skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"But this news is exactly that! A computer translation of the same semantic concept from one syntax to another without ever having been taught the rules connecting them."

By that standard, statistical translation approaches were "understanding" a long time ago. The new thing here isn't that systems aren't being taught "the rules" (that wasn't happening in statistical MT either), the new thing is that there's a different kind of classifier in the "middle" now, which is representing a hidden state. This classifier is more flexible in a lot of ways, but also more of a black box, and takes a lot more effort to train without overfitting. It's cool that you can translate between language pairs that have never been explicitly trained, but let's not overstate the meaning of it.

The blog post makes this rather breathless speculation:

"Within a single group, we see a sentence with the same meaning but from three different languages. This means the network must be encoding something about the semantics of the sentence rather than simply memorizing phrase-to-phrase translations. We interpret this as a sign of existence of an interlingua in the network."

This is...a fun story, but not much else. First off, you can make dimensionality reduction plots that "show" a lot of things. Even ignoring that issue, in translations of short sentences involving specific concepts (i.e. the example about the stratosphere), is it really surprising that you'd find clusters? The words in that sentence are probably unique enough that they'd form a distinct cluster in mappings from any translation system.

Folks get caught up in the "neural" part of neural networks, and assume that some magical quasi-human thought is happening. If the tech were called "highly parameterized reconfigurable weighted networks of logistic classifiers", there'd be less loopy speculation.
Yea I skimmed the rest. This makes me ashamed that I even bought the guys book (Learn Python the Hard Way). His attitude is what is going to kill python, not python 3. I moved from Perl 5 to Python 3 hoping to flee the internal dev fighting and attitudes, yet here I am again.

I'll say this, at Pycon 2016 I attended some dev sprints/hackathons with the python 3 developers. Python 2 is no where on their radar, its dead. They have moved on. There will be no additional compatibility layers or any of that. All of the mainline libraries that everyone uses (django, sql alchemy, etc ) have moved on to python 3. If you haven't, you should to.
Heck no he shouldn't.
A legal loophole opens a murder zone in Yellowstone National Park
Really? I found several double blind studies showing the effectiveness of acetaminophen on headaches:

http://www.neurology.org/content/48/1/103.short

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/10...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2006....
This tactic is common across businesses. Quite a few publishers in the game industry have pulled the same stunt and when the developer goes under re-hire everyone to work on the title at a lower rate.

Most publishing contracts have a clause the the publisher gets source/assets in the event of a developer bankruptcy.
The people in China do not really have a choice. Those that disagree or hold a contrary opinion disappear, are held under house arrest, or go on a show trial. Even if you agree 100% with the State but you have a faith or a belief system then you are harassed.
lol, winning.
Netscape would like to have a word with you.
If you're looking for the most viable defense, how about unplugging your headphones.
Bitcoin is a decentralized system; it has no option but to have a floating exchange rate, because all known forms of peg and other stability measures require centralized third parties.

It isn't going to maintain it's value better by having a higher inflation rate than it does.
Or they could just special-case GitHub repos and their readme files. But what is duplicate detection if not machine learning? One can't be sure the same URL is the same document if submitted at different times.
Honest question: How do you interpret the undercover video of Scott Foval as not indicative of election fraud? He explicitly confesses to violating federal election law.

Is he not actually Scott Foval?

Is he lying to the person he's talking to?

Or are you saying that, while he is telling the truth and has committed those acts, they didn't amount to enough to make a difference? If so, how do you know that, based on what he said? Why do you think they would spend time and money on those things, and risk prosecution, if they didn't think it could make a difference? Why do you think that there aren't people like him doing the same thing in other places?

Looking at the video of him, it is clear that election fraud is happening. The question is to what extent.

Besides, it's common knowledge that votes have been cast for dead people in places like Chicago and Philadelphia for decades. So I don't understand how you can say that election fraud isn't happening with a straight face.
Hey thanks yoo1l. It worked like charm ...

PS: Blog updated !!!
https://worldofprasanna.github.io/using-vi-in-zsh
This has to be the ne plus ultra of Python scaremongering. It describes some sort of bizzaro world of a doomed language which it populates with Machiavellian Python maintainers, brainwashed developers, and a small group of heroic holdouts who see resisting Python 3 as a moral imperative. Apparently having too many string formatting options is a moral issue (three, to be specific).

As someone who writes a _lot_ of Python code (mostly in 3 but with occasional switches to 2), who maintains several libraries which work in both 2 and 3, and as someone who uses a wide range of libraries in stats, machine learning, networking, web development, etc. in my python 3 work...this piece seems totally disconnected from reality. The problems it describes are relentlessly overblown when they're not simply manufactured from whole cloth.

Put another way: the differences between 2 and 3 are not great, the vast majority of libraries you'd want to use (i.e. are actively maintained or of at least good quality) work in 3, and while I don't doubt there's great piles of Python 2 code moldering away big "enterprise" apps and those sorts of places, it's ever been thus in that space, no matter what the language, and doesn't pose any sort of existential threat to Python.

(edit: I used to recommend "Learn Python The Hard Way" to newcomers, and have just kept reflexively doing that over the years because I wasn't aware of a better resource. But if this article has accomplished one thing, it's that it's spurred me to look for a replacement)
Can the conclusion stand if the arguments are not correct? I'm sure there are other, better arguments out there, but after reading this from top to bottom I'm getting the idea that the resistance to Python 3 is mostly irrational.
Ask HN: [Data Science] What would make you hire a guy who self studied?
What would you need to see on the resume of someone who is self studying to become a Data Scientist if he didn't have relevant degrees (like no Math or Com Sci or anything of that sort)? A lot of people have recommended a plethora of resources online, but which ones when you see on a resume (assuming you even put those in a resume) would interest you to bring him in for an interview?
You've got it a bit backwards, the state is in control, always has been; the world isn't going that way, it's been that way. The Internet is not immune to laws or nations.

> And every effort to circumvent state control gets regulated before going mainstream.

So efforts to break laws are circumvented by the state who's laws are being broken, hardly surprising or unusual. This is what's expected to happen.
I feel like this is a narrative for which I am nostalgic despite being too young to have ever really experienced even though I grew up in a small town. I wish that those in my community who serve their neighbors in an important way were more respected socially. Sure, the local paramedic - Sam - doesn't make a lot of money, but everyone knows he's a good guy you can rely on. Everything feels so transactional.
I attended a few newbie classes at pycon2016. A few of them suggested Learn Python The Hard Way, to which I pointed out how the author states to never try installing python 3 on the first page.
They made a child porn site serve viruses. It seems to be the only way to get real ip addresses for the people visiting. Idk what they are supposed to do in this situation especially since getting a warrant for every person would be very impractical
I don't really hear that many complaints from the C++ community about what you're talking about. All those older libraries that pre-date C++11 still work fine and interoperate with no difficulties with even C++1z libraries. C++ is the language that has done feature adoption correctly in my opinion. Standardized, by committee, with forwards and backwards compatibility in mind.
>C++ is an example of the serious negative consequences of language change.

From the outside looking in (as a non-C++ developer), for me the bigger problem is honestly that they left in the warts rather than just paving around them. Those who have followed C++ for its entire life cycle have probably been able to mostly keep up with what language features were mistakes and what the best way to do things is, but I can't imagine myself ever picking up C++ now and hoping to have any clue at all what to avoid without spending years learning the hard way (no pun intended).

As a very basic example from C# (which I do use professionally), the fact that untyped collections still exist (and things like IEnumerable with explicit casts instead of IEnumerable<T>) is just pointless cruft that we'd be better off without. As far as I'm concerned, no code should ever depend on them, and any code that does should be forcibly broken to force people to fix it. We treat security flaws seriously by forcing people to fix things, why should we not do the same with features that are essentially bug-magnets?
Georgia is easy to explain. Well, more like Atlanta is easy to explain. No one cares about the rest of Georgia (I lived in middle Georgia for 4 years, wasn't pleasant)

Atlanta has cheap housing and good and growing jobs. Warm weather, few hours from the beach, few hours from the mountain. It has a little bit of everything. Tons of companies building new offices. Construction everywhere to accommodate jobs and people. Mercedes headquarter moved here from New Jersey. GM located a huge tech center, etc.

Now, on the map it has Florida with a net gain. I'm from Florida, went to college in Florida...left for work. I don't know what college grads are going to Florida for...lots of my classmates left Florida, and some actually came to Atlanta.
Then I guess teams that follow the Agile manifesto are unicorns. That doesn't contradict me.
> Regarding 2to3 not being flawless: agree, could be better.

The thing to remember though is that 2to3 will never be flawless. Since the underlying representation of some things has been split into different types, it simply impossible to automatically fix some code.

For example a function returning the first letter read from a file object is going to be completely different and more explicit in py3 than it was in py2. And the end result it better. You have to fix some code now - tough.
I don't know how much it is Python shooting itself in the foot, I wonder if it's not a management issue. Though he may be stubborn, I can't see the 2 v 3 split happening under Rob Pike - I think this is fundamentally a Guido problem.

If Guido had said "2 is done. Deal with it, fuck you." a long time ago, this wouldn't be an issue today. Breaking language changes are nothing new, but mgmt this weak is.

Hell, I primarily work in C# and I LOVE the breaking changes of .NET Core and Standard. They tore the garbage out, and it runs on Linux. Awesome!
I love both comments - an example how the global picture of things is subject to interpretation. Everyone sees what he/she wants to see and is at least partially right. ( i think that's the danger of infering too much from small things, isn't it?)

I dont have an answer - both of you got an upvote from me.
I would argue the technicality you pointed out is a lot more minor than the OPs.

The OP was basically talking about the JVM as if it was a language.

*edit typo
How to speed up the Rust compiler some more
I work for Google, and I've asked for -- and been granted -- IP for a side project I've been working on. Actually under California state law I probably had rights to the IP anyway (I haven't worked on it at work or with work resources) but I've been officially granted a legal promise that Google won't sue me into bankruptcy to try and assert ownership. :)

It wasn't a hard thing to do, and I get the impression that unless you're planning on directly competing with something they care about, they're pretty liberal with such releases.
Agree. A few months ago I stopped supporting py2 in anything I'm writing. Maybe it happens to work. It shouldn't be hard to port if there's a need for it. But nobody complained yet.
Silicon Valley is a hell of a lot more meritocratic than just about any place on earth. I've lived in Europe, Asia, West Coast, Midwest and East Coast. SV is not perfect but it is magical compared to the norms.
Python's adoption is exploding in the data science / machine learning fields, I don't see Go or Node do the same, so I guess it depends on which field you are considering. Regarding web development specifically, then yes Python is not the latest hot-new-thing.
I think we should instate a fake news policy in HN just like Facebook. Deceiving articles like this should be banned.

I mean, what's up with the Turing completeness? Someone needs to give this guy a wake up call.
It's a lot harder to commit fraud when there's physical evidence that anyone can recount, and the counting is done in a public place observed by a variety of people, and the ballots cannot so easily be tampered with without leaving physical evidence.

With computers, even if you bring in a certified, gold-master CD containing the software under armed guard, it's still a black box. There's no way to conclusively prove that the machine counts accurately and fairly. Tampering can be done without a trace. Compromise is always a concern.

Paper is always the best choice. Who cares if it takes longer to count.
It's sophistry because under your definition it is impossible for Facebook to apply any form of control over the content on their platform, which they are clearly entitled to do.

Your definition (accepting for a moment the opening paragraph from the Wikipedia article on censorship as a "definition") can be logically reduced to, "Suppression of information which may be objectionable by a group". That, for instance, describes HN comment and article moderation. It is so overly broad as to be able to describe practically anything.
Naw, `zip` is a builtin in py2. You might be thinking of `itertools.izip`?

https://repl.it/E5v6/2
I'm not sure removing trademark law is a libertarian thing as much as an anarchist thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_in...

But it seems like the extent that copyright/trademark law is needed is still under debate. I think there's an argument that if you can own a parcel of land legally, you can probably own some data you produced, but there should be consideration for things like expiration date so it enters the public domain eventually.
Personally I think we should ditch BOTH the electoral college and fist-past-the-post elections.

If there are several candidates from each party (including independent and third party candidates) and voting is done using one of the many ranking systems that allows you to do more than vote against a candidate, we could be in a much better situation.
Aw c'mon, Zed. Python 3 is what I've prefer to put into production, it's also going to get the most love from the community.
Google Home price reduced to $99
It completely depends on the type of doctor. If we're talking about GPs, then sure, their work is mostly standard and they refer anything non-standard to a specialist. But specialists are definitely held in very high regard in their social circle. Surgeons especially.

>>They derive most of their status from their pay.

No, they derive it from the insane amounts of education, training and hard work they have to put in to get to where they are at. It's basically "crunch time times two" all the time from the moment they start med school until they complete their residency, and only slightly lessens afterwards.
Is this actually a joke? I'm still kind of reeling. The typos, the technical inaccuracies, the logical fallacies, all bundled together... Is it trying to satirize something? If not, what is the blog post trying to do?
Now that was a 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. The author commits all the crimes of "propaganda" and "FUD" he accuses others of.

The primary and possibly only reason Python 3 has not taken off as much as some would like is because 2.7 is that good.
I did the same. I honestly wonder if there is a single other developer on earth who is troubled by the inability to write a Python 2 runtime in Python 3.
Alexa top 1M files restored again, after being removed 2 days ago
As someone who's used Python 2 for the past half decade and started using Python 3 only recently, 100% with you on this.

The first time I was working on a project which required me to be able to work with characters beyond ASCII, I was so confused. To this date, I'm still not sure if I can actually explain what str.encode and str.decode do in Python 2.

Admittedly I've never used Python 3 for a project where I had to deal with international charsets - and his point about the concatenation of unicode and bytearrays certainly seems a valid point - but it still seems infinitely better than what Python 2 did.
why would it be able to?
The description of how this tool is going to work is directly at conflict with Zuckerberg's quote:

> “It’s better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even if it’s not yet the full conversation,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, according to employees.

It's not a conversation anymore if you are left blindfolded, speaking to a room you don't know is empty or not. Either incredibly dishonest or incredibly naive.
> my point is clearly not address the aloe lotion in the article but rather claim of the comment that aloe vera itself is bullshit.

Fair enough, but you were responding to a comment specifically talking about aloe in lotion (or "jelly" as the nsxwolf put it).

Personally, I'm not very convinced about the value of aloe, in lotions or fresh cut. I think it has therapeutic value, but I'm not at all convinced in has more value than other modern lotions that also sooth and protect the skin. I think aloe gets a free ride on the modern "natural" train, where people tend to assume that "natural" is better without any proof.

> Just because I didn't go into detail doesn't mean I am making a blanket claim anti-toxin benefits means you pick any toxin you like and aloe is the answer.

There are two problems with the term "toxins". One, it's a generically huge category, akin to "illnesses". Saying that aloe is good for "illnesses" is meaningless. Even if it's good for some particular illnesses or toxins, it's not a general solution and referring to it as such is misleading. No medical professional would say that antibiotics are good for "illnesses" because it's misleading to the point that it's nearly a lie.

Second, the people talking about "toxins" are generally snake-oil salesmen pushing "natural healing" practices with no scientific evidence. By referring to toxins in a general sense, it associates the subject of the statement with fraud. If aloe is good for dealing with "toxins", it's good for specific toxins that can be discussed directly. The reason frauds talk about "toxins" is because it sounds scary and is virtually impossible to refute directly because the category is so broad that it's meaningless.

> Anyway because I didn't label the toxins doesn't erase the decades of scientific studies which are pretty conclusive toxic heavy metals, including mercury and lead, readily bind with aloe vera.

Can you provide any evidence for this claim? I did a quick search and found nothing except "natural medicine" sites making vague claims about its benefits with no citations.

Meanwhile I did find evidence that aloe itself may be dangerous when ingested, as it's known to cause tumors in rodents as well as kidney, liver, and other problems in some humans.

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/aloe/index.cfm

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-607...
Though he's indeed wrong in saying that the "invisible hand" acts only as to hamper trade, he isn't far off. The only use of the expression "invisible hand" in The Wealth of Nations occurs amid the discussion of why investors and traders might be biased towards their home country, which is still a discussed issue [0][1] and is considered a kind of market failure.

But nowhere in the same passage does Smith's use of the expression suggest that the "invisible hand" would act merely to hamper trade, but that this simile generally describes an unintended outcome of a decentralized process. The action of the invisible hand might not be necessarily beneficial, as it isn't in this case.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_bias_in_trade_puzzle

[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_home_bias_puzzle
Give your company (and currently done work) a valuation. Say $100000. Assign yourself 100 shares from the company. Each share is now valued at $1000.

Now a new-comer brings a certain value.. say $20000. Hence give the newcomer 20 shares.

The variables are essentially, current value of the work, and the value that the new partner would bring.
It's amazing that we just still live in a system where the people who methodically know nothing about something can end up controlling the majority share.