skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There was an article a while back about a study someone did around willpower and self control. If I recall, their finding was not that the people who are better at delaying their gratification just have iron willpower and grind it out. Instead, they are smart enough to do things like remove themselves from temptation in order to make it take less willpower to accomplish their goals.

If the author if this article felt getting rid of their TV made it easier for them to live the life they want to live, I don't understand at all why so many people in this thread feel the need to criticize that.

Imagine an obese people wrote some blog post about throwing out all the cookies in their cabinet so they wouldn't be as tempted to eat them. We'd applaud that. Likewise, an alcoholic quitting their job bartending to get to a better environment.

But when it comes to media addiction, well... maybe it hits a little too close to home for many of us? Easier to criticize someone who tries to do better than to take an uncomfortable look in the mirror.
> In the case of private companies, unless the government intercedes, an organization that is inefficient and full of rent-seekers will soon be overtaken by spry rivals who focus on consumer benefits.

That's the ideal, but in reality there are plenty of corrupt, inefficient companies - as anyone who has worked in a large company can tell you. Also, there is no ideal free market in existence: Politics always plays a role, and powerful market players dislike the competition of the free market and create barriers to entry and other unfair advantages for themselves.

Even in the ideal, the 'free market' is a great tool but, like all tools it's not a universal one. For one thing, it needs to allow businesses and industries to fail; for another, it distributes goods to those most able to pay. For gaming software, that's fine. For health care, basic housing and food, police protection, and basic communication (the Internet), those are not acceptable outcomes.

> In ordinary cases such a company would have gone belly up after shareholders lost faith and committed capital elsewhere. Instead, the government propped up GM with defense contracts, government contracts, and finally a bailout. It was government intervention that allowed rent-seeking by individuals to continue.

Could you provide some basis for this version of events? As far as I know, which isn't much, GM used its enormous market power to survive; the car industry is hardly an ideal free market.
>You also would probably mention that the code would be less likely to be buggy and crash due to the null safety principle. Not really. Although it makes it easier to deal with null values, Kotlin is no miracle cure. A null value comes from somewhere. If your logic is wrong, your logic is wrong, no matter what is the language used.

I haven't used Kotlin extensively enough to know how much the null safety really helps, but this reasoning seems incorrect to me. You could extend it to say that static types aren't useful either, but in both cases there's a significant benefit from getting faster feedback that your logic is (or might be) wrong.
And where would this wonderful place be?
The daily maverick is a good news site focusing on South Africa
The types of games primarily marketed to men are indeed primarily played by men.[0]

[0] http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/
I would want to very strongly and categorically denounce point #1 in this list.

Well stated and I fully agree.
> phrenology

200-year-old research on phrenology was supported by dozens of data points. Today's research on cognitive sex-differences is supported by billions of data points.

>little [sic] evidence to back it up

And where is the evidence you've brought up that disproves the current scientific consensus? That is, where is your evidence disproving our massive trove of data showing cognitive differences between men and women?

His position is backed by evidence from thousands of scientific studies performed over the past century. Yours is not.

>[something about you predicting the future]

Now you've dropped below rational discourse and resorted to name calling. Do you see how trivial it is to turn your own argument against you?

You don't think in 100 years we won't laugh at people like you who ignore reality to justify certain ideological views? Your logic is flawed because you have a fixed mindset, which I believe is a logical dead end with little evidence to back it up. You are on the wrong side of history, and I make that opinion strongly.
Man this brings me back.. Thank you for creating this!
I've spent many hours attempting to transcribe my grandparents' handwritten letters. It's very difficult to decipher. Ironically, even the letters they'd mash out on a typewriter are difficult to decipher, but it's a lot easier than the handwriting.

It's not just my grandparents. Their relatives also all had wretched handwriting. I've shown them to many people, and they can hardly make it out, either.

I don't think good penmanship was commonplace :-)
The DoJ has a 93% conviction rate because they pressure any target into a plea bargain so they don't have to pursue strong cases.
Yep. People use the joking form of expression to tell truths they wouldn't dare saying with a straight face while the other side knows they're fully serious.

Social stigma and dogma are to blame for this.

(Off-topic: one of the reasons that the love between me and my wife hasn't at all eroded -- it even got stronger -- after 3 years and a few months is that we're very honest with each other, even for the unpleasant truths. It's not about blinding your eyes; it's about being real plus being loving.)
You call it inefficiency and incompetence, I call it chaos. And where there's chaos, there's money to be made.
I've wondered for a while how fast we could make a phone (or PC) that operated entirely in RAM disk and used flash storage just as a one-to-one backup and storage when powered off. Obviously this would require your phone to have 128GB of RAM. You'd write changes to the flash storage, but it'd mirror RAM as closely as possible without destroying power management or storage life.

Imagine if there was no lag opening any app because everything was in memory. Imagine your code getting simpler because you don't need to load assets off disk - that's done all in one go at boot time. You want to render an image out? Just do it - a reference to a file is a reference to a file, no loading it or wondering if it's loaded.

Flash storage in phones is fast enough these days that it's probably not worth it, and simply giving traditional phones lots of RAM will probably give 80% of the improvement for 20% of the cost. But I've been curious about the idea for some time.
I take notes on paper, and then scan them in later. I get the best of both worlds that way.
Sure, but look what we have here? A number of people who clearly can't pick up on quite obvious sarcasm.
The disruptive behavior should be dealt with directly, in a manner that's agnostic to whether the person staying is a short term tenant, a long-term tenant, or a nonpaying guest of the owner, not by discriminating against short term tenancy based on a generalisation about the people who utilise it.

Also, from what I've seen, most opposition to Airbnb is motivated by its alleged effect on rental rates for long-term tenants, which is the least justifiable reason to oppose it in my opinion.
That's just like saying the problem isn't me, it's you. Society plays a huge role in people feeling lonely. I'm not saying it's the job of society to make someone feel accepted and have authentic connections, but the way we are currently in todays society makes it extremely difficult you'll have an authentic connection with anyone or even be that authentic connection for someone else.
Why does that have to be the rare case? What's the common case of using "+" that you're trying to avoid?
Great links! But I'm confused by the definition of "autism" that you're using.

I'm referring to the DSM-V defined "autism spectrum disorder". In my comment, NT refers to "person not meeting criteria for DSM-V autism spectrum and not diagnosed as such". The field dependence test is interesting, but does not replace a actual diagnosis by an expert as far as I can tell.

While I can accept "most autistic people do well on the test " (it was pretty instant for me), I'm not convinced that a strong performance by someone who does not meet the criteria for autism spectrum disorder is proof that the person in question is actually somewhat autistic. Maybe there are other factors that make someone good at recognizing it?

And even if it was a good indicator, there is no guarantee that the 4:1 sex imbalance in diagnosed autism spectrum disorder translates to an equivalent imbalance in high-performing non-autistic-diagnosed (but hypothetically still autism spectrum by field dependence criteria) people. Would love to see some studies though.
Any Airbnb 'host' is a de facto 'professional landlord'. Next?
> What are we trying to solve?

Lets stop there. What are we trying to solve? I'd say we are trying to solve this question: What makes a good life? STEM gets a lot of press because, obviously, it is a well paid field.

However, the answer to what makes a good life is not just money. I'd wager it is (almost) universally agreed that a good life consists of: (1) Enough money (see below), (2) a career you enjoy, (3) free time to pursue things you enjoy outside work, (4) good health ((4a) mental and (4b) physical) and (5) connections with other humans. Maybe people can quibble with this to some degree, but I think that is about as uncontroversial as anyone can be on the subject of a good life.

Accepting my definition for the sake of argument, how does a gender imbalance in STEM affect this? Does a STEM career affect all 5 of those elements? Just some? Just others? Certainly, a career in STEM provides "enough money". But is it a career EVERYONE will enjoy? Do you get a lot of free time? It seems rather unhealthy as well - there aren't a lot of healthy people in offices in general. As for connections, YMMV on that one.

I think we focus too much on money because it is so easily measured. But more money beyond about $75K in the USA doesn't appear to make people more happy: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628... If you make above $75K, then surely that is the time to optimise the hours of your day not towards making more money, but to add more of the other 4 elements of a good life.

STEM is not a panacea, and money is not the be all and end all of life. Trading better financial security for health, a career you enjoy and more free time and personal connections may be a sensible decision. I'm not convinced more people would enjoy STEM careers, any more than I think everyone would enjoy being a special units detective, and dealing with a lot of awfulness.
Too bad digital notes don't have coffee rings and chocolate stains on them.
As an employee, would you say that the article summarizes a legitimate problem?
Before that, your diff looks ugly and you generate tons of merge conflicts by useless indentation changes.
The "leadership" of the city abdicated sometime after the Morrison days. New Orleans used to have the port and manufacturing, and truly competed to be the first city of the South. Now tourism provides jobs for chambermaids and busboys, but no middle class. Private and parochial schools have trained nothing but lawyers and doctors since the 60s, and the public system is just starved. Kids have no local STEM opportunities outside the oil and gas industry. I wish NOLA could revive in my lifetime, but it won't.
I'm fine with having public and private companies compete for services.

I'm pretty sure a government internet service would beat Comcast, and likely force all ISPs to up their game quickly.

Monopoly on contracts is my issue with purely a state-owned approach. Some well-run countries do seem to make it work though.
Genuine question: What seems prideful in what I wrote? Or is it just the choice of subject?
Password security and a comparison of Password Generators
I agree with everything you say but I would also say that this type of response from a manager (even with the reduced third section) is a major contribution to a hostile work environment. Public ego-tripping is the antithesis of a good manager and saying "you are wrong about everything and suck at life" when you are about to fire someone is always the wrong thing no matter how frustrated you are with that person or how true you think that statment is.

I also think that using violent imagery to make a point is a bad idea in almost any context, even if clearly not ment literally. He did at least explicitly say he would not include that part if writing when on the job.
I would love to wear full body armor while cycling. It definitely would've prevented the broken ankle I suffered last year. Motorcycle boots would've prevented that.

The problem is that full body armor is heavy, quite inconvenient, and you'll overheat really quickly. Plus, all of that extra mass on your feet will really make your cycling less efficient. Body armor simply isn't practical for cycling, so people don't do it except for certain specific high risk cycling activities, like stunt or downhill BMX.

But a helmet isn't nearly as inconvenient as full body armor, so there are many more situations in which it makes sense to wear a helmet. For me, commuting daily in NYC traffic, it's pretty much always worth it to wear a helmet.
Visualizing 2-Qubit Entanglement
I think there is value in treating Africa as a country.

There is a PC war against it, but personally I think that's ignoring the real issues of third world poverty and arm-chairing away from the real problems.

PS We mostly say American has done X, Y, Z so not a great example. And we use words like issues in the Middle East/South East Asia, which once again I think has value at the higher level of world news.
"That's how you create monsters".

Reminds me of that guy in France, Dieudonné. He was a pretty famous comedian and he ended up making a joke about jewish people on TV. The jewish lobby got hard on him, got him banned from TV channels. Consequently he got banned from radios, cities started refusing him touring, etc...

Now he became a huge antisemitic and he's friend with all the extreme-right people.
Autism and introversion are not the same thing
Maybe it doesn't get a named diagnosis because in our society, being an extrovert is hugely reward and isn't seen as a debilitating disease.
> I think it is debatable whether or not it is easier than changing the world.

What if the inverse was true and changing the world was easy, and changing yourself was hard?

If somehow you managed to change the world and not change yourself, then the world will be entirely fine, but you yourself will still suffer from the same perceptions as before (this is entirely possible, I've seen many a white male strongly believe that the world is prejudiced against them, and I recall some stats showing an increasing number who believe similarly in polling). In that case, the world is relatively good to them, but the mind creates its own interpretation of reality.

Unless you believe people are un-changable, and changing the world means raising the next generation right and forgetting ours.

Anyways, I'm not advocating to forget about activism, just saying I recommend looking inwards first before helping others. Like on airplane safety directions. And that's not a comment directed at you specifically, just a general observation to those looking outwards before looking in (it sound like you've done your share of introspection).
I have no position in AMZN besides passive index holdings but clearly not "everyone" agrees the stock price is overvalued as many continue to hold onto shares at the current price.

More importantly, in what world does a stock price need to justify a "10% ROI" or it's overvalued?

This isn't the 1960s anymore, and even if it was a 10% ROI would not be the equity risk premium, maybe 5-7% ROI. One also needs to adjust for inflation which AMZN does better than Treasuries. Looking at profits and ROI is no longer standard practice for many market participants, particularly in technology it's clear secular N/A dividend and negative P/E are now accepted practices, for better or worse.

The price of AMZN may go down, way down, or it might not, but either way your valuation technique is a dangerous one and I am very curious what stocks you do like if you are looking for a 10% ROI?
The problem is that rather than evaluating actual individuals who of course vary widely, these tendencies are used as justification for pre-judgement or inequality.
(80) How the upper middle class keeps everyone else out
I thought the people who were resting and vesting at Google were all making new messaging programs? They are up to 3 or 4 now?
Is there a scientific basis for that statement?

Sure some of the symptoms seem opposite (but others are actually kind of similar), but the genetic component of that disease is pretty specific and well understood. Not like autism which has been much harder to pin down on any single chromosome.
It's fine to use a Magnum I you actually need it, Western condoms tend to be 51-54mm in width for non Magnum sizes and 56-59 for magnums if you actually need it by all means use it but for most people the normal ones will be the best fit.

In other places it might be different I know people think that Asian thing is a trope but it's not Durex reduces the width from 54 to 49mm for the Asian market which is a bitch.
Study: Female Coders Better Than Men, but Perceived as Worse
> the idea that diversity is just have 50:50 of characteristic X and characteristic Y.

There's more nuance to it than that. It's about having a profession be representative of the overall proportions of each characteristic within the population at large. It's only 50/50 because half of the population is men and women. For other characteristics, like say African-American, you'd be looking for 12/88, not 50/50. Instead, tech is more like 1/99, so clearly there's a lot more work to do there. And I'd like to point out that none of the so-called biological arguments that were advanced on sex apply to race, yet racial diversity is even worse than gender diversity. Clearly there's more at play here.
Yes, no patience, no attention span, incapable of basic interaction with another human.
You get banned on Hacker News for violating the guidelines, and it's possible to share contrary opinions without doing so. See also: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20linkless%20martyr&so....

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942874 and marked it off-topic.
Also, it's only been three years. Give it a few decades.
Also depends what you call work. Actively coding is not the only work engineers do, particularly if they are senior.

As a senior engineer, communicating to those less senior is typically much more important than coding. That's how a good senior engineer force multiplies their knowledge and levels up the entire organization.
> the way we are currently in todays society makes it extremely difficult you'll have an authentic connection with anyone or even be that authentic connection for someone else.

No. It does not. It was just as hard 30 years ago as it is now. As it was 300 years ago. 3000 even. People still congregate in places where it's easy to meet them. They still do it today, they did it all throughout history. People don't want to go, that's the problem. They don't want to talk. They don't want to open up.

We idealize the past I think. There was never any magical time when people weren't lonely. There was never any magical time when people didn't kill themselves.

If anything the Internet has made it easier for people to find the connection they want. It doesn't solve anybody's status problem, that still requires good ole-fashioned hard work and achievement and luck.

If you're lonely, ask yourself why you refuse to go out and meet people and make connections. Even if it's just at the grocery store. Even if it's just with the homeless guy down the road. Keep digging and eventually you'll find a root cause.

The nature of the problem is such that you have to be the one to reach out. You can't expect society to do that for you. Nobody can solve your loneliness problem for you. That's the hard lesson I had to learn.
You might find this interesting, then. A company that does remote technical interviews as a service tried altering the pitches of interview candidates' voices through software, so they could change whether they sounded male or female, and looked at the effect it had on how the interviewers judged their performance.

http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas...

"After running the experiment, we ended up with some rather surprising results. Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance with respect to any of the scoring criteria (would advance to next round, technical ability, problem solving ability). If anything, we started to notice some trends in the opposite direction of what we expected: for technical ability, it appeared that men who were modulated to sound like women did a bit better than unmodulated men and that women who were modulated to sound like men did a bit worse than unmodulated women. Though these trends weren’t statistically significant, I am mentioning them because they were unexpected..."
> In particular, I found this quote disturbing

Indeed. But this is the world we're in, where coming to work and doing the job you're paid for because you have a life outside of work is considered toxic.
Yes, a biased pipeline is absolutely something that needs to be solved. Society should permit and facilitate people living their best lives and maximizing their potential. I found programming both incredibly rewarding and a wonderful way to jump start my career. So if there are lots of girls who would feel the same way if society didn't bias them against the profession from an early age, that's wrong and it needs to be fixed.

The idea that women want different things than men is pernicious and it's not something we should accept without proof. For a long time we rationalized keeping women out of the work force by saying that they preferred focusing on the home. Yet, I know more stay at home moms that are bitter about having given up their career than the other way around. It's a lie we told ourselves to justify a social arrangement that disempowered women. We should know by now not to fall prey to that sort of thinking.
It works all the time when ignoring the times it didn't.
Just for fun, what if it is read as AND: that is, bitwise AND?

x/(y&z) & y/(x&z) & z/(x&y) = 4.

If the / becomes integer (flooring) division, there are many solutions, such as (6, 13, 19).

But if the division results are required to actually be integers, there are no small solutions - at least, none where x, y, and z <= 10000 (checked by brute force with minor optimization). I suspect that unlike the original problem, there are actually no solutions, but it’s just a guess. Anyone want to come up with a proof? :)
This right here ^. Though I would go further to argue that women were predominantly portrayed in advertising as not being able to understand how to use technology to begin with. I think it goes beyond video gaming but rather addresses the toxic gender stereotyping in marketing. As a result, you have a generation of women being told what things are meant for boys despite the decades of prior women involved in computer science. Not to mention years of hostility towards women being in the workforce at all.
This link appears to be little more than a reworded version of the APA press release [1]. I'm still not sure where the actual study is.

[1] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/lonely-die.as...
Sarcasm and satire are very effective ways of communicating a point. The above comment added only 2 words to draw attention to the absurdity of that statement.