skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Even that link you posted says

>Although most people with poor systems knew they had problems and wanted to correct them

And also states that most of the problem is due to money (or lack of).

In India even most of those in rural areas with toilets don't use them. [1]

Further, even in urban areas of those those with access to toilets, 7.5% choose open defecation on the streets instead.

Pretending that people that want indoor plumbing but can't afford it is the same situation as people with access to plumbing but don't use it is very disingenuous.

[1]https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-12/india-access-toilets-...
A person who feels that they don't have the flexibility to quit is also probably a person who doesn't have the resources to hire an attorney to consult with and represent them at an interview (something that could easily cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars). Public defenders are not available for this sort of thing.
Notably missing from their post:

This is how we make sure issuing certificates for gmail.com, etc will never happen again. An external audit every 3 months is not going to fix anything.
For the longest time I wondered why that guy from Ghost in the Shell had the fingers that each split into several tiny, blade-like fingers just so he could type faster; if you already have robot hands couldn't you send impulses directly to enter stuff into a computer?
I agree, as long as it is better than us at everything.

My fear is being crushed by an amazing strategist that won't ever get poetry, for instance.
But if the AI is fast enough, the project will be late much more quickly.

Perhaps more relevantly, I think there's a more basic questionable assumption - the idea that Church-Turing is the best computational basis for AI.

I strongly suspect this is not true - because even after all this time, our best abstract models of computation are still extremely brittle and fragile.

In a hand-wavey sense, as soon as you start allowing for arbitrary inputs and context awareness, you're no longer dealing with a simple Turing architecture but with something else entirely.
I feel very appreciative to have Uber working through all these bugs in the tooling so that the rest of us can take advantage once things are more reliable.
In terms of energy consumed for individual computations, yes. Neurons use chemical reactions to communicate and this is terribly inefficient. Transistors use very small amounts of electricity in comparison.

The main difference is computer technology is designed to be very general purpose. The brain is more like an ASIC that's hardwired to run one specific algorithm. GPUs are also computing 16 or more bits of precision, when real neurons are very low precision. There are some other differences, like how real brains are incredibly sparse and most of the synapses at any given time are dormant and not using much energy. They are also very sparsely connected to each other. While our current NNs are very dense and need to spend energy to compute every single connection each cycle.
Silicon Valley investment dumped investor $$$ down the toilet? Now Game Over?
It's really irritating that Apple picked the name of an existing software product for their language. When I saw "<large Company> swift architecture" I was pretty excited to see how they were using object storage.
> The point of the first part of their post is not "we're too big", it's "a move like this would disrupt the lives of an awful lot of people."

The real question is, what effect would doing nothing have on all of those people? If Symantec continues to mis-issue certificates (as they have done repeatedly: https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:Symantec_Issues), keeping their EV status intact could be much, much worse for them.

> As the blog post states explicitly, there are a lot of use cases where updating a deployed app is very difficult, almost impossible, or cost prohibitive.

As others have pointed out, this change would actually have no effect on the 'complex dependencies' Symantec identified:

* This has absolutely no effect on embedded devices, which are certainly not running Chrome.
* Mobile applications that pin certificates shouldn't be affected, since the very fact that they're pinning certificates means they're not using Chrome (there's no way for an app to tell Chrome to pin a specific certificate).
Living in China I've noticed that the attitude towards the very young does seem really similar to the attitude they have towards their pets. It's always been so baffling.

Do you have any other info on the second point?
Get organized. There are, depending on your willingness to occasionally bend the law, groups ranging from militant antifa to the organizers of March for Science.

You can also call, email or fax elected representatives (this one works at its best when you follow up e.g. with ACLU and their targeted campaigns) - or if you want, also run for an elected office. Surprisingly easy depending on where you live.

Or you can just talk with your family, friends and neighbors and explain to them that Trump is feeding them untreated sewage while marketing it as deluxe bottled water. Read up on the latest tweets of Donald Trump, check their validity (e.g. Snopes comes in handy) and show those who you talk to the facts. Sometimes it just needs someone from the "outside" to break a Trump fan out of the Facebook fascist filter-bubble.
This and other reasons are why I've drilled into my children "never, under any circumstances, talk to the police". It's a shame it has to be this way.
How do you feel about reading assembly?
Given that most of their markets are places where they hold a significant monopoly, I'd say it's not crazy to think they could do this and win a few battles...
Those other activities produce something of value. A pure fiat currency like Bitcoin has no value other than the consensus: gold has a lower bound capped at industrial use and you could at least plant tulip bulbs but if people stop using Bitcoin or switch systems all of that effort will be wasted.
Masochists are the outlier that pretty much always exists and are a rather bad example because humans are the only species with the luxury of possibly having such a, rather destructive, trait among their population.

Afaik there are no wild animals exhibiting behavior that's comparable to human masochism if animals with comparable traits existed they most likely went extinct because going out of your way to actively look for "pain and suffering" is a rather big disadvantage in the grand game of survival.
From Wikipedia:

>Engineering is the application of mathematics and scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to invent, innovate, design, build, maintain, research, and improve structures, machines, tools, systems, components, materials, processes, solutions, and organizations.

>The discipline of engineering is extremely broad and encompasses a range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied science, technology and types of application.

>The term Engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium, meaning "cleverness" and ingeniare, meaning "to contrive, devise".

Software engineering fits this description in its own right. I think it's perfectly fair to call its practitioners engineers.
That's a horrible solution. Water is even less portable than energy, even the driest desert can't afford to import water. You're trading a highly liquid but hard to transport commodity for a highly illiquid and hard to transport commodity.
I didn't mean that someone is not "to blame"; more just that a framing which even brings up who's "to blame" vastly overstates the "use" of punishing humans in defending oneself against this problem. Indeed, even if we catch "cyberterrorists" at a constant rate, this problem will only get worse: there will be more people; each person will have more and more programmable automation available to them, more and more easily; and people will grow more proficient with technology earlier and earlier in their lives (i.e. long before they've built up any sort of idea of ethics.)

Right now we have script-kiddy teenagers; Real Soon Now there won't be much reason to expect your average 5-year-old with a Youtube account, won't be able to slap together something like a ransomware worm from readily-available components, that will spread itself a billionfold. And, amongst 7 billion people and growing, there's going to be a lot of kids thinking that that sounds like a fun time.

The only thing to really stop this from being the world we live in, is making worms irrelevant.

(And what we do in the short term, about this case? Honestly, I haven't bothered to think about it. Too "identity politics.")
The Machines will come to control our infrastructure through a series of small decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time.

Computer control of farming decisions such as watering and fertilising. Link that in with insolation and wind prediction to minimise waste or maximise productivity.

This happens in the cloud thanks to insolation prediction being tied into wide-area networks of solar farms.

More such networks evolve independently, then one day some bright spark realises that prediction and control in domain X can be combined with control and prediction in domain Y to produce greater efficiencies.

Linking reproductive health and food production to maximise water savings, for example.

Next thing you know the computers decide that human population is best maintained in the order of hundreds of millions rather than billions.

And then we find out that Terminator was actually propaganda from the human rebels who didn't like the computers telling them not to breed, and the nuclear war was Skynet protecting its desired humans from the rebels, not protecting itself.
Just 1.

The feet of the towers are simply accessible, so there's nothing stopping people from even just using a metal file. It wouldn't be safe, but you'd get the job done.

Or just plow a truck into their feet. You only really need to bend one of the feet and the wind will do the rest.
Invention proceeds because of game-changing insights.

Maxwell's equations were a game changer. So were Newton's laws. So were Relativity and QM.

Church-Turing was also a game changer. But I don't think there's been anything equivalent in computing since.

There's been a lot of application, but no game-changing deep theoretical insights.

Quantum computing may - should? - eventually throw up something new.

It's going to have to. If it doesn't I think we're going to be stuck with much less progress than we're expecting.
I remember a 'Survey of Programming Languages' class in college. Perhaps a archeology of code class and things already done. You are right, I wonder how much of Computer Science knowledge is locked away never to be seen. Perhaps a tax credit for companies that donate their old source code to the Library of Congress.
Not completely true. There's nothing to prevent customers to obtain a new certificate from a reputable CA while keeping the old one around for the embedded devices to use.
If the embedded devices are accessed over the net by Chrome, or access services that also need to be accessed by Chrome, then there is an issue.

But I don't think Google is going to be swayed by "you can't distrust us if we do wrong because too much depends on us" because if they do, it encourages laxness at big CAs.
Imagine the embedded device or mobile app connects to a https://api.example.com/... and so does their web app. They need to use a new certificate for api.example.com, signed by a different CA root, because when Chrome tries to run the web app it won't trust the old certificate, nor a new cert signed by the old root. So they get a new cert signed by a different root so Chrome works, but then the embedded or mobile apps stop working.

In this case the story is more complicated - I think new certificates signed by existing Symantec CA roots would be trusted if their duration is 90 days or less. Historically, most CAs offered one, two, or three year duration. Presumably, the "big customers" would not accept the need to rotate their certificates for this purpose in less than 90 days, they need their 3 years because it takes over 90 days to get something through their bureaucracy. And presumably there are other things they can't do in 90 days, like update an embedded device configuration or firmware, or a mobile app.

Of course it depends on the particulars, but of course these "big customers" can't figure any particulars out in 90 days. But that's why Google proposed a slow sliding scale that would gradually reduce the max duration allowed over the course of a year, so random unknown stuff breaks more gradually throughout the year, not in one huge event like Symantec's blog post suggests.
You could argue that's the point of link time optimization.
How Much Water Could You Pour into a 4D Cube?
You're arguing "Right" vs. "Easy".
> As a (now former) wastewater engineer

When I was in grad school, my office was across the hall from Abel Wolman.
> take your money to Vanguard instead and buy some index funds

Why Vanguard? Why not buy SPY through Robinhood? Same index fund, except no commission.
update: Because of the popularity of this article here and on Slashdot, and the controversial views I express in it, I have been terminated from my contracting position at my current employer, which was my main source of income. You can read more information and (if you like) donate to help my cause here: https://www.gofundme.com/lost-job-bc-of-engineering-article
This just happened in my area of the world last year: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/judge-s.... It's more 1971 than you might think. :)
Or they see through it.
If you're going to gamble, have some real fun with Forex, which commonly offers 50:1 leverage in the US. Though I'm being a bit sarcastic, highly leveraged trading can be quite entertaining as long as you treat it exactly as you would a trip to Vegas - don't bet more than you care to lose, know when to quit and don't try to make a living doing it.
duplicate, please check before submitting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14202994
Memcapacitive Devices in Logic and Crossbar Applications
I think It is OK to point out obvious errors in your approach when trying to create something new. But in this post all I can read is that you cannot create superhuman AI just because he thinks it is not possible. I don't think I read any real arguments.

All he is doing is trying to convince us all that it is not possible to create AI.

Hopefully nobody is convinced by this post not to try to create a superhuman AI. Most of us will fail but at least one will succeed. I don't think it is any exaggeration to say that this will probably be our last great invention, for good or for bad. Of course, I may just be biased given my own interests in AI.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14057043
First Human Tests of Memory Boosting Brain Implant a Big Leap Forward
Living in Romania for a while gave me a front row seat to some of the most horrible societal problems that I've ever seen. What stood out the most for me is that nobody gives a fuck. Well, almost nobody. And that in a country that is extremely religious. Imagine a guy with two stumps trying to cross the street on shortened crutches and people at the traffic light blowing their horns for him to get out of the way.

Empathy is in short supply, and who cares when you have yours how someone else gets through the day. Very, very frustrating.
In the (desktop) editor [quiver] that I use, all new note go into a notebook called "Inbox". I can start writing immediately and later move it a more appropriate notebook.

[quiver]: http://happenapps.com/#quiver

Also, check out http://standardnotes.org/
Would you imagine that a computer smarter than the smartest human and having the understanding of computer software that probably only a computer would have couldn't conceal what it's doing as it creates trojans and viruses that can give it control over every piece of connected equipment everywhere?
I, Librarian – collaborative PDF manager
To me it was really bold of them to take the tone and stance that they did with regard to these large organizations. They're making the case as to why Google needed to do what it did ... all of these large organizations that will be severely impacted by having to replace all of these certificates are relying on a CA that has shown itself to not be worthy of the trust that CAs are relied upon to provide.

I'm at a loss for a good analogy so I'll pick a lousy one: it'd be like if Samsung's response to the exploding Note 7 recall mandate were "Don't do this -- you're going to keep some of the biggest customers -- users of our phones -- from being able to make emergency calls/check their e-mail/respond to texts" ...yeah, but I'm still not OK with the small possibility that carrying my phone in my front pocket might result in third-degree genital burns.
It's worth to note that to fund the Swachh Bharat mission business in India are contributing 0.5% towards it via service tax on every bill. It's a collective effort of public-govt-private partnership.
I'm constantly amazed by how some people think Google has this magical ability to update an OS that was built by another OEM. That's like asking Debian to update Ubuntu.
Ask HN: What are your main criteria when picking up your next employer?
Besides the title, project, money and commute, what will be your next requirements when picking up a new job? For me:

- recruitement process: no algo/college stuff, an employer that will value my previous projects and contributions

- friendly interviewers (= friendly future colleagues)

- individual office (no open space or un-productive environment)

- quiet location outside of the office, no downtown type of stuff so I can take a break and walk around the office after lunch
Git as a NoSql database (2016)
Sorry about that, I'm not a native speaker so I sometimes confuse words that sound similar.
Grammarly is usually pretty good about pointing stuff like that out, sadly it failed me this time.
>Kobble can be used for much more than just note taking.

You can see the confusion, given that you described it as a "notes app" in your submission title.
>Talk is cheap and rarely includes a full accounting of real-world constraints.

Of course. But after decades of the same problem, is not time to admit that is time to change?
This number is meaningless without a control.
I don't have any legal advice, but I'm interested in how this plays out. Many of us are probably working on a side project that, on some level, resembles an existing product.

Perhaps you could capitalize on this situation.
Oh wow. Look at that.

https://gist.github.com/kobble-git/87ea625d421177f9e9307c6ce...

And each fork is a link to a secret gist.
>First make a notes app that people love. This will be harder than you think. Once you've done that and have enthusiastic users it will be much easier to move into other areas.

Hasn't this been the Evernote Recipe For Disaster?
If you're going to automatically create certificates you are shifting the entire authentication burden to that automated system.

This is the exact issue with the public CA system, their automated processes have been found lacking and now what they certify can not be trusted.
Easy there Tex, I'm not arguing. I am simply describing the behaviors between large orgs in a dysfunctional ecosystem/marketplace.

As you get older, you transition from "this is how it should be!" to "this is how it works, what is a realistic amount of change that can occur?"
Sleeping while Grocery shopping
Quick suggestion - the toggle in the bottom left screen switches between 'off' and 'on' but gives no visual indication about which one is currently selected (by clicking am I going to or from 'off')?
> Also, isn't starting a company with your student loans illegal?

I don't think he meant using the money he was loaned to pay for classes but using the money the loan provides for living expenses. That money is completely up to you to figure out what to spend it on.

I could be wrong about that though...
The are some very-not-enterprisey internal solutions. For example there's Anchor from the OpenStack project with a minimalistic approach (as long as you're cool with the idea of rotating certs daily)
I like the idea of saving directly to Github. I'm using Github API for dictionary changes in my Chinese text translator that I'll release soon.

The user interface is, indeed, beautiful. But that's not enough to make me use it.

Notes on my iPhone can't be stored in a hierarchy of subfolders. In order to do that, I made my own notes app in PHP, but it's pretty awful. I plan to port it to JS+Github, but I have other priorities right now.

Is it possible to only commit changes to a file using git, instead of re-uploading the whole file? I wish there was an easy way to append to a file without a download-append-upload process. Please teach me if you know how to do this in git!
I don't know anything about this space, but I strongly suspect the generic answer applies: because you need to be able to debug the system when things go wrong. Things always go wrong, and no recipe can replace expertise when they do.
I grew up in Waxhaw NC. Andrew Jackson was born in the area and both North Carolina and South Carolina claim to have the birthplace of the president.
Fully Convolutional Attention Networks for Fine-Grained Recognition (Baidu) [pdf]
I agree with you, but the words "engine" and "engineer" both come from the same word as "ingenuity". Before the 20th century or so, an engine meant any device or machine, not just e.g., steam engines, internal-combustion engines, etc.

It's therefore fitting to call anyone who applies human ingenuity in a rigorous way to design and build tools, machines, and systems an "engineer".

But software engineering, as known today, is not what I would call rigorous. At times it pretends to be.

As for "apps", use of that term dates back at least to the early 1980s when there was talk of a "killer app" that would make PCs attractive to businesses. Typically, this was a spreadsheet: VisiCalc on Apple II, Lotus 1-2-3 on IBM and compatibles. But the iPhone put the word "app" into common vocabulary. "Apps" are distinguished by being standalone, relatively isolated from one another, and being launched by name from a table of app icons. Before that, and especially in the 90s, the goal was to abolish the concept of an application entirely; the hope of the "object-oriented desktop" was that third-party programs would function as seamlessly integrated extensions of the DE. OS/2 and perhaps Amiga came closest to this ideal among commercially available PC operating systems. Windows 3.1 had -- er, a table of app icons (Program Manager).
Both Hulu and Netflix block Ubuntu, so this sucks for people like me who use Linux as their primary media OS.

Hopefully this doesn't catch on or we have to find another way to spoof these sites.
Recurrent Neural Networks for Early Rumor Detection
It absolutely doesn't. My view starts with assuming people with opposing viewpoints in the US aren't evil or bad people. AFTER you've engaged in discussion and their true intentions are known you can make more honest conclusions on that person or group of people. That's not what leftists do.

Your comment says destructive and evil in the same sentence. Again - being destructive or making bad calls - doesn't make you a bad person or evil. Incompetent yes; evil probably not. Every politician does destructive things, especially when those things are often subjective based on your philosophy.

The equivalent on the right is when they say that their opposition hates America because they have different perspectives and want to drastically change things. That's not cool either.

What's interesting is that if you look at history, the leftists are by far the most evil (Mao, Stalin, etc) and it's not even close. Evil is not a word that should be thrown around loosely like the leftists do daily.
Neural Monkey: An Open-Source Tool for Sequence Learning [pdf]