skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Adding another data point(s) there: I opened two HK companies (with much the same reasoning as you did), about 5-6 years ago and again about a year ago. The first time was smooth and the bank account happened without a meeting (at HSBC) although I didn't use the structure and folded it a year later.

The second time was a lot less smooth, I had to fly to Hong Kong to meet HSBC, and after they took a relatively annoying processing fee and grilled me on my business model (IT consulting), rejected my application with no explanation about 3 months later. The agent told us most foreigners were routinely declined these days although they didn't know why.

We thus opened a company in the UK instead (yes, it's still a great offshore location!). Fast (minutes on the Companies House website), cheap (< 100 GBP?) but the bank (Lloyds) hit us with a fraud check which months later is still not resolved, despite reams of paperwork travelling around and notaries public making a small fortune in certifying documents, and my co-founder being a UK resident. Lloyds asked us for more information than the Singapore Government did for my PR (equivalent to US green card) application. Since you can't do business on a personal bank account if you have a UK Ltd, that structure is basically inactive.
Soon the yuan will pass the dollar as the 'supreme currency'
> Having girly motivations does not mean writing code is of no interest to you. You can be interested in people or whatever and see code as a way to accomplish your goals.

I've noticed that in some tech circles, social and emotional motivations (and especially ones with negative valence like anger and disappointment) are seen as sort of unreal and invalid. I understand that people often want to focus on choosing the product/technology/protocol/whatever that's objectively the best, but I think there are cases where it's warped the culture such that people get into cliques and develop (sometimes intense) social motivations based on perfectly valid factors like trust and respect, but pretend that those motivations are entirely based on dispassionate technical analysis.

I guess I'm not sure what my point is. Maybe it's that social "drama" is inevitable, but tech communities make it toxic because of a misguided belief that it's irrelevant, and this dynamic causes splash damage for women who are more heavily socialized to value personal relationships. Maybe it's just a brain fart, but I think it would explain a lot.
The page links to code (https://github.com/ianmiell/shutit-criu), so I assume it's something people can try running for themselves?
Anyone have a mirror? Link seems down.
I've been listening to shortwave recently (I bought a new radio: a TECSUN PL-880). The 36 most easily received stations include Radio Habana, China Radio International and 34 Christian stations. These Christian broadcasters must be very concerned about us here in the Northeast :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRMI

http://wtww.us/pages/transmitters.php

Well, now that I'm looking at, WTWW now has Art Bell. Will try for that tonight.
Women in Math, the War of Attrition
I think the idea is that women CAN get into compsci if they want to or are interested, it's just that on average, they appear not to be?

It sort of feels like saying there aren't enough people named Gavin in compsci. Why do we need people named Gavin? If Gavin wants to do compsci, that's cool, but if not, then he can go do whatever makes him happy?

The point is, we don't need _person type X_ simply for the sake of an equal number of all types of people. Unequal numbers/types of people don't necessarily mean they're being kept out, that doesn't follow.

There aren't enough male hairdressers? There aren't enough female linesmen? There aren't enough Democrats named Duane?

Whether or not this is true I don't know, I just consider this the popular sentiment.

I could be an elementary school teacher as a male, I'm just not inclined to. I don't feel kept out.
You're also not supposed to point out such advantages. You'll be ostracized and placed into "male rights" sub group which has very negative connotations in general society.

Tread lightly.
Where do I sign?
I suspect a more realistic scenario is that it's the other girls who do the mocking and rejecting as a reaction to one person's interest in computer science.. that's the thing.

the question then becomes.. why does the little girl care what the other little girls think ? Why isn't she more than happy hanging out with the more open and accepting group of computer cherishing boys ?

I assume it has to do with social norms, early childhood developmental experiences, not wanting to break certain social guidelines passed down through family values, the anticipation of "dating"..
> Also, I'm not a consequentialist; I don't think morality is entirely determined by what impacts the choices have on others.

This goes beyond consequentialism. Purely saying that the ends justify the means can lead to some really broken morality, mostly because people don't normally count everything as "ends" that should be.

Of course, knowing all the consequences of an action doesn't, prevent you from knowingly doing something wrong anyway. And I certainly agree that increased cognitive function does not automatically imply increased morality, let alone perfect morality. (Assuming the value system in use can usefully define the latter at all.)

> A finite state machine must either reach the same exact state more than once (in which case it cannot distinguish whether it is the first time it has entered that state or not, as that would be part of the state), or it must halt. And if it does reach the same exact state more than once, there is no difference for it whether it reaches a state a third time or not. If its experiences map 1 to 1 with its state, then its experiences have a finite length corresponding to something not more than its total number of states.

I understand your argument. First, however, note that that applies to an entirely self-contained system, devoid of external stimulus; you can't necessarily evaluate a single mind in isolation, so you'd have to account for the state of the entire state machine that handles all consciousnesses and their interactions. Second, your consciousness and continued awareness/existence does not depend on having novel states in a state machine; if you've ever re-read a book purely for fun, without expecting to get anything new out of it, you can perhaps imagine finding the same state satisfying more than once. And third, the sheer number of states here dwarfs the age of the universe by myriad orders of magnitude; beyond just "age of the universe" problems, you'd have to start asking "what form does life take when it spans the course of that many eons?".

While I can see a parallel between this problem and the existential failure mode of becoming a wirehead, I see massive and fundamental differences there as well.

In short, I don't find this even remotely problematic compared to not existing at all. And given the current rate at which we permanently lose sapient minds, I see a strong argument for fixing that now and taking eons to think about some of the other problems, rather than using it as a reason to not improve the situation due to lack of perfection in the solution.

> Current understanding of physics includes the Bekenstein bound. I see no justification for your apparent belief that a problem with the Bekenstein bound will be found.

That a finite space can contain only a finite entropy seems obvious. We don't, however, yet know that the universe is finite, or self-contained, in either space or time.
Wow.. I wonder if the feedline scheme for this antenna is simple.. as in would it be easy for some pirates to borrow it for their transmissions :-)
My take-away is the following:

* systemd tries to solve a complicated problem

* systemd has a lot of complexity

* some of that complexity seems unnecessary

* parsing is hard (see DJB). Parsing (as systemd does) in PID 1 is bad. Complex systems in PID 1 is bad.

* systemd manages states and dependencies (this is good)

* some of the states are only internal, and can't be serialized to storage. The result is indeterminism and race conditions. (This is bad)

* as a result of the above point, systemd behavior is hard to debug, and hard to understand

* another result (not stated explicitly) is that systemd allows for (and apparently can't detect) ordering cycles and dependency cycles.

* The configuration files are simple for simple tasks (good), but not complex enough for complex tasks (bad)

... etc.

i.e. systemd is an engineering solution. It pretty much works, but it has inherent design / implementation issues which cause real-world problems.
More precisely, from what I've read the "flow" state seems to be about ideal for both learning and making things fun.

Plus of course, the more fun something is the more practice you'll find yourself getting (and without having to bash your head on the wall).
Presumably you're asking because you're not in the US (where the drug laws are unlikely to change at all due to TPP). That being the case: I have no idea.
I agree. One of my family members is now retired law enforcement and the stories that he has to tell are incredible (and sometimes hysterical). And of course the job affected his wife and kids - sometimes he would get called away on the weekend and they wondered whether he'd come back.

But my point is that, while most cops have good intentions, instead of punishing and removing the few assholes so that people can feel safer with cops around, we're rewarding them, giving them heavier weapons, institutionalizing their assholery, and possibly turning good cops bad by encouraging them to do unethical/immoral/illegal things. That makes people feel threatened by cops, and that makes it more dangerous for the cops. Citizens and police should not be an adversarial us-vs-them relationship.
> The Founding Fathers would still be here to settle the arguments about what exactly they meant in this or that amendment when the Supreme Court argues guns or personhood, for instance.

Would we really want that? They would be elevated to an even greater stature than they are now when they're dead, greater than what they probably wanted individual men to be in the government they devised[0]. They could become corrupted, or change their minds, so that "what the Founding Fathers wanted" becomes an actual moving target, rather than just something that can appear to change by us debating it. What's the point of writing a law if you plan to indefinitely query the writer on what they "really meant"? Why have a representative government at all, if the Founding Fathers are so great that they did everything perfectly and they are still around to run it for us?

Maybe it's better that people die, and all we're left with is our memories of them, or written statements of their ideas or accounts of their deeds. We pick up what we find useful from them, and have the freedom to discard what isn't. Every political movement has a built-in time limit based on the deaths of its most powerful leaders. Greater diversity in people and thoughts grows, because we don't have the luxury of keeping them the same forever. Many mistakes will die with their creator, and everyone else can move on.

Longer lives would amplify the negative effects of human frailties, just as you hope it would amplify the positive effects of smart and noble people. It's possible the Founding Fathers' ideas were only good for 50-100 years around their lives, and that as rigid adults they would be unable to formulate better versions for the changing world.[1]

The world would be a vastly different place without death, or with much longer lives. I think it's naive to simply assume it would be better. I've explained some reasons it could be worse, but I'm open to more detailed analysis of why it would be better (for humanity collectively, not just the recipients of longer lives.)

[0] Though to be fair, maybe they would have thought differently if they planned to live hundreds, thousands of years.

[1] Assuming immortal or very long-lived people become "set in their ways" as we do now. How much of this is internally self-generated, based on watching our "biological clock" tick away? To be fair, maybe we would behave differently in this respect if we had more time. Or, maybe we would just reach peak open-mindedness (or whatever the metric) at 300 years instead of 30.
Comments can slow down Node.js: crankshaft inlines fn only 600 characters long
If the overall rate is down, why does it matter if mass shootings are up?

The Wikipedia definition is any multiple shooting, which can include 4 or more casualties. That's the bodycount of like a solid car accident, and yet we're not banning cars yet, now are we?
Fwiw, Carol Dweck recently wrote about how the surge of interest in and promotion of a growth mindset approach to teaching and learning came with false positives [0]

[0] http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-rev...
There Is No Diversity Crisis In Tech by Brian Hall
That's the current unavoidable state, yes. What if diseases could all be prevented though? Is life no longer "life" if an all-cure is produced?

>The experience after death is exactly the same as the experience before birth. Was it a vile, atrocious thing you weren't born until you were? Death is about returning to that state.

This argument never really re-assured me. I know it's most likely the case that that's what happens, but it brings me no peace of mind. The issue is not the state transition or the fear of "where I will be". My issue is the permanent loss of all potential future utility to oneself, to loved ones, and to the world at large. Before I was born, there was no concrete potential. After you are already alive, you are forever erasing proven potential.

This is why it can be ethical to kill an early-stage zygote, but it isn't ethical to kill an infant.

It is important to accept what is and isn't possible, but this discussion hypothesizes a world where what isn't possible can actually be possible. And in that world, I think biological immortality (no death by aging or disease) is far preferable to mortality. I think death is a powerful evil in this world, except in cases where someone chooses to die of their own free will.
If you don't know what systemd is, than why would you even care or know enough to vote on it. Distrowatch users, who really know and love Linux, are arguably more competent to make a determination than "regular" users.

My guess is that number is higher than only 56%, but most people feel powerless vs distro team members who were probably just trying to choose the least of two evils in an uncontroversial way; a referendum might have been a reasonable way to move forward.

The irony is that there are many good alternatives to systemd, but no one system does everything that systemd does.. by design. Systemd has a philosophy that has more in common with Windows than the UNIX way.
That's not evidence. Just more hand waving. Those are ARTICLES. Where is the DATA?
This is ... very suspect.

I suspect the vast majority of users haven't the faintest idea what init system their OS is using, or even know what an init system is.

Even amongst knowledgeable users who do know (e.g., me), I'd guess most don't care one way or another as long as their system boots and they can get on with things (and systemd does just fine in that regard).
11 Beautiful GIFs Created by Blind Artist
Note I'm submitting this article with with its title unchanged, but the story is more notable for having been removed from Forbes as a violation of their terms of service. I think its relevant given the recent discussion around internet.org, that controversial content is increasingly removed for violating a site's terms of service.
You're right that "pundit class" is too inflammatory. I've edited my comment.

> Should I believe that there's no systematic discrimination? How would I be confident that there's not any?

Nobody can prove the absence of systemic discrimination. You also can't prove the absence of lizard people. The burden of proof rests on those making the positive claim. Look at how the technology industry tries very hard to attract women. Look at the outreach programs, the hackathons, and the scholarships from dozens of foundations and open source projects. Look at the mentorship programs available for women. That's some evidence _against_ systemic bias.

Now look at evidence _for_ systemic bias _other_ than the gender disparity itself. We're left with, what, rugs about meritocracy and a few off-color comments about dongles in a private conversation between two friends at a conference?

I just don't think the non-gender-disparity evidence is strong enough to support a claim of bias.

> should I discourage her from a field in technology because she likely has some otherwise hidden trait that will make her less useful or successful?

You should introduce her to many fields and let her decide which one interests her most.
Umm... I was going to say something to the effect of how it isn't technically an instance of the halting problem to detect penises in Minecraft, but it's pretty close in the face of a hostile adversary.

Then I remembered that with redstone, to say nothing of command blocks, it really is close to the halting problem. Maybe not quite technically, since the detection program would be running in a context with significantly more resources (halting problem in the strict sense applies to Turing Machines with infinite resources), but it's still close enough to cause you a lot of practical problems, enough to say that it's probably an instance in practice even if not in theory.
Definitely true - I can confirm prices in Amherst,MA (UMass, Amherst College and a few others) are shockingly high.
I see "do you like this", and I've answered "no" multiple times.
Yep, saw that go by earlier. It's not working as well as advertised, which obviously means everyone's doing it wrong. o_O
How is this relevant at all?
Standing up for science
Private schools are normally paid for by the parents, who have the most direct interest in a successful outcome, however they define that.
I don't think it's a problem of group or national achievement as a group. We do very well, and so do undiverse Russians and undiverse Chinese students (and yes, both countries have underrepresented minorities) The problem we want to solve is spreading success across the members of society who could take advantage of the opportunity. Just different priorities.

One interesting observation, for which I don't have any citation, is that I find there is less trepidation to enter CS and Engineering careers from women who curiously come from Russia and China, which at least historically have been quite patriarchal. In some ways it might be that constant drumbeat to succeed and emphasis on science over softer subjects could have an impact, but it's all speculation on my part.
Should I be interested in Perl6?
What???

My childhood best friend and college roommate shocked me by calling one of our CS classmates a "huge bitch" for not going on a date with him after they had lunch together our first week of college.

I've lost track of how many sexist lines I've heard, like:

"make me a sammich bitch, haha",

"don't be an emo bitch about it, haha",

"if we don't let people freely express themselves on the CS listserv, then this is a tyrannical school that has been ruined by feminists (this one after of course, a guy posted a several page rant about why women are bitches, 'haha')".

Also, let me tell you this story of two friends I knew who applied at a certain internet start-up on Market Street in San Francisco in 2014:

A was male, 21 years old, a stoner and business school drop-out with a portfolio consisting of a Java tower defense game.

B was female, 30 years old, with several years experience doing QA on computer peripheral drivers who had re-trained herself as a web developer and had a Rails StackOverflow clone and a Meteor KhanAcademy clone for her portfolio.

A got offered a six-figure full time position.

B got offered an internship.

Final point, I've seen so much elitist and arrogant behavior from MEN directed towards OTHER MEN. Nothing could be further from the truth than software being completely welcoming. Of course it's still a very good industry overall; it's by no means the worst.
I understand the practical issues with older generations lasting forever, but I think it's better for society to place limitations on these matters, rather than nature placing the permanent limitation of death.

Presidents have 4 year terms. Why can't people have 80 years where they're allowed to vote, and then lose that right forever? Or maybe they can be sent to a separate society where they're permitted to vote and debate things that apply to their own sphere, but must still follow universal laws set by a "central society", to prevent deeply immoral actions. For example, maybe alcohol is permitted to be permanently illegal in their society, but they still aren't allowed to lynch people or prosecute people without due process.

These are certainly very difficult problems to solve, and there are many counter-arguments to that particular. But I think there are solutions to these issues other than death, and I think many of those solutions are much preferable to death.

A society that adapts to become biologically immortal will find their own ways to adapt to dealing with zeitgeists and progress.
I think part of the devaluation of emotion is the nature of the work. The computer doesn't care that you've had a bad day. The computer doesn't care that your kid is sick. The computer doesn't care that you're behind on your mortgage, or that your partner left you, or that you could really use a hug. The computer is a cruel adversary, and to beat it, you need to discard emotion (at least temporarily) and embrace its cold, logical way of reasoning about the world. You need to beat it at its own game.

Is it any wonder that we programmers tend to view logical reasoning as more useful than emotional reasoning?
If you are into Material Design, you got to read this
I wouldn't be surprised if many people here did mostly things that felt relatively easy for them (because it fit their talents and/or was fun to learn) and can achieve a lot just off that.
Dell to acquire EMC in $53bn+ deal
If the buyer is going to just shut down the product (and perhaps effectively mitigate their own competition, even temporarily), then there's a bit less potential for fraud to hurt the buyer.
There's no counter-factual, maybe we'd be even better? :)