skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The author gets at the ecological fallacy [0] several times - the idea that group characteristics are not always useful for prediction of individual characteristics.

I wonder how much of the heat in this conversation generally comes from the assumption that group level tendencies are prescriptive to individuals, though in reality individuals can display a high level of variance within the group.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy
Can you expand on the the privacy implications?

How is this different than picking up the phone and having your convo go through ATT/Verizon networks? or using your ISP? Both parties can "legally" work with authorities to wiretap you?

Are you worried that the (training) algorithms that run on your voice somehow end up leaking your identity? Or are you worried that someone at Google knows your voice?

Also, not sure if Google has this fact in their ToS but if they do, what is the issue?
It's actually quite non-trivial given that Tesla's autopilot is purely vision based
Don't you feel pity for Group A? The most important thing in their lives is a movie and hanging out? They're just killing time. What's even the point?
Badly tied shoelaces?
> The problem with these risk calculations is that you're asking a private insurance company to issue a very large policy with a small probability of payout.

And the problem with the opposite is that risk is foisted off on unwilling consumers. The bidding process is subverted.

If risk is placed on the groups selling the technology, they have an incentive to work on technologies that are inherently less risky. Renewables, for example, typically come in within 10% of the bid price. Yet you would not allow this risk advantage to have any place in the decision process by subsidizing nuclear's risk.
It all depends on the need for a successful outcome. I talk confidently when there’s no real pressure for me to get the job. But if I need a positive outcome it is less so. Maybe it’s nerves but interviews are stressful.
It sounds semi-plausible until you skim the paper and notice that they seem to be conceding that if the linkage exists, it's happening prenatally because of the mother's fillings. That seems like it would greatly attenuate the effect suggested, and also makes it reminiscent of the vaccine claims.

Also, much of the writing tone and rhetoric is floridly crank-style.
> Faced with the right con, we’re all vulnerable.

This This American Life episode (replayed this week) offers a slightly more benign version of this truism:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/323/the-super/act-two

I'm an aficionado of the genre (read Maria Konnikova's The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It Every Time recently) and I think this is my favorite con story ever.

It looks like audio isn't available at the moment but should be back online by tomorrow. If you listen, make sure you listen through to the end.

Transcript (it's Act Two): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/323/transcript
Database Internals Advent Calendar
> It's not obvious to me that throughput is usually more important than latency, since latency is what the user sees and throughput has more to do with how many machines you need.

No, it's not true that "latency is what the user sees". Only for interactive applications is that true. In fact, given a choice between the two, I would generally choose throughput over latency.

The Go compiler is an example of an application in which throughput matters 100% and latency matters 0%. Even with some semi-interactive tools like ripgrep, throughput matters much more than latency, because throughput determines how quickly the search finishes.

Even for servers, throughput often matters more in ways beyond how many machines you need. Would you rather have a Web page that takes 10 ms to load with 1 in 10,000 loads taking 2 seconds, or a page that takes 200 ms across-the-board? I'd take the former. Remember that another name for throughput in this context is allocation performance, which makes it clear how important it is.
Invite talking about Paul E. McKenney's perfbook at freenode IRC
Is Parallel Programming Hard, And If So, What Can You Do About It? #perfbook@freenode
little of any modern decisions is based on what humans have experienced, historically. We have evolved a set of core emotional firings that do not have much to do with how we live.

Why start/stop at the initial decision, when these issues go so much deeper.
Generally, a business pays developers to write software that it expects to be put to immediate use, which means that most of the time it functions, at least minimally. I'm sure exceptions exist, of course.

FLOSS abandonware has no such constraint.
Are we at > 10GB/s memory bandwidth now?

It's been around a decade since that line was crossed. The peak bandwidth of DDR3-1333 is just a bit over 10GB/s.
> How do you know that someone who looks callous and aggressive on online questionnaires is actually callous and aggressive?

You don't, but it's also not necessary. It's impossible to objectively assess someone's subjective experience, the best we can do is look at groups of people and attempt to find reliable indicators.

The point is that some people will over-emphasize any given trait, and others will under-emphasize it, so on average it evens out.

Think of color perception for a similar conundrum. How can you be sure that the red you see is the same as everybody else is seeing?
It can't be because of the child's fillings. Most autistic children are diagnosed well before age 6, which is about when baby teeth start to fall out. How many kids get cavities filled in baby teeth? Some probably, but I expect most diagnosed children have never had a cavity filled.
How is this case different from how our society currently operates with respect to underage kids? They have limited consent, and "informed consent" is seen as irrelevant.
Wow, this is really reasonable. It's sad that Damore lost his job for espousing incredibly similar views. No wonder "on average" is used 15 times.
AWS Outposts by the Numbers: A Far Too Deep Dive into Pricing
This is great to see. The harmful notion that modern young professionals are somehow 'above' children is ruining generations of Western adults. It boggles my mind that the idea that purpose can be found in an office cubicle making spreadsheets for a boss you hate has become so pervasive among our people. Along with many other toxic crumbs of anti-family propaganda, it's little wonder that our birthrates have collapsed below replacement.
Also concerning is that reproduction has shifted far down the scale in terms of socioeconomic status. It's like that early scene in Idiocracy where the successful couple put off having a family until their late 30s, have difficulties, and end up dying childless, while the welfare-dependants in the trailer park are pumping out kids like rabbits. No doubt this partly accounts for the unprecedented decreasing IQ in many majority-White nations.
You’re right, you shouldn’t have kids. I agree.
Russia Raids Office of U.S. Web Server Giant in Copyright Clash
I reconsidered the spirit of the thing, which is obviously to use C and not to use large constants or external libraries. But I still think 95% accurate is terrible, so I posted a 99.99% solution in C.

Edit:
I used the tropical year number without thinking about it, but (a) the difference is de minimus compared to being 5% off, and (b) I consider it undefined whether the Gregorian calendar year really is different, because who's to say we won't have an adjustment to the leap year cycle in the very long run to make them converge?
I don’t have kids and I have no idea if I will but thanks for having the courage to share your feelings.

It seems very difficult to say these things and I’m sure it makes other parents who might have regrets feel a bit better/less lonely at least.
#perfbook @ freenode
I've been in the Freecycle community for over a decade.

I recently joined the local "Buy Nothing" community.

I am fortunate enough to live a block away from a donation center [though NextDoor members will go out of their way to tell you their opposite opinion].

Yes, I can do more regarding buying less stuff. I am keeping in mind being active on giving "another life" to what I am decluttering both in-house and on to others.
Probably more prone to collisions given some modes it offers has less character space.
My initial reaction to this comment was "uh, so you were an actual impostor... who cares?" Almost downvoted.

But I wonder if this experience has value. Literally go in with a firm, well-justified expectation of failure. Would that bring peace of mind, in situations where you're skilled and you might be otherwise predisposed to impostor syndrome? The biggest fear that comes up for me is "what if I'm a better bullshit artist than I think, and I actually land the job?"

Curious to hear if you got anything deeper from the experience.
He should’ve counted the impacts of the open source software instead of the number of it.
Does he think Apache web server with million or billions usage the same as one random open source software he found on GitHub and less than hundreds usage?
Further, If he counts all of OSS on github and or sourceforge, he should’ve counted all crappy and abandoned closed software buried in any corporate office.
A friend points out that Yee is Supervisor for District 7 [1], which is essentially entirely zoned as 40-X [2] (40 foot height limit) and mostly RH-1 and RH-2 [3] (single-family homes and two-unit residential respectively).

As the N-Judah line runs through it, the SB 50 bill would immediately cause entire swaths of his District to be upzoned fairly dramatically.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Yee

[2] https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2018-08...

[3] https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02...
I run into this problem constantly, but I've never come to a universal solution that could be standardized for general use as a new flexbox CSS property. It would be nice to be able to indicate that rows should have the same number of items (except the last row), the last row should be as full as possible even if it means using a different size for the other rows, and the items on the last row should be aligned as if the row was filled after them.
The most trivial example I can think of is Sichuan pepper (花椒)
As far as normalizing a surveillance society goes, how is the elf on the shelf any worse than telling the children that a deity is always watching them? I guess the kids (Christian-ish ones, anyway) care more about getting presents once a year than having their souls tormented for eternity. I feel badly for the children that pay attention to the elf for more than a few minutes a year.
Cool it with the casual implied racism, first off.

Second off it’s not that young people are above children. It’s that we can’t afford to make them and raise them with skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs.
Maybe reconsider the no kids thing. Then you'll have the best reasons in the world for a larger car!
When Julia Galef hosted a talk on gender-based brain differences, she and the (female) guest scientist explicitly stated their Bayesian prior belief, male and female brains are different, for this reason. I can't believe how political correctness and feminism have normalized a nigh-miraculous coincidence, that male brain == female brain, while male body ≠ female body, against the entire backdrop of evolutionary biology. It makes no sense.
Evolutionary arguments in this day and age are moot points. We are already a genetically modified species (through IVFs and more recently , crispr) and won't be long before we can grow babies extracorporeally. And it's pretty certain , when designer babies become the norm, the trend is not to select traits that resemble some mythical ancestors, but the traits that are likely to maximize their happiness in the future.
This is such a sophomoric take on a complicated issue.

Speaking as a long-time renter who is now a property owner, I almost never think about things in terms of “limiting supply”, and as far as I can tell, my neighbors don’t either. They do care a lot about things that you’d expect a non-cartoon-villian to care about: neighborhood quality, schools, access to daylight, preservation of views, congestion, etc.

While I’m sure there are idiots out there who think like economist robots, generally, characterizing the other side of a debate as one-dimensional doesn’t do anyone any good.
After researching this, I have decided that the author is not worth reading in any capacity.
1.) They believe vaccines contribute to autism
2.) Climate change denier
3.) Brexit Supporter
4.) Anti-Islamic bigot

Just read their Quora responses.

Anyone can pay money to put anything on research gate.
Why do you think your kids will have to toil more than you? Achieving financial independence is more about prioritizing your wants than having a huge income, and that's definitely something you can pass on to your children.

I think it would be a lot healthier to grow up like that than as a child who could have whatever they wanted (monetarily.) Sending the signal to your children that things in life just come for free seems like a great way to ensure they aren't adapted to face adversity.
As an older Millennial (or younger Gen X) raised by deeply religious parents I'd say good. While my family was relatively open minded and accepting of everyone, there were still plenty of awkward and shameful memories.

For all the positives like social cohesion and trust that religion may have brought the costs are too high. Critical thinking, healthy skepticism, and increasing quality of education will hopefully put an end to the magical thinking and nostalgia-based beliefs.
You misread the comment. People who have kids, who aren’t narcissists or psychopaths, have found their sense of purpose and fulfillment in life.
Sorry I thought I was on a forum for people in the Silicon Valley tech bubble.
Ouch, I need to follow this advise I think. 3 children ages 2, 8, and 11.
Tell HN: Paradise is almost a food desert and CVS closing at end-of-year
There are only two "grocery stores," if you can call them that: an expensive boutique market like what Whole Foods was pre-Amazon and a discount store that isn't a complete grocery store.

And CVS, a pharmacy (which is also part grocery and part liquor store in the US), is closing on or before 12/31. There is also a RiteAid and a Walgreens left, but it's difficult to say if they'll stay until Paradise is rebuilt around 2022.
How to Fuliza Directly to Mpesa, Even If Your in CRB
Well I thought that was the central point of the article, that only looking at averages / combinations of traits caused misleading interprations in other studies, and looking at distributions / individual traits gives a more complete picture. Averages are still useful as a reference point.
Not closely related to the article at all, but the title reminded me of another reason we might fall for cons, which is that we haven't read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks
My assumption, given the storage requirements for laptops, is that the actual database is 2-3TB is size and that the rest is archived snapshots of the DB.
2 kids here (10 months old and 2 years old). The early morning schedule has been key for me too, it’s the only way I’ve found to get a consistent 8-9 hr workday in while still being around to help with breakfast, preschool dropoff, and dinner. I try to be in bed by 8pm, read for 15 mins to help quiet my mind, and try to be asleep by 8:30pm. I get up around 4:30am and can usually get a solid 1.5-2 hours of focused work time in before the kids get up around 6:30am.

Haven’t found much time for anything other than parenting + work, but I switched to biking for a portion of my commute so that gives me 40 mins/day of exercise every weekday (except when traveling).

Your point about participating with the kids also resonates with me. It’s easy to be grumpy/impatient after a tough week at work followed by a long night of multiple wake ups, but some of the best days I’ve had since my 2nd was born are when I manage to hit the mental reset button in the morning and get myself back into a state of mind where I can still have a good time with my kids.

Edit: also, I’ve found that getting up at least an hour before the kids do, even if I haven’t slept well and in principle should probably keep sleeping, helps me keep my sanity.
If you are working and commuting 10 - 12 hours a day it doesn't seem fair to blame your kid for lack of time.
true, but in cities, as opposed to burbs. most residents/voters are renters not lessors/owners.
The Google Translate app has had this feature for years. Near real time audio, and video translation too! It works very well for many languages but not especially well for Chinese (admittedly a harder problem than Spanish).
Teachers Want Math with More Human Ties
My parents (who grew up in rural China in 1960s) love to talk about chopping firewood or collecting mushrooms in the forests, alone or with their siblings, when they were 8 or 10 or something. They often give me parenting advices like "don't worry about the kids; they just need one more pair of chopsticks" (as in you feed the kids and they'll take care of themselves).
To understand this, you need to realize that San Francisco politics is a perpetual no-holds-barred fight between two factions within the local Democratic Party: the "Moderates" and the "Progressives" (although the Progs also contain some members of other parties, like the Greens and the DSA). The Progs hate the Mods with a burning passion and are constantly trying to undercut them. Generally, Moderates tend to win city-wide races, while Progressives tend to win district supervisor races. Right now, the mayor's office and all state-level seats--including Scott Wiener, who authored the bill in question--are occupied by Mods, while the Progs have a veto-proof supermajority on the Board of Supervisors.

The Progressives tend to lean more NIMBY than their Moderate counterparts, and some of this opposition is certainly the result of that. (Gordon Mar, the president of the Board, is probably the biggest NIMBY of all the supervisors at the moment, possibly excepting Aaron Peskin.) But most of this opposition is purely tribal: the Progs on the board just want to snipe at Scott Wiener. Progs are not categorically opposed to housing: as others have pointed out, when Brisbane was waffling on approving market-rate housing just to the south of San Francisco, Jane Kim, a Progressive, threatened to annex the city!

Most of this anti-SB-50 resolution is properly understood as San Francisco tribalism more than any sort of policy grievance. SB 50 doesn't even have much if any of an effect on a lot of the districts these supervisors represent, either because they're exempted as "sensitive communities" (e.g. much of the district I live in, D10) or because the districts are already upzoned (e.g. the Mission).
And the Little Black Book of Scams.

https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/0...
Where is the 1-2 hr figure coming from? Even for my oldest, who is in school, and on a day I work. I'm seeing him on average 2 hours in the morning before he's off to school (young kids wake up early) and then another 3 hours on average in the evening (and he goes to bed "early" by his peer standards). This doesn't count night time wake-ups. Then weekends/holidays it's all day, of course.
I have had occasion to call a taxi home after public transit has shut down [a decision I made myself knowing consequences].

When I expressed what the general cost was to my [rather cheap] parent who still lives in 1973, he was astounded. "Why are you shocked and horrified? $45 is a good deal for a 1am taxi at that distance. I cannot believe you've suddenly forgotten about inflation. If you want 1973 taxi prices, go back to 1973 or do an uber."

It appears that a latter part of my quip shall become null and void in a near future.
What percentage of single family homes in SF are owned by single families, and what percentage of single families own a single home?

Because if the answer isn’t 100% to both those questions, then “property owners” are not strictly the community’s constituents.
I don't buy his argument and I think he's confused. Lots of people have released code on github (as have I) so that other people can use it. Lots of it isn't used, so it looks abandoned. Maybe it is. So what? Why is that considered a failure of Open Source?

I think he's applying closed source's rules. A closed source project is a failure if no one uses (ie, buys) it, since it represents a development cost that wasn't compensated. Not so with open source. I don't suffer if no one uses my project, and the existence of my repositories doesn't detract from anyone else's work.
I frequently get imposter syndrome, or terrible realisations that I am in fact an imposter, I'm not sure which, but one situation in which I would be supremely confident that the imposter was the one sitting on the other side of the table would be if I were being judged by my (in)ability to perform leetcode tricks unrehearsed.
Indeed. I'm willing to believe Magnus is one of the best at this (posted this link because I'm a huge fan!), but it's his job and has been since he was a boy, it's not really magic. And it's just demonstrably not the case that he goes into every game knowing every topical line, not does he really need to.
Software Engineer Internship– Thesis for Setec Institute
https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/03/18/google-assistant-ca...
> I have like 30 projects on github, I don't expect any of them to really go anywhere, it's just where I put stuff when I'm playing with a new concept.

Then why put it there?

git works fine without github. And by putting your projects on github all you did was add to the baseline white noise that people have to filter through.
> This is entrapment, and is therefore highly illegal and in my opinion immoral as well.

This would not be entrapment as I described it (emulating the site in the article). I agree with you that law enforcement has been guilty of egregious entrapment by hanging around conservative mosques initiating contact and actively promoting jihad, then encouraging any vaguely interested response to the extreme of supplying the idea, plan, accomplices and means.

What I described was a "murder for hire" site hiding on the dark web and requiring initiating and inquiry, responding positively, specifying the 'hit', paying in advance in bitcoin and finally supplying a name, address and photo of the person to kill.

While non-terrorists certainly attend conservative mosques, it's hard to see how someone NOT very interested in commissioning a murder accidently sends an inquiry, specifies the job, pays a hard-to-get currency in advance, etc.
> For a video game running at 60 frames per second each frame has 16 milliseconds in which to complete, so a pause of less than a millisecond is not going to be significant relative to other overheads.

First of all: bullshit. Second of all: bullshit.

99th percentile of 1ms means that 1% of the time you're worse than that. The author says sometimes it's as bad as 8ms. A dropped frame every 15 seconds or so will make your game unplayable. 99th percentile measurements are useless. Tell me how often your users are subjected to any given latency.

One millisecond is enormous. My kingdom for a millisecond. If one in ten frames losses 1ms to a GC and one in a thousand frames looses 4ms, that means my budget is 12ms down from 16ms. Thanks, you've sent my expected environment back to 2010.

People think they can just say "99th percentile is bad but not terrible" and assume that's the end of the argument but that's not how the world works. 99th percentile frame time happens once every 1.7 seconds. If your web page loads 200 assets (which is basically all of them these days) nearly all page loads will hit worse than 99th percentile for one of those asset loads.

99th percentile analysis is useless.
It's depressing how true this is.