skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Big Tech is a total monster. But it's not the current Google, Apple, Amazon who are the monsters of Big Tech. It's the company being born today that will be the Big Tech of the future that will be the true monster. I'm not looking forward to it...

EDIT: Or maybe I am. Is it better to live in a cage if the cage is nice enough? Who knows. Humanity possibly just hasn't developed a good enough cage yet.
Why Workplace Wellness Programs Don't Work
From as late as 2013. It still produced a whole bunch of FUD back when Android 1.x devices were shipping. And a whole bunch of "see how inferior the Android offering is" articles...
The great thing about Stan is it is geared toward practitioners doing real work in science and social science, but still manages to push the boundary of stats research (NUTS, ADVI, penalized ML). Other probabilistic programming languages are more expressive, but are typically much harder to use for day-to-day work.

That being said, there's still a huge gulf between practitioners in science and social science that are building parametric Bayesian models and practitioners in the deep learning / ML community that are focused on building more general, scalable, machine learning algorithms for tasks like machine translation and question answering. It would be amazing if somebody could reconcile these communities by showing deep learning models can be expressed and fit effectively side-by-side with more parametric models.
Are you sure about that? He's declared bankruptcy multiple times (three?), and his net worth is either about the same as, or significantly worse than, if he had invested his wealth in index funds (depending on just when the investment would have happened). That doesn't exactly speak to a great level of competence.
I agree.

But I think you are missing the fact that all the big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. went to the dark side a while ago. They have become big corps looking to squeeze proftis/blood out of a stone. So the article is really about the old guard having to contend with the newcomers.
I think this is a great idea and I agree with you that it eliminates the problems mentioned in other comments. I like it even better than whatever google is probably doing unless google is making it possible for people to use theirs without signing up for a google account. (I haven't looked into it but I'd be astonished if that were the case.) Contrary to another comment, paying a lump sum in one place would seem clearly more convenient to me than paying individual fees to every web site I visit, especially if I visit them infrequently or just once. Furthermore, I don't think it needs a revolution to get this going. You could start small by offering it to web publishers in addition to their existing ad revenue streams. The only thing that would deter me from using this plugin would be the privacy issue. Even though this would be the simplest way to implement it, I don't want a cookie that uniquely identifies me to every web site so that you the plugin developer know which account to debit. Maybe some smart person could figure out a better solution.
I do have a problem with Apple forcing the iPhone app developers to use MacBooks, given that about 90% of the purchases from cellphone app stores are made using iPhones (as far as I remember). This is the kind of anti competitive behavior that an anti trust law is supposed to punish. I don't know the legal technicality they are using to avoid it.

Big Tech also formed a cartel to lower engineers salaries. This is also something that should be punished by law (and AFAIK, they did win a class action suit).

I do think this is a problem and needs to be addressed.
A month ago this (recent) video interview with Kernighan was posted here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10080956

Notice that since then, the rest of that video interview has been posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK6RG47bww
Allow your browser to store cookies between sessions and keep it signed in at G, T and F and you'll get relevant ads. I personally prefer ad blockers.
A few discrepancies (maybe the actual paper clears these up if anyone has a copy):

- The global warming part is discussed in much more detail (i.e. actual percentages, the statement that Democrats didn't show different behavior).

- Measuring the total number of violent break-ins is way easier than measuring humanity's impact on global temperatures, the available data regarding the former is a lot simpler to logically connect to "a problem" than the available data regarding the latter, etc.

- I'm not aware of any politically significant faction on the left claiming that violent crimes are not increasing, if that is in fact what researchers are claiming.

In short, it seems like the other half was thrown in there to suggest a balanced perspective (again, the actual paper may be different so this could only affect the press release).
Really? IMO as a former Ph.D. academic who chose industry because there was no future there, science funding in America has dried up into a shriveled husk of its former self in an age of bottomless pockets for overseas military adventures and an educational system that isn't creating the next generation we need.

So we're left with mostly Elon Musk to carry the embers of our space program while Craig Venter, Google and a few other companies are increasingly taking on aging research, something I think will ultimately have enormous returns in the private sector. Just not in time for next quarter's results so David Einhorn (and his net worth of 1/40th that of Bill Gates) can go @#$% himself.

And for all the supposedly wasted public money on science cited by conservative sorts that got us here, it's trivial to find yet another dead-end weapons system or overseas military adventure that cost the taxpayers exponentially more.

To be fair, there is the Connectome Project ($100M annually) and also the Exascale Project ($126M) but those won't even cover the cost of a single F-22 fighter jet ($339M).
> Talking to your watch spooks people around you like crazy

I find there's quite a large disconnect between what people _imagine_ others will find odd, or will 'spook' them, and the reality - which is that the people around you simply do not notice or care.
You can easily encode any generative sequence model in e.g. Church (Scheme-based), Anglican (Clojure-based) or PyMC (Python-based). These are Turing-complete, so they can model any sampleable (computable) distribution.

See http://forestdb.org/ for some examples. E.g. an infinite HMM.

I have no experience with Stan. There was some controversy on whether it is Turing-complete, but I cannot elaborate on that.

The obvious disadvantage of using a language that is too expressive for something as simple as an HMM is that you loose the nice performance guarantees given by all specialized algorithms such as Viterbi. Theoretically, they can achieve good efficiency by performing program transformations (e.g. with abstract interpretation). But in practice, we are still a bit far from that.

A nice trick is to implement your generative model in something very efficient (e.g. Probabilisitic C or something GPU-based). You can then forget the burden of having to encode your own sampling procedure, but at the same time inference might be tractable.
One potential issue is data -- Google can leverage its huge number of historical searches to improve search for everyone. I doubt this is a huge issue for players such as Microsoft, but it probably poses difficulties for a small start-up.
What was the biggest mistake of your career?
A recent submission (a designer writing about changing his working style) prompted me to ask my fellow HNers the same question. My biggest mistake was turning down a very well paid job, because the employer's HR dept was acting irrationally and I lost my patience with them. I've ended up with a job paying £60k less a year. Not the best move I've ever made.
Learn Enough Command Line to Be Dangerous (Draft)
There is current!y a running battle between people using ads to try to monetize their work and people using ad blockers. Lots of formerly well monetized businesses are being hit hard by this. This is not one individual's personal incompetence. It is a widespread trend that is de facto denying people a "living wage" who previously had a very successful business model.

I am sorry you are offended. But, slavery is defined by ownership, not abuse. Not all slaves were also actively abused. But all did labor for the benefit of another without recompense, which is heinous enough without added abuse on top of it.
If MS went with "NT OS/2" I doubt "OS/2 for PowerPC" would exist, which was a stripped down version of the "Workplace OS" you mentioned BTW. Interestingly, Windows NT themselves was ported to PowerPC too, and it was one of the main focus for NT 3.51 back in 1995.
Usually preventing better products is done through legal assistance:

1. Abusive use of patents to prevent small upstarts that can't afford litigation

2. Getting regulations passed that are so expensive only established players can afford them.

3. Making visa requirements so complex and expensive that it becomes a competitive advantage to have an entire department dedicated to it in your largco.

Having so much money that you can put out a product that integrated better with yours is just another spin on putting out a great product as far as I'm concerned, and thus never worries me.

IMHO doing away with patents would do much more to "curb bad monopolies" than any litigious strategy.
I'm pleasantly surprised (a lot depends on which people happen to click on the link), but was totally willing to spend 20 or so karma to say that.
Chop for iOS 9. Simple app that blocks most ads and privacy invading trackers
So unless you want your core talent to flee for startups and begin the cycle anew, one has to find a middle ground, no? The moonshots seem like a reasonable attempt to do so to me.

But perhaps that because I'm 100% progress-driven. Process drives me nuts. It's great to have someone who can drive your progress through the channels of process, but I find that talent exceedingly rare. That said, my best work has happened the few times I've found that magic combo.
The Peace App Experiment
I sometimes wonder if the choice of screen tech came down to prevalent weather of the office location.

California is nice a warm most of the year, allowing gloves free handling of devices. In contrast, places like Finland is covered in snow for somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the year. A stylus and resistive screen works much better under those conditions.

And South Korea (Samsung) is not that different. I seem to recall images and videos of Koreans using snack sausages as an ad-hoc stylus when capacitive screen devices started shipping.

Also, i think a resistive screen and stylus allows more data to be packed into a small screen.

And Apple has had a history of gobbling startups. iTunes was a purchase as well, iirc.
Antitrust law can't force you to develop your products for platforms you don't want to target. You will never see an antitrust decision that Apple must develop a Windows version of XCode, and in fact doing so would probably require a total re-architecture of the iOS platform.

You might see antitrust law force Apple to allow sideloading, including apps built by toolchains third parties have hacked together.

You're also not required to use a Macbook; the Mini is $500.
My understanding is that adblockers work by removing known third party app sites from loading items on a page.

If that's true, what would stop a website from proxying ads, so they appear to come from the website rather than the third party?

I guess that would involve more bandwidth and so less money for the site, but high-bandwidth items are the ones people complain about anyway. I don't see why text based ads would be impossible under that scheme, for example.
> "Proponent aversion would be if you denied that the rate of suicides has been growing because Obama ... had made that claim"

Another example might be gun/crime statistics from the NRA vs gun/crime statistics from gun-control advocates.

There's the inherent suspicion that the statistics had been twisted to fit an agenda, because you've caught that proponent or someone from the same ideological group doing it before, and that therefore the statistics themselves are untrustworthy.

I apply a mental correction factor when dealing with a group I think lies for agenda purposes -- I figure they're spinning things maximally in their favor, so what they claim forms one end of my error bars. Sometimes my expectations regarding the size of the error bars in that field lead me to believe that it's likely the data is actually centered all the way on the other side. In that sense, their statements can imply their own contradiction in some circumstances.
My favorite sushi chef lightly smokes his salmon.
What's amazing? That Japanese family names come first (not unique to Japan: China, Korea and other places also do this) or that Miku has her own rhythm video games (not unique to Japan: Guitar Hero, anyone?)?
Agreed. I grew up in a European country where advertising is regulated, you can only have one interruption per movie or TV-show. Breaks are therefore slightly longer (something like 5 minutes), but it means that you can watch a 2 hour movie with only one 5 minute break for ads, and a 5 minute break means that you can actually walk away and do something useful in the mean time.

Moving to the US was such a shock, I can't believe people here just put up with this shit, it is impossible to focus on what you're watching when it's interrupted literally every 5 minutes.
> "A bit of advertising" that's well enough targeted and tastefully presented is absolutely a good thing. Every show in a TV series or movie is an advertisement for the next show or installment. Every book is an advertisement for its sequel. Every blog post is an advertisement for the next blog post. Every blog post, Facebook comment, video, or friend telling you about a product is an advertisement for that product. Many of those aren't paid advertisements, but many secretly are.

If you want to include those things in your definition of advertising, fine, but let's be clear here: that's not what most people here are talking about. Ad-blockers don't block those things.

That's certainly not the definition of "advertisement" I use, either. I have no problem with individuals asking me to check out their thing. It's entirely a different thing for someone to tie this request in with a piece of content in a way that isn't easily separable, using psychologically studied manipulation techniques to invade the very chemistry of my brain, and decrease the quality of my overall experience while doing so, invading my space with their noise and light, telling me my girlfriend isn't hot enough, my clothes aren't nice enough, my penis isn't large enough, I don't make enough money. Fuck those people. There's no way that this is subtle enough that I'm going to be okay with it.
This is what I have in my "Kill Element" bookmarklet. (SECURITY NOTE: You should never blindly copy and paste javascript like this and run it in your browser.)

javascript:(function(){var e=document.body.style.cursor;document.body.style.cursor="crosshair";var t=document.createElement("div");var n="border:1px solid #3280FF;background-color:rgba(50,128,255,0.5);position:absolute;z-index:999999999999999;display:none;";var%20r="pointer-events:none;";var%20i="transition:width%2060ms,height%2060ms,left%2060ms,top%2060ms;";n+=r+"-webkit-"+r+"-moz-"+r;n+=i+"-webkit-"+i+"-moz-"+i;t.setAttribute("style",n);document.body.appendChild(t);var%20s=null;var%20o=function(e){var%20n=e.target;if(n!==s&&n.parentNode){var%20r=n.getBoundingClientRect();var%20i=document.documentElement;var%20o=document.body;var%20u=i.clientTop||o.clientTop||0;var%20a=i.clientLeft||o.clientLeft||0;var%20f=window.pageYOffset||i.scrollTop||o.scrollTop;var%20l=window.pageXOffset||i.scrollLeft||o.scrollLeft;var%20c=l-a+r.left-1;var%20h=f-u+r.top-1;t.style.display="block";t.style.left=c+"px";t.style.top=h+"px";t.style.width=r.width+"px";t.style.height=r.height+"px";s=n}};var%20u=function(n){document.body.style.cursor=e;if(n.target.parentNode)n.target.parentNode.removeChild(n.target);if(t.parentNode)t.parentNode.removeChild(t);window.removeEventListener("click",u,false);window.removeEventListener("mouseover",o,false);n.stopPropagation();n.preventDefault()};window.addEventListener("mouseover",o,false);window.addEventListener("click",u,false)})();void(0)
Does the EFF have any significant political allies in this?
Because it's really light? (sorry).

Seriously, though, what does it mean to ask "Why is light so fast?" - are you looking for some purpose in light traveling fast? You won't find one. It just DOES.

In fact, given that the much simpler alternative to there being a speed limit, c, on the universe would be that there is NO speed limit, then the question really becomes, why is light so SLOW?
The TPP now hinges on the auto industry (US, Canada & Mexico vs. Japan) and dairy industry (New Zealand vs. Canada): https://twitter.com/search?q=%40glynmoody%20AND%20%23tpp

If the TPP stalls due to auto industry supply chain tariffs, the new copyright laws identified by EFF will also be blocked,
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2015/08/26/c..., "Under NAFTA, at least 62.5 percent of a passenger car or light truck’s net cost must originate in North America to be considered tariff free under the agreement. Mexico wants to increase the percentage to 65 percent in the TPP, while Japan wants it to be about 45 percent for vehicles and 30 percent for parts themselves — which would allow for a greater number of parts from low-wage countries like China and Thailand to be included."

Pairwise meetings have been reported in recent weeks and there will be a group meeting next week, when most media will be focused on world leaders visiting the UN from Sept. 25, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/final-round-of-..., "Chief negotiators for the 12 countries involved .. will begin meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 26, and trade ministers will join the next week, possibly Sept. 30".
This looks like an awesome resource.

Erlang has been on my list of things to look at when I have the time, I remember reading about it in DDJ about 20 years ago :).
He confirmed on Twitter that it'll keep being updated for the foreseeable future.

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/645060381778571265
I have a feeling my biggest mistake will have been not adding "blog-writer" to my list.
The internet has created a situation of millions of people writing text that nobody wants to read, yet you frequently stumble upon it when searching for real content.

In my experience, the contents that really matter are written either by people who are NOT trying to make money from their writing because they wish to share experiences from their day jobs or free time, or by people who are payed for writing by someone but not by their readers.
> You need carbs for energy

No, you don't. Of course, no carbs at all is impossible as even meat contains trace amounts but keeping it under 30gr (which is what's generally accepted for keeping a nutritional ketosis state) is perfectly sustainable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbohydrate_diet
While some people believe that, it's worth noting that the participants claimed that the pacifist clause was inserted by MacArthur on the request of the Japanese Prime Minister.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Co...
No idea why this is always portrayed as "ad-blocking". I just see it as an API for blocking all kinds of crazy, annoying stuff websites now do. Frontend rockstars have no one but themselves to blame for requiring people to strictly regulate content on websites to make them show actual content in an agreeable fashion.

Recently, I had a website pop up a fullscreen "Rotate your device" banner. There are no words to express the anger and hatred that consumed me in an instant.
Test driving the three-wheeled Elio – 84 MPG and Only $6,800
Have you looked at the domains that you are seeing undetermined status for, is there a pattern?

We send a reasonably decent amount of email, in general we distribute the emails across multiple ESPs, with a small amount going through SES. One of the easiest ways to figure this out is to trap the entire SMTP conversation and codes. We wrote an internal tool that will send an email and trap the entire SMTP conversation so we can see what is really happening, as not all ESP's correctly categorize things, nor do they let you see the raw SMTP conversation and many times incorrectly configured mail servers cause the problem (even on "big" domains).

In a couple of cases we have found that some domains work better when we send to them using a specific ESP, which is part of the reason we integrated to multiple ESP's. We also built into our system the ability to pin a domain to an ESP, thereby usually increasing our deliverability for clients.

EDIT:
And no, I do not believe an undetermined bounce status should be a hard bounce, soft seems more reasonable.
The second point was addressed, though, by your own admission. It was punished (and if it happens again, I can only imagine the hammer will strike even harder).

If you don't like the MacBook, you can buy a Mac mini and use it as a build server from other (non-Macintosh!) computers. There are tools for other platforms, and Apple isn't obligated to maintain their platform for "non-standard" use. It's not antitrust, and it's not a technicality. They're not obligated to open their platform, because they're not restricting something that was previously open.

I don't like it either. That doesn't mean it's illegal.
Yep, that sounds fairly reasonable. I'm just an amateur philosopher of science so I don't really have my own theories to add here, but I do find a lot of what's out there interesting. I don't like seeing politicians run directly towards their favorite conclusions with whatever half-formed material they can find, because it actively subverts the interesting parts (and sure, I don't agree with the politics in this case).
This is really bad on Blackberry where the screen is square and your limited real estate is totally taken up by a website's floating menu bar at the top and their ad at the bottom.
Practical Resources, Tools and Books for Entrepreneurs
"One of the more fascinating aspects to the Elio story is the fact that ordinary folks like you and me can invest in it, even though it's not on the stock market. This is possible through the SEC's new Regulation A+, which provides individuals the opportunity to invest in early-stage companies."
I think we are witnessing an industry being phased out. Ads to power your free mobile app or websites? Ads that slowly overtime have become more aggressive, in your face because advertisers 'dont know why ppl wont click on my poker site ad'.

uBlock is such a sweet sweet slap in the face of such advertisers. I'd love to see small text ads that are relevant to my search or content. Giant banner with flash and won't disappear? Forget about it.
There's a bunch of roundabouts in Calgary, though admittedly they're not common.
Instead of blocking ads, what if browsers "tamed" ads by making only displaying the first frame of animated GIF ads? I don't think people mind ads as much as the crazy annoying ads (which seem to have gotten a lot worse in the last couple months).
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10231666