skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I liked how the old Opera included a bittorrent client. It was the only browser that did, and felt like it was actually the way it was meant to be used. But nobody got it. You had warez kiddies left and right complaining how it sucked compared to Azureus and later µTorrent which had bazillions of features to tweak and max out their connection, or saying it was useless because their favorite ALT did not whitelist Opera.

But I just used it a lot when running bigger downloads like install discs for Linux distros, OpenOffice etc., and it made a difference when there was some major release and half of the plain old http mirrors were painfully slow or down entirely. Admittedly, that situation got a lot better compared to 10 years ago, but still I'm delighted by how natural it felt to use, since it seamlessly integrated with the browser's download manager. And you didn't have this "uh, I need to start an external program for this" kind of reluctant thought when you saw a website offered download via torrent.
Today I just wonder if BT would have evolved differently if all browsers would have included a client.
What are the ethical consequences of immortality technology?
Not quite sure why this comment is being downvoted. +1'ed to compensate :)
I bought Bose QC35 2 weeks ago and I am absolutely thrilled about them. The noise cancelling is almost perfect and when I have them on and somebody speaks to me I really don’t hear anything. Unlike many other headphones I have tried they are also very comfortable. I tried Sony MDR-1000x and to be frank their noise canceling is maybe even better than the Boses, however they are so tight on my head I know I wouldn’t be able to wear them for more than an hour.
For immigration purposes you will definitely need to do an English language test. A lot of these tests, language and otherwise, are actually done at private companies. As long as they are accredited with the government they can administer it.
> Protections of free speech apply to government actions only.

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
A Public Record
> These discussions do need to be had

I agree, but (and call me old fashioned) I don't think these kind of discussions should happen at work and I definitely don't think an employee should be publishing opinionated documents naming the company they work for.
Let's qualify it by posting a link which demonstrates gender bias when people read the same resume with a different name.

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-...

This is hardly the only study. There are many more.

My favorite was the law students from second tier schools where males who signaled coming from middle class backgrounds had a huge statistically disadvantage from males signalling wealth.

The kicker? Wealth killed opportunities for women.

https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b...

Bias and prejudice are real and evaluating people is hard. To make things worse, your brain likes to save energy by substitution rigorous evaluation with heuristic evaluation and then convince itself it did the rigorous work.

The problem isn't gender discrimination is rife, it's that thousands of forms of discrimination is rife because heuristic-based discrimination is what we excel at, not rigorous evaluation.

I hope that didn't make it more touchy.
> Let's see. Under single payer system, it's illegal to purchase medicine or health care. Only the government can do it.

No, Nearly every single payer system allows you to purchase extra health care, over and beyond what the single payer system provides.

In Canada, as just one example, this is sometimes called "supplementary health insurance". See https://on.bluecross.ca/health-insurance/health-insurance-10... for an example

> Government picks generic drug that works for most people and has no incentive to worry about the 5% - 10% of people it doesn't work for. Oh, well

Generally, this isn't true either. Government picks generic drugs, because it frees up the most amount of money for them to treat other people with.

But if the government covers medications and there's a real medical reason to need a name brand drug over a generic, they'll usually prescribe you the name brand one automatically. Here's a list of that happening in the UK, for example - http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Medicinesinfo/Pages/Brandnamesa...

And of course, as always, your still welcome to buy any name brand drug yourself, if you like.
On the other hand, the placebo effect can be pretty significant, and sugar pills have no side effects.

So homoeopathic remedies could be a useful thing for doctors to prescribe to people who think they need a prescription but don't actually need one (certainly much better than antibiotics, which I'm pretty sure have sometimes filled this niche in the past).
I used Unity a bit and have the feeling they are more into the mass marked than Unreal.

It shows in the fact that Unity uses C# instead of C++, which has less historical baggage and is a bit safer, especially for junior devs I think.

Unreal seems to be for projects that need the raw power of C++, but don't want to go into doing their own thing.

I for one never met a Unreal dev, only a mass of Unity devs and the ones that do their own engine.
Have you met leftist organizers? No, it's still class-based.
How to name your digital advertising campaign like a pro
I have no idea why this news is titled "Computer says no". For the speaking part it's humans evaluating the results. That said you are right on point about private company being the gatekeeper.

IELTS raised the fees more than 300% in the last few years. They now cost around $330 per exam and they always invariably fail you the first time around. You are allowed to take as many tests as you need.
Conveniently you pass after a few tries.

I know competent English teachers who grew up in Australia failing this test few times. And equally I know very few migrants from third world countries passing the test even if English is their first language.

It's more of a blatant money making scheme than anything else and quite obviously the department of immigration must charge IELTS for allowing it to be one of the English examiner.

Just follow the money and you have all the answers.
That's definitely nice! Any other advantages?
Yeah. They've obviously made much progress but are still institutionally scared of non white immigrants.

Very forward thinking on the issue of partners though. If one gets the visa the other does too with little or no fuss. Don't even have to be married.

The country is, like any, full of contradictions.
Its a question what was worse for PR.

Firing him just proved his point. He said that google created environment, where people whos opinions are not completely aligned with left echo chamber dogma, cant express their views safely. ... And he was fired for exactly this.

Right leaning and centrist media is not on googles side here. And seems that he plans on suing:

> Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal. See a Damore's defiant answer to Reuters.

Mind you if you read actual manifesto with pictures and sources, you will see he was very careful with words. He carefully sourced all controversial points and mentioned multiple times that this are not his personal views. But pro feminist blogs and media misrepresented this memo, like PS SJW culture usually does. This was enough for vocal minority to pressure google HR to fire him, wihtout actually reading real memo and relying solely on biased interpretations.

On court he has the upper hand.
> because you can't work with people who hate you no matter why.

So if I understand your argument correctly, if people hate you then it's OK to fire you? I'm sorry, this makes no sense to me.
The evolution of machine learning
GBPUSD: Sees Bear Pressure, Risk Remains Lower
I think it'd be a challenge to even dig up a serious Internet comment that clearly stated this. If you think someone's saying this, be sure you're not just inferring it to make a strawman.

In any case, it's verifiable that nobody of consequence in the public policy debate on climate change is saying that the climate is perfectly static. The disagreements are about degrees, certainties, consequences, timelines, and appropriate responses.

This insistence on debating such a strawman looks really bad, I have to be honest. Why not "steelman" your opponent and argue against his best points, instead of "weakmanning" the dumbest things anyone on that side has ever said? It'd be a lot more productive.
I disagree that gender and race disparities in tech is even a problem. The majority of careers have gender and race disparities. It is normal. There needs to be good reasoning for why tech is more special than the hundreds of other careers that enjoy this same phenomenon.
Carolla has said on his podcasts many times (years ago) that he spent even more than $500k on lawyer fees and a lot of his total expenses. (I think he said around $1M total was spent)
Private Street in Posh Neighborhood Bought Out from Under Residents
New WebGL publisher, why?
It is absolutely possible to acknowledge biological differences having a potential impact at a macro scale yet still believe skill and talent can come from anywhere. This is entirely consistent with the author's position.

It's really tough to have these discussions when any contrary opinion is equated with "[telling] some people to go away just because of their gender/race."
To Sundar Pichai:

How could someone express the views the author felt without getting fired, while still promoting discussion?

Is it possible, just possible, that Google's policies are counterproductive? If so, how would Google find out? By what process could someone change them?

If such processes exist, why would someone the company valued enough to hire risk his job to send this memo?

Is it possible that Google's environment does not accept some minority viewpoints despite your beliefs and attempts?
Ask HN: What is your advice to new HN user?
Sorry if this question is already asked. I am new to HN. Is there any tutorial?
The moral of the story is something most adults figure out by their mid 20s: if you like your job, keep your mouth shut about your political/religious beliefs.

And despite what any employer will tell you about their workplace being an open forum, they are full of shit. What they mean is, it's an open forum to agree with management.
POWER CPU cores typically have N-way hardware threads, like 8 or so usually. So you're probably looking at something closer to 32 hardware threads per socket. The original Talos offered 12 core variants (96 per socket!) but had no dual socket config. Also, the memory bandwidth and cache on these things is insane even compared to top of the line, absolute highest-end Xeons, so there are many factors besides raw CPU count.

I don't know if those numbers are upped with a POWER9 CPUs (I wasn't even sure if POWER9 was really shipping yet?)
My assumption is that UX people finding this page would know that going in..but I totally see your point that I'm not addressing on the home page. Thanks.
> If you add the 13% of neutral folks, you will get almost 49%, a slightly greater percentage than 48.5% of those who almost disagree or strongly disagree.

This is just not how you analyze a poll and maintain the impression of honesty. Although I agree with the conclusion that "the supporters of Damore's view are at least comparable in size to the opponents" (based on the 36%/48.5% split), the obvious willingness of the author to exaggerate support for his side is just despicable.
The mile high view of USA health care is if we can "eliminate" the poor, the old, the sick, in the long run, it will make our economy stronger. It seems to be doing it's thing.

The life expectancy is coming down for the first time in decades and the stock market is at a record high. It's a "social darwinism" thing. We're a living lab to test the theory out.

That's the mile high view. I'm not sure what the long term consequences are.

> US life expectancy drops for first time in 22 years

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/health/us-life-expectancy-down...
"The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West"

Do you mean that "the modern left", that homogeneous and well defined group, discourse is full of unjustified generalizations, where generic labels are apply without qualification?

Yes, quite ironic certainly.
How on earth would you outlaw purchasing healthcare? I hope these aren't widespread beliefs...
Yeah, around 2007 Target announced they had reduced a whole bunch of generic maintenance drugs to $5 for a 30 day supply. I was still paying a $10 copay at CVS, so I switched to Target and paid the $5.
Huge memory BW, CAPI2, 8-way SMT, 120MB L3 cache, L4 cache, compression and crypto coprocessor, etc...
Now that would be hilarious.
> Considering gender or caste or color of skin as one of the conditions for employment should be illegal in all nations.

Given research showing that the most diverse teams are, on average, more successful than less diverse teams [1], should gender or caste or color still never be considered?

People bring more to their workplaces than algorithms and programming languages, their life experiences and worldview can positively influence the whole company.

The employer should encourage new ideas, create an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute, and facilitate education and improvement for all employees.

Algorithms, programming languages, technology stacks, etc. can all be taught. The perspective an employee brings to the company can not be taught.

I think we would agree that gender, race, and ethnicity are crude proxies for a "unique worldview". There are so many metrics that could be considered: education, location history, age, previous work, hobbies, etc. Even more can be gleaned from a conversation.

A good hiring manager should know that too, and should select candidates who truly complement the team, not just check the boxes for race and gender.

[1] https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
NextGen 3D Games using JavaScript and browser today
Chicken Farmers are in short supply apparently.
> And people consider parts of what he said bigoted.

Is it enough for some people to consider it that?

Consider gay marriage. Each side thinks the other is being bigoted towards some group. Do we just take people's words for it?
At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint)

Define "safely" and maybe you can express your viewpoint. The good news is that Google ain't gonna shoot you after a 15 minute trial (including appeals) but you'll get fired and blackballed. (Google could at least give this guy FU money with a wink and a nod.)

No company will hire you after rocking the boat....things have already been decided by those who scream loudest. WTF are you to question them now?
Transition mechanisms suffer from the same problem as the upgrade to ipv6, the need for an upgrade.

So in this sense all were doomed to fail.

Remarkably the CGN devices are actually the best practical idea for this. Fake IPv4 addresses for the dumb ossified clients and that's it. If something important enough for the end user doesn't work, they'll finally upgrade.
I'm going to disagree here on one thing: The pool being biased isn't a problem that the hirer can or should deal with; it's out of their hands because their position in the chain is far further along of where the problem lies. So I would submit that no, an employer shouldn't have to compensate for a pool bias because they have no impact on it but in turn it can only lead to lower long term outcomes for them.

Personally I suspect that there's a mix of both cultural (girls play with dolls traditionally) and biological (boys tend to be more attracted to tinkering and building from even before they learn to speak) reasons for the ratio in people studying IT-related fields but I just don't see how making hiring practices biased in any direction will help with that.
I think the main value of books like these, including books on diets or exercise, is inspiration. After you've read 4 hour work week you probably come away with an increased determination to run your own business. That more than any concrete advice it contains would be what recommends it to readers I think.
Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
How to make lag compensated multiplayer mode for classic game? Java, Libgdx
> There is also zero reason to consider comparing somebody do anti-vaxxers or any other outgroup a rational argument.

I took it as an argument by analogy. A more analytical approach like listing logical errors and fallacies wouldn't go over well either. I'm curious how someone else would phrase those points without neutering them.
> The loop pops the zeroth element from the queue. As the queue is a list, this is a linear time operation.

That's somewhat surprising. The documentation at https://wiki.python.org/moin/TimeComplexity says that the time complexity of pop(k) on a list of size of n is O(k). Since k is constant in this program, that time complexity should be constant, not linear.

However, a quick little test program:

import sys
import time
n = int(sys.argv[1])
l = list(range(n))
print("list ready")
start = time.time()
for i in range(1000):
l.pop(0)
took = time.time() - start;
print(n, took)

agrees with you rather than with wiki.python.org:

10000 0.00488591194152832
100000 0.06201004981994629
1000000 0.7796049118041992
10000000 12.354434967041016

The documentation for deques at docs.python.org does say that pop(0) on a list is O(n), so it looks like the wiki needs clarification.

I tried it in Perl, too:

use Time::HiRes qw(gettimeofday tv_interval);
my $n = shift;
my @list = (1 .. $n);
my $start = [gettimeofday];
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000; ++$i)
{
shift @list;
}
my $elapsed = tv_interval($start, [gettimeofday]);
print "$n $elapsed\n";

and there it does appear to be approximately constant time (which is what I expected):

10000 0.000135
100000 0.000142
1000000 0.000178
10000000 0.000163
100000000 0.000176

Changing the Python program to use a deque (and changing pop to popleft) gives results similar to Perl:

10000 0.00017404556274414062
100000 0.00018596649169921875
1000000 0.0001850128173828125
10000000 0.0001819133758544922
100000000 0.00019288063049316406

The numbers are essentially the same popping from the other side.

Out of curiosity I then changed the Python program to pop the last item of the list instead of the first, and got this:

10000 0.00025200843811035156
100000 0.00026297569274902344
1000000 0.0002658367156982422
10000000 0.0002770423889160156
100000000 0.0002639293670654297

So even on the fast side, the list is slower at popping than the deque.

I was then curious to compare list and deque for accessing interior elements. I changed the programs from poping item to adding 1000 items from the list or deque spaced evenly throughout.

List:

10000 0.0002741813659667969
100000 0.0003039836883544922
1000000 0.0004611015319824219
10000000 0.0005731582641601562
100000000 0.0006010532379150391

Deque:

10000 0.00033092498779296875
100000 0.0014951229095458984
1000000 0.03908801078796387
10000000 0.45997095108032227
100000000 16.526084899902344

OK...so that's why we don't just use deque everywhere.

I did the same thing with my Perl program:

10000 0.000301
100000 0.000375
1000000 0.000511
10000000 0.000624
100000000 0.000638

It's interesting that Perl's array seems to combine the fast access at both ends of Python's deque with the fast random access of Python's list. I wonder how it does this? The Perl array seems to use more memory than the Python list, so maybe Perl is trading off size to get versatility?
My old plan copays didn't count towards the deductible though, they were totally separate. Is that uncommon?
16 in 10 silicon valley executives are white, while 7 in 10 are Asian (for every 10 engineers). So Asians are actually underrepresented at the highest level.

I have no comments on the current Washington administration's personal views - if their goal is to get rid of AA and remove diversity regulations from industry then it's a goal that's fine with me.
I wish I could afford one.
Hang on now...I thought only non-EU people must do the inburgering nonsense? Or does it also apply to anyone who wants to get citizenship?
Wealthy San Francisco residents lose private street over tax bill
I found this longer video of his on the same subject to be better at explaining the nuances of his viewpoint: https://youtu.be/NV2yvI4Id9Q
The NHS covers almost all drug costs. In Sweden drugs are free for kids under 18, and others have a yearly cap at ~$200 for drugs, at which they become free (partially subsidized a bit before that).
Yeah I see your point, perhaps it's not so much about offending people but the way in which it was communicated.
Fortunately I think there's a connection between heretical thinking and originality, so hopefully that tilts towards variety. I think that was the whole point of Thiel's 'interview question'.
Is your internet, website and email is up to date?
which is odd, because diverse groups are more efficient. you'd think it'd be a hardcore capitalist argument.
>Dowry is almost non-existent today in Western culture.

I would say it still exists. It just changed its name to alimony.
In India, women don't pay dowry. It's the parents, usually the dad. The alimony system just changed it so that now the ex (usually husband) has to pay. I would call alimony/maintenance as divorce dowry.
Stereotypes are true
Interesting. Was this submission kicked off the front page? I can't find it anymore except by using the search.
I totally agree with you and Google. It's like "you can choose your car color, as long as it is black." https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Henry-Ford-say-%E2%80%9CA-cust...

Oh wait, maybe I don't agree with you...
I just don't want to hear some one's fucking opinions on an internal memo, that is so much not what internal communication tools are for.
> lack a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.

That's 'privilege', and is something to feel guilty about. It's not something to be grateful to your ancestors for providing, but something you get unfairly by 'accident of birth'. Only when it comes to guilt is your connection to your ancestors and ethnicity more than an accident.

Edit: I did not think a 'sarcasm' tag necessary.
Unreal didn't invent its own shading model. Instead Unreal and a bunch of other game engines now use what is called PBR (work on this started in Pixar before game engines)

I think the possible explanation on why they may look different to you than other PBR engines (say renderman or unity) is that IIRC UE4 has slighly different curves for roughness and other properties. but still I would credit it to what the other comment said about shared assets and people using defaults.

you can see information from disney here:
https://disney-animation.s3.amazonaws.com/library/s2012_pbs_...

and here are the ue4 docs, with some other references at the bottom:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Ma...
> ...he makes a logical leap that is not substantiated by any evidence he cites

Where does he do that? If I recall correctly, he mostly wanted to discuss the company culture. There were policies that were mentioned, but only to support his position that the company culture was supported by company policy.