy so I'm not sure what might be happening while all of those miles are put on[2]).<p>I would have loved to see the raw data behind the article for a few reasons.<p>1. Model years are missing and more details about how many kinds of failures would have been nice. Highlighting the most expensive is nice, but if several less expensive parts are failing, that's also very important.<p>2. The cost of routine maintenance for parts that are guaranteed to wear can vary <i>dramatically</i> depending on where the service is done. The dealer is the most expensive, almost every time, but things like brakes come to mind. Where I live, taking a car for a brake job at a brake place is highway robbery. A friend showed me how easy it is to do brakes and I discovered I could do all 4 for the cost of one at the shop (or just replace the brakes/rotors for the price of a pad job). I later learned that a good shop will do them for about $40 in labor over the cost of parts at a retail auto-parts store (and I thank God that I now have a family friend who owns said shop).<p>3. It has a bad smell to it and I'd like to understand how they interpreted the data or whether or not the data set is complete. For the American brands, some of those cars have corresponding models from their other affiliated brands (A Chevy X is a Oldsmobile Y or even extreme cases where Eagle [dead now] branded vehicles used to be Mitsubishi products) with very little differences in the vehicles. This makes sense in the case of non-luxury brand/luxury brand because there are more expensive parts and usually major underlying improvements in the luxury brands that affect repair frequency/cost. But in the case of that Sebring, at one point that was pretty much the <i>same car</i> as a Dodge model except for the exterior and I thought I spotted others on that list that had the same situation but with the equivalent vehicle nowhere to be found.<p>If anyone has that data set and can link to it, I'd be curious.<p>[0] I may not have this exactly right, including the name, but my understanding is that these cars were driven by higher level employees "lease-style" for a year at a discount (or as a perk). Suppliers and employees can show up on a designated day and commit to purchase the vehicle at a solid discount - mine was $12,000 for an all leather model with about 8,000 miles on it (that would be repaired at the dealership under warranty). The "catch", I learned years later, is that some/many of the employees exercising this perk don't bother doing routine maintenance on the car and generally treat it very harshly.<p>[1] I live in Michigan, my dad's business is a supplier to the local autos, and there's still a lot of us who remember the days of evil bastards keying non UAW-made vehicles so I'm stuck with the Big Three (making that Two in my case). The general rule has been <i>never buy a car the first year after a substantial redesign</i> and vehicles on the last year prior to redesign are usually the most reliable (kinks worked out). I don't know if that's based on real data or if that's just been good luck (and common sense), but it's been a reliable rule for my family in all but the LeBaron case (I think 96 was the last year). That rule, along with and "if you're buying new, do so when the dealers are trying to get the next model year on the lot" (it was a $7,000 difference with my Fusion) are the only two I know.<p>[2] I suspect a defect in this case or even more likely -- road conditions. My wife is a great driver, the car has original brakes at 100,000 miles (a feat the mechanic who inspected them last month was impressed with) and everything but the suspension is in amazing condition. The suspension problems and realignment frequency have me thinking her lack of gaming skills is at fault. In this part of Michigan, driving any freeway/major road is like playing a game of "Dodge the Potholes" where failure to win results in blown out tires (we've had two incidents), unusual suspension wear/problems and alignment issues depending on the angle of impact and depth.
An Expensive Law Degree, and No Place to Use It	I feel like the NYTimes missed that their data point is a school that simply isn't that good. They call it well-established to give you a sense that it's a mid-tier school. It isn't. The median student has scored at the 40th percentile on the LSAT, the 25th percentile student at the school has scored at the 33rd percentile on the LSAT. In 1600-point SAT terms, that means the median student is around a 933 out of 1600 on the SAT.<p>The article notes that the person passed the bar on his first try. Indiana and Illinois (the two states grads from Valparaiso usually take the bar in) are 80.93% and 89.38% for first-time takers. So, noting that you passed the bart the first time doesn't seem to say much given the high pass rates in those states.<p>Honestly, is the story more that they picked a case from a school that just has mediocre students? What is the comparison between students who go here for law school and students that go to undergrad institutions with 900 SAT scores?<p>Are people who are well below median in tech really doing that well? For example, a friend of mine went to a top-50 school and has a BS in Computer Science. They can't find employment as a SWE because they're not that good (they got through the courses with a combination of a lot of TA help and sheer force of will). They're working for a tech company in a combination of a support and project management position. And that's someone who was smart enough to get into a top-50 ranked undergrad institution. Are people who are mediocre and attend an undergrad institution whose median SAT score is in the 900s getting jobs as SWEs with a BSCS? Are they taking adjacent positions where a BSCS might be seen as an "advantage", but not totally related to the work? Are they taking IT-related jobs?<p>It just seems like the story here is that people who are below median don't magically become 75th-90th percentile by a certificate or degree - and that mediocre law schools have been promising that dream to people. In the tech area, we have these bootcamp schools, but at least they're not charging students a couple hundred thousand. Like, if you spend $15k on a bootcamp and come out with a $60k salary, that might seem low compared to the dream of six-figures at Google, but you aren't saddled with a lot of debt. <a href="http://report.turing.io/" rel="nofollow">http://report.turing.io/</a> - Turing has reported that the average salary is $74k for their graduates which is respectable, but if they were taking $200k from students and 3 years of missed wages and 25% of students were earning under $60k, I think it would be the same situation - they'd be saddled with debt and even if they're earning more than they used to be, they're not earning a lot compared to the debt. But Turing isn't taking that amount of time or money and so if a student comes out with a somewhat mediocre salary by CS standards, they didn't waste a lot of time/money and might be earning a reasonable bit more than before.<p>And the thing is that places like Turing probably get people who might have done an undergrad at a good school, just not in CS. These are smart people who just lack a specific skill rather than below average people who also lack a specific skill. I mean, give me someone who studied at Boston College and I'm getting someone smart who just might not know any programming. Bootcamps might be getting a lot of those people - smart people who just don't know programming. Now, that doesn't mean that any smart person can make a great SWE, but it's a much better starting place than someone who is below average.<p>A better story would have been trying to figure out how much value add schools provide. Are elite institutions taking people who would otherwise be successful and marking them as such? Are mediocre institutions not improving outcomes for their students? To what extent do degrees actually improve student outcomes? People who go to schools and graduate schools have historically been privileged people - those who are smart enough to get in and those who are rich enough that they can afford it. Today, loans, a delay in marriage and child-having age, a proliferation of schools, etc. mean that way more people can go to post-secondary institutions. I don't know how much schools improve human capital, but that's definitely a story. Maybe elite schools do improve human capital a lot because really smart people can use education a lot. Maybe mediocre schools do well for some students and not others. These are important questions. These are questions unanswered by a NYTimes article pretending a mediocre law school with mediocre students means that no one is hiring lawyers.
The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web	Alright, a lot of statements made by bright people. Now, lets evaluate them one-by-one to see which get praise or reality checks. :)<p>re silo effect<p>Schneier calls this the Feudal Model of Security or Convenience with nice write-up here:<p><a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht...</a><p>We can also look at it as a form of lock-in. In any case, recent discussions on Elsevier and other scientific publishers shed light on where it might take us. Many academics gripe about not knowing the state-of-the-art or even prior work in their field since they can't afford access to the silos its stored in. Many, despite being customers of Elsevier et al, rushed to download all kinds of stuff from Sci-Hub when it appeared. Now lets imagine that effect applied to most knowledge or content to see how bad it could be for progress of both knowledge and society. Let's, if not paywalled, think of how restricted search and selective promoting can create similar effects by preventing people from connecting dots or even experiencing new things. Then, we see that the siloing could have tremendous, negative impact on people in many ways. Better to switch to something similar to old web where all kinds of content appeared, was easily accessible, and easy to build on.<p>re trading privacy for free stuff is a myth<p>It's actually a reality given users dumped their freedom, privacy, and paid offerings in mass for ad-supported, web content/services. The demand side of this was so strong and so many experimental alternatives failed that providers were largely pushed in the direction of ad-support just to survive. It also came with significant, financial rewards. Good write-up here:<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advert...</a><p>So, he needs to quit pretending people are ignoring some solution that works in favor of ad-supported, free-for-users content in a target market that almost exclusively goes with ad-supported offerings. The rational choice is to do what works in a market or with given demand. If they want privacy, they can pay for it or take steps to get it. It's why I have a paid, MyKolab account w/ GPG keyring. Many others used Fastmail or Lavabit for years. Yet, vast majority uses surveillance platforms (eg Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft) that sell them out to advertisers but also reliably handle the email on the side. I can't remember the market share but I put money that it <i>massively</i> contradicts those arguing against ad model in terms of what people <i>actually do</i> versus what they say.<p>re sites blinking on and off. Big problem. Needs to be eliminated in next architecture or at least Wayback Machine-style thing with greater integration/convienience. Think snapshots or rollbacks at the browser level.<p>re sketchy privacy controls. User's fault. They didn't care in practice. They do business with scumbags whose whole model is selling them out <i>and who have a string of abuses</i>. Most won't pay even $2 for private messaging app or $5/mo for private email. Yet, they gripe about privacy issues. I say stick with self-selection plus reboot a simpler, effective model for evaluation of product/service privacy or security along lines of Common Criteria. Security experts, esp experienced in realities of fielded programs, would contribute to it from many different countries to reduce risk of subversion or simply unworkable ideas. Baseline of features & assurance activities critical to privacy and security of product or service plus independent review they're implemented & trusted distribution. Nothing more unless company volunteers as differentiator.<p>re Vint Cerf. Good ideas across the board with products/services actively attempting to deliver all of them except copyright. That one isn't legal yet, though. The pub-subscribe is a decent idea given there's many robust implementations, even high-assurance schemes, for that sort of thing. Even military is deploying something like that now with at least one high-security demonstrator (below). Commercial/FOSS sector has things like ZeroMQ, which has other benefits. Much field experience out there in doing it right. The older & more field-proven something is, the more likely it will work right the next time. Tried and true beats novel and new.<p><a href="http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA425566" rel="nofollow">http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA425566</a><p>Note: DTIC is another source of wisdom in terms of old papers with great ideads or implementations in them if you know how to find them. Can't help there but keep the DTIC link to anything you find that doesn't have a steady link elsewhere. DTIC link usually stays available longer than average website. CiteseerX and obviously archive.org as well.<p>re Lee. His idea on URL has been implemented many times over. Just doesn't get acceptance due to bootstrapping problem where all the web browsers have to support the alternative but they're not adding something with little demand most of the time. Dot-archive is nice and could integrate with archive.org. Might even do it with a small fee that simultaneously supports archive.org (or its replacement) plus gives clean link in return similar to subdomains or shortcut links. "Surface the data" is idea behind Semantic Web. It was largely a failure. Market went with API's instead. They're <i>probably</i> better but mixing two might create interesting hybrids.<p>re Kahle. Decentralized clouds like Amazon definitely worth imitating. Google applied principle to RDBMS's nicely with F1 RDBMS. Awesome stuff. JavaScript will be necessary evil due to market share, ASM.JS, and so on. However, still room for another Flash to happen across a significant chunk of market if done well enough. <i>Don't</i> think of blockchains as about every goal we've listed has been solved in isolation & sometimes decentralized without them. Its inefficent alternative. Now, Merkle or hash trees will likely be useful at some point. Keybase.io & others working on public key angle. That "Wordpress" and "Wordpress alternative" are typed into Google many times a week make his last point solid. Even Freenet and I2P support forms of blogging.<p>re Doctorow. Vulnerability research being legal is a must. "Computer obeys owners" is a good principle but lay owners vs technical attackers make that a weakness. Feudal model gives up control for safety with good results on Apple, etc. So, maybe an override the user can activate locally or maybe physically. I'm still a fan of jumpers or physical switches for write-protect of critical storage. :)<p>So, that's my take on these statements.
Lessons from Doom (2010)	Glad to see this article making the rounds again.<p>Here's a little background to the article that might be interesting to some of you, concerning the evolution of shooters.<p>I'm the Nathan McKenzie the blog author thanks at the end of the article. I worked at Raven Software, off and on, from the spring of 1997 through the summer of 2004. I think JP, who wrote the blog, worked at Human Head in Madison, WI for a time. So we were both kind of in the id / fps diaspora, to some degree. I think this conversation took place on JP's old anti-factory blog, way back in the day.<p>Anyway, enough real-life background. The more interesting, possibly, background, is that I carried a lot of the responsibility for the single-player game balance and feel of Raven's and Activision's 2000 FPS, Soldier of Fortune. I basically was responsible for tuning player weapon damage, player input responses, enemy response times, enemy damage, high level enemy logic, enemy style differentiation, overall game progression curves, user settable difficulty levels, etc. I worked with other super talented people, of course, but at the end of the day, I was the main person in Raven's office at 2 am tweaking variables and subtle enemy aiming algorithms and properties to try to make the game match what appealed to me aesthetically. I really didn't work on SoF2 at all, so in so far as the games feel quite different, I would say that at least partially comes down to SoF being much closer to my own tastes.<p>I actually don't remember the conversation in great detail that JP and I had that led to this blog post, but I do know that a lot of what I was saying at the time about Doom was related to my experience of trying to do my part to balance Soldier of Fortune and make it fun and fair, and the challenges I faced in doing that.<p>SoF is a fine game, but I think it occupies an interesting point, historically, for shooters. I LOVED Doom. I just loved it. I played so much of it. It was hugely influential on me. If it had been up to me, I would have just been making more Doom-esque games.<p>But once you're making a realistic, bullet weapon based game with human enemies in relatively recognizable environments, much of what Doom got right kind of HAS to go out the window in the name of realism. Player movement speed. Enemies very strongly differentiated by attacks, properties, and novel behaviors. Enemies very cleanly parsable with strongly different silhouettes to signify that they are of different kinds. Enemies with radically different amounts of health or interesting weaknesses or weak points. Weird, interesting, abstract traps and interactive gadgets that can be combined with enemies to create novel situations. Game pacing controlled by the rate of introduction and variation of these things. Fairly abstracted environments that interconnect in weird ways, custom built to make for interesting combat experiences. Ratios of player size to monster size to projectile size to environment size that maximize player ability to move gracefully. Player interaction styles that maximize the aesthetic appeal of moving through a hostile environment that looks nothing like how real people interact with being shot at (specifically, using cover). There's an entire grammar that Doom and similar shooters from that era rely on that kind of has to be tossed (or at the least VERY dampened down) once you want some realistic verisimilitude.<p>And it just gets worse when you're trying to tell a linear story in the middle of the game and so require hyper linear level flow to make sure all the plot points are hit, and so you have to largely toss exploration as an aesthetic pleasure. And it gets worse still when you have dumb AI buddies that have to stay alive and get in the player's way in the middle of combat, and end up causing players to lose because the AI decided to do dumb things and die.<p>We were in the middle of all these broader genre transitions while working on SoF, and I don't think we entirely understood the consequences of how the individual changes were adding up, nor did the broader industry. It was like we had a recipe for a perfectly good dish, and then said, "Yeah, we're going to totally make that exact recipe again! Except we're not going to use salt, chicken or flour, and we will be adding some grapes and some rhubarb. And no use of an oven!" You might be able to hill climb your way back to a new recipe that works, but there's no guarantee, and once you do, it will be something totally different.<p>The biggest thing that plagued me while trying to balance SoF, and what caused me to look so much more closely at Doom later, was the issue of fairness and legitimacy of challenge. In Doom, because of a variety of very carefully considered factors (many of which JP talks about), when players take damage, it's nearly always because they did something dumb that was avoidable. When you get hit in Doom, it is punishment. Because of this, it's very difficult to get yourself into an unrecoverable state in Doom. No matter how low on health you get, you can almost always finish a level as long as you are sufficiently savvy. And because of this style of design, Doom levels can really ratchet the difficult up while still presenting a fair challenge. And, in turn, the distance between casual play and really skillful play can be pretty immense.<p>I really love and admire that quality in a game. But it really does take a lot of very precisely balanced, often game-y choices to make that possible.<p>I think JP's mention of the player-as-damage-mop versus player-as-one-who-dodges gets right at the heart of this. Obviously most shooters with regenerating health in the last decade or so are fair in some important sense of the word. If you play reasonably, you will probably win. But they're often just... sloppy. The connection between player input and resulting world states is often looser, more chaotic, more often collapsing into a kind of spectacle. Obviously you can ship a game someone can play through with those design choices. But I do think games have lost something in the transition. Given the success of the Dark Souls series, I think there's some contingent of gamers out there how agree.<p>In the end, I think SoF was pretty fun. I was certainly proud of my work on it. It's hard not to look back on it as a kind of intermediatary step, digging its heels in as a traditional run-and-gun shooter as the future of modern military shooters came barreling down. I know there are plenty of people who like the direction that more modern shooters have gone, but for my part, I always lament that I never got to work on a shooter more closely aligned with the original Doom's design philosophy.
Selfrando: Securing the Tor Browser Against De-Anonymization Exploits [pdf]	I've worked on this kind of thing before. This is generally a sane-looking protection mechanism, which would ideally be combined with a lot of other protection mechanisms, but the paper makes a few silly claims. To wit:<p>> For these reasons we assume that in a practical scenario the attacker cannot leak information that is not located on the heap, e.g., stack or code pages.<p>[..]<p>> Since the attackers can only disclose the virtual table pointer, but not the virtual table itself, as it is not on the heap, they cannot disclose gadget addresses.<p>[..]<p>> We therefore conclude that selfrando can thwart most real-world exploits. Attackers can only succeed in rare cases where they can disclose the complete heap and data section.<p>Yeah, no. It's actually not that hard to work around in most cases. You can't build a ROP chain in one step after leaking a vtable address, but typically the way you get into a ROP chain in the first place is by overwriting a vtable pointer, and often (albeit not always) you have a pretty wide selection of types of object to overwrite the vtable pointer from (because they all go in the same heap, though separated by size class). All you need is some object such that you can make a call to a native method from JavaScript and as part of its implementation, (ideally) exactly one virtual method on the object will end up being invoked, optimally with predictable parameters and with its return value carried back to JS. I only have experience with WebKit: in its case, most DOM objects are wrappers around a single C++ implementation object, and autogenerated glue code translates JavaScript calls to its methods into native calls to C++ methods with the same name, taking care of type checking and such. And many of those methods are virtual, which fits the bill very well. Firefox may be different, but I doubt it’s hard to find something that works.<p>A C++ virtual call, for anyone who doesn't know, works like this at an assembly level: (1) load the vtable pointer from the object (this is what's being overwritten); (2) add a fixed offset to get to the right index in the vtable; (3) load a function pointer from there; and (4) call it, with 'this' as an implicit first argument.<p>If you can leak any object's vtable pointer, and you know its offset in the original binary from the start of the data segment, you can calculate the address of anything in that segment. So you look for a function pointer (usually part of another vtable, but could be anything) to a function that has a similar signature to the method invoked by the JavaScript call, but does something more interesting. As a simple example, if the method has the signature "int calculateSomething(int value)", where you can control 'value' and get the return value, and you're on a 32-bit platform, you could find some virtual method that just returns a field from an object passed as a parameter - on any class anywhere in the codebase. You find the function pointer’s runtime address based on the leaked vtable pointer, subtract the fixed offset from the original method, and set that as your overwritten vtable pointer. Then you call the JavaScript method, passing some integer of your choice as a parameter... and execution passes to the new method, which dutifully treats the integer as a pointer, loads a value from it, and returns it to you. Voila, you can disclose whatever you want. After that, you have the whole Turing-complete JavaScript language to assist you in generating a ROP chain.<p>In practice it's usually somewhat more complicated than that. And this approach would be significantly mitigated if Selfrando randomized objects within the data segment rather than just functions. That wouldn't completely prevent it - for one thing you could try to find a replacement function at a different index within the original vtable, which must be kept contiguous, and there are other approaches - but it would help a lot. Considering that functions and data are pretty similar from the linker's perspective, I'm pretty curious why Selfrando doesn't do that.<p>Anyway, what they have implemented definitely won't "thwart most real-world exploits", unless the attackers are dumb, or reluctant to spend time adapting their exploit to the Tor Browser specifically. Personally, I usually use some sort of vtable confusion anyway just to defeat ASLR, so Selfrando probably wouldn't even affect me much...<p>Which is not to say it's not worth using.<p>Moving on:<p>> Based on these four observations, we examined the main TB library with selfrando enabled (libxul.so having a size of 92MB) to find out whether an attacker is able to disclose the address of a stack-pivot and a system call gadget based on addresses that can be found on the heap. We focus on stack-pivot and system call gadgets because they are less common, and therefore, harder to disclose compared to gadgets that only load a value into a register. In total, we found ten stack-pivot and 76 system call gadgets<p>If you only found 10 stack pivot gadgets in 92 MB, you <i>really</i> didn’t try very hard. I bet they didn’t consider jumping into the middle of instructions on x86. Not that that’s the only way to change %rsp.<p>> While software protected by selfrando works smoothly with unprotected libraries (and protected libraries work smoothly with unprotected programs), the security guarantees provided by selfrando are obviously limited to software that was re-built with selfrando. The TB includes most needed libraries, and hence, is not affected by this.<p>Does that means it statically links against <i>everything</i>, like GTK and glibc? I don’t think it does, though I could be wrong. In any case, that’s fundamentally impossible on OS X and Windows. You have to deal with system libraries in your address space. Finding their address is another matter, depending on the OS… I’ve never had to do much along these lines so I don’t know how hard/unreliable it is on different OSes to find pointers to system libraries in the heap, potentially guess an offset from the browser image itself… but anyway, the issue deserves consideration and the Tor Browser is certainly not “not affected”.<p>> Further, we found that some assembly instructions are sensitive to alignment, e.g., movdqa which is commonly used in the implementation of cryptographic functions.<p>> Moreover, we are working on a static analysis tool that can identify functions that contain these instructions, and mark them in the TRaP info so RandoLib can take their alignment constrains into account.<p>Huh? movdqa doesn’t need RIP to be aligned, it needs the operand to be aligned. The operand could be RIP-relative, but at least on OS X that means it points to the data segment, so there is a relocation for it and the reference will be rewritten appropriately. Does GNU sometimes embed constants in the text segment or something? I’ve never heard of that…<p>Anyway, you could just stick s/movdqa/movdqu before your assembler. On modern processors it’s no slower.<p>> Future Work<p>> We are currently working on improving operating specific features, such as the support for thread-local storage (TLS). TLS is heavily used in Firefox’s default heap allocator jemalloc, however, it is possible to build the TB using the default heap allocator provided by libc instead, which does not rely on TLS. In fact, the TB developers expressed their desire to use a different allocator as well [56].<p>Any fast allocator must use some form of thread-local storage, so a “desire to use a different allocator” is fairly irrelevant. In fact, glibc’s allocator uses it - I guess it must use it in a different way that doesn’t cause incompatibility…<p>I don’t have the slightest clue why Selfrando would be incompatible with thread-local storage, though.<p>If “operating specific” means “operating system specific”, surely making this work on anything other than Linux would be a useful such feature.
Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, but not to start one	Being headquartered in San Francisco, CA is "negatively correlated" (standard deviation when pooled with all cities: -0.5261) with having a successful exit.<p>Best cities/towns/etc (most correlated with experiencing an exit, rather than failing/floundering (shut down, or founded before 2004 + no exit/acquisition/IPO)) to create a startup:<p><pre><code> stddev Exits Total City 8.4678 143 207 Mountain View, CA USA 6.4855 130 356 London, H9 GBR 5.7360 15 25 Berlin, 16 DEU 4.5423 23 56 Tokyo, 40 JPN 4.5105 17 32 Richardson, TX USA 4.3559 56 159 Paris, A8 FRA 4.2118 44 99 Vancouver, BC CAN 4.1381 28 62 Montreal, QC CAN 4.0152 60 99 Waltham, MA USA 3.9462 57 138 Atlanta, GA USA 3.9414 14 21 Arlington, VA USA 3.8747 15 20 Foster City, CA USA 3.8528 14 41 Copenhagen, 17 DNK 3.7484 32 42 South San Francisco, CA USA 3.7131 14 31 Baltimore, MD USA 3.6728 39 79 Fremont, CA USA 3.4364 9 17 Irving, TX USA 3.3919 8 11 Chelmsford, MA USA 3.3833 5 7 Surry Hills, 2 AUS 3.3637 19 59 Bangalore, 19 IND 3.3335 11 24 Hamburg, 4 DEU 3.2568 19 36 Morrisville, NC USA 3.2101 10 29 Seoul, 11 KOR 3.1476 17 32 Bethesda, MD USA 3.1191 17 42 Cambridge, C3 GBR 2.9591 7 18 Zurich, 25 CHE 2.9566 7 7 Chapel Hill, NC USA 2.8746 11 32 St Louis, MO USA 2.8625 39 83 Boulder, CO USA 2.8225 35 69 Portland, OR USA 2.8000 45 128 Beijing, 22 CHN 2.7117 15 23 Aliso Viejo, CA USA 2.6170 13 19 Los Gatos, CA USA 2.4679 12 30 Helsinki, 13 FIN 2.4569 4 12 Istanbul, 34 TUR 2.4385 22 49 Minneapolis, MN USA 2.3187 21 72 Dublin, 7 IRL 2.3046 5 6 Burlington, ON CAN 2.2251 4 6 Kennesaw, GA USA 2.1569 8 12 Sterling, VA USA 2.1564 111 206 San Jose, CA USA 2.0461 37 58 Cupertino, CA USA 2.0432 20 36 Pasadena, CA USA 2.0180 7 8 Itasca, IL USA 1.9883 23 51 Ottawa, ON CAN 1.9772 5 6 Oak Brook, IL USA 1.9468 7 8 Westford, MA USA 1.9386 3 3 Gent, 8 BEL 1.9285 4 7 Delft, 11 NLD 1.9251 9 16 Beverly Hills, CA USA 1.8902 8 18 Oslo, 12 NOR 1.8785 4 7 Costa Mesa, CA USA 1.8746 13 37 Tampa, FL USA 1.8346 9 21 Jacksonville, FL USA 1.8340 13 18 San Bruno, CA USA 1.8246 7 10 Venice, CA USA 1.8117 16 50 Stockholm, 26 SWE 1.8010 8 15 Wilmington, DE USA 1.7720 7 19 Burnaby, BC CAN 1.7050 5 7 Kitchener, ON CAN 1.6856 6 16 Gurgaon, 10 IND 1.6729 398 807 New York, NY USA 1.6474 3 3 Fuzhou Shi, 3 CHN 1.6362 15 41 Madrid, 29 ESP 1.6145 2 5 Utrecht, 9 NLD 1.6135 5 11 Minnetonka, MN USA 1.5937 21 35 Milpitas, CA USA 1.5785 14 28 Mclean, VA USA 1.5671 6 11 Orem, UT USA 1.5587 3 8 Prague, 52 CZE 1.5505 3 3 Lake Forest, IL USA 1.5461 9 12 Alameda, CA USA 1.5459 4 14 Rio De Janeiro, 21 BRA 1.5402 9 14 El Segundo, CA USA 1.5240 8 17 West Hollywood, CA USA 1.5223 4 5 Doylestown, PA USA 1.5127 9 38 Sao Paulo, 2 BRA 1.4928 4 6 Arlington Heights, IL USA 1.4881 15 27 Marlborough, MA USA 1.4800 4 10 Stuttgart, 1 DEU 1.4516 7 11 Kfar Saba, 2 ISR 1.4352 5 13 Dubai, 3 ARE 1.4241 2 3 Blackrock, 7 IRL 1.4220 3 5 Roncade, 20 ITA 1.4157 3 8 Espoo, 13 FIN 1.3833 7 24 Vienna, 9 AUT 1.3667 5 6 Solana Beach, CA USA 1.3442 7 14 Mississauga, ON CAN 1.3139 7 10 Belmont, CA USA 1.3073 13 29 San Antonio, TX USA 1.2982 6 14 Buffalo, NY USA 1.2742 4 5 Ames, IA USA 1.2476 5 11 Abingdon, K2 GBR 1.2381 19 50 Washington, DC USA 1.2296 102 171 Cambridge, MA USA 1.2282 7 13 Westminster, CO USA 1.2127 5 12 Annapolis, MD USA 1.2056 2 2 Odense, 21 DNK 1.1670 2 2 West Des Moines, IA USA 1.1492 2 2 Notting Hill, 7 AUS 1.1480 3 7 Schaumburg, IL USA 1.1403 13 35 Plano, TX USA 1.1257 3 3 Sunrise, FL USA 1.1201 13 31 Ann Arbor, MI USA 1.0986 4 9 Halifax, NS CAN 1.0967 2 3 San Marcos, TX USA 1.0963 2 2 Mi Wuk Village, CA USA 1.0841 4 7 Newtown, PA USA 1.0752 3 4 Zug, 24 CHE 1.0658 37 74 Tel Aviv, 5 ISR 1.0643 10 34 Shenzhen, 30 CHN 1.0558 5 10 Munchen, 2 DEU 1.0379 5 5 Branford, CT USA 1.0283 3 3 Fredericton, NS CAN 1.0099 2 3 Pune, 16 IND 1.0033 4 8 Charleston, SC USA </code></pre> Worst:<p><pre><code> -9.2963 55 178 Los Angeles, CA USA -5.8472 13 135 Moscow, 48 RUS -4.2334 2 16 Quebec, QC CAN -4.1071 9 24 Berkeley, CA USA -3.9312 4 15 Lucerne Valley, CA USA -3.7260 63 124 Redwood City, CA USA -3.5625 2 10 Netanya, 2 ISR -3.3962 8 20 Newton, MA USA -3.3100 10 20 Princeton, NJ USA -3.2994 9 21 La Jolla, CA USA -2.8129 6 13 Petaluma, CA USA -2.5981 12 42 Raleigh, NC USA -2.3986 14 41 Brooklyn, NY USA -2.3916 4 10 Addison, TX USA -2.3777 59 155 Toronto, ON CAN -2.3297 2 6 Allentown, PA USA -2.2695 2 9 Edison, NJ USA -2.1975 1 5 Champaign, IL USA -2.1557 114 240 Austin, TX USA -2.0160 0 7 Livermore, CA USA -2.0154 127 244 Palo Alto, CA USA -1.9803 1 5 Blacksburg, VA USA -1.9321 4 20 Melbourne, 7 AUS -1.9214 13 34 Charlotte, NC USA -1.8469 0 4 City Of Industry, CA USA -1.8068 5 19 Rochester, NY USA -1.7758 1 4 Lod, 2 ISR -1.7431 0 3 Eatontown, NJ USA -1.7269 4 12 Wilmington, MA USA -1.7250 0 5 Owings Mills, MD USA -1.6628 5 13 New Haven, CT USA -1.6467 1 5 Golden, CO USA -1.6458 2 16 Memphis, TN USA -1.6433 0 5 Cedar Park, TX USA -1.6354 3 15 Santa Ana, CA USA -1.6351 9 17 Gaithersburg, MD USA -1.6102 35 99 Houston, TX USA -1.6033 0 3 Superior, WI USA -1.5757 0 10 Saint Petersburg, 66 RUS -1.5656 0 4 Tacoma, WA USA -1.5626 8 25 Orlando, FL USA -1.5451 0 9 Little Rock, AR USA -1.5421 1 7 Galway, 10 IRL -1.5226 9 41 Cleveland, OH USA -1.5176 1 6 Liverpool, H8 GBR -1.5007 5 30 Columbus, OH USA -1.4983 19 48 Philadelphia, PA USA -1.4838 0 4 Toledo, OH USA -1.4825 0 6 Newark, NJ USA -1.4783 26 83 Pittsburgh, PA USA -1.4602 15 35 Oakland, CA USA -1.4537 0 6 Sausalito, CA USA -1.4369 1 8 Kista, 26 SWE -1.4364 0 5 New Orleans, LA USA -1.3845 6 20 Newport Beach, CA USA -1.3755 1 8 Manchester, I2 GBR -1.3457 29 84 Dallas, TX USA -1.3180 0 8 Centennial, CO USA -1.2865 3 13 Charlottesville, VA USA -1.2839 0 5 Morgan Hill, CA USA -1.2704 1 4 Lawrenceville, GA USA -1.2478 1 6 Burbank, CA USA -1.2446 0 8 Tallinn, 1 EST -1.2440 87 157 San Mateo, CA USA -1.2188 4 13 Plymouth, MN USA -1.1966 0 3 Laguna Beach, CA USA -1.1938 26 64 Salt Lake City, UT USA -1.1711 0 9 Jakarta, 4 IDN -1.1672 43 106 Irvine, CA USA -1.1634 1 5 Guangdong, 5 CHN -1.1536 0 2 Orsay, A8 FRA -1.1421 0 2 Cherry Hill, NJ USA -1.1222 4 13 Longmont, CO USA -1.1221 0 3 Columbia, SC USA -1.1055 0 4 Laval, QC CAN -1.0837 0 2 Mountain, WI USA -1.0790 0 3 Gilbert, AZ USA -1.0743 4 7 Boxborough, MA USA -1.0369 0 2 Pittsburg, CA USA -1.0302 0 4 Napa, CA USA -1.0275 2 7 Clearwater, FL USA -1.0176 9 30 Indianapolis, IN USA -1.0122 0 9 Porto Alegre, 23 BRA</code></pre>
Englebart's Violin (2012)	Thanks for posting this 'DanBC, this is golden! It captures exactly the issues I sometimes rant about in UI/UX threads on HN - that the IT industry is focused on producing toys, not tools.<p>The article focuses on hardware, but its point is more general, it touches software too - basically the solutions developed both "by developers for developers" and those created for non-tech users. There are lots of things that worry/sadden me about this.<p>Within the industry, I'm tired of hearing comments like "don't use advanced feature X, it's hard for the junior programmers". Like, "don't use lambdas / streams in Java 8; it may be more readable for you, but it isn't for the cow-orkers who don't know lambdas". Well, one would think that it is expected of a professional to occasionally <i>learn some stuff</i>. But what I see instead is "best practices" aimed at the lowest common denominator creating a culture of code monkeys.<p>As for end-user software, I'm tired of ranting about it, and - as I learned from this post - Erik Naggum (like usual) does a much better way of explaining the problem. So I'll just end with a graph.<p><pre><code> power /-- ^ /---- professional \| /--- software \| --- \| / \| / \| / \| / \| / \| / \| / \| / \| / \| // \| /- \| /- \| /-- \| /- "user-friendly" \| /- software \| /- /--------------------- \| /------------------------------------- +----------------------- /- \| /---- \| /------ \| /------- \| /------ \|-- +--------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------> \| time \| \| point where companies make their sale and beyond which they don't give a shit anymore </code></pre> We could be doing <i>so much more</i> with the power of computing if only we gave up on the expectations that people have to master of their software tools in 15 seconds since first seeing them...
Ask HN: What is your best advice for a developer to write better code?	I'm self taught, and have been doing this professionally for 20 years. I started by learning the fundamentals, and then I started implementing RFC's myself (for things like web servers, ftp servers, SMTP, etc...). Then I went, and compared my solutions to the open source solutions, and tried to see what concepts I was missing. A reason I think this definitely helped me is because when I was creating my own projects, it's easy to decide not to implement a feature if you get stuck trying to figure out how to implement it, and becomes self limiting. Following a spec is going to be a lot closer to how you will work in the real world, and you aren't allowed to decide to just not include a feature because you get stuck.<p>The comments about writing lots of code are absolutely true, the more you write, the more mistakes you make, the more bugs you have will increase your experience with edge cases and common issues. It's invaluable.<p>When it comes to actual tips for the code quality itself, a good aim is to make the code readable, as opposed to understandable. Use longer variable names, and avoid single letter variable names. The goal is to make it obvious what your code is doing, you want to limit the comments to sections of the code that NEED them. Far too many developers get the "Comment all the things" dogma, and this just creates a mess. I see this far far too often:<p><pre><code> class Person { // Returns the first name of the person function FirstName() {...} } </code></pre> This is beyond useless. And remember code will begin to smell, but comments will begin to stink, so you want to make them only when clarification or additional information is required. If you find you have to comment all the time, then you need to work on your code composition and naming.<p>For flow, you want to make your code work, then refactor it to clean it up. Refactoring should be something you allow time for on any feature implementation. Never move onto another features saying "I'll clean that up later", you won't, or you will eventually because you've created a brittle mess.<p>Read other peoples code, and run it through a debugger. While I normally eschew debuggers except in fairly rare occasions, they can be invaluable about learning about patterns that you're not familiar with.<p>Try ditching the IDE. IDE's make your life easy, and they also often make you ignorant as to how your application actually works. Heavy handed namespacing languages like C# and Java are a little trickier to work with this way, but you will learn so much more about your application than you will being spoon fed everything. The reason this is important is something will eventually break, and it's far better to understand those underpinnings when building the app than when something breaks when you're staring down a deadline.<p>Read books about patterns, languages, etc..., and re-read them after you have been using the techniques for a while. Become familiar with the GoF design patterns, so you understand them, and understand when they're useful. Do not use them as a gospel. Pigeonholing in patterns where they don't belong will create worse code than if you hack together your own more appropriate method. But definitely use them when they fit.<p>Create an open source side project, and put it up on github. Good code involves interacting with other developers, and even if only 10 people are using your repo, you will learn all about pull-requests and merging, etc...<p>Teach what you know. You will be amazed at how much better you will understand a lot of concepts once you have to explain how they work. Even if it's just to a rubber duck.<p>Speaking of rubber ducks, when you get stuck on a problem, or you have a bug that seems illogical and you don't have someone handy to ask for help, explain the issue to a rubber duck. On our team, we'll often call another developer over, and while we explain the problem to them, before we're done explaining, we've already figured out what's wrong. Language uses a different area of the brain, and I suspect that by talking things out, your brain will approach the problem in a way different from the state we use for coding. (this is pure blatant speculation on my part).<p>Unit test, unit test, unit test. However, ignore coverage metrics, that's a huge waste of time. When you're starting out, write all the tests, but be sure to observe all the instances where the unit test actually identified an issue in the application. You'll always want to unit test your business logic, but avoid testing everything and never test for things that are impossible to occur. Also never test anything but your own code, I've seen fat too many instances of unit tests that simply add a suite of tests to jQuery or some other library. But do assure that you are able to handle bad input, regardless of here it comes from.<p>Don't be clever. Sure, you can make an easily readable 7 lines of code into a clever one liner that only you understand because you're oh so smart. But don't do it. When you're writing code, you're doing it at the height of your understanding of the system at the time. So even if you're the only eyes that see it, as you move on to other projects, you will no longer be as 'smart' in that codebase. This is especially true when you switch between languages frequently. Beyond that, you probably won't be the only person looking at your code, so write the code (as much as possible) to allow a non-developer to be able to get a sense of what's going on.<p>Avoid magic strings. What this means is that a string generally shouldn't be used to determine the execution path of code. A simple spelling mistake can be very difficult to detect, and there aren't any tools that can assist. Enums, constants, or named integers are far safer.<p>Take breaks, get exercise, and don't try to code for every waking hour. If you're in flow, and making real progress this is fine, but if you're just working the hours and aren't making a lot of headway, a good nights sleep will go a lot further than another 4 hours of a fatigued brain. Seriously, sleep at least 8 hours, your ability to learn and remember is entirely based on your REM cycles, when the brain essentially writes from it's cache to permanent storage and cleans up the toxins from the day. Without sufficient sleep, you will not remember what you did, and you will not learn from the mistakes you made and new understandings you would have otherwise acquired.<p>Never copy and paste from SO or other snippet that you find to solve your problem. Read the example and understand what is going on in the snippet. Then hide the browser and type it in as you understand it to work. I came up with a rule for my first team 15 years ago, and that was to never insert code into a project that you don't understand. If you don't understand it when you add it, you won't understand it any better when that code breaks.
Group of Researchers Holds the Key to Using AI to Solve Real Human Problems	Greg Borenstein, the author of this Medium post, is a researcher at MIT Media Lab, so we can assume he's a smart guy. The post is well-written in the sense that the sentences flow well from one to the next -- but they also contain some deep factual misstatements:<p>> <i>And then, as Deep Learning gained more support from big companies like Google and Facebook, it started to produce achievements that were legible — and extremely impressive — to the wider public. AlphaGo won historic victories against the world’s leading Go players. IBM Watson dominated human players at Jeopardy on network TV.</i><p>While IBM's current business unit Watson may employ deep learning here and there, IBM Watson, the technology responsible for its Jeopardy victory in 2011, had absolutely zero to do with deep learning. It's not part of the same trend at all. The Watson team at that time was not inspired by Hinton et al to apply deep learning to NLP for the purpose of answering trivia questions.<p>Which leads us to this, the supposed reveal:<p>> <i>But now for a splash of cold water: while AI systems have made rapid progress, they are nowhere near being able to autonomously solve any substantive human problem.</i><p>Self-driving vehicles are a substantive human problem, and deep learning is at the heart of the computer vision technologies that help steer them. Most tasks of machine perception, whether we're dealing with images, time series, sound or text, have seen great gains as well. Insubstantive? Hardly. For a brief review of deep neural networks and a non-exhaustive list of what they can do, please see these pages:<p><a href="http://deeplearning4j.org/neuralnet-overview.html" rel="nofollow">http://deeplearning4j.org/neuralnet-overview.html</a><p><a href="http://deeplearning4j.org/use_cases.html" rel="nofollow">http://deeplearning4j.org/use_cases.html</a><p>If Borenstein means that AI doesn't solve problems by itself without human intervention, well, sure. But nobody is saying that it does, so it would be a strange straw man to argue against. It's like saying: Beware of chicken -- it does not roast itself! Do humans need to be involved in constructing and tuning AI solutions? Of course they do.<p>Here's what Borenstein is driving at:<p>> <i>What’s needed for AI’s wide adoption is an understanding of how to build interfaces that put the power of these systems in the hands of their human users. What’s needed is a new hybrid design discipline, one whose practitioners understand AI systems well enough to know what affordances they offer for interaction and understand humans well enough to know how they might use, misuse, and abuse these affordances.</i><p>So human-computer interfaces and augmented intelligence are the only "substantive" human problems Borenstein recognizes. While those are great problems to work on, I think few people would actually agree with him that they are the only significant problems to be solved.<p>> <i>As Recurrent Neural Nets surpass Convolutional Neural Nets only to be outpaced by Deep Reinforcement Learning which in turn is edged out by the inevitable Next Thing in this incredibly fast moving field...</i><p>This is unfortunately untrue. While they have some overlap, CNNs and RNNs both do great on different problems, and few researchers would claim that one has surpassed the other, or that RL has surpassed them both. (Yann LeCun would be especially surprised to hear that...) DeepMind's AlphaGo algorithm <i>combines</i> CNNs with RL with Monte Carlo Tree Search, meaning the best algorithms arise from combinations, rather than winning a horse race.<p>Such a poor understanding of these algorithms bodes ill for Mr. Borenstein's attempts to bring it to the masses by building a Visicalc equivalent for AI...<p>> <i>The core job of most machine learning systems is to generalize from sample data created by humans. The learning process starts with humans creating a bunch of labeled data.... At the end of training the learning algorithm produces a classifier</i><p>Mr. Borenstein has glossed over unsupervised learning, which deep learning can perform well and which has no need of labeled data. Unsupervised learning can be used for both search and anomaly detection, two enormous problems. This omission makes many of his subsequent assertions irrelevant or wildly off base when applied to ML as a whole. He's really just talking about classifiers.<p>On the subject of building classifiers, yes, we do need systems that allow us to label data easily, we need to improve them. Crowdflower and Mechanical Turk are two tools that researchers use now, and many companies roll their own solutions in house. Unsupervised learning does not have that problem.<p>> <i>So, if we want to build systems that users trust and that we can rapidly improve, we should select algorithms not just for how often they produce the right answer, but for what hooks they provide for explaining their inner workings.</i><p>This is one of the most baffling sentences in the whole essay. If we were to select algorithms for their explanatory power, we would not be working with deep neural networks at all, because they lack feature introspection. And by doing that, we would give up most of the gains AI has made in recent years. His stance is perplexing and scientifically regressive.<p>While I support initiatives that integrate AI and HCI to augment UX and technology in general, I find this essay to be a particularly poor expression of efforts in that direction. It's disappointing to see a researcher employ the sensationalist tactics, subtle falsehoods and exaggerations of the press to draw attention to his writing and school of thought, and it does not do credit to his cause.
Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World	I read all comments on HN so far here. No mention to the huge shift in South America.<p>Also I am from Brazil.<p>First, what I mean by huge shift:<p>During cold war, us backed, violently (for example by threatening to bomb rio de janeiro with and aircraft carrier if the then elected president resisted the coup, and later with cia "disappearing" dissidents, and actually bombing other countries) a couple of brutal dictatorships.<p>When cold war ended and people wanted change, left wing parties, some that were guerrilla during the cold war and also had lots of blood on their hands (and they fought for communist victory, not for freedom as people like to believe) decided to use the opportunity to take power themselves and join the establishment.<p>The left created an organization named foro de São Paulo, and steadily won elections (not necessarily fairly...) and managed to take over almost every single country in South America.<p>Then, they implemented policies that remember us democratic party policies, not truly left or communist, but a big state, with socialist and neoliberal policies, lots of crony capitalism, with money flowing freely between big corporations and politicians.<p>Now they are all falling, but we are not sure who will take their place, Argentina had Maurício Macri victory, Brazil is seeing a rising popularity of Jair Bolsonaro (kinda like a brazilian Trump, except he explicitly defended the cold war dictatorship, militarism and torture), other countries are also unstable or trying to open without losing power (Cuba for example... that is one of the foro de São Paulo founding members)<p>I wrote all this to say that those dismissing the headline because it is only about us and uk are wrong.<p>-------------<p>Now about the subject.<p>I am someone that grew up with a leftward education, but shifted to a reactionary/regressive right wing view in my adulthood. I will write some points as for why, and I am sure a couple of them will fit for most Trump/brexit/Bolsonaro/golden dawn/that rising Japanese nationalist party voters.<p>Where I started: my dream as a kid was have a completely normal life, wife, kids, "salaryman" job. My political position was that "capitalists" (what now I know are cronism) were hurting people, and that everyone having equal rights and opportunity is great.<p>1. Women didn't get the right to work, they already had that right, during industrial revolution they were the main workforce...<p>2. Women instead lost the right to be mothers, they were obliged to work, obliged to compete with men, wanting to be mother, have low status but easier job, or not wanting to earn like men and work like men became a bad thing, enemy of "the cause".<p>3. Workforce suddenly doubled. And when corporations noticed.<p>4. In a world with rising automation, sudden workforce doubling is bad idea.<p>5. Look at the average income of the average person (not family) in us since feminism rise in the 60s. You will see wages are declining.<p>6. Look for white men in their 35s wage and full employment in us, compare it to counties that had major votes toward Trump.<p>7. Divorce laws became very strong, including allowing divorce for no reason at all. Most divorces, in the entire world, are initiated by women, here in Brazil women initiate 73% of divorces, most of them with no justification.<p>8. Look into divorce statistics, amount of divorces.<p>9. Why a sane man now would marry? you go, marry, and get no rights, only obligations and the risk of a divorce fucking up your life.<p>10. Divorce is a major cause os suicide among men. Look into us statistics for death rate of white men middle aged over time. Again compare with Trump voter map.<p>11. Women now don't need men, they are more educated, more employed, die much less on workplace, die less by suicide, die less by violence. sadly women also love to point all that to their boyfriends too.<p>12. So, you want a career, the fad now is science, computers and engineering, you plan in working until you are "stable" enough to take care of potential kids in a potential divorce. why do you need me then? and who want kids of a "old" woman where the pregnancy is riskier and kids have more "birth defects"?<p>13. Still women want to fuck, drink, play and get wasted much as men. Awesome, no need to get married to get sex anymore!<p>14. Women is now pregnant of a random stranger. She said it is "her body", also, pension laws are very unfair... let "her body" then abort or not and care for the kid.<p>15. Look for how many fatherless kids there are in western world.<p>16. Look for what percentage of people in prison are fatherless (from both single, and divorced mothers with full custody).<p>17. So, I am stupid, decided to get educated even if it is pointless because the generation that then were adults told me to do so. Now I have thousands of debt, never got a salaried legal job, don't have a house, pay rent through the nose, don't have a car either.<p>18. Oh, ecenomy crisis hit! House prices fall but are still unaffordable and I still have too much debt and no credit. rent is still rising despite housing price falling. My landlord owns the entire building and more half of the other buildings in the block and in a couple more city blocks. he kicks me out anyway when my startuo fails.<p>19. Adult, near my 30s, in debt, still never found my first salaried job. Didn't found yet a girl that wants to be mom or that doesn't mind a bearded dude that live with his mom.<p>20. Decide to explain how life is going bad, people tell me I have white privilege becauset I am half-white. Being partially white is seemly enough to "owe my soul" to black people, according to a USP student.<p>21. Being partially white also means my house is fair game for blacks to invade and steal 8 times.<p>22. Can't complain, I am "privileged".<p>23. Complain anyway, now I am privileged due to being male/straight/young<p>24. Decide to discuss politics, get kicked out/banned/driven off before I voice my opinion just because I have white looking skin (nevermind the black person nose on the middle of my face) or for being male.<p>25. Get embraced by /pol/, trumpists, bolsonarists, men rights, etc...<p>26. Organizations there full of bigoted batshit crazy racists and gymnophones (people that fear women, usually guys that were mocked for being raped, scammed or had their lives destroyed by women). But they are the only ones willing to discuss my problems.<p>27. All I wanted was job, wife, kids and normal life. There are no jobs, women don't want to marry and when they do they divorce, and take your kids with them. And doesn't matter where I go, people hate me because I am white straight male. Except when I go near neo Nazi/pol/trumpists/bolsonarists, they like me, even if I am half black. They are actually tolerant...
How do police handle violence in countries where officers don’t carry guns?	> Another week, another police shooting in the United States. So far this year, 569 people have be killed by US police, according to The Guardian’s count. Police brutality is a horrific normality and, in more ways than one, black men being shot by police has become the modern-day equivalent of lynching.<p>This is greatly exaggerated. It makes it sound like black men are being gunned down by police left and right, usually without justification, and it makes it sound like the majority of people shot by police are black.<p>Black men <i>are</i> being shot at a higher rate than other groups (except for Native Americans), but they are only about 1/4 of the police shootings. Here are numbers as of a few days ago:<p>Number shot in 2016:<p><pre><code> • 10 Asian/Pacific Islanders • 13 Native Americans • 40 Other/Unknown • 88 Hispanic/Latino • 136 Black • 279 White </code></pre> Here are the rates per one million group population:<p><pre><code> • 0.56 Asian/Pacific Islander • 1.41 White • 1.59 Hispanic/Latino • 3.23 Black • 3.4 Native American </code></pre> Source: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/0...</a><p>To try to get a better idea of what is actually going on, I used a random number generator to pick 10 entries from the list of 2016 police killings at <a href="http://www.killedbypolice.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.killedbypolice.net/</a> and looked at each and classified it as either "Justified" or "Not Justified".<p>KilledByPolice.net tries to keep a running list of all police killings in the US, and for each they give race/ethnicity, gender, age, state, and links to the news report on the killing and to the KilledByPolice Facebook post on the killing (which usually duplicates that news link, but also includes followup news stories).<p>Here were the 10 that I looked at, my summary of the facts as gleaned from the news reports, and my verdict as to whether it was justified or not justified.<p>Keep in mind that this was only a sample of ten. I'd be curious to see other people's sampling results (or even better, the results of someone with the time and interest to go through them all and classify them as justified or not).<p>The numbering in this list matches the numbering at KilledByPolice.net.<p>#94, black male. He was fleeing from an arrest attempt, slipped and fell, and a gun that had been concealed fell out. The officer told him not to reach for the gun. The suspect reached for the gun, and was shot. (It later turned out the gun was just a BB gun, but the officer did not know that). My verdict: Justified.<p>#110, white female. She was the wife of a reserve office. He was cleaning his gun in their home and it accidentally fired, shooting her. My verdict: Not Justified (although also not criminal).<p>#263, white male. Former officer, fell on hard times and turned to robbery. Killed 2 people during a robbery, and then was killed by police who arrived in response to that. My verdict: Justified.<p>#272, white male. Suspect was driving/parking suspiciously. Officer talked to him, then headed back to patrol car. Suspect started shooting at the officer, officer shot back. My verdict: Justified.<p>#328, latino male. Burglar, with knife holding a hostage when police arrived and shot him. My verdict: Justified.<p>#398, black male. Armed robber, shot at officers several times and hit one. They shot back. My verdict: Justified.<p>#446, white male. Man walking down the center of the street, bare chested, complaining of chest pains. Police and paramedics arrived to help and/or take him to the hospital. Man became combative and police handcuffed him. He then went into medical distress. CPR was given, but he dies on the scene. I'm unsure how to score this one...it is not clear it should even count as a police killing. However, if I'm going to rate every item as either "justified" or "not justified", then I'll give it: Not Justified.<p>#475, latino male. Shot a customer in an auto detail shop, then shot at responding officers who shot him. My verdict: Justified.<p>#505, white male. Police responding to a 911 call about gunshots and a woman yelling for help got the wrong address. The man who answered at that address had a gun, and ignored police orders to drop it. It's unclear whether or not the police identified themselves sufficiently, and there had been a home invasion next door not too long before, so I'm going to tentatively call this one Not Justified.<p>#535, white male. Reports of a drunk driver causing damage. Police find the car, but the driver is gone. While the officer was working on paperwork, the driver returned and pulled a gun out of his car. The officer struggled with him for control of the gun, and another officer arrived and jumped in to help. After over a minute of struggling, and dozens of commands to drop the weapon, one of the officers finally shot the suspect. (It later turned out the gun was just a BB pistol, but it looked like a regular gun). My verdict: Justified.<p>So...that's 7 justified, 3 not justified.<p>Of the three that I classified as not justified, only one remotely fits into the trigger-happy police narrative.<p>This is quite different from the impression I would have if I had relied solely on what the press is telling me about US police shootings.
Ex-Googlers have spent 2 years secretly solving 'the hardest problem in banking'	Alright, my turn. The bankers want back-end software that's near 100% uptime, cost-effective, future-proof, flexible for integrations, and secure. They have all of those but cost-effective and flexible. The next architecture will have to do better on those. We'll start with a sort-of, three-tier architecture & client-server model since those have been analyzed to death with tons of tool support for getting them right.<p>First, the datastore that simply stores raw data everything else depends on. The datastore will be bootstrapped on HP NonStop or OpenVMS clusters to inherit their high-availability. These systems already run banking backends in multiple datacenters with automatic failover and no lost transactions in specific, case studies. Decade plus uptime is not uncommon. They're also way cheaper than mainframes with more support for modern SW & easier to access for ISV's. The software itself will be built to have minimal dependence on underlying platform with tools to rapidly export data, sync with, or switch to a replacement. The will be a licensed copy of Google's F0 RDBMS on OpenBSD & reliable servers rewritten in the manner about to be described. If not, then something similar. :)<p>The core, banking stack. This is the banking software for withdrawls, deposits, basic security checks, audit events, and so on. Anything that's happening constantly in real-time with high-criticality. This will be contracted to Altran/Praxis who will apply Correct-by-Construction method to produce it in C, SPARK, and Rust simultaneously. Best available tools for static analysis and testing will be applied to each to catch whatever others miss. Prior work in just SPARK has almost no defects. A combination of simplified components with extra checkers should further reduce that. The protocols will be contracted to Galois Inc to do in TLA+ and Haskell. Especially generic, secure, messaging protocols to replace SWIFT. Altran will implement anything Galois finalizes to integrate with rest of system. Paid, peer review by people with track record of finding esoteric flaws will occur for each of the deliverables.<p>The client, presentation, and application layers' hardware will be SAFE architecture (crash-safe.org) or CHERI CPU's (CheriBSD). These will be implemented with Leon3-FT processors on a Silicon-on-Insulator node with ChipKill and ECC RAM. They will run minimal OS's created for embedded systems with proven reliability & performance. Those will be modified to support security features of processors plus support security labels for users & apps. Each machine, a la DiamondTEK LAN, will have PCI cards (or on-SOC HW) that authenticates users on trusted path, checks system integrity, end-to-end encrypts all data, and especially tags/checks packets with security labels of users & apps. Specific hardware modules will exist with data diodes to constantly sniff network, transaction, and audit trails to check them against a security policy. Similar one for reliability and performance of network.<p>The software stack will akin to REBOL's reblets and container apps. The apps will be isolated on microkernels with basic, GUI forms. These apps will be developed in both a safe, systems language plus an information flow language like SIF. The systems will be shown with analysis & testing to be free of common errors. Information flow analysis will prevent common forms of information leak and security breach. The apps will integrate with trusted hardware to pass labels along. The server apps will pick up those labels & continue to factor them into their operations. Over time, the tooling will mature to automate these operations with only basic annotations by programmers plus a formal, security policy by administrators.<p>People still need to get work done in terms of Internet research, report writing, and so on. OSS apps for these will be ported to the platform overtime. Meanwhile, the client-nodes will support physical virtualization whereby those nodes can run on a PC with mediated, information sharing and built-in KVM. Users simply press a button to be in a regular desktop. Documents and such will be done in easy-to-analyze formats that are checked by a guard upon transfer. Those files are also labeled. Anything that goes into the trusted machine will be shown in text form for visual confirmation by operator plus automatically sanity-checked & logged for any other auditing. Overall process will be like switching tabs + drag n drop to encourage users to work with security features instead of against them.<p>The corporate itself will be a non-profit. The charter will put a cap on how much profit it can take with a lean approach to administrative expenses, limits on executive compensation, and limits on management-to-staff ratio. Incoming revenue is to be put into further QA/pentesting of platform, development of it, support to customers, consulting for integration/extensions, datacenters for availability, and so on. The nonprofit will be established in a jurisdiction with strong laws favorable to honest banking plus minimal corruption. Its operations will be audited by third-parties who also have their own, dedicated hardware & cages. These factors will collectively eliminate or reduce the risks of VC-backed sellouts, management cooking the books, top-heavy organizations, and stagnation from lock-in.<p>OK. So, let's summarize. The hardware itself will be simple but highly reliable. The software is done in languages immune to most coding errors with high-level properties precisely specified, checked, and pentested. The two integrate well to eliminate abstraction gap attacks. The initial backend is software that has over a decade of uptime with modern stuff coming online <i>if possible</i>. The non-core apps on client and server encode sensible use into information flow policies that are checked in several places & efficiently. All apps and network are black-box to attackers with tons of defense in depth. Insider risk reduced as they put individual name & reputation on each action with mutually-suspicious auditing they can't remotely sabotage due to data diodes. All of this tech already exists in either prototype or production form with suitable substitutes for prototypes that turn out infeasible to use. It's also legally setup to be more trustworthy in terms of what people will do & long-term benefit. Initial development costs would be <i>huge</i> but the first year without mainframes and SWIFT will probably pay it off. Especially spread out among numerous banks investing.
On Being a Black Man	These are interesting. As usual, I have some points from personal experience as a white minority and others just general. His bullet list is mostly good to illustrate what he's describing as racial bias affecting him. However, a few got my attention more than others.<p>"Being mistaken for another Black person at work"<p>This is common and should be expected by any minority anywhere if significant differences exist between how two groups identify their members. The reason is that intuitive parts of the brain work based on what input they've received so far. They generalize the patterns out of the data, especially relevant vs data to ignore. Then, they use that for classifying or reacting to new data. Further, what varies the most on Black people is different than what varies the most on white people. Both sides get used to focusing on details important in their area. Simply put, these people probably see very few Black people, look for different traits for identifying them, and therefore suck at differentiating Black people in a casual way (i.e. not focusing).<p>Just need more Black people in Silicon Valley to increase exposure. Then, this problem starts going away. Meanwhile, it's somethign that sucks a bit but isn't necessarily racism. Just how the mind works that forces a person to work to get noticed & remembered. Happens to me, too, since I intentionally look plain (but nice) to differentiate which people are worth my time. People even trip over me in stores sometimes because they can't remember they saw me. Unless I wear a hoodie: almost everyone, esp cops, sees me then haha.<p>"Being asked things like, “So, what’s it like being a Black guy in Silicon Valley?”"<p>May be good or bad. Many people are curious about others' experiences. Yet, despite this being a problem, he's writing an article on what it's like being a Black guy in Silicon Valley. He feels better getting it out of his system and possibly hopes to help others understand the perspective. Similar to why some ask. They can't ask but do tell.<p>"Feeling out of place when I can’t identify with certain pop culture references or cultural norms"<p>That's due to both location and race. It was very hard to keep up with the Black ones as a white minority since both the references and the language itself change so fast. I stayed confused by something even when I got a lot of it. Just nodded, grinned, or looked shocked like the rest. So, I relate to this one as a painful, social barrier that will persist unless he embeds a lot with white culture and activities as I had to do with Blacks. It will still persist but he'll have it easier since whites prefer people acting more like them. It's the opposite with Blacks, at least in the South, where they often get angry if whites imitate their culture.<p>"Being the most athletic person in a particular group, and having people say things like, “…of course it would be the Black guy”"<p>Black people have been telling me for years they're better at sports. All kinds of them young and old. This is one of those things, though, that I wonder if Blacks themselves put into white consciousness. I wondered it myself at one point as a kid thanks to them repeating it nonstop. Especially over basketball and boxing. I'm not sure how long or far Blacks have been saying it due to lack of broader data. Could be white sourcing, too.<p>"Feeling like I was chosen for certain photo/video opportunities at work and during other activities to feign diversity and acceptance"<p>This one is more open for debate as it looks totally racist at first. Then, you have to think of all the lawsuits by Jesse Jackson et al where they look at number of Black people, what they make, what words people used, what relationships were like, and so on to argue for massive, financial damages. These events are probably the rare case but will be on media enough to put them into white, management's minds. You also look many Blacks pushing for affirmative action or voluntary quotas to "embrace diversity." With that backdrop, many will try to reduce liability, improve image, or both by hiring some more Blacks or other minorities. They'll also try to show it so people notice. So, this is another case where specific groups of Blacks and/or liberals in general act in a way that, combined with media and whites' own thinking, collectively increases odds Black people might be treated this way. I even warned them it would happen when I opposed most forms of affirmative action & associated liabilities.<p>Those being hired might be anything from "token hires" to the minority member among several qualified candidates. The latter isn't so bad but the former can make for very, bad situation. This dynamic sucks for all the races and any solution I've presented came with realistic objections from some party involved. One I promoted a long time ago a combo of blind auditions & performance reviews from third party along with, if even applied, quotas only for qualified candidates that resulted from auditions. Everyone, whether ideal candidate or not, will know they earned their place with race/gender having minimal impact. Tricky thing to promote for many reasons. Given that, it was extra-neat for me reading here about GapJumpers putting similar ideas in action. Time will tell...<p>"At a certain point in my life, I realized that I had no positive role models (let alone ones I could relate to), so I set out to become a positive role model for my siblings. I didn’t want them to have to resort to gangs, violence, or go looking for love to find ways to identify with others and gain acceptance. I wanted them to learn to love themselves, and learn to love & empathize with others."<p>Should've been the conclusion. This is <i>exactly</i> how the most awesome and successful Blacks formed in the down-trodden areas I was in. Probably most from any race if I thought about it more. Just was studying Blacks more as they were the majority. I just noticed, in hateful schools, there were people that were different. They treated whites as well as anyone else, judging on words and actions. Nothing could hold them back academically with some exceeding me with sheer determination & effort. Later learned their parents and role models, including some teachers, were probably the reason. So, I wish the man success on helping his siblings achieve greatness by teaching <i>and showing</i> them. Great stuff.
Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life	Hey I am 25 live in the Uk for some context however relevant right I think I know exactly what your feeling and I hope the answer I share lifts all anxiety and ushers in peace.First off congratulations on finishing I can imagine it was tough to complete but you did it! Secondly forgive me for any punctuation or grammar mistakes I'm writing this from an iPhone as it's late here laptops off and I'm reading hacker news before bed.<p>So you've played the game of life and at the end when we all believed education lead to success we realise we have been bamboozled. The "feeling lost" is because of this, you felt somewhere on a subconscious level that if you achieved this thing then it would secure you potentially financially or more so directionally as in it would lead you to the next step.What is evident is that it hasn't and the reason why or part of the reason is that we have not taken the time to truly get in touch with our true self the self that wanted to be a artist but through social pressures or the need to conform like a pre commenter put we have ignored that sentiwnt skill shouting within saying our true desires until it became a whisper and then a faint cry.This was reinforced by the fact that in school we know in X months time we will receive a result dictating our progression to the next level or path this gets repeated a fair number of times if you add up each exam each year up until college (your equivalent to university) so we develop a carrot and stick approach believing that the next thing will be better / progression and thus drawing is closer to this ever elusive victory. It's a lie the wizard is just a man being a curtain.In deadling with the going back to school premise you mentioned I wouldn't if the reason was based on fear I.e scared of not wanting to be a jobless person and so we go to what we have known all our life that being education.If after months of mulling you honestly thought that this would allow you to feel fulfilled and was your calling then by all means go back to school.<p>Being more than a 9-5 ---------------------- Being more than a 9-5 that emotion your feeling is your inner self the one you quieted earlier in your life (for those that jumped to here please read prior to this it's mentioned above ) that knows what you want and has always known.You are more but you've played a game which teaches you to compete,quiet this type of self reflection and expressiveness ,not be creative and not to go against the system which churns out people that are meant to think a certain way. Your emotions are powerful they are actually indicators to whether your flowing with life or against it ,the true nature of humans is joy when I code or solve a problem or workout or write an observation I feel joy I don't feel resistance.The resistance your feeling is your inner senses telling you that something is not right we are not flowing.<p>So what are you trying to tell me?That I can dodge bullets? ----------------------------- Lol excuse the title I know when I get on a prose like this it can come across stoic and impractical so I just took the matrix quote as neo was feeling the same thing when answering Morpheus.<p>What I would do or better yet what I have done ...the first year of uni I felt the same thing lost and I was just staring at my impending doom.So what I did is this: -Be grateful you finished a huge degree and maybe through your humility (which I respect)you didn't mention the joy or thankfulness of completing that .When your constantly grateful you rarely feel jealously or hate as your just grateful with being/existing.<p>-Don't give this a heavy weighting.This is just a situation no different than breaking a nail because it involves your life you may feel overwhelmed and therefore make rash decisions so treat this as anything else a momentary situation that has a solution that will come to you as the observation of something missing is the first step to finding it.<p>-Get honest with yourself what are you about do you like business or did you just do it as the prospectus of a reputable company sounded good? it sounds like your a very social person who wears their heart on their sleeve so maybe there's a talent you can leverage.Whatever it is find it.<p>-Take some time out anytime you feel lost its just a sign that we may be off track from our inner compass so maybe 2 weeks away if not possible then maybe a weekend away with just yourself.The reason I stress just you is because you need to get in tune with yourself which is achievable in quiet space so that you can hear that inner murmur of what you want to do turn into a roar.Note this isn't running away from the problem the problem exists within you,your going away to break the habitual ways of your life which have potentially got you into this chasing the elusive carrot activity.<p>-Remove the ego now there's people who are lawyers my because it was their God given talent but because it "paid well" this is ridiculous understand the need for pecuniary stability but for me to do something that's not aligned with what I believe to be my calling is not only fake but ridden with stress and unfulfillment and you can see that with 1 in 5 multi million dollar CEOs being depressed.So kick the ego if your inner self says you should be a dog walker then be a dog walker walk dogs with grace and poise and I guarantee you won't feel judgement or even care for what people say as you will be fulfilled you have a business degree so maybe you can make a business out of It why not .Taking a pause from social media may help you during this phase as social media flashes information that not only can trigger you to keep up with the Jones' but also harbours a competitive mindset which will have you doing things you don't want to do just to appear a certain way to your peers.<p>-meditate for 15 minutes twice a day the reason for this is that you need to still that mind I can imagine right now it's busy telling you all sorts of lies like people think I'm a failure in lost ,I wasted my life all these are lies and it's just the self which has always had a carrot at the end of the year waking up to find that there's no carrot coming this time as education is over.In stilling the mind your able to gain connection back to the inner self which is the true self.<p>-exercise more or start this is just the ying and yang ,night and day to meditation tiny Robbins says fear which you may feel is a physically thing so get the body fit as well as the mind.<p>Finally I would urge you to consider this most time we feel lost or stressed or self defeating its because we have attached our self to a thing ... Take this, you eat a banana but you would never say you are a banana as that is ridiculous,but look at this you meet people and the first thing they say is I'm insert your job here and Pause for admiration.You are not your current situation the fact that you feel lost only once finishing your degree is potentially down to the fact that during your degree you was a student you associated with being a business student and it gave you a blanket and some direction till all you was ,was a student .Now your not a student you have lost that and hence feel lost but the truth was you wasn't a student that was just what you were doing it wasn't the entire being that is you.<p>I am not saying be nothing and go the Himalayas and meditate for 15 years.Have goals it's fine my goal is to grow spiritually physically and Mentally in all ways possible I'm no fool we live in the weatern world so some goals cater to the ways of this society but above all I have spiritual goals to ensure whatever I attain I feel fulfilled and counter intuitively can live without as just being gives me joy.Start tuning into your self and as you pay attention to your self through )taking care of the self through the methods above )then the self will communicate more clearly with you and I know for sure the path will be clear.
Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change	Some points:<p>(1) Does the climate change? Apparently. E.g., we had <i>glaciations</i>, most recently IIRC, about 12,000 years.<p>(2) What is a <i>greenhouse gas</i>: Leading examples are water vapor, CO2, and methane. Each of these is transparent to visible light, e.g., if water vapor or CO2 were not transparent to visible light, then we could see our breath as we exhale. So, since greenhouse gasses are transparent to visible light, visible light from the sun passes through greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, strikes the surface of the earth, and gets absorbed by and warms the surface. That warmer surface then radiates as in Planck black body radiation. That radiation is mostly out in the infrared we cannot see with our eyes. But here is what a greenhouse gas does: It absorbs the Planck black body infrared radiation from the surface of the earth, gets warmer, and warms the atmosphere. Without a greenhouse gas, that infrared radiation might just continue and escape into outer space. The glass in the ceiling of a greenhouse works similarly -- it lets visible light from the sun in but blocks infrared light from the warm interior surfaces of the greenhouse from getting out (there is some controversy in how a greenhouse works, but a greenhouse is still the source of the term <i>greenhouse</i> gas).<p>(3) Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, CO2 in the atmosphere warms it? Yup.<p>(4) What are the sources of CO2 in the atmosphere? I don't have good data on all the sources and how much each contributes (it's not clear that anyone does). Supposedly one of the largest sources is volcanoes, and there we have to count the ones under the oceans, too. Supposedly rotting vegetation is a source. All animals exhale CO2. Burning fossil fuels, wood, etc. releases CO2. Baking calcium carbonate to make lime for cement, etc., releases CO2. Supposedly a large source of CO2 is the oceans: Supposedly warmer water can absorb less CO2. So, as ocean water warms, from circulation, volcanoes, the seasons, warmer climate, etc., CO2 can be emitted. A guess is that the oceans are an overwhelmingly large store of CO2 and a major source/sink of CO2 (as a <i>source</i> emits CO2, a <i>sink</i> absorbs it). Yes, rotting vegetation emits CO2, but, then, sure, as that vegetation originally grew, it was a sink of CO2.<p>(5) Does CO2 absorb all the infrared light? Nope, not even close. CO2 absorbs in just three narrow frequency bands, one for each of bending, twisting, and stretching of the molecule. More generally, say, for other gasses, the subject is <i>molecular spectroscopy</i>, based on, e.g., quantum mechanics, some group theory, etc.<p>(6) Okay, CO2 is a greenhouse gas and, thus, warms the atmosphere. If someone lights a match, then that, too, will warm the atmosphere. A question is, how much? In particular, how much CO2 warms the atmosphere how much?<p>So, we believe that what CO2 does follows only from well understood principles of physics and chemistry. For large changes in CO2 concentrations over long terms, say, centuries, maybe we would have carefully to consider biology, that is, how plants, the oceans, etc., respond to the extra CO2.<p>But, already just for small changes in CO2 over just a few decades, apparently the calculations from principles in physics and chemistry are quite challenging. E.g., for flows in the atmosphere and oceans we would have to use the equations of fluid flow, the Navier-Stokes equations, for the whole planet, including the oceans. Of course, for such a calculation, we would need <i>boundary conditions</i>, e.g., what all the CO2 concentrations, temperatures, and flow rates are now. For the oceans, our best data for the boundary conditions is often crude.<p>Still there have been efforts to do the calculations. The efforts resulted in predictions of temperature for a few decades.<p>The results of some dozens of efforts to do these calculations have been summarized in, e.g.,<p><a href="http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg</a><p>By now we have been able to compare the predicted temperatures with the observed ones. The result is that in nearly all cases of the calculations, the predicted temperatures were way above the observed temperatures. In simple terms, as science, the calculations flopped.<p>So, for the question of how much CO2 warms the planet how much, we don't have solid scientific information.<p>(7) Apparently a common <i>Claim</i> is that essentially the only cause of changes of the temperature of the planet is greenhouse gasses, essentially just CO2, from human or other sources. So, with more CO2, the temperature will go up; with less CO2, the temperature will go down; the times the temperature went up was due to more CO2; the times the temperature went down was due to less CO2.<p>Well, we can test this Claim. We have three tests, A-C:<p>Test A. As at<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age</a><p>there was the Little Ice Age:<p>"The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming."<p>It was significantly colder, certainly in both Europe and the US. Some of the effects are famous: E.g., in the famous painting of General Washington crossing the Delaware River, there was ice in the river. IIRC, usually there isn't. There was winter ice skating on the Thames River in London; IIRC usually there isn't.<p>Was this cooling caused by lower CO2 concentrations? Apparently there is no such evidence. So, the cause was something else. So, the Little Ice Age serves as a counterexample to the <i>Claim</i> above. So, there can be causes of significant changes in temperature that have little or nothing to do with CO2.<p>Test B. Can say the same for the Medieval Warm Period, as at<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period</a><p>from "lasting from about 950 to 1250".<p>Test C. For more, at Vostok Station in Antarctica, the Russians took some ice cores and from them measured CO2 concentrations and temperature back ballpark 1 million years. They found several times when temperature went up and CO2 concentrations went up. Al Gore's movie <i>An Inconvenient Truth</i> showed a graph of those two over several hundred thousand years. E.g., as at Web page<p><a href="http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/labs/Lab10_Vostok/Vostok.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/labs...</a><p>can see graph<p><a href="http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/labs/Lab10_Vostok/Vostok_files/untitled2.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/labs...</a><p>Gore claimed that the higher CO2 caused the higher temperatures. Well, due to the long time interval of the horizontal axis of the graph, not easy to see on the graph was that the CO2 peaks occurred about 800 years after the temperature peaks. So, really, just by common sense, the higher temperatures were not caused by higher CO2. Instead, something caused the higher temperatures; they caused more biological activity, and in 800 years that activity caused higher CO2.<p>So, here we have three failed tests of the Claim, three counterexamples of the Claim above. For anything scientific, those counterexamples are an overwhelmingly serious problem for the Claim about CO2.<p>=== The Current Scientific Situation ===<p>If we get a case when CO2 went up and soon temperature went up, that still is poor evidence that the higher CO2 caused the higher temperature, that is, the several counterexamples to the Claim remain.<p>That is, from the data, we already know, e.g., the end of The Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Vostok data, that there are causes of significant warming that have nothing to do with CO2.<p>Indeed, it is not at all clear that at realistic concentrations CO2 has anything at all significant to do with the temperature of the earth; to the Claim from climate data we have several overwhelmingly serious counterexamples, and otherwise we just don't have any solid scientific evidence: We tried with calculations from principles of physics and chemistry, and they flopped.<p>Net, from the calculations and from the historical record, we have no solid evidence that, at anything like realistic levels, more CO2 in the atmosphere will cause significant increases in the temperature of the earth. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but we just don't have any solid evidence, from either calculations or observations, that CO2 will be causing any significant warming of the earth.<p>So, can we use science to urge reductions in burning fossil fuels, subsidize wind and solar sources of electric power, impose carbon taxes, etc.?<p>IMHO, my view is that such steps would be extremely irresponsible, would shoot our economy in the gut for reasons that are little more solid than some ancient religion, e.g., when the Mayans killed people to pour their blood on a rock "to keep the sun moving across the sky" -- e.g., as at<p><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=Mayan+blood+sun+moving+sacrifice&source=web&ots=Do6njWN5M9&sig=FxTeclIiqggqIH5Ws_oENCek1uI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA76,M1" rel="nofollow">http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA...</a><p>on page 76 of<p>Susan Milbrath, 'Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)', ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000.<p>with<p>"Indeed, blood sacrifice is required for the sun to move, according to Aztec cosmology (Durian 1971:179; Sahaguin 1950 - 1982, 7:8)."
Twitter's Fucked	I know this sentiment will be unpopular here. But so am I (to the point where moderators have "rate limited" me until such time as I stop speaking on SJ issues) so... I think it's no surprise that suddenly the previously pro-twitter and "pro freedom of speech and welcoming spaces for all even if they're unpopular" folks are mad at twitter.<p>This article is hot on the heels of twitter banning Milo Y for cheerfully orchestrating yet another race baiting campaign against a black woman in cinema, and just a few months after Degoes himself got a lot of heat on Twitter and lost nearly all corporate sponsorship, having to rely on the businesses of friends for reduced funding for LambdaConf. This is a "hot take" in the Twitter parlance. And of course, banning Milo and shunning LambdaConf didn't fix the root causes or stem the tide of harassment of other behaviors that make the twitterLeft continue to be mad.<p>To directly address TFA's content, it's not possible in the modern era to be "non-political" because the definition of "non-political" varies so radically. More on this in a moment, but being "non-political" is neocon code for, "not offending me" (in the same way that "safe space" is actually code for "inoffensive space") and that's a rather complex and customized product to deliver.<p>It's very interesting though. We've all ended up in a place where the platform sort of holds us hostage. We feel compelled to share our bite-sized rhetoric chunks and then castigate people for being "unfair" and banning "rational argument" without considering that (and I stress, <i>all sides</i> of every issue has these people) a nearly unending torrent of ill-considered hate vomits at everyone involved in even the minutest controversy. _It's totally irrational to demand people remain rational under these circumstances._ The neurotypical human simply cannot be expected to handle the way Twitter amplifies negative data.<p>And yet, we cannot possibly deny the pivotal importance Twitter (and in abstract, media like it) has had on rapidly disseminating information that I think most people here would absolutely agree should get out. For example, Twitter rapidly spreads media and information about social unrest worldwide, has laid bare many abuses of official power in the West, and has been incredibly important for disseminating viewpoints during the current American election.<p>This conversation <i>is</i> valuable even though it is "political." It has value in every case where it brings raised awareness about the human experiences that define political conflict, social unrest, and violence worldwide.<p>The key difference is that in every case where twitter is used for news reporting and rapidly sharing personal perspectives, it trumps every other media. Twitter simply outshines every other media sharing design we've ever seen for news. Degoes is dead and demonstrably wrong that it's only cute and tidy tweets that get huge sums of retweets.<p>Many of the most successful tweets in the sphere of "politics" are just raw information. "Donald Trump said this." "Egypt's government is doing this." "This is happening in Libya." The same 140 character limit that quashes all but the most clipped conversations and promotes media actually severely limits the spin one can actually craft around any given fact and strongly favors media delivered so fast that any substantial working or processing has to be automated. That's probably to the platform's overall credit.<p>If Twitter has a future, it's as a news platform that makes everyone into a journalist. If Twitter is doomed, it's because it forces everyone into a common scrum of a debate where even if we could type more to more eloquently debate, it wouldn't matter because the overwhelming pressure of people tossing out quit hate fastballs would erode the conversation.<p>Those of us who are opponents of Degoes worldview overall are still in violent and absolute agreement that the platform needs more tools to curb 'harassment'. While we may differ on the subject of what harassment is in this case, we agree that ultimately Twitter needs to develop sophisticated tools for managing incoming content and filtering it.<p>They've refuse to do so. Maybe 2-3 years ago, we could argue it wasn't feasible at scale, but I think the industry has progressed to the point where we don't believe that anymore. It's entirely feasible to do even basic bayesian classifiers at "twitter scale". It could be done client side, even!<p>Ultimately, there have to be trapdoors in this for news and shocking information. A social conservative may not like it if we bring up some of Donald Trump's more outrageous turns of phrase, but if it's timely and corroborated data then it probably has value, and I suspect most people would appreciate receiving it even if it's only from one wing of their social graph.<p>Twitter's successful future isn't in some clever blocklist as Degoes suggests. I don't think it's about longer formats or an emphasis on rich media, either. It's in deeply understanding the content of tweets and finding a way to push timely, critical information to you via an amenable arm of your social graph. If you need to hear about the Muslim Spring through Pat Robertson to digest that information, so be it. That is you. If you need to hear about it through your favorite liberal pundit Colbert, that too is you. This is semantic analysis and machine learning in an unprecedented level of ambition, but I don't think anyone doubts it can technically be done.