skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's the breadth and depth of data which Google, Facebook, and Amazon have access to (and their ability to leverage it) that changes the privacy threat model entirely.

A mom and pop store I give my credit card to in town can't track me across the Internet and correlate my browsing activity to my purchases, for whatever nefarious purpose, for instance. They can't read my email and correlate it with my location data. And so on. That's the difference.

Worse, Google in particular is financially incentivized to track me and perform all that correlation for the purposes of advertising. A family owned business I visit downtown, not so much.
Beta Love
> The more they know about you, the more relevant your ads will be and the more likely someone seeing your ad will be to buy

How much ACTUAL evidence is there for this?

Take Amazon for instance... they know everything I have bought from them ever and employ some mega-smart people but the number of times I buy something and they then recommend either absolute shite or the same damn thing is not an insignificant number.

Another thing is if I am an advertiser and FB says "your ad was seen by 20 million people", how can I dispute this? It's a closed system.

I am sorry... but from my comfy armchair position I'm calling shenanigans on mass-data collection in advertising being able to move the profitability needle in a measurable way.

Edit: Added a bit more stuff
Linux System Programming by Robert Love – Reading Notes
"Currently the owner of the project must be online in order to receive any proposed RSM updates from a contributor. Once received and processed, these updates will be written to IPFS by the project owner, and made available to all users who follow that project." -- http://radicle.xyz/docs/#faq
Interesting hypothetical about an alternate reality. In this reality, whether it’s exercising ones body or ones mind, sufficient exercise for [edit: significant growth] growth involves discomfort, strain, and stress.
Try large boring corporations, such as banks and insurance companies.
They were already acquired by Microsoft a few years ago. [0]

[0]: https://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire-l...
I think you're thinking of a different threat model from these users. If you're concerned about breaches by malicious actors, then yes this defense makes sense.

However, if you're worried about data mined from tracking your personal behavior, which is what the users here are worried about, then it makes sense to spread your data out. Traditional stores are not going to send each other your transaction history to build a profile of interest and personality, and each store won't have a complete enough history or even the expertise to mine it.
Just search Github for existing projects. Easy.
> I agree with you about the quality of books. A fair chunk of the books on my bookshelf from that era are 80s/90s to early 00s because those books are just an order of magnitude better written, with a high signal to noise ratio.

This is a common misconception. There were plenty of shit books then, too, you just won't find people remembering and recommending them. Whereas we haven't, collectively, discarded the shit books of today, yet.
What an evil man, Attorney General Barr is.
I suppose I'm an evidence proof of the contrary.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through writing a book on implementing interpreters and compilers [0]. My day job is as a software engineer at Google working on the Dart language.

My highest attained degree is a high school diploma from a shitty public high school in southern Louisiana. I went to LSU for a year and a half and dropped out.

[0]: http://craftinginterpreters.com/
You seem to have hit the nail on the head.

>She wants to learn, and she is stubborn as hell, but things just aren't clicking for her. This is the case with a lot of things for her, not just coding. She learns by memorizing, not understanding.

>I have tried to sit down with her and help her through the courses on Brilliant but she systematically focuses on answers rather than understanding.

My advice would be to try to find a topic she does fully understand and not just memorized the answers/talking points. Once you have this established try to figure out why that one thing clicked vs other things she learns.

Is it personal passion for wanting to learn how to code or monetary reasons. Ask what is the 'end goal' of learning to code? Better career and finances? Different environment than she currently works? To satisfy a personal curiosity in knowing how things work?

Anecdotally I find myself learning with her method for short term things I need to know for a short personal gain. I may need to learn something one time on a unique project. I'll figure it out get the job done and move on without fully grasping what was done because I just cared about the results and think that this issue will never come back again.

Go to another subject where I truly care about understanding the why not just the results and I will actually want to learn because once it 'clicks' and you start to grasp the underlying processes going on and how everything is connected, you get hit with that 'accomplished' feeling of reward that I personally only get after being stuck on something for a while and then finally grasping it.

Don't know if this rant will help you but good luck!
I find it hard to believe a beginner with no theoretical CS background would pick up a functional language first. So the question still stands.
> However, I didn't know how to write a for loop.
> If you had asked me what "for...in" was, I
> wouldn't have had a clue. And forget about
> asking me how setTimeout has to do with
> the call stack.

I'm self taught, I started with the C64 in the early 80s. By the time I was 15 I was working in assembly, had an excellent knowledge of what we would now call embedded software development and a working knowledge of algorithms.

I'm glad that you took the step to get a proper education. With the modern internet it's extremely easier and the quality is incomparably better than my experience of the UK educational system. Between Coursera, MIT and the vast number of excellent books it's a dream.

It's an eye-opener to me that someone can be self-taught and not understand something as basic as loops. It has been my experience hiring developers that the self-taught type are considerably stronger than those who are purely college educated. I've also noticed that the self-taught type who consider themselves software engineers all went through a two year period of intense studying of computer science and software engineering in their own time. The combination of a real working understanding of software creation with passion is an extremely strong combination.

What I've noticed is that your type don't get scared of technical changes because you're basically able to learn anything. The "college career" type tend to scare easily and also jump into management the second they get a sniff of it.

All of this said, if I was 18 now I would strongly advise myself to do 3/4 STEM A-levels (Math, Physics and something else) and then go study Computer Science at a university which has a good program. By good program - one where I'd write a compiler from scratch, learn the theory (finite automata etc), machine learning, linear algebra and hopefully something fun like building a 3d engine or game engine or something. You can do it all yourself but a three-year program certainly makes life a lot easier, plus you get to make friends and network. AND you have a nice piece of paper.
Personally I'm inclined to disagree that it should be difficult, but am also not fully expecting my own journey for self-improvement and a modicum of actualization to just present itself like a one-click order Amazon package on my front door either

(but wouldn't that be nice?)

I like the way American actor Denzel Washington put it: "Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship".

/slams $0.02 on the bar and walks off to read Thoreau :P
> In the small South Carolina town of Newberry, Bob's Red Mill muesli cereal is hard to come by.

dammit grandpa get to the point!
> For example, if you don't actively disable it, your phone sends the names of all Wifi-networks in your proximity to Google, so Google can tell you where you are faster and more accurate than with GPS. Even if you disable it, your phone will still fetch GPS positioning information from Google unless you change that to use another service.

Nope. Sending this data to Google requires an opt in on Android (Google Location Services checkbox in the device setup flow). iOS has the same location system, but it won't even let you opt out of it, and that might be the source of your confusion.
Are you stomping through mud puddles daily with your shoes?

Regular foot sweat should be long since evaporated away with just an overnight stay in the shoe closet unless perhaps you live in an un-airconditioned house in a swamp.

I wear the same pair of leather shoes every day and in the end it's the soles that wear out, not the leather. They aren't even fancy shoes, just run of the mill Dockers.
It's always a real shock to get an elite CS degree and then be told we aren't as smart as the people who got their job because they were friends with someone at the company and just happened to know Java.
Boring corporation jobs are fantastic in these cases. The performance bar is low, and due to inertia within the org, you can usually learn faster as an IC and bounce somewhere better rapidly, versus being somewhere like a startup where the treadmill moves too fast for your own personal development needs.
Google tracking is baked into Android pretty deep. Simply not having an account doesn't stop Google from tracking what you do on your phone.
The Vicious Fun of the Algonquin Round Table
I'm fairly certain that his "career" is mostly based on living off the money he got from this:

https://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-announces-settlement...
An incredibly cold and privileged view. How is feeding/clothing a hundred million people any less valuable than what India's space programme is doing? You say that the "future of humanity" is what's being progressed - well for all you know the next Einstein/Feynman/Tesla could be in that group and his/her potential is going to be wasted.
A bit confused about the point of a personal improvement program if you can't use it as a pretext to fire yourself after.

Or maybe that would be the best improvement program of all?
I bet on thirsty enraged desperate people not keeping their pain to themself.
I can think of setups that would allow this, but I don't understand what the advantage would be over sharing keys.

Honest question, if I have a key that can unencrypt all of your data, why is it important that it not literally be your key?
If your total commute is <45 miles a day, you can easily just use a 110V wall plug, which gives ~4 miles per hour of charging.
People lie to keep their jobs all the time. They might also just not know, but because it's standard practice to use Facebook for advertising they just do it and say it's a necessity.

What reason do they have to obfuscate the data unless the data shows something they don't want you to see?
In 2015 'it will be killed off by google' sounded feasible in my mind. Today I use Duckduckgo for 90% of time and Google only for some very specific (mostly local) searches, Google seems to only hold 'early starter and low moral privacy policy' advantage. They also seem to target typical 'new Internet user' now more than ever, I don't remember last time I found something useful or 'smart' with Google.

That being said, let Google have general traffic search because it fails on everything else. I agree with your approach to find a generic niche, first question is - who's end user? Will it be 'I want to buy this item' (e-commerce)? Will it be 'I want to find out industry specific information? (competitor). Will it be 'I want to know how to use X' (your last one).

Each has its own problems. And, most likely, each already has a solution - it's just probably a) too commercialized (e-commerce - comparison sites) b) biased (competitors - analytics engines used by whole industry) c) too broad

There is abundance of data and it interconnects heavily, there is more and more alternative data (social apps, images, maps etc) too. I think it would be nice to think outside of algorithmic approach (how do I find X in most optimal way) and start thinking about contextual approach (how do I find if X is right).

Uff, to the point - I think starting small, with something annoyingly hard or time consuming to find, would be best. For example, I always spend DAYS reading about basic house appliances before buying it and most of info I find is heavily commercialized therefore useless (affiliate programs). I don't say 'Do that!', but there is definitely a need for niche-specific-search-algo/aggregator.
Clerky vs. Stripe Atlas - Incorporation Services
I would like to know from your perspective, which service you understand is more convenient when choosing to incorporate a company in the United States (I am a Latino citizen).

Clerky vs Stripe Atlas.

Stripe Atlas Package
https://stripe.com/en-es/atlas

Lifetime Clerky Package
https://www.clerky.com/pricing

Bearing in mind that Stripe Atlas advantage for me is that they can open the bank account themselves directly with the SVB but Clerky gives me management tools (including the post-incorporation that they have included in the package, Fundraising, Hiring and Maintenance) although this does not give me A bank account that I understand for me is mandatory.

The question arises because I am currently incorporated in Delaware thanks to Stripe Atlas but I have not tried Clerky and it has options that Stripe Atlas really lacks and I want to know what you think about it.

Thank you.
Facebook Negotiated Its Rules
I'm not sure he never was at university, I just assume not [1].

> why are you drawn to Haskell?

I just want my programs to work. I've seen too many null pointer exceptions and other runtime errors. Runtime errors = bad. Compile errors = good.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112065
> Otherwise you're just skipping out on the stuff that will make you a better/stronger person in favor of some outcome that doesn't truly matter in the long term.

This is the tricky bit. The stated goal is "running a marathon". What you're effectively saying is that the stated goal is not the real goal, and that the real goal is self-improvement for its own sake, with the marathon just being an arbitrary OKR.

Perhaps I'm already in a perfectly fine physical condition, I'm more than capable of running a marathon, and all the preparation I need is learning the pace of a marathon. Perhaps all those self-improvement benefits are things I've already achieved in my life and are not lessons I need to relearn. Perhaps I don't give a damn about any of those so-called self-improvement benefits, and just want to run.

What I "should" get from the experience is entirely up to me, and you're in no position to impose more goals than the stated "I want to run a marathon" goal.
If you're looking for alternatives, I recommend reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. Get the OG version (even if it comes with forwards or whatever), not the "for the age of the internet" or whatever version.

It sometimes uses outdated language but it is to date the best compilation of "how to interact with other humans effectively" advice that I've read, and I've read lots of these sorts of books.

Honestly, I think it should be required reading in highschool, if nothing else because of the huge focus on empathy would be very healthy in interpersonal communication in our country.
How does this argument come up every time? If I can't have absolute privacy, I should just give up? The same way I'd love to give up every last bit of dependence on Google, I'd love to get decentralized fintech. But the popular one is a bad word that starts with B and I fear has spoiled the well. (Though it's been interesting traveling through Europe and seeing Bitcoin signs all over Prague, the ticket machine offering bitcoin top up at the Bern train station, and a tradesman/construction worker wearing a Bitcoin advocacy shirt while walking to the beach in Bern today. And don't get me started on how much time I've spent triple-re-verifying my identity with Mastercard or waiting 5+ days for critical ACH transactions.)
Here are some songs that I find myself playing here and there:

Weezer - Mykel and Carli

The Shins - So Says I

Billy Bragg - Jailcell Blues (from Memaid Avenue)

Silver Jews - Random Rules

Silver Jews - The Wild Kindness (and a few others by them)

Radiohead - Lucky

Hank Williams - Lovesick Blues

Willie Nelson - Redheaded Stranger

Johnny Cash - I guess things happen that way

-------------------

Here are some harder ones that are fun, but I've added them for completion:

-------------------

Pixies - Caribou

Radiohead - Street Spirit

Beatles - Blackbird

Modest Mouse - Styrofoam boots/it's all nice on ice

And what got me good at fingerstyle guitar was my brief obsession with Elliott Smith's music. Like, I've memorized how to play about 10 of them. (Primarily Say Yes, Waltz #2, and Angeles...)

Okay, I think that just about does it. I've given away my entire internal mental state of my twenties.

Good luck with your guitar practice!
> College was mostly an exercise in self-learning or learning how to learn for me

Definitely agree with this.

I think my data structures professor spent more time talking about chess rather than data structures.
I don't think I have knowingly met anyone who took significant steps to limit exposure to big tech firms who hasn't also taken significant steps in other areas of their life. And people I have met who do take this stuff seriously do things like cash-only, PO box only, no (nearly) online accounts etc. They are certainly making their lives less convenient on this principal.

Where are you meeting people who fit the description you give?
So this gets prosecuted as a crime, while https://www.pcworld.com/article/2066400/lg-smart-tvs-share-d... doesn't? Why? Both cases involve someone buying something sabotaged, and would fit nicely under the CFAA.
It is at least slightly ironic that the person saying this is from the very same group a lot people are concerned with being protected from.
I was hoping I'd get to know the total in case this ever happens to me!
RSK should be fairly usable with TS. As I understand it, it can't be as magically strict as `typesafe-actions` is or infer quite as much automatically, because of how we're generating the action types from the reducer names as strings. But, it should definitely generate correctly typed action creator functions for you.

And yes, agree on needing more documentation:

https://github.com/reduxjs/redux-starter-kit/issues/59

I've got an example app I put together using RSK, our new React-Redux hooks, and TS, and I'm planning to turn that into a tutorial soon:

https://github.com/markerikson/rsk-github-issues-experiment
I can't, but I answered your second question in this thread, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508585
That's why the best choice is just to recommend your family get an iPhone. The default/least resistant path is far more private.
Effectively a "hard" degree is an IQ test. General cognitive skills exist and they're especially useful in software development.

ITT people are focusing too hard on the content of a CS program and too little on the more general goals of an undergraduate degree:

- expose you to multiple fields of knowledge while focusing on a main thread

- help you develop generic thinking skills that should translate to a variety of fields of application (there are many CEOs with art history degrees)

- lead you through a first approximation of a scientific project, qualifying you for graduate-level research

- signalling to the world that you have the chops and the work ethic to go through with a major project with many frustrating stepping stone

- etc.
I have a religious studies degree.

I wonder if it’s prepared me better than a CS degree for the actual work I do.

What did I learn with my RELS degree? Hermeneutics— understanding ancient texts written by lots of different authors in their original historical contexts, often which has been deeply redacted over time. Anyone who’s worked on any production code can see the benefit of being trained in that kind of thinking.

The classes I took on theology and philosophy helped train my brain to organize ideas. I had no trouble understanding object oriented programming — Plato would’ve loved it too, I think.

Classes on ethics have come in handy too.

Oh and just, we did a TON of writing in college. Lots and lots of writing, lots of research papers. I had to learn something new, read all about it, and put together a document carefully explaining the idea, with lots of evidence and citations. That skill has come in SUPER handy for everything from bug reports to API clients, to customer-facing documentation, to internal memorandums.
> You are invalidly generalizing. I try to eliminate all contact I have with the tech giants, and I do not have a credit card, I am at a privacy respecting bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank), and I use cash.

You do you, but I'm happy to get free airline tickets and other perks from using my credit card at the expense of....... having someone else know I bought a mechanical keyboard last month?

I respect your choice but I honestly do not understand why people go to such great lengths to hide mundane data. I'll tell you the color of my underwear for free, I don't care.
Last time I checked analytics/widgets are still part of the web ecosystem and are part of the same culture of "just use X library". Classic tragedy of the commons where users suffer.
I think it's important to distinguish between conditions which are unfortunate and conditions which are unbearable. Sanctions commonly make conditions unbearable for the poor; when food becomes scarce, the poor starve first; when energy prices increase, the poor are the first to be without energy. While the rich suffer too, they tend to retain their relative place in society, and their dignity. Being without a private jet is unfortunate but not unbearable.

> The people of a nation are still put in a corner, but they don't have a gun to their head. It's something they can get out if, should they choose to.

This really trivialises the challenges and discrimination economic refugees face, especially those from sanctioned countries.

The consequences of warfare have a much greater potential to make life unbearable for those in power. Being captured, executed or otherwise killed is a likely eventuality.
Yes, I've noticed that "Ponzi scheme" seems to have entered common parlance as meaning any kind of fraud.
Where are the arguments? He is bad, I'm saying so, listen to people with experience like me.
Search for HDCP in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18216910
Ugh wow my grammar there was an absolute train wreck
Try getting her to do the CS50 intro course by Harvardx on Edx.org, it teaches computer science by making you actually figure out how to solve problems. It’s one of the most creativity sparking/pushing online courses I’ve seen.

It’s not easy, but it’s self paced and the environment they supply students with is extremely great.
Not only fun, educational, too. For example, I learned that Self had multiple code generators, just as modern JavaScript engines have “give me decent code, fast”, and “give me fast code; may take some time” engines.
>Such never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the search and advertising titan, while others are taking to social media to get word out.

That'll show em, post on facebook about it...
The Unfinished History of U.S. Freeway Revolts
I can’t imagine they haven’t appealed - it’s an amazing cash crop to be paid way more than your IP is worth.
Cash (largely, coinage, actually, for a tollbooth) has to be collected and transported. A lot of newer and lower-volume toll exits around me are pass-only. But since the tollway charges double for non-pass users anyways... everyone has the pass.