skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The blockchain hype is amazing and entertaining, I love going to blockchain events where 95% of the speakers have no idea what the hell they are talking about, I love when banks and fortune 500s send their chief innovation officers to blockchain meetups to find out how they can use the blockchain (hint: they don't need it), I love going to hackathons where all the projects are fun and cute but provide no real world value. The coolest thing is that I live in Toronto, Vitalik Buterin is from toronto, I met him for 5 seconds, a lot of my friends have met him, therefore they can call themselves blockchain experts. The thing I love the most is when entrepreneurs with past exits tell me about their "private blockchain" projects which got a verbal endorsement from Vitalik's dad.
It's a proper pure math problem - it doesn't have to have a use, it doesn't have to have an application. Like Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT), in and of itself it's probably of no value.

However, there will be an answer. It might be that every number returns to 1, it might be that there is a loop, it might be that some sequence goes off without bound, and it might be that the answer is unprovable within the usual axioms of mathematics.

But currently we don't know. And as with FLT, it might be that while the problem itself is of no use, the techniques developed in the attempts to solve it might prove to be amazingly useful.

Currently, no one knows.

There are lots of people who just don't care about something unless it has immediate and obvious uses, and that's fair enough. There are others for whom the interest and excitement is in the chase, and that makes it worthwhile.
I hear this advice about contracts of adhesion all the time, "just red line out the parts you don't like, just like in that scene in 50 Shades of Gray."

Who in the software industry still gets offers like that? Everyone I know gets a DocuSign PDF they sign digitally. There's no opportunity to alter the document.

There is basically no non-confrontational way to do this. If a software developer has a competing offer, sure, leverage it. Otherwise, I think the only realistic remedy is a state-wide or nation-wide legal protection.
You can tell it's _not_ Cymraeg because of the "j"s.

Despite Jones being the stereotypical name for people in Wales, the old Welsh language, Cymraeg, doesn't have a J, nor have Z, K, V, X (IIRC). Jones is an English loanword, brought over apparently with the Norman conquest (though derived from Hebrew).

The modern language of Wales is of course British English with a ~100% use rate; Cymraeg still has an approx 8% (but falling) of the population who say when surveyed that they can speak it fluently, however.

Yeah, I'm terrible at parties.
Maybe. But the reality is clear: at the current trajectory, we are headed for another French Revolution. Some billionaires knows this too:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchfork...
Did you post this on fractalforums.com ?
My credit card does all of that and they actually reward me for using them, so given the choice when paying for something I will choose a credit card 100% of the time.
> The good news is they are reasonably hard to enforce because most judges will ultimately agree that people have a right to change employers. The bad news is it can cost a lot of money to get to the point where the judge says that.

Yes, and that's the rub. I've had several recruiters respond with, "oh don't worry, that's not enforceable" when I objected to an onerous NCC in a contract they presented me with. My response was "perhaps, but you could use it to drag me through the courts and make my life hell, so remove it altogether, or we're done here."

In each case, it was after I had verbally accepted a verbal offer. And in each case, they removed the NCC.
I think people downvote you because your post had a zombo.com feel to it - it talks on and on about how great and to the point it is, with the actual point being rather hard to find. My reading is that your whole argument is this paragraph:

> Here is a question Piketty didn't ask: what percent of dynastic, billionaire wealth was created in a single generation in America?

I think it's a fair point, IIRC it was also raised during EconTalk discussion with Piketty (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/09/thomas_piketty.html).
Great read! I really want to see detailed visualizations of some of the top newly discovered prominences.
> That would save a lot of people a lot of time and money...

Who, exactly?
I don't know that this is good advice. Attitudes toward noncompetes vary from state to state and probably even from judge to judge; I don't think it's a good idea to put one's career at risk from what amounts to a coin toss, even if the odds are 50/50 or even somewhat better.
The code does explicitly assign a frequency of 440 Hz to the parameter rate in the first case and 110, 220, 440 Hz in the second. The second, fractal noise example might have been more interesting to compare to the first one if the author had kept the "fundamental" at 440 Hz and added higher-frequency overtones.
Okay, I have a few minutes to expand.

I cleared up one point of confusion by editing my original comment - I did not mean that my comment was bitter (it's not) but rather that the reality it describes is bitter.

I've read through your points and I don't feel it will be a productive use of our time to engage further.

However, I will make one last very brief summary in the most rigorous possible logical terms. If owning a computer gives unequal personal utility to people, then if everyone owns a personal computer, people will have unequal personal utility. The world won't be "fair."

Now if instead of "personal utility" you substitute "creation of wealth" and for the computer you substitute all of the wheels of American capitalism, you will see that if everyone has the same access, but due to differing skills and interests differing results, then the world will be unfair. There is no way to make it fair except by shutting off the wheels of capitalism (in the proxy argument, there is no way to make sure everyone has the same level of utility except by taking away everyone's computer). I'm sorry, this is a fully rigorous argument, not at all emotional, and I'm just not prepared to invest any more time in explaining it. I did my best. Sorry if we disagree.
For the same reason they gave Sanders the cold shoulder, without actually doing any real analysis of his plans.

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-invents-left-leanin...

https://theweek.com/articles/606698/why-are-bigshot-liberal-...
In this case the author was complaining about how low the aftertax earnings were, without realizing he was bitching about how high the taxes were.
Some Chinese products are better, but PLEASE remove Baidu from that list. Baidu has been ridiculous for the past few years: I can't find anything on Baidu, pretty much the entire first page is full of irrelevant ads; all my Chinese friends are complaining about that too.

I use Baidu Maps every time I visit China. Heavily disappointed, it comes nowhere near Google Maps's quality.
As a guy who almost thought about committing a suicide due to working in offices, and as a guy who eventually found his way to stable remote work, I still think you're being too harsh.

People get tired. People get burned out. People need to switch an active and hectic period with a period of stability and tranquility. Having someone who needs such a more relaxing period to NEVER engage it to continuously chase the ideal employer is a recipe for a suicide.

Moving between companies is harder than it should be.
It's irresponsible because social welfare in the U.S. is poor compared to what is available in Germany, France, and Scandinavia.
Solve a murder? In what sense?

By finding the killers? I doubt that very much.

By identifying the corpse? This alone doesn't quite solve the murder, but only unravels the depth of the incident. Really, to do so, someone has to spill the beans, much less than help discover a thread that cracks the case.

Sounds like what you're really doing is inviting a leak. I don't see what else would work.
Next let's talk about the right to live on a piece of land without paying someone else for the privilege.
Sure, they can turn off editing in DocuSign, but that doesn't change what this is: a negotiation. Download it as a PDF and then copy/paste it into a Google Doc. Edit the document as you feel is necessary, print both the redlined copy (so you can explain your proposed changes) and the clean one.

If they're cool with it, sign the clean employment agreement together on the spot. Make copies and you're done.
Congress is the best thing in the world, it doesn't matter where they put it.
It's interesting to note that China and India were the global economic juggernauts until only very recently:

(first google result to demonstrate the point)
https://infogr.am/Share-of-world-GDP-throughout-history
Voluntarily agreeing not to compete with a company for some period of time is completely fine as a contract in a free market system. Not interfering in those agreements not only doesn't contradict a commitment to free markets but is actually a logical extension of it: individuals engaging in the system ought to be free to conduct whatever transactions they see fit. Free markets and well-functioning markets aren't coextensive, though, and that's the rub with non-competes.
Is adding 2FA somewhere on the horizon? I'd prefer something like U2F or possibly the upcoming SQRL, but I'll take anything robust that isn't SMS.
Thing with HN is you get a lot of english second language posters... who actually didn't learn those words in school.
True, but that ignores FICA, state income tax, city income tax (rare), sales tax, property tax, etc, etc. Granted, these aren't all income taxes, they have their own curves, etc, but still, paying an overall effective rate of 30% isn't that difficult.
Just be ready for the company to pull the offer. Lots of times it's not even on the principle (we don't actually agree to the changes) but ego ... as in "who does this guy think he is pushing back on this contract that 100s of our employees have signed"

If you're not ready for the company to walk away, be careful with this approach.
Perlin noise was explicitly designed to give a smooth, "natural" noise pattern; its spectral energy distribution is by design completely different from white noise. Makes sense that it sounds very different as well :)
[I've removed this comment. I have nothing to reply to the reply to it.]
FWIW it's 20 years old now
Here's my snarky interpretation. First, this is where a lot of people lose interest or get turned away:

> As a person who is extremely intelligent and eloquent, I am sure this post will be downvoted by my peers who are threatened by my conclusions and wit. In fact, I have a very cohesive argument, which I am about to show you. The argument will relate two things. You will then agree that my argument has merit, because it is very well made.

Then a few sentences hidden in the middle, long after people have written it off as a rambling diatribe:

> Capitalism, like a computer, is a tool, and the most intelligent and capable humans make the best use of tools for the most reward. I've heard of rags-to-riches stories. Therefore capitalism must rewards intelligence and capability, not accumulated capital.

Unfortunately these aren't susceptible to skimming to the end, because they're bookended with:

> This means Picketty is wrong and I've e-mailed him many times because my cause is just and righteous. In fact, the emails I wrote are an even more graceful and devastating critique than the argument I just gave you, with rigorous graphs and charts.
the fact that there is good-faith professional disagreement in the field of Economics does not indicate that Piketty is a charlatan in the same way that Scott Pruitt is a charlatan when it comes to climate science.

Piketty is a world class economist that presents rigorous arguments backed by very large amounts of empirical data. Scott Pruitt is a political hack paid to lie about climate science for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry. The fact that you conflate them says more about you than it does about Piketty or Pruitt.
Ask HN: Why nobody cares about good engineering rather than how to reduce costs?
For the last 6 months, I have been running consulting business with not so much great success. My initial goal was to build small 5+ boutique company and that's it. However, the expectations met the reality. Right I just have one permanent project and just lost one more because of lack of motivation to contribute to some of the worst code bases I have ever seen. However, it's been more like a contractor than software consulting business. It does not scale.

I assume working 12-14h per day for 5-6 months does not work. I was doing cold emails or approaching people and everybody says NO NO NO. Event I bought a formal suit for a meeting. The person don't event respond after the meeting. I sent a follow up email and no response. Very professional? I have more 12+ years experience working for well know companies in cloud and dev tools field. And What? It looks like that the engineer skills and knowledge are commodity for everybody.

Being one man show is hard. Any suggestions what I am doing wrong?
If you are required to pay for a non-compete, then most employers won't find it in their best interests to pay extra for them.

The problem is that some states allow non-competes without compensations and most employees sign everything in front of them.

This week a startup asked me to interview for a contract gig. Before the interview they sent me a 3 year NDA. I responded that I'm not signing an NDA to interview for a job, I have no idea what they will tell me and I'm not going to limit my future clients/work options just because we had a conversation. They backed down and we had a high level discussion and I told them to get someone else.

Another option is always to modify the agreement. In the case of the NDA I was prepared to x out the 3 year term and replace it with a one year term and initial it in that state before signing. If they didn't like it, fine.
I doubt that this is the whole story, on account of females not having tusks. If you take the position that the tusk is an adaptation to improve feeding, which implies that it is sufficiently effective in that role for it to be selected for, then you have to explain why the females' lack of the tusk is not selectively disadvantageous.

My guess is that it was selected for a different reason (probably some form of sexual selection), and has proven to be somewhat useful in hunting. Both the possibility of sexual selection, and the possibility of features, selected for their utility in one use, having uses for other purposes, were important insights that allowed Darwin to defend his theory of natural selection against critics (they also help defend Darwinism against the claim that it is a fatuous tautology.)
> Here is a question Piketty didn't ask: what percent of dynastic, billionaire wealth was created in a single generation in America? Not addressed at all. (And I read his book and wrote to him with my criticism, which he didn't reply to.)

Actually he has addressed this, and the answer is relatively little. Most wealth in the world is passed down from one generation to the next, growing at a rate faster than the economy in general. Many of the richest families in the world from centuries ago are still the richest families. Other than in small pockets of the world, like silicon valley, new money is pretty rare.
Publishing a blog post isn't exactly sitting on a vuln. I would understand if they kept it to themselves and I would understand if they reported to Intel, but this?
That wasn't my intent (well, the "feeling bad" part wasn't, anyway), but I guess I'll just have to take what I can get.
I've had multiple employers "alter the document." I send an email, saying I have reviewed, saying I can't sign unless A, B, and C are done.

Usually, this involves removing clauses about not having other employment or side work, which are a non-starter for me. One employer added an appendix full of "exceptions", saying "all side work is allowed, not further authorization required."
In terms of public perception, perhaps. In reality? The parent comment is correct: we let ourselves pick out the parts we didn't like, with a dash of knee-jerk opposition to "secrecy" on top, and completely ignored the broader context (trade, security, and international politics).

The good news is, against all odds, it looks like the other TPP members might forge ahead anyway even without the US (for now): https://www.google.com/amp/asia.nikkei.com/amp/Politics-Econ...

It wasn't concern for little countries or even anti-IP sentiment that killed the TPP in the US, though that provided useful cover, but nativism as embodied by Trump.

New Zealand, one of those little countries, just ratified the TPP a few days ago to "send a message" in support of free trade despite the US withdrawal:http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/330574/nz-govt-ratif...
If you're not ready to walk away then you're not ready period.
Are there any side effects of disabling SMBs for your local machine that you won't be using to connect to network drives?
I'd take it even further. run a random allocated match no more often than each second. No retail or non-HFT institutional investor would notice the difference in execution time.

Of course, if you do that retail investors would no longer have access to $5 stock trades and actually have to pay for the "fair" services they are receiving. Probably some other cost as well to be absorbed under this model.
The NSA knew about this vulnerability and decided to use it offensively, rather than notifying Microsoft about it.

Then, due to lax controls, the exploit got leaked and used by the ransomware developers.

Their culpability goes back a lot further than not noticing a kill switch.
> First, it's likely they'll use the phrase "standard contract" and say that it just can't be changed.

I wonder what would happen if you said "Ah, so you're stipulating that it's a contract of adhesion. I'd like that in writing, please."

Contracts of adhesion can be harder to enforce [0].

(IANAL, and I'm not necessarily recommending doing this, but I am curious what kind of response one would be likely to get.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contrac...
For non HFT: it would help them not being front runned by the HFT guys, which means they would trade at fairer price and not have to worry about investigating when they're being screwed. (see flash boys)

For HFT: they wouldn't have to spend all that time and energy trying to be as close to the market as possible.
Calling this a new marshall plan is a powerful analogy.

Not sure I agree or disagree. The marshall plan was focused on gaining allies, so in theory it was more economically selfless than this. But even if not perfect the comparison makes you zoom out and take the long view.
But in the West the media is not state run. The Chinese government decides what to run and clearly that is propaganda. In America the media is controlled by 2 political parties and they are either pro or anti government. The media in the West can run any content they wish and it is up to the free market to determine if they can survive. You can listen to whatever viewpoint or angle. CNN, Fox, Huffpo, Brietbart everyone is telling you different angles it is up to you to decide. This unbiased media you are referring to is an unachievable utopia. The Western system is far superior to state run propaganda and is the best system we can realistically have. If there were a better system, through the free market it will replace the old.
Not sure politicking is the root reason for Airbus: Catia is just hugely expensive, so upgrading is really a considerable cost. But probably not worth causing $6.1bn delay – Technical debt can bite you in weird ways.
Found a list here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_synchroniza...
> Financial markets are meant for people to exchange financial products. People don't think very fast. So there is absolutely no value for actual market participants to be able to do sub-millisecond trades.

Who are all the market participants? How do you know there is no value in sub-millisecond trades? Why is trading different from the many other computational tasks humans strive to shave milliseconds off of that they can't possibly notice?

> If 2 person read the same news and send a trade order at the same hundredth of second, who wins the trade should be attributed at random, not to whoever is closest to the exchange.

Why?

> Super fast trades only allow high frequency trading firms to skim the market...

Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market?
Privacy preferences aside, this is just a terribly under-specified feature. An inability to manage contacts or the feature itself is just embarrassing.
Agreed. Be aware of your BATNA (that's your "best alternative to negotiated agreement") as well as the potential employer's. As in any negotiation, you should stack the deck in your favor beforehand - be late-stage in the interview process elsewhere, ideally have other offers, truthfully signal that you do, and try to move at a time when the employer badly needs to make a hire.
What?

Only if you're very inexperienced will this be tricky, once you're senior nobody bats an eye when I ask for things to be changed in the contract.

A contract is part of communicating how we will work together. Demonstrate that you're competent by clearly communicating the changes you want and why you want them and if they react back poorly then you dodged a major bullet, since they'll also communicate poorly in day to day functions.

I'm not saying you'll always get what you want, but there should never be anger, and just because you're sent a signable document via DocuSign doesn't mean you have to sign that version of it.
It would be cool to make a tool for 'playing back' git repos like this. I could see it having media player style controls so you can jump anywhere in progress, step to the next or previous commit, etc. At each commit, you could have a rendering of the diff, along with interspersed annotations. Maybe there could be a format for annotations, so multiple people could submit annotations for the same repos (or subsets of repos), and you'd end up with different tutorials.

So, in order to make one of these tutorials, you feed the software the url to the repo, start/end commit hashes, and some JSON or whatever that contains your annotations—and it gives you back an interactive presentation of annotated diffs.
I'm not too sure about the "academic bias" point, since modern "CISC" CPUs are essentially "CISC on RISC" and essentially RISC already.

That being said, greater efficiency is the main point, it's not too difficult to get a RISC-V core that beats (albeit marginally) an equivalent ARM core.

Optimizing compilers can often be difficult though, especially if you want to use novel modifications to the backend to make things more efficient.
What is science without rigorous definitions? Imagine you ask 100 women if they were ever raped and 25 say yes. You ask each for details, and twenty describe horrific encounters that were clearly rape. Five say they had drunk sex against their better judgment with a persistent suitor who claimed he loved them, and then he never called again and they felt violated.

What would be the scientific measure of rape in this survey, 20 or 25? Do you let the victims decide what the definition of rape is, or does the scientist have a reasonable definition of rape that they apply to the victim's experience?