skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Learning programming without a computer is going to be really tough, but if he's dedicated enough, he should be able to make some good progress. (Although he shouldn't expect to be employable as soon as he gets out.)

CS theory probably makes a good starting point, as a lot of it doesn't require actual coding, but still lays a solid foundation for future work. I would recommend SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Abelson and Sussman) as a good starting point. It uses Scheme, which isn't exactly a language he's likely to end up working in, but it will teach him a whole lot about thinking like a programmer.
I've played both TIS-100, and their earlier game, Space Chem. Like Space Chem, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with real chemistry, TIS-100 doesn't have a whole lot to do with programming. They use chemistry and programming as window dressing for what are otherwise pretty uninspiring puzzle games.

To my knowledge, the game that gets closest to real assembly language programming is Core Wars.[1][2]

Also, it's not assembly language, but Screeps[3] uses real Javascript programming, or any language that compiles to Javascript.[4]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corewar

[2] - http://www.corewars.org/

[3] - https://screeps.com/

[4] - https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu...
p.s. TransitApp guys - there's a broken link from blog article to: https://transitapp.com/regions
Yes, but not at that point in the article yet...
There are millions and millions of people in Canada and the US that are fluent in both English and Mandarin. Hire one of them.
Which encoding opens CSV files correctly with Excel on both Mac and Windows?
Does it cause cancer in the worms?
Sorry, bro. I've already made a new design :)
Looks like that is ES5 only.
What's so tricky about writing in a contract, that you the owner ship will automatically given to the client after the payment?

I mean, who would say into your face that they don't want to pay you for your work? (what not signing such a contract actually implies)
When you're young, flex hours are great. When you have kids, the standard 40 hours are great because you have to match your schedules to many other people.
The British royal family have run into the same problem. Traditionally, they use a first name and a title, e.g. "Prince William, Duke of Cambridge". For legal purposes, they occasionally use the surname "Windsor" or "Mountbatten-Windsor". This is applied rather inconsistently - Prince William enlisted in the Air Force as "William Wales".

https://www.royal.uk/royal-family-name
When you mentally translate theories and discussions from words to equations rather than equations to words.
I can't open the link, the graphic couldn't be shown due to an error. Firefox.
The hosting company turning off a server is merely acting on property they both own and possess.

You "deleting all work from a client's server" are accessing someone else's property, and doing it for destructive purposes. That's illegal, both civilly and criminally. They're not analogous situations.

Even in the physical world, repossession companies may not enter a private building without permission. "Goods are reclaimed" by a sheriff carrying out a court order, not by whoever is owed money breaking in and taking things on their own volition.
Hacker news is not reddit, and conversation is supposed to stay on topic and not be interrupted by memes.
If Mylan truly believes they did no wrong, they would say so and not settle. If the government believed the same, it would not be pursuing the case.

Mylan made claims that were false.

Edit: the alternative is that the $465M payment is a bribe
I'm surprised this is difficult, since Nestle Smarties have used natural colours in Europe since about 2005, and a blue one based on Spirulina was introduced in 2008.

Is there much difference between Smarties and M&Ms? They're both chocolate covered with a sugar shell.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/feb/11/fooddrinks

Pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties
This is exactly what I was thinking, thanks for the book title! This community is the best.
In the context given in the article it sounds like non-mathematicians are students who choose to stop maths at age sixteen, presumably for the rest of their lives. This reflects the observation that children are born mathematicians and explorers and remain so until something kills their curiosity (often school is named as the culprit).
Love it -- reminds me of a more focused Uplink.
Good catch. It seems that the "Object" string doesn't provide any crucial characters for further steps; in this case the literal curly brackets aren't needed.
Contracts can't violate laws, even if you own the website if it's on some one else's server this is felony trespassing + w/e computer crime law you've violated.
I was having a similar problem reinstalling Ubuntu last night. I couldnt copy files to external HD over permissions. Re-ran file manager with sudo. As root, I still couldnt do it. So I changed permissions of files until I could. I'd worry about changing them back but they were bookmark backups haha.

All that trouble to move files on a LiveCD that has full access to the disk anyway. Wth lol...
did you read that blog you posted? They still use couchdb and never say they even attempted to use it on multiple instances; just that they ran out of AWS capacity to keep growing their one massive instance.

They stopped using the couch-lucene search integration.
Scaling Bitcoin Milan Day 1 Video
I wouldn't be surprised if creating a deep blue shade is far more difficult than a light blue like the Smarties color.
MBassador still wins over Google Guava EventBus
Yes, but what makes it complicated is where it is hosted, if it's hosted on a remote server you do not own you've committed trespassing and computer crime by accessing the network and server.

In fact you have to be the sole owner of everything in that chain for this to be considered even remotely legal, this includes things like the domain and certificate.
And even then it's not that simple since legal ownership isn't the only thing that plays a factor here since the client can claim beneficial ownership which grants them certain rights.
Yeah it feels like they died right after getting everything right.
Lots of really cool technology presented. Recommend watching TumbleBit and MimbleWimble talks, very promising developments.
Teaching mathematics has two aspects, or goals, that are largely not related to one another. One is teaching mathematical methods as a computational tool, as used in a certain area of expertise (such as, for instance, electrical engineering). The other one is teaching how to do mathematics, i.e. how to generalize facts, find efficient proofs and algorithms, etc.
A friend of mine has a sign on the back of his chair that say something like "Please do not disturb me when I'm wearing headphones." and people still disturb him because it is easier than emailing him.

His manager told him that he's "unapproachable". LOL!
Human Park: A Mammal's Guide to Stress-Free Living
Cool. I have a special place in my heart for scripting languages due to their extreme productivity boost for shorter programs. How much faster does this run using .NET?
Do other disciplines ask similar questions?

How should physics be taught to non-physicists?

How should writing be taught to non-writers?

How should car maintenance be taught to non-mechanics?

I guess my point is, why should we teach mathematics any differently to "non-mathematicians" than we do to "mathematicians"? I mean, at the point when you're first teaching someone, how do you even know if they're a "non-mathematician" or a "mathematician"? After all, they haven't learned enough yet to know if they'd want to continue in that field of study.
The article says Mylan had $1.3 billion in US government EpiPen revenue just from 2011-2015.
Ownership of what? the website? fine, it's yours, but it's hosted on a server you don't own and you take it away it's a crime.

If i steal your TV and you break into my house to take it back you've committed a felony.

Or a better example if you've sent me a TV and I didn't pay you you can't break into my house to claim it back even if the contract we signed states that it is yours until paid in full.
This is why a bank needs to get an order to repossess your car or house they can't just take it away even if it's leveraged, we have laws.
Nice. What about Vagrant images?
https://developers.google.com/caja/

Used it a few years ago. It was a little finnicky to get working right but I was impressed at the time. No idea where the project is at nowadays.
For really good non-programming puzzle games, I'd recommend Snakebird[0] and Stephen's Sausage Roll[1]. Try out Snakebird first, it's cheaper and works great on mobile devices. Don't let the cute art fool you, it's a monstrous game. If you get through most of Snakebird and still don't hate yourself, look into SSR. It's much more hardcore, but has some mind blowing puzzles.

As far as programming puzzle games go, Zachtronic basically has the market cornered.

[0] http://snakebird.noumenongames.com/
[1] http://www.stephenssausageroll.com/
Amongst many, IBM has done something that does this and the opposite. It was funded by public money (DoD).
>Tensing pulled over DuBose near campus for a missing license plate. His attorney said Tensing feared being dragged under the car as DuBose tried to drive away. The shooting was captured on video by Tensing’s body camera and depicts DuBose repeatedly being asked for his driver’s license. After DuBose refuses to produce it and get out of the car, a gunshot is heard.

>Tensing, who was fired from the department, was released from jail after posting 10% of $1-million bond. The county prosecutor called the shooting a “senseless act.” Tensing is scheduled to face a jury starting Oct. 24.

>Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck in January recommended criminal charges be brought against Officer Clifford Proctor, who fatally shot an unarmed black man in the back.

>Proctor told investigators he saw Glenn’s hand on his partner’s holster. But an LAPD report that drew upon security footage from a nearby bar in Venice found Glenn’s hand was nowhere near the holster.

>Michael Slager faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of murder in the shooting death of Scott, who was running away on foot from a traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C., in April 2015. Scott was unarmed.

>The shooting was captured on cellphone video by a passerby. Slager fired eight times at Scott before he was killed, reigniting the debate over how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.

>Slager, 34, was fired by the North Charleston Police Department and stands trial in October. Previously held in solitary confinement, he has been free since January, when he was released on $500,000 bail and put under house arrest. Last fall, North Charleston approved a $6.5-million civil settlement with Scott’s family.

>Peter Liang, a rookie New York City police officer, was convicted Feb. 11 of manslaughter in the death of Gurley.

>Liang was patrolling a public housing high-rise with his gun drawn in 2014 when he fired and a bullet ricocheted off a wall, hitting Gurley. Liang said he had been holding his weapon safely when a sound jarred him and he accidentally fired.

>In April, a judge reduced the conviction to negligent homicide and sentenced Liang to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service.

>Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of black teenager McDonald. Van Dyke was charged in November on the same day that the city, on the orders of a judge, released the explosive dash-cam video showing McDonald being shot 16 times.

>On the night of the shooting, Van Dyke and his partner trailed McDonald for nearly half a mile, from a trucking yard where he was said to have been breaking into vehicles. The officers radioed for a Taser in order to apprehend McDonald, who they said was carrying a knife in the middle of the road. According to the video, the officers arrived 10 minutes after the first call and, within 21 seconds, Van Dyke had emptied his 16-round handgun.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-s...
The new Apple campus, designed by Jobs, will be open plan.

http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/16/10/06/apple-to-un...
You Won't Believe What He Found in His Car Door
well I can only speak to my own experience. personally I really enjoyed geometry but can't say the same for most students
on the web app side, complice.co serves a similar purpose with other features like a pomodoro timer. Been using it for a month now and like it so far.
I love games as an introduction to programming. But then you have to teach kids how to do collisions (or physics), you have to teach them how to keep track of multiple sprites that behave the same but are in different places at the same time (I'm talking about classes, yes), and it's harder to point to a "real world" usage of game programming... which makes it harder to get your course approved.

I know, teaching today's web standards means they'll be out of date within the next ten years. But I believe the improvement of the web is asymptotic and will slowly come to a halt in the coming years... that and I would never forgive myself for not refreshing a course when it's too old to be applied to the real world, as a pragmatist. Finally, I don't think Vue will beat React too quickly.

(I'm not an educator, but I've spoken with a few on some of these topics.)
Those are issues with tying compensation and performance evaluation to metrics, not with detecting changes in them due to office environments.
Here is another programming game, this one with a nice GUI:
http://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine
Female Wedding Bands – Artisan Made by Reflective Images Jewelry
None is preventing you from writing
let f = (a,b,c) => {a * b ^ c};
in JS
Your making several assumptions. DRM is well protected in the law so having a site that stops working without payment is one option. Further you don't need server access you can do a DMCA takedown if they have not paid you as they are hosting content that they don't own.

Just look at all the hosting companies which redirect to a page when you stop payment.
I don't think the general public realizes how important this is.

I only recently found out that anyone that can reliably man in the middle your server can get a valid HTTPS cert from CA's like Let's Encrypt. That includes cloud providers, backbone providers and possibly the local government where the server is located. [edit: It also includes anyone that can temporarily modify or spoof your DNS records.]
Celtic Wedding Bands – Reflective Images Jewelry
New benchmark of the latest versions of both libraries available. Have a look at the plots and see how the performance of both libraries compare. Is MBassador the fastest event bus on the JVM?
Every single media outlet in the US has been publishing at least one negative article about Trump/day and you want more?

I actually want to see less-biased media. I rarely see negative articles about Clinton and when the mainstream media covers something up, it's like they are all reading from the same playbook. The words are very similar.

The last set of wikileaks showed us that most of the mainstream media are an extension of the DNC. They first destroyed Sanders (an enemy of Clinton) and now they are trying to destroy Trump.

I also find it interesting that nobody cares that the majority of these Trump leaks are the result of illegal wiretapping. Yet, when there are wikileaks, we nees to focus on illegal russian hackers and not the content of the leaks.

It's scary to think that illegal activity is perfectly acceptable...as long as it is hurting someone you don't like.
Not many people change their foundational epistemic stance in response to mathematical arguments.
I started replying, but much of what I would have said is covered better by the USA Today post regarding their endorsement breaching their editorial ethics of neutrality:

"Endorsements might taint the objective reporting we were trying to do in the rest of the newspaper. Moreover, [USA Today founder Al Neuharth] felt it was elitist to assume we know better than everyone else when it comes to voting."

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/04/disendorsem...
What is the intellectual output of Buddhism apart from religion and a couple of witty Koans?

Meditation is something different -- actually I find it has adverse effects on critical thinking.

The only thing that works for me is (courtesy Feynman):

1) State the problem.

2) Think hard.

3) Write down the solution.

I cannot do these steps for programming or math in "any environment". I could write Koans though.
The worst part of Hacker Rank is that it takes arguments as STDIN, forcing you to to a "read from STDIN" ceremony before actually getting to the problem.
That was indeed the only thing I decided I didn't want to allow myself to put up with.
I found this statement intriguing as well. I work at a company where compensation is deliberately above market, if slightly, as a matter of business. It's also an incredible place to work. I don't think it is unilaterally factual that places offering higher salaries than market are horrible work environments; however, it's also not clearly unilaterally false. As such, I'm curious if there's some other factor or set of factors that, in addition to higher salaries, suggests the work environment is poor.
This is an important point some people commenting here don't get. You can write whatever contract you like, but provisions of a contract that violate or attempt to nullify the law are void on their face. And having a contract does not mean you can break other laws to enforce the contract or remedy a breach. Acting in bad faith, like planting a time bomb in the code, is likely to void the entire contract.
Personally I think offices of 2-3 people who are working together on the same thing is ideal. You want some level of communication for immediate stuff but a barrier big enough for non-immediate stuff that others need to actually get up and go to you rather just pop their heads up. As well it allows conversations between interested parties while keeping it quiet for the other groups. I've found this to be the best setup for me personally.
I used Debian (Server) and Ubuntu (Workstation) for development till now.

Switching to NixOS these days, because it has dev specific features I really like (Nix, hurrr). I don't see that much benefit from switching from Ubuntu to SUSE or Fedora etc.
I could see why that might be annoying, but it forces the coder to make choices about their data structure and makes it easier for hacker rank to support many languages.
And I can predict 3-5 days in advance how many people will come to the protest event by having access to the Facebook list of "who will come" for that event. The people report themselves.
The hard part -- sometimes really hard -- is the "bit-for-bit identical" requirement.

Lots of builds are recreatable but not reproducible (there is probably a better term of art here). You can go back to a point in time and build the version of the software as it was, but you are not guaranteed to get a bit-for-bit clone. (See https://reproducible-builds.org for a thorough discussion)

The problem is that there are lots of uncontrolled inputs to a build that are due to sourcecode or compiler changes. Most famously there are timestamps and random numbers, which mess up all sorts of hashing-based approaches.

These can even be non-obvious. Just the other day I and a colleague were investigating the (small but unsettling) possibility that an old buildpack had been replaced maliciously. We compared the historical hash to the file: different. We rebuilt the historical buildpack with trusted inputs: still different.

Then we unzipped both versions and diff'd the directories: identical.

What had thrown our hashes off was that zipfiles, by default, include timestamps. We have a build that is recreatable but not reproducible.

Speaking of builds, we are able to reproducibly build some binaries but not others. Off the top of my head our most high-profile non-reproducible build is NodeJS. Some other binaries (Ruby and Python, in my not-at-all-complete recollection) are fully reproducible.

This difficulty with fully reproducing makes it hard to provide a fully trustworthy chain of custody. A company which uses Cloud Foundry have in actual fact stood up an independent copy of our build pipelines inside their own secure network, so that they can be completely autarkic for the build steps leading to a complete buildpack. This doesn't defend against malicious source, but it defends against malicious builds.

Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, the majority donor of engineering to Cloud Foundry. As you've probably guessed, I'm currently a fulltime contributor on the buildpacks team.
Do you care what his explanation for that is? He invaded and annexed part of another country.
This is one of the reasons I'm eyeing management for long term career growth. I've learned that the problems given to sr. and jr. engineers are roughly the same, and that the interview process is biased towards jr.
Portfolio management tool to manage 25+ pre-seed startups?
Hi there,

I could use your advice to not mess up our startup portfolio...

We are operating a startup factory since 2015. We now have 18+ active startups we've built - internal ideation, internal team and own capital. Five of them already spun-off to dedicated company after raised seed round. We're preparing to launch additional 10 initiatives in the coming months (and even more after that), but this brings some new challenges...

By default we're builders not pro investors. So now we're facing with this portfolio management question. How to keep track of dozens of initiatives, including but not limited to allocating resources between startups, validation exercises and metrics, investor relations, all sorts of metrics?

Initially spreadsheet + email + face2face discussions with the startup ceo-s were enough, but this doesn't cut it anymore. Our startup studio management (3 people) needs some sort of portfolio management system / dashboard to do this right.

So my question is: What are some portfolio management tools and best practices that early-stage investors, accelerators use nowadays? Are there some good SaaS tools available that are tailored for such tasks?

Thank you,
Attila - from Drukka Startup Studio
> Are we now at a point where an engineer should at all times be intimately familiar with competitive programming and codegolf techniques?

Yes, we are. Accepting that trend seems to be better than ignoring it.

There is one not-so-bad way to look at these programming challenges. In silicon valley, we live in a condition wherein the company could fail at any time. As a developer, most often, we have to learn something entirely new and ship the code for the business. Those challenges are quite enormous with lots of unknowns compared to these programming contest problems where it is just preparation. The general idea is, if a developer is diligent enough to prepare for these programming contest problems and delivers when required, he is probably going to be helpful as well when the business has a dire need.
Knowing the implementation of a specific algorithm is much less important than knowing what class of problem you're facing, where and how to look up the details of algorithms that could help you and how to work well with others to get the work done. If your employer uses hackerrank to choose candidates, you really don't want to work there. People who do those things well are often the worst kind of people to hire: they're really good at certain types of problems but suck at almost everything else. I end up cleaning up systems after these people all the time everywhere I encounter them in the workplace.
HN is a behaviour control mechanism. _Other people_ upvote articles and downvote anything they don't like. Therefore ensuring you are forced fed with only articles _they_ like. Your behavior is controlled by all these other people.

/s