skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The ACA just piled onto the clusterfuck we already have. At a federal level we've already got Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and now the ACA. Within medicare we have "parts" A through D that offer a bunch of intermingled benefits. Even when someone has medicare it's a huge fucking pain in the ass to figure out which "part" to bill and if you send it to the wrong one they won't pay.

Many states have their own programs as well.

It's a gaint fucking mess they need to cut the shit and just throw everyone on Medicaid
Please consider:

It's heartening to see tech CEOs speak out against bigotry and disheartening to see other tech leaders remain quiet and it all makes a potent narrative and easy access to the tops of message board front pages.

But it does not. actually. matter. what tech leadership does.

We are not all sitting dutifully in our seats at Moscone waiting to see what "one more thing" from CEOs and venture capitalists is going to look like. We're also not prisoners of the management of companies whose CEOs join the administration or attend summits at Trump's garish Barad-Dûfus.

It may not be true for all workers in all industries but as someone who's been working in tech for more than 20 years I'm telling you that our management needs us more than we need them. There has never been a better market for our services or a set of employers more dependent on our goodwill and cooperation than in 2017.

Do not wait for your firm's CEO to take a stand. Organize with your coworkers. If you don't know how to get started doing that, start thinking of stabs you can take at the problem. Organizing is a problem where code actually might make a difference. Organize a pledge, or a group statement, or meetups. Or some other idea we haven't come up with yet.

A lot of engineers want to believe their work is apolitical. I understand the impulse. But your work is political whether you want it to be or not. If you don't put your market power to use for your beliefs, you're just accepting your employer's default settings, and putting it to work for theirs. Don't accept the defaults.

Organize your workplace. You have a crazy amount of influence you're not using right now. It won't always be like this; don't waste the opportunity.

Places to start:

The Indivisible guide:

https://www.indivisibleguide.com/ --- there are at least 10 software projects buried in this thing, but also remember the same ideas apply on a smaller scale both in local politics and at your work place.

https://twitter.com/techsolidarity --- show up to one of these. They're well attended and they'll interface you to your local (serious) activist community, people actually working with those at risk.

Also things I've said in the last few days that I'd rather not repeat but are relevant:

On calling your reps:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13509555 --- please punch your Senators and Congresspeople's numbers into your speed dial.

On running for office:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13493366 --- please convince a friend to run for local office.

On U2F, TOTP, and SMS:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13493100 --- please disable SMS authentication on services that will let you. :)

If you're building applications to ensure that people put pressure on their local representatives or, even better, to get normal people to run for local elected office, I want to help!
Delete your account
A few days ago (I think), maybe a week, when Mattis became the Sec of Defense.
Get enough karma to downvote and flag, and then flag what you think needs to be flagged. That's how the process works.
> White said the police department received a noise complaint on Sept. 22, 2015, and when a police officer later contacted the complainant about the issue, the generator was no longer running.

2015. If that is about the same incident it's quite a while before the current event (unless it's a typo in the article).
Yet you're more than likely an avid user of this conveniently provided, reasonably priced and reliable service.
It means you aren't missing any actual calls by keeping your PSTN line engaged, the call is recorded for hilarity, and you can take the call when you aren't at home.

You can make an otherwise boring car journey far more entertaining by having the scammer assist you rebooting your fictional router.

Also I've not tried this yet but supposedly it's now easy to log SIP devices in.

But now I'm wondering about putting them through to some ridiculous pre-recorded messages to hear the reaction...
I'm not a particular fan of Uber but I've felt the need to defend it on a number of occasions from random people who misrepresent the organization or their business model.

I find most people treat it as some sort of evil capitalist strawman punching bag. This type of thing happens when the media/politics pits everything as good guys vs villains.

Either way I'm happy to hear it has improved over the last two years, there will always be these growing pains in any high growth organization from freewheeling startup to an organized responsible mega corp.
Worst case scenario, I've found that credit card chargebacks are usually pretty effective. You don't need to deal with customer service anymore and you don't need to worry about getting your money back. I wouldn't really go there if you were still interested in doing business with that company though.
There's not a lot of illegal immigrants in any sector save for low wage agricultural and services (e.g. kitchens). Certainly not in tech. This distinction isn't needed.
It's shameful HN doesn't flag posts calling Trump and his supporters nazis, homophobic and other names. While any dissident about liberals is flagged/downvoted to oblivion.

Every group on HN notices things that appear to be against them. It's normal human bias. I've seen plenty of flagging/down-voting going on all sides of various issues.

If you legitimately are interested to dig into this more, there are at least two different HN APIs available for you to mine the comments on the site. I'd be interested in the results if you chose to do so.
Try starting here:

https://www.runforoffice.org/

Get a couple of friends together, and just pick one of you to go out for something, and then work as a team to collect information and plan outreach.

Even if you fail, treat the whole thing as an information gathering exercise. Take notes and share them. The GOP is crazy good at picking up local elected office, and they've had lots of practice. This is how they got that practice. Anyone who thinks local office doesn't matter should figure out who their State Senator is and how many constituents they have, and then look at Congressional redistricting --- it's state leg. that created the system in which rural Republican votes count so much more than urban Democratic votes do.
Citation? I know from personal experience that this is not the case for non-US citizens.
But FB guys don't micro optimize (they use PHP FFS), they measure production systems and look for bottlenecks. Premature optimization is a gut feeling based guessing game not quality engineering.
> Our last president is the first in history to have the US in armed conflict for every day of his presidency

I don't know if this is true. Off the top of my head: Lyndon Johnson.
here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507048
> Education at this level is a "who can survive the most unpleasantness" competition.

This is brilliant. It sums up my feelings about education so succinctly. I'm stealing this.
Ghostery blocked this. Does anyone have a text dump?
> Dumb question: how do these systems distinguish a traffic light?

Well, how do you distinguish / identify a traffic light?

For me it's a combination of knowing the area, knowing what a traffic light looks like, and observing the behaviour of traffic around (mostly in front) of me (if the intersection isn't visible).

For an autonomous vehicle, they'd use the same methods plus they'd have the non-trivial added benefit of colleague robots feeding them updated information.

> Suppose the sun is shining straight at you and you need to squint ...

I'm sure the human eye + sunglasses + visor comes a poor second compared to CCD + mechanical + IR + (etc) can do.

> What about when it's raining, misting or drizzling, snowing heavily, etc. and the traffic lights are these fragmented outlines that you, the human, can heuristically distinguish but a machine might not?

Interesting use of the word heuristic there. If you can determine the heuristics you are using, then an autonomous vehicle can use the same.

> One last thought: suppose it's right turn on red and first car in line is a self-driving vehicle. Can it really look left and safely determine there's enough time to beat the cross traffic? If it's highly conservative and just waits until green, there could be ten irate motorists behind it and guaranteed to honk and curse.

This, and variations, frequently come up in discussions on AV. There's an implicit expectation that no one building these things has considered this problem (this is clearly false). There's two explicit expectations that once a tipping point of AV's are out there, a) there'll be a regulatory push to massively accelerate the adoption close to 100%, and b) inter-vehicle communication means this problem won't arise. In the short term these problems may occur, but to address your question, yes, I'd suggest a computer would be better able to predict if there's enough time to safely turn than most humans.

> I worry that if these machines can't demonstrate 110% of a human's ability ...

Which human would you pick?

Anyway, I wouldn't worry - none of these problems are intractable.
My skills have always centered around OS and Database. I've mostly worked on UNIX then Linux at command line. Lots of vi and compiling over the years. I'll use whatever desktop is around...and, practically speaking, that has usually been Windows at the Fortune 50.
Who are you including in the "we"?
why would he care? hes a libertarian. he doesn't care unless it directly affects his pocketbook and even then he can just go to new zealand.
I'm not exactly sure this doesn't hurt anyone at all. On the contrary, I believe there is some impact - although it's most likely not any heavy, and benefits to the society in general may[1] easily outweight.

I don't think businesses have those free refills out of pure generousity. There's most certainly some commercial incentive. Removing that must have some impact on businesses.

And it must also impact people who don't have weight or blood sugar issues, and have benefited from free refills. Heck, if I'm a regular at McDonalds, drink to my heart's content and government suddenly says "we forbid you to do that anymore - oh just think of those obese people!" I may be understanding but still I'll be sort of upset.

__

[1] May or may not. I dunno. Was there a proper scientific research?
You are right, I am. That doesnt change the underlying reasons for a company like Uber to make this statement. It is manipulation of the public, intended to make Uber look moral, as well as intended to reassure their cheap labor base. The fact that people on here are championing it shows how effective this kind of PR is, even among the educated people of HN.
The star requirements make total sense if you've ever worked on a review/recommendation system before. The reality is most people don't give accurate ratings. Any sub-5 star score from a rider usually means something went wrong, because otherwise why would you bother putting anything less than 5?

The way it ends up working out, barely any but the most egregious drivers will have a sub-4.5 rating or so because the majority of passengers just mindlessly rate 5 stars. Therefore, the difference between someone rated 4.2 and 4.7 is enormous in practice.
if they could be reassured it would go no further than that.

We're 6 days in. At this point, can anyone really assure them of that?
Well, in a nutshell:

The 'One China' policy essentially is about saving face. China is extremely sensitive to not being seen as losing face because of bullying from the West about what they consider to be their sphere of influence.

That in practice Taiwan acts and to all intents and purposes is an independent country doesn't matter as much as being able to claim that Taiwan is a republic of China does.

So, if everybody would just pretend that the 'One China' view is the correct one while Taiwan gets away with being a relatively progressive democratic society everybody wins.

If Trump starts throwing his weight around he might just trigger an invasion of Taiwan and just like Europe and the USA stood by while the Eastern part of Ukraine was annexed I do not expect anybody to lift a finger to stop it.

That's why you don't put unstable bullies in charge of foreign diplomacy with your single largest trading partner and a formidable military power to boot.

Vastly oversimplified but that's about the gist of it as far as I can see, corrections welcome.
How is Trump seemingly doing so much, so quickly?

Looking in from the outside, it seems like all the political process that Obama had to go through just isn't applicable?

The example I always comforted myself with w.r.t to Trump was Obama trying to get the gun laws changed - even the POTUS couldn't do it. So then he mustn't have unlimited power. So what's going on here?

I'm really curious how executive orders work in the US. Are they just the first step in a process, or do they override any democratic process? The latter seems to be what all the reporting is implying, but I don't know if that's hyperbole or true.
Which immigration issues specifically? The net migration to Mexico is an outflow, and the US continues to have one of the longest and most extensive refugee/asylum vetting processes in the world. What specifically should change?
How Features-as-a-service benefit your Startup
I had the good fortune of learning yoga from a teacher whose core focus was on the breath. He taught this technique and other breathing techniques first and foremost before any movements ever came into play. The difference in the relaxation, stress-relief, etc., between that and the way I see yoga taught at these chain studios is incredible. I wish that was the standard, but obviously much fewer people have the patience to learn this way.
clearly a tachash
What do you expect Uber/Lyft to do differently? Minimum wage for drivers? We have capitalism. If you think the drivers don't get a lot of money, why don't all of them quit after the first paycheck? It's capitalism, no one forces anyone to do anything. People are free to do what's best for them. Many of these drivers would be unemployed if not for Uber/Lyft. I'm not saying they're well compensated, I'm saying there must be a reason why they're still doing what they're doing.
Correct! And I think it's also correct, non-pedantically, to say that only a minority of Americans agreed with the policies proposed by either Clinton or Trump.
What's the alternative for Uber? Silence?
This is moreso true for China and India.

If you've ever been to those countries, the first thing you notice as a westerner is that the streets are chaos, traffic rules are barely obeyed, and aggressiveness is required to get anywhere.

Meanwhile, Beijing and Dehli have extreme pollution problems partially caused by cars.

If any place was in need of point to point autonomous ride sharing, it's Asia. The reduction in cars would reduce congestion from the outset. But in the future, protocol guided right of way negotiation could reduce congestion even further.
Refugees are those who fleeing the war to neighbor regions or countries to get to safety.
People who pay smugglers to get to rich countries because they can live better there are illegal economic migrants.
It's not that we don't need to help but the fact that sponsoring anyone who claims he is a refugee is just plain wrong. Stop the war and spend resources more efficiently by helping rebuild the economy and not wasting it on a bunch of free riders.
Can't wait to see what Altman writes when the voter fraud is investigated and it's over 3 million fraudulent votes.

We already know of 800,000 (http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinto...). Detroit was apparent. The rest will come easily.

What else is Altman wrong about??
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107
so it's not arbitrary action by Trump

The choice of countries may not be arbitrary. The Executive Order is most definitely Trump's choice.

Edit: My parent has since changed the quoted section to "so it's not an arbitrary pick by Trump".
> An investigation into the source of the hack continues, said Vemulapalli, who said the intrusion was confined to the police CCTV cameras that monitor public areas and did not extend deeper into D.C. computer networks.

I'm skeptical of this. These types of cameras typically have a cell/LTE internet connection that should be dropping all inbound requests and connect to some sort of a back end via VPN. Its possible that they weren't set up to drop inbound connections from the internet, but it seems much more likely that they were hacked from deeper in the network.
Agreed 100%. Long before that there are many other options that can be tried with varying chances of success depending on how many people participate and what kind of response one can expect.
"When dopamine activity was high, the animal was more likely to judge an interval as short, and vice versa."
> really the best messenger

The more messengers, the better. This is authoritarianism, pure and simple. It's not remotely about security or anything else.
I also posted this above, but the specific list is seven countries DHS deemed to be high-risk around February 2016, denying them Visa Waiver privileges:

"Have you traveled to, or been present in, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, or Yemen..."

[1] https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/visa-waive...
It is arbitrary. He is engaging in collective punishment – holding those hostage who are lawful residents, including those who have already been thoroughly vetted over multiple years. This will result in loss of life, loss of income, and intangible suffering on the part of families and children. Some of those being blocked have specifically assisted the United States in its war on ISIS, and are now under threat specifically because of this.
The headline reminds me of this

http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html
Capitalism doesn't work when you ignore the law. Or do you really believe Uber would be where they are at now if they followed the law to the letter?
"It's a despicable act and all Americans should be ashamed of what's happening."

I think it's rather arrogant to assume that your moral position is 'what all Americans should think or else they are immoral'.

I'm weary of the executive order myself ...

but it's not entirely irrational to temporarily ban entry of people from nations that are in open conflict and from areas wherein the only 'governance' is that of a jihadist entity.

Except Iran - all the others are serious conflict zones, wherein many participants would gladly act against the USA.

Have you looked at a political map of Libya or Yemen lately?

Scary stuff.

What is 'despicable' is the wailing and misrepresentation of the issue across the board.

If Obama were to have done this after a terrorist attack (say, a 'shooting' in Cali or whatever) - and it was done quietly and reasonably so that those with green cards etc. would be allowed in - and so that people 'on flights' would not be affected, I don't think there would be such a huge fuss.

I believe that after 90 days, most of those who would be coming to America will still be coming in.

This will de-facto boil down to a unnecessary political disruption ... but it's both fair and within the bounds of responsible reason to recognize the fact that Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Iraq etc. are very dangerous places, much more so than most places, and that some extra precautions are possibly necessary.

I don't really support it, but it's not out of bounds for people to think it's necessary.

Iran though - that's purely political (admittedly, it's probably all political). Jihadis don't come from Iran.
Congress writes laws that delegate wide authority over certain things to the President (and thus the various executive agencies of the government). A lot of the immigration process happens to be one of them. Gun control largely isn't.
When I was in grad school, most of the grad students in virtually all the science and engineering depts were foreign students.

And what most people don't realize is that without grad students, most research will be severely impacted. So if this continues at the rate it's going, we begin to lose foreign grad students to other countries.

I hope this ends well, but I have my doubts.
Doing this on an individual basis with reasonable cause is far different than an indiscriminate ban.
My understanding of that event is that protestors were starting fires and the police arrested 230 people near the incident. Of those 6 were journalists. I think that's somewhat different than police targeting journalists for their viewpoints, of which I don't see evidence.
Is that really why programs are slow: that programmers are misinterpreting a quote from Sir Tony Hoare? I thought it was because programmers tend to use fast computers, and they neglect to test on slow ones. Also they load their databases with test data that is much smaller than what the average user might have after using the program for a year or two.
I disagree. Would you be saying this if Pence wrote this post? I would imagine you'd call him out on his hypocrisy. More messengers are good only if they actually believe what they're saying.
I mean... Nick's account is pretty old but has very few comments. Of the 5 or so comments one of them mentioned a marketing podcast.

I don't think it's a stretch by any means to think the account is used by someone in the glowforge marketing Dept.
It's not correct. It's easy to ignore faxes, and throw them away by the bucket-full without ever reading them. A phone call requires spending some low level staffer's time to listen to you. Getting inundated day-in, day-out by callers, all on one side of an issue, does have some effect on a congressperson's staff, and sometimes, the congressperson's actions.
https://mic.com/articles/166845/the-list-of-muslim-countries...

This, of course, excuses the action not at all. But it does explain the choice of countries.

(and, of course, Obama didn't tell Trump which list to pick.)
In some Sharepoint 2010 deployments I worked on, it was possible to create Sharepoint workflows that would would bog down, fail to process new entries, etc. once the list of items grew beyond 100-150 entries.

Admittedly, this was probably related to misconfiguration and database issues (i.e. having zero oversight or administrative maintenance of the underlying MS SQL Server). That specific local minimum might not apply to the context of the article (optimization in code and systems design).
Which is why people were protesting the day after the inauguration.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
What he and other business advisory group meeting people say on Friday is going to have more impact than any number of street protests.
I don't particularly expect Uber to do anything different. I do expect someone praising how Uber treats their drivers to be able to answer the question (if they don't know how much a driver in a busy city takes home per hour they have no useful idea how Uber treats drivers).
Ruby terminal apps toolkit
If you want to build a democratic coalition for action, you have to let in some members you don't see eye to eye with on every issue.
It's not even citizenship from one of these 7 countries.... it's having been born there even if you're no longer a citizen[1].

[1] https://twitter.com/nadhimzahawi/status/825445925275500545