skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Call them out when they're wasting money on marketing. This has been in my "blog post drafts" folder for a while, but the short version is: One of the first things I do on new projects (I'm a customer acquisition consultant) is review the running campaigns and their results from the past few months. Not clicks—which is what all the dashboards show you—but actual results like signups and new customers.

Almost always I find money being drained away. There was the time when a company targeting Python developers was losing its AdWords budget on snake enthusiasts. Another time a mobile analytics company was spending thousands on people searching for free apps. In another case a company whose ads went to a 404 page and nobody realized. Also recently I found that an SEO agency was falsifying results to one of my clients (the contract was quickly terminated).

I don't know if "blown away" is the correct phrase. It's more like a brief moment of embarrassment followed a huge sense of relief that a budget leak was found and plugged.

PS - The companies described here have successful products made by brilliant people. This is more a symptom of hiring the marketers who don't have the skill (or intention) to demonstrate the results of their efforts.
Being a free beer clone of expensive UNIX workstation OSes helped.

Of course companies had an agenda to improve it to the point they wouldn't need to keep paying Sun, SGI, HP, IBM, Compaq, Unisys,...
Ability to weigh non-technical factors in technical decisions, such as time cost, cost of technical debt, potential risk and business need.

And the critical skill to go along with all of that is the ability to communicate those factors to different groups of people as needed.
Our Perl5 CGI.pm codebase used to look like that (html + logic). Fortunately we switched it over to Mojolicious and it became manageable. Not going back there thank you.
I'm relatively new to investing and started a year ago. $AMD was one of the companies I chose to invest in last December. I'm up 100+% (in GBP) on my AMD investment right now and planning to hold for another year. If Zen and Vega deliver (and I think they will) I'm confident I'll see 200% a gain in the next 6 months, possibly even close to 300%.
That is the mainstream, but paradoxically, the mainstream is the quietest right now. Public debate has ended up being between people who want quotas for the "minorities" and people who want to re-homogenize an already diverse workforce.
Every year something in my brain breaks and I think "I know, I'll finally get rsync.net a wikipedia entry".

This is somewhat important because the little-hitler that owns (yes, owns) the "cloud storage" wikipedia page refuses all additions of cloud storage providers that "aren't notable". So therefore, rsync.net has to have a wikipedia page.

This shouldn't be a problem - rsync.net has been mentioned in the press widely over the course of over 10 years - everything from articles about our warrant canary to articles about our ZFS support. In fact, other wikipedia pages mention and discuss rsync.net.

You know where this is going.

A perfectly well written article, well cited with 15+ citations from "respectable" journalist sources is nearly insta-deleted due to notability.

Every single time. I've tried 4-5 times over the past few years. Every time it's a different little-hitler that swoops in to bravely defend wikipedia.
I agree with you that Obama's quote is similar to what I stated (although not explicitly).

The article goes into detail on how to setup a full-blown plan of cutting down decision count. I think they missed the point entirely.
Visual Studio for Windows applications and XCode for iOS ones pin you to particular platforms.

> For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS.

"Denny's is as good as any Michelin Star restaurant."
I stopped watching TV news about 15 years ago. But I was an avid consummer of news on the Web until about 2 years ago and severely curbed it to preserve time and mental bandwidth.

But I realized that I would still read articles based on whatever was in my social media feed, and that tended to gravitate towards the affect-driven news that I fled when I stopped watching TV news.

So recently I subscribed to a good old-fashioned newspaper (NYTimes). It kills trees, it's not real-time, it gets wet outside. But I get to read news in a different mind-set:

- I found I'm now reading news to understand, not to prepare a witty reply/comment.

- I enjoy the dryness of the paper medium as it further decreases the emotional appeal.

- Op-Eds/columns are clearly marked as such; I find the distinction more obvious than online where the context of "today's paper" doesn't really exist. I still read them but I'm placing their contents in a better context.

- Reading the news has become more efficient. Instead of using news as a time-filler between holes in my day (and invariably getting distracted), it's a one-time review that takes just a few minutes depending on how much I want to read. It's counter-intuitive but the by-product is that now I'm happy to ignore news articles when they come across my feed online (unless it's some specialty topic). That ends up being a time-saver.
>Providing dense parking garages gets a lot easier if it doesn't need to be omfortable for people to get to the cars and you don't need to be able to open the doors when parked etc.

You mean like they do in Manhattan today?

>But self-driving cars can be used to augment the transit system too.

Here's the thing. All these scenarios are possible with the addition of a $10-ish/hr driver today. Yet they don't exist. Maybe no one's made the right pitch to VCs or maybe, just maybe, there really isn't demand for this sort of thing (in the US). Variants of smaller ad hoc minibus services do exist in other countries.
Does it have a price? The last time I checked it was free.

OTOH, I don't see many professionals trusting Apple software in the long run (ex. Final Cut).
Toptal Design: Upgrade Your Analytics with These Dashboard Design Inspirations
Windows itself isn't bad, but the driver ecosystem is completely rotten. Any muppet with a code signing certificate is apparently capable of writing driver code that gets injected into the kernel.
I have both a Asus ultrabook running Win10 and a Macbook Air. Win10 has a harder job to do because it has to work on third party hardware they don't have control over.

OSX has complete control over their hardware, so the overall impression I get is that more attention can be dedicated to the small details. I also prefer UNIX over CMD(?).

What I have noticed is a sense of diminishing returns from the Apple camp. There just haven't been any really compelling innovations for years now. Microsoft seems to have fixed its development processes to actually start building compelling technology, and since they have lagged behind the gains are bigger.

Personally, I think Apple needs a kick in the pants; the thought that Microsoft is positioning itself to be real competition hopefully pushes both companies to build better products. Capitalism, right?

*PS: Apple should be careful though, Microsoft knows how to exploit an opportunity.
You're not alone. I sometimes wake up at night, with a sudden realization and shock that I am existing.
Outside of the US, the telcos generally aren't controlling the market for phones; import tariffs can be pretty high though, and divergent frequency plans segment the world market as well.
Given how well accepted fact decision fatigue is, I would like to have a source for the claim that it does not apply to certain kind of decisions.
I just installed Windows 10. My start menu by default was full of stuff I will never ever use. After deleting/uninstalling apps (where it would allow me) the OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable.
a long and bloviating article, complaining essentially that hackers refuse to wear ties, and that they really should wear ties because the computer engineers of the old days wore ties.

instead of "ties" we're talking about niceties regarding whistleblower behaviors regarding leaks.

my response: the public is kept in the dark intentionally by malicious actors who run their country; leaking is an ethical path to disrupt those malicious actors.
Gladwell's biggest omission is the stories of Thomas Drake and William Binney. Two predecessors that Snowden was well aware of, who tried to be, as Gladwell puts it "leakers as insiders". They were systematically shut down, and Snowden learned that was no longer an option for him, so he became a "leaker as outsider".

The nature and style of Snowden's whistleblowing is not because he loves the hacker-chic style. It's because the CIA and NSA proved they were perfectly capable of covering up the most damaging "insider" whistleblowers and he still thought this information was worth releasing to the public.
The statement off the McDonalds website doesn't imply revenue = profit. There are a variety of net margins that differ by industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if the net income (what you call "take home pay") would be $150K.

The franchising royalties would be deducted before that net income. $150,000K * 5 is enough to live "high on the hog", especially since you wouldn't have to save it given you own 5 McDonalds you could sell, probably for a large profit down the line too.
I think I have seen maybe 2 or 3 Windows BSODs in the last 5 years, and all of them due to hardware issues.
Startupshow New Episode
Interview with Henk Hoff about OpenStreet Map [4 min video]
The term "bias" and "prejudice" even outside statistics are defined by the dictionary as being about getting the wrong results: "preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience".

This agrees more or less with the statistical term, it's just less precise. That's also NOT what machine learning algorithms do.

If you want to declare an algorithm biased because it optimizes what it was designed to optimize rather than some random tangential goal, then the term has become meaningless. Similarly, my cell phone is broken because it can only make calls and is ineffective at pulling trains. A locomotive is also broken because it doesn't make tacos.

It seems that what you're arguing is that the algorithm shouldn't be blamed in these cases, but in addition, you're declaring that there's no such thing as prejudice or bias...what the algorithms are doing is pulling some (uncomfortable for gatekeepers) platonic truth out of the ether (without any acknowledgement of the possibility of biased input.)

I have no idea how you could possibly think I made this claim given that I explicitly listed two examples of algorithms which are biased. I then hinted at how algorithms can eliminate this bias. Consider rereading what I wrote.

If you want more details on how algorithms correct biased inputs (it's not based on "ether") read the blog post I linked to downthread: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/alien_intelligences_...

Or more simply, you're using this article as an excuse to push a favorite "race realist" agenda which you use to justify a purist libertarianism (and which I agree it requires.)

I have no idea why you think "race realist" agendas require purist libertarianism, or vice versa. That's a random political tangent and totally unrelated to this conversation. I'm beginning to think you are seeking to derail the conversation rather than discussing statistics in good faith.

In the hopes that I've misunderstood you, I will nevertheless provide you with a good faith clarification. I made no normative claims regarding libertarianism or anything else. The only normative claim I've made is that we should not wrongfully apply an existing term (bias) to completely unrelated concepts (having undesired social outcomes).
The term junk DNA is mostly used in popular science media, not by scientists themselves. It was pretty obvious early that some noncoding regions did do something and weren't just junk, but somehow the term still survived.
If you like the pdf, you might like this tour of the shop that makes a lot of the stuff for Lawrence Livermore labs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmmNRaKpBTI
'Microsoft still isn’t providing sales numbers, but the company claims “more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before.”'

Maybe this article would be improved with a little journalism to maybe make an educated guess as to what these numbers might be? Something besides just retyping Microsoft's marketing press release?
> they think that they can bring it about by making every customer who buys the single most popular laptop on the planet a forced user.

Are they wrong in that regard? Historically they pushed the adoption of USB, WiFi, and a couple other standards. They've always spurred the decline of floppies, CDs, and several other standards.

I think the biggest problem with USB-C is that not all USB-C ports are created equal. Can it charge? Will it work with my monitor? Does it do x? There's no way to tell by looking at a port what it's capable of. You just have to plug in and hope whatever you're using is up to spec and doesn't fry the port or worse the entire PC.

Apple for it's part has made the ports on the Pro function the same but that's probably also why there are so few of them because of the cost. Other manufacturers have no qualms about putting a half dozen crippled ports on a PC that will have slightly different capabilities. Just look at how many laptops have USB2 and USB3 ports on them.
Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a low-carb/high-fat diet ( https://reddit.com/r/keto ) and fairly rapidly lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter, coconut oil and bacon.

Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not even "pre-diabetic" levels. For me at least, carbs are definitely a killer.
I get marketing, developers, content-people, biz-dev, product, higher management, middle-management ... in one room ... and after 2 days we produce a prioritized roadmap on how to move the company forward. Plus: No dead bodies, they actually liked beeing there.

Most of the time they can't believe it either. It's fun.
(for me) it's your last two points: "well-tested", and "maintainable".

It's one thing to get the feature / bug fix in the current branch, its another know what well-tested means and to be able to do well-tested without assistance.

Maintainable - this one takes insight. Again, the more junior person just wants to cross the task off their list and move onto the next. Having insight into what is Maintainable (as it relates to the project / client / company) takes time.

They just don't teach that stuff at Uni...
"Great" on Windows is "typical" on macOS. The approach to rendering fonts is completely different, where Windows tends to nudge things towards pixel boundaries and in so doing ends up distorting the type considerably.

Font rendering on Windows is barely better than Linux.
PHPExcel for, you guessed it, PHP. An order of magnitude less hassle than CSV ("the files you generate are wrong, but only on some computers! Fixitfixitfixit!!!"), and surprisingly powerful.
I think that the notability clause is doing a ton of damage, especially because it is enforced in a way that discourages any new users. My one and only try to create an article was shot down over it and I simply stopped trying after that.
My guess is some people will want to own a car, so they'll finance it partly by being a local cab. That way, their car is nearby when they need it, but serves other people who happen to want a ride.
Neither proven nor debunked. Conflicting studies. Still being scrutinized.
JSLinux is a tremendous feat of engineering.

If you want to run realistic programs in the browser (and not just technology demos), WebAssembly, asm.js, and compilation to JavaScript in general is the way to go. WebAssembly can easily execute within a factor of 2 of optimized GCC binaries, whereas JSLinux is ~80x slower.

Paired with compilers like Emscripten and GopherJS Browsix has the potential to be a relatively fast and lightweight solution to running legacy code in the browser in a way that integrates with existing tools for web UIs.
How is it a fundamental difference? Unix streams are character messages, so this is basically a superset of that functionality.

(I don't know much about Unix streams, so correct me if I'm wrong.)
I agree. I think there are choices that wear me down and take away from other, more important choices... But picking my shirt in the morning isn't one of them.

That said, I do wear the same pants and shoes daily, so it's really just the shirt that I'm picking. If I had to pick a whole outfit, I think it'd become a burden pretty quickly. I've kept the decision manageable and fun, without coming off as a weirdo to my coworkers.
Self-Driving Infrastructure Makes the Internet More Secure
In my business line, we have two kinds of users: the competent ones who have useful complaints but never seem to break anything and the incompetent ones who break everything and have no useful complaints. I try to get a mix when I want feedback on an upgrade or new tool or for more formal UAT. The former group shows me flaws in the data model and UI, the latter shows me the flaws in the business model.
Well accepted by whom?
I don't know. I have read posts here some months ago that advised men to get an hair coloring before interviews.

Have you seen the photos of perfect six packs abdomen on underwear packaging ? Men are slowly getting into the same situation as women.

Of course it's easier to not care at all about all of this when you are a billionaire.
This is the relevant excerpt from Isaacson's biography:

>> On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony's chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company's factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. "I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple," Jobs recalled.

>> Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, "I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea."

>> In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. "So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them." Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. "That's what I wear," he said. "I have enough to last for the rest of my life."
Climbing/ski/surfing bums and dirtbags live out of their cars. They probably spend more actual time engaged working (as opposed to meetings, distractions, commuting, breaks, administrative overhead, etc) at their sports than the 12-hours-a-day-6-days-a-week office workers do.
I started in the windows world decades ago and find macs awkward for both personal and professional use - probably because I am so used to Windows.
New UK mass surveillance law lets government demand secret encryption backdoors
I wear one of the same few models of black shirt (I have 5-10 each of a tshirt, a sweater, and a polo) and one of the same few models of jeans every day (I have one or two each of those).

For me, it's less about the decision making process than it is about feeling confident in what I wear. Before I started building a more uniform-like wardrobe, I had anxiety about whether I looked good, whether my clothes fit well, whether what I was wearing matched. I found that I felt more confident in black.

Now, I know I look good (or at least I feel that I do), and I'm never concerned. Sure, it can at times be tiresome to have the "yes, I wear this all the time" conversation, but for me the tradeoff is worth it: I have zero anxiety in the morning and confidence all day.
I was in the same boat, waiting for this update to finally upgrade my 2011 MacBook Pro. After seeing this new machine and trying it out in a store I ordered a Thinkpad t460s. I considered running Ubuntu on it but I wasn't a fan of the way the touchpad was working there and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I'm now running Windows 10 insider preview so I can use Ubuntu 16.04 on Windows to get my terminal on and still run my IDEs and such on Windows.
I can't cite the article but I am under the impression that attempts to replicate the decision fatigue study have failed.
Five years ago today it was rumored that Verizon considered purchasing Netflix
Wasn't the whole thing about "willpower depletion" shown to be an exaggeration some time ago?

Oh by the way, I do want to chose. Because there are some days where I want to dress down, some days up, because I do have stuff after work to attend (sometimes). Some days are cold, some are hot (and I don't take an air-conditioned car from an air-conditioned house to an air-conditioned office)

Same thing with having lunch.
Try TheHill.com and AllSides.com. I find AllSides.com useful for presenting the same story from multiple sides and biases. The Hill aims to be apolitical and center biased, and does a fair job.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with either site, and I do not endorse either site. My opinions are my own.
I guess it depends on which one you buy. I can't get 3 hours out of a new battery for the w510, but the HP Spectre x360 I have for work can go the best part of a day without charging
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
I also have the feeling, if I'm styled up and wear stuff I like, I feel more creative, because I'm not so self-conscious anymore.

But I could imagine, if I was as rich as obama or zuckerberg, I could hire someone who learns what I like and make food and clothing choices for me. So I could preventing "spending" creativity AND feel comfy.
The increased use of powershell in attacks [pdf]
That depends on how much revenue the tobacco tax is bringing in and how much they can push the healthcare funding off on the taxpayers.
I remember the weird span when 3DS tried to work with vendors with the heidi interface.
The idea is that willpower is depleted through use ("ego depletion"), but the research seems to be divided on whether this is actually true. Some recent studies have found "a growing body of evidence suggesting ego-depletion is not a reliable phenomenon."

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/03/psychologys-favorite-th...
Sheffield was actually just like that in the early 80s (but with more hippies).
Is "Platform Support Engineer" remote?
This is why I like when people contribute to major open source projects - chances are good they will be exposed to some of these hard problems, which can help them solve future ones.
> - If the hack/virus was already installed, a network shutoff won't help much.

Master battery disconnect which auto locks all brakes

> - If a car is 10 years old with 10 years of safety updates/patches, resetting to the original firmware might not be a viable solution. But there needs to be a failsafe way of knowing the running software has not been tampered with.

Plug and play ROM modules?
"linux action show" is a good one for linux (duh) related stuff, plus it has a huge backlog!

"stuff you missed in history class" is very informative and great for listening to when walking or taking the bus.

"how I built this", which also by npr just started, but it's essentially interviews with successful business people.