skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some day we will recognize that some areas of "programming" are very different and require different skill sets, and eventually different titles.

We tend to call everything "software engineering" so that everybody can feel proud of such a title ("I'm an engineer"), but engineering is certainly not about figuring out how to vertically center divs with CSS (and it's also not about proving algebra theorems either -- even if it can be essential when it comes to specific problems that require it).

I can't imagine Linux and PostgreSQL being built without "science", they use a lot of it, and I'm pretty sure the authors all have read SICP and those theoretical books.
Poking at things proved to be efficient to building things quickly, but it's just not how one builds critical systems/software that are robust, efficient and maintainable.
Well the real issue is defining what's better. And the worry some of us have is this new trend of grappling with increased complexity seems short-sighted; we don't like the direction it's going. As much as Sussman shows understanding of the current situation, what he's saying is also a criticism--doing this sort of ad hoc "science by poking but not really science" is the heart of the issue.

And what's interesting is if you look at actual scientific research around programming, say dealing with concurrency and advanced tools like model checking, etc—all of that is very theoretical stuff that assumes you know SICP or have equivalent foundations. So it's not really an argument that theory is dying; in face of this new level of complexity in practice, perhaps we could benefit from theoretical research now more than ever.
But it is her problem. Didn't you read the blog post? The fact that they want to talk to her and she doesn't know why is a source of considerable anxiety for her and is interfering with work.
It would be nice if the blog post mentioned who the author was, I looked and didn't find it.
Growler: Asyncio Micro-Framework in Python
Hence, the parenthetical remark.
So this resonates with me. In general I don't have a particularly detailed memory of my early childhood. However, I do recall one day when I was 4 years old sitting at the end of the driveway waiting for my dad to get home from work.

I had picked up 2 digit counting from my listening to my mom work with my older sister. As I am sitting there by myself counting and then I got to 99. At that moment something partly clicked and I realized that 3 digits let me continue counting and I could just carry on the pattern. I remember being pretty excited at this and counted for awhile longer ... maybe another 20 or 30 digits and then in a flash I realized that the same thing works when I run out of 3 digits and I intuited the fact that there is really no end to counting. And, even though I didn't have a name for it I remember being kind of awestruck at something that could just go on and on without end.

It makes me smile today at 54 to be reminded of that rush of discovery.
> the doctors or hospitals are not necessarily held liable (unless it's gross negligence)

I've had friends who have worked retained surgical instruments cases.

Meet one or two of those victims and you will never support tort reform again.

If this were a problem of gross negligence, then I would agree with you that we should focus there. But the problem isn't gross negligence, it's a problem of "business as usual." It's a thousand doctors following procedures with a 0.1% error rate and 999 thinking, "nothing bad's happened to me so I must be doing everything fine," even though they could each reduce that to a 0.001% error rate with a simple checklist or by actually washing their hands.

Put another way, if you put someone's life in your hands and you're not focusing a significant percentage of your efforts on procedures designed to radically reduce risk, then you're engaged in gross negligence.

There's another area where we all have that philosophy.

We send a million people hurtling through the air each day in incredibly complex machines. Airlines focus on safety because (a) they are actually responsible for their passengers and can't just call a mulligan because, hey, people make mistakes; and additionally, (b) they suffer massive reputational costs for safety errors.

So my medical malpractice reform would make medicine more like other industries with far better safety records. It would include a requirement that hospitals post their mistakes on their front door as people walk in.
Though Isis was referring to the name of the OP, not ISIS, this piqued my curiosity:

> What changes would ISIS supposedly like from Tor?

I wonder if there are examples of criminal/terrorist organizations supporting projects that could benefit them? (I know about Le Roux/TrueCrypt, but others?)
> is there actually that much in the system without requiring massively raising taxes? [...] And I don't mean in the early implementation but 20 years in when it's humming along as envisioned.

A UBI moving from a low level to a mature, robust level able to provide a living wage -- as a matter of basic economic necessity -- requires advances in productivity. There's not productivity in the economy now to support a robust UBI.

> > these increases [in the prices of goods and services] will generally be less, proportionally, than the increase in income.

> How can that be when everyone would be making more money because UBI is added to their income as well.

To start with, everyone will not be making more (after tax and public benefits) money. The money for a UBI (under most actual proposals) will come from reducing existing means- and behavior-tested public benefits (and associated administration) and/or increased taxes on some people. Either of these will reduce the effective income of some portion of the population -- and necessarily decrease at least some people's income by an amount greater than the UBI. Before considering the effects the redistribution has on promoting or inhibiting economic growth (e.g., by increasing domestic velocity because of where money is distributed and how and what the people receiving spend it on vs. those losing it), the average net impact on incomes should be approximately $0.

> All labor costs would rise for everything.

No, they won't, and those that do rise won't rise equally. And, in any case, labor costs aren't the only costs of production, so even if labor costs in the domestic market rose as a result of UBI, prices of completed goods and services would rise by less (proportionally) than the increase in labor costs. (In the long term, for goods provided in a competitive markets, where prices are driven by competition down to the cost of production.)
It's actually much easier to blame a dead pilot. Dead men mount no legal defenses.
The Waiting Place
Really? Well, more money for us then.
This extension redirects before a request is even made. `document-start` runs when the whole page is downloaded, but before the DOM is constructed, which is a lot slower. As for portability, both Firefox and Edge are committed to supporting Web Extensions, which is pretty much the Chrome extension API. This extension is not tied to any store. You can install it manually exactly as you would with a userscript. Actually, userscripts in Chrome, are just re-packaged as native extensions on install.
I'm sure someone said the same thing about horses. They love the experience of riding a horse.
I would imagine it's partly an emotional thing; it's hard to blame the pilot or think that the pilot was negligent, when clearly any error he makes can be fatal to him as well as the passengers.

Whereas if a doctor makes a mistake, nothing really happens to him. Thus it's easier to imagine he's just being negligent / doesn't care, which generates more anger than an honest mistake.
The Seven Layers OSI Networking and Haikus of Nerdom
TDD used to be cool, BDD or 'Behavior Driven Development' is way more hipster IMO. You must be old, like over 25 or something.

Docker is also like sooooo 2015, it's all about Docker clusters now - Swarm or Kubernetes and the like. I'd go with Kubernetes cuz it sounds way cool.
Well, she is a core contributor to Tor, but I don't see any possible reason why the FBI could not say that they just wanted to ask her a couple of questions about Tor to her lawyer(s).

I've been following her on Twitter for a couple of months now, and from me "getting to know her" from social media and her blog, I don't see a possible legal reason to ask her a few questions that could not be shared with her lawyer. After all, like she stated, her work is very transparent, so everything she's working on is available to the public.
Thanks for releasing this, and seriously, thanks for the ridiculous amount of effort you seem to put into the open source tools I'm using daily.

/gush
Why didn't they ask which languages they're trying to learn?
"On average, Americans drive 29.2 miles per day, making two trips with an average total duration of 46 minutes."[1]

For how many of those 46 minutes do you think they are enjoying control and adrenaline? I would guess approximately zero, and once you tell them that they can spend that time instead surfing the internet, or eating breakfast, or videochatting with their family, they will.

[1] http://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motor...
Just use vimium.
I used Tor as my username on Youtube before I knew what Tor was ; thought the name was a Swedish god , should change it to avoid future harassment (ha, ha)
I don't have a lot of interest in relying on some random component I downloaded on a whim. Not even for personal projects.

And for my own components, I can't see how it'll be faster than just implementing them in my own project, or React Storybook.

On top of that, my experience with UI builders in the past has been that they're rather hard to work with and typing out the HTML myself is not only faster, but also more flexible and more likely to end up doing what I actually want... And probably with less code.
That "About" page was frustrating to read. It talks about "common uses" without talking about actual use cases. Like, no realistic scenarios where this thing would come in handy. What industries would it be particularly useful in? Legal? Real estate? Logistics?

The press releases at the bottom talk about it having potential to be used as a notary service, but even those are lacking detail.

edit: getting downvoted by bitcoin fanboys. should have seen that coming!
One of the perks of remote work is I can have the clickiest keyboard in the land.
Toil – A Python Workflow Engine
And they probably never will own one. But they also won't own a regular car anymore, either.

The promise of self-driving cars is that, for less money than you're spending to own a car today, you'll summon a self-driving taxi whenever you want, of whatever type you want right at that moment (convertible, economy car, four-door, pickup truck, SUV, limo...), and then after it drops you off, you never see it again.
The Nazis in the '30s weren't talking about concentration camps and mass murder either, and fascism was fairly new and didn't have the negative connotations to totalitarianism that it has today. The Nazis in the '30s were about demonising and driving out the Jews so that the money and jobs would go to 'proper Germans', and weren't exactly shouting their plans to mass-murder minorities halfway through an upcoming war.

> bad policy and callous, but it's fair.

A lot of people disagree that it's fair, from both moral and economic standpoints.
Seems quite different from this case. The agent you're referring to stated his intentions up front quite clearly.

As far as I can tell the only details revealed by the FBI in this case is that they had some "documents" (without giving any context) for the author to review and answer questions about, and refused to share any details with her lawyer.

I'm not discounting that there are FBI agents who behave properly and politely without pushing the limits of legality, but I also believe there's plenty of evidence to suggest that there are plenty of agents who share none of those qualities (note that I'm not speculating on what fraction of agents are in each bucket, just that both are non-zero).
Wow, 25% of car owners are ready for autonomous cars. That's a huge market
To be sure is not an impossible thing to deal with - but the 'cost of sale' is so high as to make it easier to just let patients suffer and die.
Polytechnic Utiliversity
If the rich paid taxes...

That's the missing element, not paying. As much as IN THEORY I agree with these ideas, in practice, rich people find all sorts of ways to not pay tax.
Exactly, still unsure why Twitter left Lists out of the mobile web version of the site.
Seriously? That's outrageous.
If the US government is going to expend the funds to buy mass quantities of steel and warehouse it, they might as well nationalize the US steel industry instead. A commodity is useless without the knowledge and surrounding industry supporting it (think about stockpiling crude oil, but not having any refineries).
I don't think there is a playbook for this one. It is possible to make a sale like this, but it is also possible you could bang your head for years, or talk to the wrong person and anger the company, or...

What I can say is you should (i) file for micro-entity status at the U.S. patent office, and (ii) file a provisional patent application (costs just $65 if you are a micro-entity) and do this as fast as possible (tomorrow!)

The worst thing is you are going to bang your head against them and then they will rip you off, and going down the patent road is a protection against that. Once you file a PPA you can say you have something "patent pending" and you have priority if you file a real patent in a year. That is a more involved process, but if you are tiny and dealing with big co's, you need all the legal ammunition you can get.

Some people will think you are a jerk if you are following the patent route, and let them think that. If you have a patent it will be a valuable asset for anyone you license it to, so it is not just a stick, it is a carrot.
site down here

mirror: https://github.com/isislovecruft/patternsinthevoid/blob/mast...
>> moves so fast that I'm forced to use other peoples open source projects without even having the time to read the source

This.

Moving fast, sprinting, only looks like you are making progress. At some point the debt comes too much
I wonder whether this is the same sense in which the brain also uses logic to reason about stuff, and physics to interact with the world.
This is one of the most insane yet brilliant ideas I have heard of. I love it.

I wonder how hard it is to scale though.
When (if) autonomous cars dominate the roads, it will either be prohibitively expensive (via insurance requirements) or more likely simply unlawful to manually operate vehicles on public roads.
Elon Musk Denied Entrance to Apple's Met Gala Party
It seems to me that one of the biggest barriers to the driverless car revolution will be sharing the road with human driven cars. If there was a special road or lane just for driverless cars, I could see things moving much faster in that direction. The problem is that's a massive public infrastructure undertaking, and we all know how quickly those go...
Runtime speed has not been a priority in most apps/websites in a long time. Even relatively new phones struggle with things like modals and swipe effects on mobile websites. So much effort is spent on making things feel "native". Native, in my opinion, should mean fast before anything else.
After the food ?!?
Here, Lewis is speaking directly to internal psychological shortcomings and self awareness. The efficiency of "the enemy" is irrelevant. Here's another lesson of history -- Any ideology that heavily relies on the awfulness of an enemy to justify its own actions -- These should be highly suspect.
HN upvotes jokes all the time. As for porn, it would be removed by the moderators the first few times, but if a majority the community decided it really wanted it, it would eventually push back on the moderators and the moderation standards would change (well, or YC would just shut it down). At that point it would be up to you whether you wanted to keep coming here, but at the end of the day there's no real way for a vote-based system to perpetually override what the community wants. In practice it works because we're mostly interested in the same things and mostly agree on what isn't appropriate, but you do get edge cases like this.
I think you are already on the right track. In the end it's always hard to predict how something will turn bad. But you can already tell that a monoculture of simplicity will turn bad at some point. That's already enough to make a judgement call.
I disagree. I would like to own a car, so that I can have my stuff in it and not have to wait for it, etc. but it's nice not to have to drive it myself
would be cool if one of them could add lists to the mobile web site since lists are completely left out of there.
There is a shortage, or this wouldn't be getting talked about. The reality is that despite how well engineers are compensated, most aren't in a position to go 6-12 months without a paycheck while they try a startup. A large number of a mortgage or kids and can't take on that level of risk. On top of that you have to have to be willing to put in a ton of hours...much more than a lucrative 9-5 would require. On top of that, you have to be willing to work on someone else's idea. I don't know about you but, for me, ideas have never been the hard part. The hard part is finding the time to explore those ideas. If I found that time, I'd want to spend it on one of my own ideas rather than someone else's mostly unexplored idea.

> I'd happily give that a shot if someone approached me with a halfway interesting idea.

That's really what's being talked about here. The reality is that many, if not most, non-technical founders have really crappy ideas. And then they complain about not being able to find a technical co-founder. What this article is saying is that they need to earn it. They need to validate their idea in some way that doesn't need technical skills beyond what they can learn themselves. Do the work or put in the money necessary to earn your technical co-founder's participation. Because that person has put in thousands of hours learning how to build what you need built. Just expecting to bring an idea to the table and have a technical person jump at working together is unrealistic. An non-technical founder needs to put in the effort to make their offer attractive.
So was the piloting profession (in part because many pilots were ex-military), and yet somehow, that culture was changed to one of standard procedures, checklists, and Crew Resource Management. I'm still hopeful that the same can happen in medicine.
" It's all the random shit invented by people who didn't understand the fundamentals (or chose not to apply them) that takes a long time to learn."

Thanks, you succeeded in verbalizing succinctly the agony of so many software projects. However, I would claim it's just not ignorance of the fundamentals. It's simply more fun for a particular kind of mind to invent new abstractions and constructs than to solve actual problems. I call it cargo-cult progress.
What would be nice is if you could issue some guidelines on downvoting.
I wonder if there's going to be a lot of weird social side-effects to self-driving cars like call screening was when answering machines came into wide use on phones.

For example, as it has been explained to me, self-driving car software will drive defensively by default, and offensively/efficiently when they judge it safe.

Okay, so say self-driving car driving hits critical mass. In this scenario, most people in cars are free to amuse themselves with their phones or reading books, etc while riding their self-driving cars to work. Many are looking down, not at the road, perhaps they're not even in the drivers' seat.

What will happen if there's that one lunatic who opts to drive himself to work and drives in the most offensive, reckless manner? Won't all of the self-driving cars he encounters slam on their brakes to avoid collisions? There likely won't be any accidents, but there will be MANY frightened or startled commuters!

What will this phenomena be called? Road Trolling? And, will there be collective Twitter hashtag outrage that develops as a result?

I can imagine in the most extreme Los Angeles commuter scenario, a serial Road Troll being hunted by one hundred fellow commuters that he rudely cut off on his drive - their auto-drive cars set to "follow that car!", eventually becoming cornered in some residential area when he runs out of gas and then beat to death by the angry mob.
It's also a shorthand for "I'm going to nitpick your grammar but I don't want to be downvoted into oblivion so I will call myself a grammar nazi".

I'd be curious about a breakdown of usage in the instances of nazis being mentioned... I wonder if many of these usages are actually referencing the German National Socialist party of the 1930s/1940s.
Don't you use something like a DateTimePicker or React Select component?
The fact that Bernays couldn't imagine the particulars of social media makes his analysis suspect.
Great Satire! But, I don't see too many of this exact stereotype around, especially the weight lifting type. I mean I see little bits of these behaviors in other people, but not all wrapped in 1 person.
Agree, it's so irritating that I stopped reading the article and came back to hacker news to read the comments..
Back to pre-crisis days? Barclays offers 100% mortgages for homebuyers
The blog seems to be down. Does anyone have a link to a cached copy?
(blog author here)

Interestingly, clock drift does not affect the serializability of the transaction history; this system guarantees that the history is serializable, regardless of clock drift.

However, "serializable" only means that the history is equivalent to some serial ordering of transactions - it makes no guarantee that the equivalent serial ordering is consistent with the real-time ordering of the involved transactions. A history with that property (agrees with real-time) is termed "linearizable", and requires additional rules to guarantee in an environment with clock drift.

As mentioned by knz42, there was another Cockroach Labs blog post (written by Spencer Kimball) that addressed this in some detail; that blog post contrasted our strategy for dealing with drift with that of Google's Spanner.

A quick overview of CockroachDB's properties re linearizability: it guarantees that access to any individual key is linearizable, and by composition any two transactions which share a key (that one of the transactions modifies) will be linearizable with respect to each other. However, if two transactions do not have any overlap in modified keys, Cockroach does not (by default) guarantee the resulting commit history is linearizable. CockroachDB's underlying KV layer does have a "linearizable" flag on transactions that can guarantee this, but it requires that transactions be slowed down considerably; Spencer's blog post addresses some other strategies that CockroachDB is considering to address the issue.
> The way to reconcile those claims is to say that many of our statistical/estimation patterns are very bad.

If studies like this one are taken as evidence of a statistical mind, then non-statistical behavior has to be taken as evidence of a non-statistical mind. Otherwise we have a non-falsifiable theory.

Experiment shows mind behaving statistically: "mind is statistical."

Experiment shows mind behaving non-statistically: "mind is statistical, but this scenario exceeds its capabilities."

> which suggests that they might be employing an existing system consciously to get the bugs out.

I should clarify -- I have nothing against the idea that our minds employ statistical methods. In fact I'm sure they must.

I'm opposed to taking that kernel of truth and pushing a reductionist understanding of something extremely complex (the brain).