skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Nobody should have to defend themselves against false accusations that they're not even a real person.

Do you mean the accusation that someone is playing a role for marketing purposes, and is not actually like the image portrayed? Why is that such an inconceivable accusation? Why should nobody have to defend herself against that?
It's impossible to create any system with actual consequences to human livelihoods that's free from complaints. Whatever their flavor.
The purity laws that never mentioned yeast as one of the possible ingredients? They have their own issues.
Ask HN: How to go from zero to software engineer?
I'm a recent grad from biology interested in becoming a software developer (bit late?).

I'm particularly interested in one day working with the big four. Once again, I'm not sure if this is a bit late, considering I have absolutely no experience.

The most common area of software I know of, and heard is most beginner friendly, is web development. So I guess that would be one of the areas to focus on?

How would I go about creating a roadmap from zero to software engineer? I prefer to work in a very organized manner. I understand there is the programming side, but also a theoretical computer science component (algorithms, data structures. Etc.) that many big companies like to ask in interviews. I'm guessing I'd have to venture into new math territory (discrete math?).

Overall, what would be the roadmap I'd take to become a software developer, most likely in the area of web development? As well as, what is the likely timeframe I would expect to finally land my first job?

Thanks
I suspect it's a result of "blanket" thinking - if we don't punish $illegal_behaviour, then people won't stop doing it. Unfortunately in this case, the punishment is the same as the punishment for just about every other crime and for this particular issue it's less of a punishment and more of a catalyst.

A middle ground would be a good solution IMO - some kind of jail-esque treatment center or set wings in existing jails just for drug users where they undergo some sort of treatment/detox program. I daresay in a lot of cases, voluntary treatment isn't going to work, and I suspect a lot of treatment centers out there now are nowhere near as secure as a jail.
>>> You're the one who is using averages. Everyone else here is telling you averages are a misleading metric here when trying to compare the US to other countries.

What everyone else. The grandparent literally complained about three people in this thread mentioning a fact without sources about averages. I supplied said source. What are you responding to?

>>> Averages are not useful for comparing diverse data sets.

The US is not particularly diverse in the world. And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?

>>> The mean tells you a lot about a hypothetical population where everyone has an IQ of 100. It doesn't tell you a lot about a population where half the people have an IQ of 75 and half 125. Using mean scores to compare those populations is nearly useless.

Right, because we actually have countries where half the population is 125 and half is 75, what can I say. /s

>>> That's just it, you can't use 1 number to compare countries. It's not meaningless, but it's close

Tell that to the OECD.

Why do you care so must about this comparison of averages? Why are you commenting?

I like how you literally don't answer half my replies, makes one think what's the point of this.
"But, you know, I can't control what the world does."

I think this is the key difference. A lot of people out there think they can change the world, at least a little bit, by pushing at these boundaries.
It's interesting that the speculation (the hope?) that the internet could allow entrepreneurs to create businesses that don't rely on these connections, that could sustain themselves just by reaching out to enough consumers directly, seems to have been wrong.

It seems that the well-connected and savvy old guard has proven better at reaching ordinary people than an unconnected newcomer entrepreneur can, no matter how good the product may be.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/338347?seq=1#page_scan_t...
I say it sometimes and I live here. Nothing wrong with it.
Besides go dropping the ball on aarch64, it looks like the days of Intel are numbered in every place where perf per watt matters.

That, or Intel has to actually wake-up their R&D department that's been in hibernation for the last decade of their desktop and server de facto monopoly.
I'm envisioning servers running anonymous services that one could connect to ala proxy for mobile devices that anonymize traffic, strip out all ads, beacons, traffic, allow choice of region to appear from, etc. No logs.

Desktop service would allow a secure connection to an anonymous, secure desktop of your choice (Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Window Maker, Openbox, etc.) anonymize traffic, offer an ad/beacon/traffic-free stream, and again, no logs.
That's usually driver related, not hardware. e.g. it's a well known fact among game engine developers that OpenGL on AMD cards sucks, and it's not at all because of the hardware, it's purely the software drivers (they are much better on linux with open source ones).
Forgive my ignorance, I only (sort of) know how this works in the United States. How do Belgian creditors verify the creditworthiness of an applicant who claims to be the individual identified by a particular credit history?

Am I wrong to presume the Belgian National ID is not used for identification and verification by Belgian creditors?

I also wonder (just thinking out loud, not part of my question) what would prevent US creditors from shirking the responsibility and withholding the required resources to establish an identification and verification system which does not rely on a national ID (different from a Social Security number).

EDIT: remove extraneous word, add parenthetical to last sentence.
Texas shooting: Devin Kelley's locked cell phone thwarts FBI
This is unlikely, no company would voluntarily hand over their top talent especially to their rivals. Even with the new deal in place Intel AMD are very much rivals.
Google is hustling its butt on AutoML next
Informed consent is important. But being able to withdraw from record release is not integral to the very concept of informed consent. It's fine as a requirement for everyday studies. But when you have an absolute expert subject, I think upfront informed consent is workable.
I said "well over 200k", not 200k, as a few of the other comments used it as a data point.
I've noticed this with Alexa on a new Fire 10 over the last week. I think she's picking up on something on TV since we've been home with a newborn, but seems like this just started within the last week and a half.
You said it in your comment and I've seen it in other posts here on HN. It shouldn't be called identity theft. It should be called fraud. That's what it is.

The idea of an identity, especially a permanent one that travels with you throughout your life, is a relative recent one. 200 years ago, you could escape your past sins, so long as you didn't have an identifiable face and could speak the language at your destination. (If you couldn't you ran the very real risk of becoming a slave, which is caused by removing a person from their context; e.g. family, language and community).

There is a deeper question of "What is an identity?" and we also have to realize that the digital identities have never existed throughout history. Not in the way they do today. It's hard for us to imagine a world before passports, before real borders and before permanent numbers and documents that follow citizens throughout their lives.

And the principal reason we have digital identities today? Debt. It is solely to trace debt. It has nothing to do with proving you went to x university or worked at y job. There are other ways to track that, which are terribly inaccurate when you really start to look at them. The principal reason for your SSN, your digital identity, is to track credit and debt. I highly recommend the book _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_. It really goes into depth on this concept.
Decimation was a punishment for serious offences, like mutiny or desertion- not for performing badly in battle, or being cowardly.

With Romans, specifically, if cowardice was punished, there would be noone left. They were disciplined and had great quality equipment, but their morale was not the highest. For instance, before they met the Germans on the field, having heard of the military prowerss of their enemy, the Romans would spend their time crying and making their will, certain that they'd die in battle - Cesar has written about this.
Looking for Internship/Co-op opportunity in New Jersey/New York area in Software Industry.

I am currently pursuing Master's in New Jersey Institute of Technology majoring in Computer Science with 4.0 GPA. I have worked for 3+ years of Software Industry experience. I can work for 40 hours/week starting from January - 2018.
I have knowledge of C, C++, Java, Oracle, Testing and I am interested to work as Java Developer, Web Developer, Software Testing(Manual + Selenium), JavaScript.
Please let me know, if you know or if you have any open position.
Email: swapnil.javanjal@gmail.com
Free as in beer though, not speech; which is what the author intended, I believe.
> "Can I ask 5 people what their perspective is? Sure. 15? It's getting tough, but maybe. 50? Not really."

Don't make one person in charge of 50 people then (at least, not their direct line manager).

Management where your only option is delegation is not very effective, in my experience. You have to be able to choose when to delegate and when to step in. The only way that works is when the teams are small enough that a single individual knows enough about what's going on to know when to change their leadership approach.

Furthermore, of all the managers I've worked under, the most effective ones all have one thing in common... they're protective of their team. This protection only seems to work when a manager understands what their team is going through. Consider a scenario where a management meeting is taking place and a manager from another department is complaining about how long your team is taking to complete a task. If your manager doesn't understand what your team is going through, what's the best answer your manager can give? That they'll "look into it". That may sound reasonable, but it puts your team on the back foot from the start.

Effective team protection brings a few key benefits... it builds loyalty, it reduces stress on team members, it focuses energy on key tasks rather than trying to do everything all at once. Managers who don't protect their teams may as well not turn up. If they're just another voice adding to the cacophony of demands, then they could be doing more harm than good.
Snap is where hype and money go to die
I see Silly doing this everywhere. Asking people to remove their comments.

Edit: See what I did there, bud?
This is an opinion article. No sources made for the claims in the article what-so-ever.

I was in Techstars. There were some founders who came from prominent families, but there were others from the working class.
Story aside, that's some very unlucky/lacking contrast between the main title and the title background image.
> Drug users usually turn violent

Citation needed.
Sendwithus (YC W14) is hiring developers to build infrastructure using Kubernetes
The term itself is almost ambiguous.

Popular interpretation: "Theft of an identity"

Better interpretation: "Theft, by forging an identity"
I think wealthy parents will teach their children to be wealthy. Perhaps its easier to have a giant safety net when starting a big company.. but I wouldn't listen to this article unless the writer is himself a successful entrepreneur. It's probably better to case-study people who were broke when they started. Who cares about statistics.. if it's possible, just harder, for you to be a wealthy entrepreneur, still you should do it!
Not exactly just against cheap gadgets - remember the Connexant keylogger from earlier this year? It seems to be a common thing for driver developers to log keypresses for development purposes yet fail to disable that functionality in release... easiest fix? Don't install closed source drivers for 3rd party hardware.

https://www.modzero.ch/advisories/MZ-17-01-Conexant-Keylogge...
> referencing his time at Dropbox when people would “fly around the office on these stupid scooters and skateboards”

Why are techies being shamed because they’ve worked hard and spent it on something they like?

This is why tech has a diversity problem. It’s not the inner culture. It’s the outer culture and the shame attached to it.

EDIT

I don’t own one of those skateboards/scooters but I do appreciate working in a culture where people similar to me finally feel comfortable to be themselves without judgement.

I feel that the people quoted in this article are a bit too manipulated by other’s opinions.

In the end you have to ask yourself: are you happy doing the work here? If not, then change. But if you yourself are happy and you leave because of the media’s opinion then you’re setting yourself up for a miserable life.
As somebody having moved to the US a month ago : some of your industries like mattress sound a lot like gigantic scams.

I did not want to pay 2k$ for a good mattress because it is just a stupid rectangle of foam. Each time I read about how they have nasa engineers in their teams to help them innovate on 'mattress technology' I choke up a little. How can somebody write that with a straight face ?

I ended up buying one on amazon (a Zinus if anybody is interested, heard about it in another HN thread)
If you're in the Bay Area, as HN commenters disproportionally are, your mind is likely to jump first to Richmond, CA in the northern East Bay.
Announcing MongoDB 3.6
Biometrics are not replaceable when they are stolen.
I recently re-read the story about the rat park experiment.

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/

The gist of it is that yes, rats do get addicted to morphine and prefer it to food, but only if kept in cages.

The rats living in a much less confined space with other rats, allowed to play, nest, have sex and do pretty much all the rat fun things not only did not get addicted to morphine but even waned themselves off of it.

Speaks a lot to the causes which this epidemic is a symptom of and makes me think that addressing it will not be an easy or quick process.
That doesn't help at all, unfortunately.
This seems like the best solution, not least because it avoids our American paranoia with a national ID.
Genetically modified skin grown from stem cells saved a 7-year-old boy's life
Seems like selection bias. Anecdata, but most entrepreneurs I've ever met were regular middle class joes with the drive to do the journey. Even most YC founders, as far as I can tell, are not exactly Winklevosses, they're just regular people who are in a privileged position to be able to take a couple of years off and live on savings or very meager early stage funding to test if their business model will work.
haha, funny I was a bit hesitant as well.

In practice I just opened it directly in the bedroom and it inflated in a couple of minutes.

I guess that if the wrapping bag is punctured during transport it must expand in the box and in that case put a lot on pressure on it.

Luckily it did not happen for me.
And that hard to reproduce hash represents computational trust, which is a new type of resource that just happens to be very expensive in energy cost using our current technology.
Take the counter, keep the contracts, and find a sub contractor. I’m available for some (full stack java) work, email in profile.
While the headline is true, I think the important factors to consider are:

- Doing something that has a high probability of failure is also likely something that is highly leveraged, meaning that if it does not fail the person doing it is much better off than if he/she had chosen a less risky alternative.

- Sadly, VC selection processes (including YC) are heavily biased toward wealth signals such as ivy league enrollment. Attendance at the ivies is strongly dominated by one factor alone, which is the wealth of one's parents.

- The reason YC and others bias toward ivies and wealthy parents is not because it doesn't work. Raising an angel round and being able to truly give a startup 100% of one's life energy is something that is much easier when you have parents willing to support it financially and possibly via networking connections with other wealthy family members.

- The interesting statistic would be this: Of all the rounds YC has participated in, how many have been participated in by relatives of the founder. My guess is that this number is over 80%.

- But on the other hand, being rich increases the chances that a kid will have received a top quality education and will be prepared to face the many challenges and blows to the ego that doing a startup can entail, and will be friends with others who can become key hires because they too had a top quality education.

- Ironically, dropping out of college makes even more sense when your K-12 education was so good that you realize that you already have the tools needed to pursue higher goals.

- The punchline is that in an ideal world we'd all be rich and have the good education, supportive family, and ability to take risks that rich kids do. So the descriptive fact that many entrepreneurs happen to be rich is along the same lines as the descriptive fact that many well-educated people happen to have had well-off upbringings.

Why bother achieving wealth if it can't buy these kinds of very obvious and very useful luxuries?
Nice work! Personally, I'm not a fan of the Tufte CSS style, but regardless this looks like a cool project.
It exists already: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id
I find that posters on this board generally overvalue the inherent merits of the core product vs other business factors.

In enterprise, trust and the relationship matters a lot, since the buyer is generally taking a big risk on you as a vendor. In smaller b2b, customers will be righfully concerned about depending on you when they can't be sure you'll be around in 2 years. These are both legitimate and important factors that are outside the scope of core product.

In consumer, even a great product will often get blown out of the water if a competitor with a worse but good enough product has a deep, deep marketing war chest. (the 'ol, "if you space has a VC backed competitor, you have no choice but to also raise money and fight a war of attrition") You probably still have the best chance in consumer by creating something with inherent virality (honestly the only way to not have a huge sales and/or marketing cost in any sort of business).

It's not even a sinister conspiracy at play or anything like that. It's just a truth that non-core value propositions are important in business, and are often even part of the true "product".
The storage mechanism isn't fast/flexible enough to do anything really great. It's fairly easy for us to do precise matches (with some caveats), but given everything is cached at the database level we can't easily compute results based on your search query.

Effectively what we do is:

SELECT * from groups where ID IN (
SELECT group_id FROM index WHERE key = :searchKey AND value =:searchValue
UNION [...]
)

(This is a simplification but it should give you an idea of how the queries are built)

Because of the way the model works, its very hard to do certain things like exclusion queries, and more importantly all of the results you're seeing are still cached. The biggest pain point here is if you're searching for e.g. "ConnectionError environment:production", you really don't want to see anything related to non-production. We're solving that problem immediately, but its just the tip of the iceberg.

Next year we're kicking off a large project to overhaul the key infrastructure which powers the stream/search functionality, with some pretty big ambitions.

Other services in the space generally use something like Elastic search, which can provide some of this out of the box. We've always been built on SQL/Redis, and given that Elastic has its own set of problems we've decided that it's likely best for us to move to a columnar store format that doesn't cache results (e.g. counts), but rather computes them in real-time much like Scuba.
They aren't asking them for security advice. They are trying to find out the specific ways that they fucked up their security.

There could be numerous other companies that are messing things up in exactly the same way, they just have had the misfortune of being breached yet.
I think that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what the private sector does and what PhD programs do.

PhD programs train scientists. I have often compared going to grad school in the sciences to years of getting punched in the face by nature telling you, "sorry try again!" Your mentor (in the best of circumstances) teaches you how to navigate that and sharpens your mind. In the process you learn how to ask the right questions. Doesn't sound like much, but the right question and how to ask it is the core of discovery and so the core of innovation.

You can certainly learn those things in industry, but you'll be working at a different place in the innovation cycle. Almost always you'll be working quite a bit further along than the initial discovery. There will be many challenges, but core, fundamental discoveries remain disproportionately generated by blue sky/harebrained schemes hatched in academia.

This is because the number of failures tolerated in academia is vastly larger than in industry. If you spend 7 years repeatedly failing at everything until one thing works, we just call that a PhD. If you do that in industry, we call that 7 jobs in 7 years (a little reductive, but you get my point). If you injure that part of the innovation ecosystem, there will be fewer wild ideas to build companies off of, and we will all be poorer for it.

You also miss the knock on effect of making it so that only the better-off can afford grad school. Already grad school suffers from that bias, and this would only make it worse. We want the best minds regardless of wealth to get as highly trained as possible to discover nature's secrets.
Eu-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-glyphosate-weed-killer-by-2022
Right wing idiots pushing a failed war on drugs. Keep electing republicans, keep getting the same garbage. Can anyone point to a republican who is advocating sane drug policy (genuinely curious?)