skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In my humble opinion, the STEM education in the US is not even in the same league as that of EU or Russia.

What baffles me the most is, not only the education is lacking some of the most basic items but it's self perceived as world class. That perception extends out of the US, at least it did to me at some point.

The mirage of the ARPA funding during the sixties and its undoubtedly success still resonates deeply, but the H1-B system and gaming it's only a canary of a deeper problem: the education system in the US is not on par with the rest of the western world anymore, possibly for the last twenty years. And indeed the public is not ready to even acknowledge it, much less to pay for it.
Former CIA officials, Secretaries of State oppose Trump travel ban
Ask HN: Best way for an average developer to make it to Silicon Valley?
I see a fair bit of advice for high performing new grads or senior developers but less about us more average developers. I am currently 28 years old and have worked as a developer for almost 2 years. I primarily deal with CRUD apps in the MS Stack. Azure, C#, jQuery and the like. Nothing too exciting technically speaking. But what kept me going is that I got the chance to deliver a well rounded variety of projects as well have an end to end involvement.

I live a few hours from Silicon Valley and always had an interest in getting a job there. I'm losing steam at my current job and I am ready for bigger challenges. I'm a Management Information Systems major and don't currently have the chops to ace the more difficult technical interviews. It seems like something like front end development would give me the best chance. I don't mind taking months off to prepare for a new role. What is a path that someone like me, a "business" leaning developer with no current specialty can take?
That is a very interesting article.

I disagree with the characterization of the crews as "cheaters". They didn't cheat. They turned a game of chance into a game of skill, then excelled at that skill. Of course this has happened to other games as well, such as with card counting in blackjack, which is also inaccurately described as cheating when it's actually mastery of the game.
Passt find replace Jenkins Jepsen call-me-maybe ;)
I've run interviews for a consulting company. Most all of the best applications were from H1B holders.
Biz Idea – Employees buying online at work through affiliate portals
People buy things online at work. Companies provide affiliate revenue. Why doesn't someone start a company that redirects employees traffic through affiliate programs so that when John logs into Amazon to buy something at work, his company gets the affiliate revenue.

The start up would provide the simple code, then sell it to IT departments to reduce their costs (they would get a share of the revenue). They could also have an easy DIY download for small businesses.

Thoughts?
Creative tools. Everyone is so obsessed with content consumption tools and making TV out of internet, with deprecating desktop in favor of handhelds where you tap ads and take selfies with dog faces.

For graphics, everyone still use Adobe products which are not that bad but still few had changed in Photoshop and Illustrator from 1991.

For music, DAWs are not that bad and there's no single monopolist like Adobe, but VST system is stinky and stuck in times of Windows 95. People are buying hardware synths (which are just computers running software) only because software on these embedded computers runs reliably, but VSTs crash, freeze every time and require hardware license keys plugged into parallel port. Also, everything inside is complete black magic and every supplier of software pretends that there are super secret algorithms everywhere. Every oscillator and filter is super-secret and super-unique and there's no articles in the open how to design "decent" oscillator and filter. Medival times everywhere.

And these tools should be designed for users, not Entertainment Content Production Corporations.
To be fair, we dealt with Germany through conventional warfare, but that "we" included the Soviet Union, and required millions of deaths on both sides.
Hey folks - new blog post out this morning - happy to answer any questions
You know who sounds really petty though? The whiners taking Microsoft's side despite them missing the bug in the first place and sleeping on the report, and now attacking the person who reported it.

> They're patching it, but not on this person's schedule so he's causing microsoft and USERS problems they didn't have before.

Not in the slightest. You do not understand how the internet works. The vulnerable systems were vulnerable yesterday, and are vulnerable today because MS didn't think it was worth hurrying to patch them. Users' harm was caused by Microsoft who gave them a broken product, and by any hypothetical hackers, not by a security researcher telling the public what the hackers probably already knew.

Microsoft had a chance to release an emergency bulletin as soon as they were informed of the vuln, with mitigation steps. (ie, block SMB, etc) They didn't, and in fact spent time recommending useless things (Win10, Edge) that only serve to slander competitors by implication, and pimp more of their products.

Microsoft needs the understand that the new timeframe for releasing mitigations, if not patches, is closer to 24h than 24 days. But even if they hit that metric, they don't deserve any fanfare until they do it without lying or misdirecting.

Downvoters: RTFA - The Microsoft reports are intentionally misleading wrt. steps customers need to follow to be safe, and they claim to be better that their competitors (Apple, etc) in this regard despite obvious and consistent proof to the contrary. Microsoft is responding to security concerns with marketing speak, and they're knowingly setting their customers up for catastrophic data loss or hacks by recommending useless fixes.
We do, it's called "the file system". Folders and directories galore. If you dont like folder icons and rectangular windows, navigate with MC.

The problem is not trees, they are readily available in many formats. The problem is schemas. If there are no rules on the branches everything becomes "Old_stuff" or "important_work" or whatever people do to their document folders as the tide turns.

You need trees layered over trees to provide some structure and get that sweet workflow QC. Graph-homomorphisms between trees that is, or slice categories over whatever structure you need to maintain. Trees (or graphs) in semantic/syntactic relationships stacked as high as you can muster. Usually this is presented as a two-layered structure-tree+data-tree system in end user applications, with a fixed semantic tree depending on the domain in application. The trick is finding the balance between end-user configurability of layers n+1 and the required knowledge to design useful structures. People who edit layer 2 should probably be domain experts, and layers 3 and above are best left to programmers and computer scientists. If this was a solved problem, nobody would buy CRUD-software, and a good half of us would be looking for work.
But it doesn't. The problem is Indian outsourcing sweatshops. Why does everyone else have to suffer because of them?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin...
Button timing might be doable with a software change only. Doesn't solve the other testing procedures of course.

But what would be the difference with other casino software bugs then, are those also "Unfixable" then?
> if you host an application under the license and make it available to others you can't hide your changes just because the users aren't directly installing the binaries.

For the auth-requiring RethinkDB server, am I obligated to provide source to the entire internet because everyone can connect to it?

> The A/GPL does require you provide the neccesary tooling or instructions to build the source, so, yes.

The GPL does not require me to provide build tooling / instructions to people who merely use the product, only recipients of the built code. If I don't distribute it, I'm not obligated to do a good job with my build tooling.

If I port RethinkDB to some proprietary OS where I'm not allowed to redistribute the build tooling, am I effectively forbidden from running it in a public-facing way?

Does that conflict with "the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose"?

I'm fine with being ashamed. None of the four freedoms, none of the requirements of the open source definition, require me not to be ashamed. I'm fine with assuaging my shame by donating money or resources as needed. But the AGPL seems to be constraining my technical decision-making by saying that I either have to put non-AGPL layers in front of AGPL code or I have to use a good-quality, free software build toolchain.
>unemployed by choice

>they are unwilling to move to places where the jobs are.

How exactly would an unemployed person move? security deposit/down payment, moving costs, etc all cost real money, and without an income, I'm not sure how you would expect someone to move across the country.

Humans are on average risk averse - and certainly no one would advise someone to move out to california on their credit card, in hopes of immediately finding a well paying job.

Its not like someone who has been unemployed for two years is so attractive that theyd be getting offers with relocation included thrown at them.
Replying to a number of previous comments on energy balances.

The reaction N2 + 3 H2 -> 2 NH3 is exothermic, giving off energy [1]. N2 is abundant and free (80% of the atmosphere), but H2 is not. The most common way [2] of producing H2 is from hydrocarbons (oil/gas products). In principle H2 can be produced from something else (e.g. water, through electrolysis), but that is very energy intensive [1], making the overall reaction N2 + 3 H2O -> 2 NH3 + 3/2 O2 a net energy consumer.

Point being, yes, it might be possible to save energy compared to the Haber-Bosch process, but the net production of ammonia from free/abundant materials will not ever be "for free" energy-wise.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_of_formation
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
They had to wait for someone to design and implement the compression algorithm before they could have an intern swap it out.
Ammonia has a negative enthalpy of formation of about -46 kJ/mol [0]. If you read the wikipedia page of the Haber process [1] it explicitly states the reaction is exothermic.

The reason the Haber process is so costly is because it uses very high pressures and temperatures to overcome the activation energy, even with the best catalysts we have. Not because creating ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen needs energy. It's in effect wasted energy.

Enzymes can't change the cost equation, but luckily it's in our favor. If they can reduce the activation energy without wasting a ton of energy, it can be a net energy producer.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
This does not seem economical to me.

For a quick calculation operation cost of a bucket with 20W consumption (One CFL lightbulb) consumes 14.6 kWh energy in a month with continous operation. This costs about 500 HUF (~1.8€) according to the electricity costs i could find quickly (32 HUF/kWh ~0.1€/kWh).

This price is comparable to the price of vegetables in the supermarket. This seems economic only for special crops with higher margins.
I have an interesting analogy that's even better than automobiles. Clothing. Mass produced clothing. Kids pajamas federally required to be fireproof, no problemo. Almost everyone in the entire country wears mass produced clothing. Yet there's incredible variation in style. I don't have to wear a skirt, but my wife can if she wants. I can wear a sweater on a cold day while people on Florida beaches are nude or close to. Yet its all successfully mass produced.

I was going to use industrially produced food as an analogy although maybe that's not seen as a winner. But its not out of business, which is something, I guess.
Show HN: Browser-based typographic design tool (inspired by Adobe Illustrator)
> US immigration law gives the president explicit right to do exactly what he did

Clearly the federal courts (six different district courts, if I've counted correctly) don't believe that the case is as open and shut as you do, or they wouldn't have aisued restraining orders against the EO, one of the explicit considerationa for which is likelihood of prevailing on the merits.

That one section of law appears to be a broad grant of power does not mean that that grant is not constrained by other provisions of law.
Agreed though that the big problem for electric flight for now are the batteries. Note though that the issue is not so much energy density (energy per volume), but specific energy (energy per mass), currently at around 400 kWh/kg.

Fossile fuel has a specific energy so much higher that it still wins hands down, even though a piston engine converts only about 10% of that energy into mechanical energy.
Many friends who had gone there. It was one of the reasons I turned them down. It's just part of being a large tech company -- they get hordes of interns and generally want to get something out of them in a short period of time. Most are explicitly attached to one or two projects which can be completed in ~2 months.
Possibly not one that can be run by one person but will add this here anyway. Been running this for the last few years, funded and self-funded, full-time and part-time and as a side project. Whilst popular with the users we have and with sounds uploaded from all over the world it never took off in the way we'd hoped and now I'm unfortunately considering shutting it down to move onto pastures new. Though I have been thinking if anyone would want the IP or the platform we've built for another purpose.

1. Website url: https://foundbite.co (Also have Android, iOS and Windows apps)
2. What the project or startup is about (one line)
- Apps for sharing and exploring the sounds of the world.
3. Monthly active users
- Varies but around 600-1000 for our iOS and Windows Apps and ~150 downloads per day on Android. Figures have dwindled since I stopped working on the app for obvious reasons.
4. Source of revenue streams - We were planning on implementing sponsored foundbites but just didn't have the audience.
5. Monthly income (if any ) £0 - current cost to run is ~£150 per month.
6. Adsense enabled? Nope, but something we were considering.
It's like hazing. "Pay your dues" is just going through initiation.

One of my favorites was hearing my professor say, "Now that I have tenure, I think it's a wonderful system!" He had been complaining about the tenure system as capricious, foolish, etc. for a while. He's a great guy, so it's not that he changed his mind, exactly. He knew all his past criticism was still relevant, but he was acknowledging his strong disincentive to fight the system.
America dealt with Germany in a conventional manner, and could have done so to Japan in a conventional manner. At the time America decided it would be expedient to use a brand new destructive device that the world has more or less collectively decided not to use in a first-strike capacity.

The intent in asking the question is why does the preceding commenter feel a war with China would look like an Afghanistan as opposed to a Germany?
Did you look it up before saying "look it up"?
Another issue is health care insurance.

For example Germany has mandatory insurance. So you cannot cancel your insurance, and even if you travel in another country they still expect you to pay the insurance in Germany. Public insurance for freelancers costs around 350€ / month, and as DN without German employer they will classify you as freelancer.

You probably do not have to pay the full fee while being outside of Germany, but public insurance has various rules which even the insurance providers do not know, because they are set by law/regulations not by the providers themselves and the clerks by the providers rarely deal with DN.

1. If you have no savings, it only costs a reduced rate of 150€ / month. But traveling without savings is risky, too.

2. If they register you as freelancers, you can opt out and get private insurance, which costs between the reduced and the full public insurance rate, while you are young. But it is a market-rate and become arbitrary expensive, if you are old, and you can not switch back to public insurance (except for marriage or a non-freelancing job with a certain inome).

3. Thus you must be very carefully when choosing a travel health care insurance, because they might consider that to be a private insurance, and if you had private insurance, you cannot go back to the public insurance.

4. There was an obscure emergency-like plan, where you register as being in another country and then only pay a minimal fee to be insured, but do not get anything covered and you must be outside of Germany for several months. Hard to find any information about that.

5. The important thing is to do all (un)registrations before leaving. Since insurance is mandatory, you always have insurance in Germany, even though you were away. So when you are back there, the new insurance will not begin in that moment, but begin retroactively when the last insurance had ended. When you are then still doing freelancer work, they will bill you a lump sum of 350€ for every month you were away.
No it isn't, especially considering it's 30% that what Google interns earn in the US, even in cheaper places than London (Pittsburgh, Seattle).

Also, it's a lot less than what competitors pay interns in London (Bloomberg, Facebook and Palantir pay interns a LOT better, among others).
The IMDB Boards Are No More – A Eulogy
They are gonna hire this guy next to research Compost Fueled Cars: https://youtu.be/DkGMY63FF3Q
You're missing the point of the blog post, which is "Hey, students, Google deals with massive amounts of data, so even as an intern you can have a huge impact."
My understanding is that they don't bring the service to exactly the SLO... To prevent overreliance on a service, it can be sufficient to introduce some level of failure, which may still be well above the SLO.

http://danluu.com/google-sre-book/#chapter-4-service-level-o...
This is typical HN; a bunch of people who think highly of themselves for not being sheep working for the big companies, and for whom everything that these companies do is easy peasy stuff that they could do in their sleep.

If I had done something to save anybody 1.5 Petabytes of bandwidth per day, I would be very content for at least a few months. Congratulations to the intern for having such a lasting impact.
+1
I am proud and jealous of her. She did something amazing during her internship that I haven't done in my 10 year professional career. Hell she very well might win a Turing. I would happily have her as my mentor.
Developer here, I created this for the font foundry's new website, using React, MobX and Typescript among other things. Hopefully it's of interest in demonstrating a "desktop-class" experience built using HTML, CSS and JS.

There's a short GIF showing some of the features here: http://f37foundry.com/type-tester.gif. If you're familiar with Illustrator, some of the shortcuts/modifier keys work, for example alt+arrows to kern pairs of letters.

Happy to answer any questions, I plan to write a bit about my experiences in the form of a blog post soon.

Best viewed in Chrome, desktop only.
There's an arrow next to the username that will help you express this sentiment without the need to comment.
No system is 100% efficient. What's your point?
>Sort of a bad money pushes out good money scenario. If it weren't for profitable indoor weed farmers, you'd have higher technology level indoor successful lettuce farmers, and eating is more important to the world than getting high.

I think you've got it completely backwards, if it weren't for the indoor weed farmers making the market, there would be little development in indoor farming at all.
Are you saying that the crime rate isn't actually low?
You aren't asking Inc for a recommendation, if you did their bias would be an issue. Thinking clearly means focusing on facts of the argument, not Joel's job or the site's business.
Oh you city slickers... This has been a thing for centuries and it works pretty well. Getting big industry in the middle of the process would be new but the process is old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_manure
Google Is on the Prowl for Cloud and AI Deals in 2017
Great article and HN thread about this guy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9570713
> 1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy?

Well it is, but the merit should come first to the engineers who implemented the Brotli algorithm. What Anamaria did was just to include the code for that algorithm in the Play Store. Sure, it's some good work, especially for an intern, but I think it's a big exaggeration to say that it is that work that saved 1.5 petabytes/day.
Can you share any examples? I'm a non-medical human and curious.
Treating it as a function is the fiction (and the reason is probably that the average college freshman doesn't know what a distribution is). But it's "enough" like a function that unless you look too closely, no real problems arise from glossing over the function/distribution distinction.
> on the order of 1,000 kilowatts per hour

1000 kW, or 1000 kWh per h. That's the beauty of P = Power = W/t = Energy / Time.
communication from washington is that they want this to be fought at the state and local level

... isn't a good result, at all (if you care about net neutrality)
Any other good literature on this, or learning in general?
Who are you to tell people how to spend on entertainment? Some people want to spend money on rock climbing, and others want to spend money on gambling. As long as neither leads to financial ruin, who are any of us to judge? I don't work hard so other people can tell me how I should and shouldn't have fun.
I found this recently [1] suggesting that 15-18% of calories from peanuts are excreted. It's probably more for me since they give me digestive problems and that's what made me curios about the subject too.

So I guess eating processed food vs food that's hard to digest actually matters a decent bit if you're counting calories (10-15% of your calories is not insignificant - that's almost half of what you're trying to cut on a calorie restriction diet)

[1]http://www.peanut-institute.org/images/materials_10_19046826...
Trump’s F.C.C. Pick Quickly Targets Net Neutrality Rules
Even childless people will experience those sorts of "real cares" in the lives of people they care about (whether it is parents, grandparents, spouses, nieces/nephews, cousins, or even more less strictly well defined relationships). Painting all childless people as free from attachments is its own sort of naïve, even if their current problem of the day seems trivial to you, it certainly doesn't mean that every problem in their world doesn't meet your arbitrary "real" scope requirement to "grow up".
Even so, how would one go about defeating such RNG?
Jack Ma's Australian connection
And if you don't like the green, you can use different flavors of cubehelix family color spaces[0].

[0] https://jiffyclub.github.io/palettable/cubehelix/

[1] http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/05/cubehelix-or-how-i-learned...
Here in dirt poor arizona new grad software engineers make $70K+
Attack on Environmental Science
I wonder if they could have closed more deals if they'd promised to do something like this. Then again, maybe the board would have balked at that as a sign of no confidence.