skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Advice for applying to PhD program three years after undergrad
TLDR:

After finishing undergrad in 2017 and spending several years in industry I've decided I'd like to pursue a PhD in CS, but I have a weak application and no significant research experience. Any advice on how to gain research experience at this point and strengthen my application?

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Details:

I graduated from a mostly undergrad college 3 years ago. In school I didn’t give serious consideration to grad school, but after spending several years doing app / web dev I think that I’d eventually like to do research in a field like language implementation / compilers, so a PhD program seems like it may be a good fit.

Unfortunately my application for PhD programs seems very weak. I do have a good rec letter from my undergrad thesis advisor, and I can get a good letter from a former boss. However, any additional rec letters from professors would just be "did well in class" letters, and I have no significant research experience. My GPA was 3.61, and I'm not sure if that's good, bad, or ok.

So here are my questions:

- How would you recommend seeking out research experience at this point in my career? I'm open to changing jobs to some sort of full-time research internship, but most of these opportunities seem targeted at current undergrads or grad students. I'd also consider volunteering on a project with a research lab, though (a) my available time would be limited while also working full-time, and (b) without a more specialized skill set I'm not sure how much I'd really be able to contribute.

- I've considered enrolling in a masters program as a segue into a PhD program, but I'd like to avoid taking out more loans and some of the coursework doesn't seem pertinent towards the goal of getting a PhD and going into research. Could pursuing a masters still make sense?

- Any other general advice for improving my application and for steps going forward?

Thanks a lot!
> I don't see the government relying on it. I see public officials using it as a platform. No coordination is being done (unless it's redundancy), just communication with constituents.

The president regularly announces decisions on Twitter that he has not communicated through any other medium. Here's two major examples:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-depa...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-...
One of Curiosity's cameras has a Bayer Filter Array and practically shoots like a DSLR. You can download the (debayered) "raw" files which are simply 1408x1200x1 (channel, uint8) panes one under the other in RGB order. So basically an 8bit grayscale 1408x3600 image that you can open with GIMP in "raw image data (.data)" mode and fill in the data in the settings window.

But you are right that many times scientific missions will have monochrome CCDs with a filter wheel on top (Cassini, Galileo, Rosetta, Dawn to name a few).
Thanks, very interesting stuff indeed.
I was thinking of the Hydraulic Press Channel...

It's odd that the title says "non-cuttable" and the tests they carried out in the article are all attacking it from one side, when most people will think of something like scissors that exert a high compressive force to shear the material.

To me, this material sounds more like it's highly abrasion-resistant than "non-cuttable".
I am not supportive of the riots in Portland, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to have agents of the federal government a) there at all, when it should a local and state issue, b) grabbing protesters/rioters off the streets, searching them, intimidating them, and releasing them without charging them with anything.
I agree on the key verticals approach as being the best bet. Perhaps the best way to dip your cup into the raging river of Bloomberg cash flow is to take a page out of the Stripe/Twilio book and focus on API first, with phenomenal Excel and Python interfaces, docs and examples. Just forget about a terminal-like UI, or any UI at all and build the tools that make it easier for other people to build their own niche apps. Money.net, Sentieo, YCharts, Koyfin -- my observation is that these all treat the programmability of their data and analytics as a secondary focus, or not a focus at all. It would be nice to see someone come along and do it the other way round.
I agree with much of the general take of this article, but having remodeled, or helped remodel houses, or just plain lived in/repaired over the past couple decades I've got my own set of opinions about this.

Starting with, never mistake style for long lasting quality. For example, wood floors are very poor flooring material unless you don't mind living in a house where the floors look like a barn after a decade or two. Tile, concrete, will unless abused, out last just about every other flooring choice while generally remaining quite nice if installed well. There is a reason the mosaics in high end roman houses are still in place two thousand years after they were built.

Also, to add to the general take of the article. Nothing you buy from the big box home improvement stores will last more than 10 years. I would qualify this with their lumber/etc is fine, but I've seen cases where the lumber was incorrectly pressure treated(!) and they replaced it after it rotted in 5 years. Which is great, except for the fact that the lumber was like 1/100th of the job cost. Frankly, its not even the big box suppliers, its just about everything they sell seems to have declined in quality. Until a couple years ago, I had never seen a light switch fail, my current house (built in the early 2000's) has had about 1/2 of the light switches literally fall apart in the walls.

So, while somethings are probably acceptable quality (indoor door handles/locks) for the most part, the exterior ones with their faux aged finishes and the like will despite their 30 year guarantees break, or the finishes will crack in the sun, or rust. And on and on...

My general take is some of it might be ok, but keep the receipt for that $300 facet somewhere you will be able to find it in 8 years, because its quite likely something will go wrong. Pay the extra for the one from the plumbing/etc supply house, because the worthwhile plumbers/etc will offer matching labor guarantees and they don't like coming back to fix something under warantee.

I could write a book about this... but one last thing. Ive spoken to a lot of people in the know, and the general take on appliances is that a good high end one from the mid 1990's will likely outlast anything built in the last 20 years. If you have an old fridge/dishwasher/etc take care of it, polish it up, treasure it. Most importantly, buy a part off ebay when it fails and fix it. Enjoy it for what it is, a quality piece of machinery that probably uses a bit more electricity, or water, but actually cleans your cloths/dishes/etc or the ice maker doesn't jam or clog, or need DRM'ed water filters. And if you really want filtered Ice buy a inline water filter and plug it into the ice line and enjoy the $5 filters and think about the fact that your saving $30+ dollars each time you change it.
Edition: A stupidly simple publishing platform
Yeah, it has oracle in the URL . . . data harvesting bastards
Motorcycle protective gear.
You assert that they have only arrested people who have destroyed federal buildings? I assert they have arrested people who haven't destroyed a federal building. I assert they've arrested people who haven't violated federal law at all, and that no federal buildings have been destroyed.

Some have almost surely tried to vandalize federal buildings and others who've been arrested have protested peacefully, and still others have only violated state law. None have taken drastic action that would actually destroy a building. I don't care for hyperbole on such serious topics.

All that said I scrolled through your comments. I think at best we won't have a productive conversation on this topic, so I won't invest my time further in it.
An analogy the original concept makes me think of, is how you can pour out some stuff like sand or flour, and it's hard to tell how much you have because it forms a mound. But if you shake it, it levels out. And if you're pouring onto a scale, shaking makes it pour more continually and lets you get the exact amount you want. In general, going back and forth seems like a way of reducing hysteresis, and that's what the "strong opinions weakly held" concept sounds like to me. The human tendency is to resist flip flopping to present an outward image of stability, so it's best to do constant internal flip-flopping without losing your place and letting people know. I haven't thought of the concept by the catchphrase/meme, but I have many times thought that whenever I see a claim, I need to reverse it in my mind and think about whether it's any more or less plausible to consider the opposite. To avoid the friction and path-dependence of an idea. People like to be contrarian and sometimes they appear to be smart people, who scoff at this sort of thing, reversing obvious statements. But I still think it's vital.
It’s not so much that it isn’t taxed enough (if that is the solution), but that the corn syrup inside is so heavily subsidized, the end product ends up being cheaper than it should.
Where I come from (.au) we paid Boston Consulting $8mil to copy/paste the source code from the Singapore governments open sourced implementation.

The government was then talking it up with "If enough people download the app, we'll let you go to football games again!!!"

Current media reports say none of our local health departments have found _any_ contacts using it that they hadn't already found via manual contact tracing.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-15/coronavirus-app-limit...

(I think 100 apps+backends for $10mil is a bit optimistic, if those backends are required to be HA and support a significant percentage of a countries population. As a single datapoint, where I work has many iOS+Android+backend app projects for gov departments that serve tens to hundreds of thousands of users that cost them high 5 or low 6 figures plus 4 figures a month support/hosting, but if they wanted me to support the 60% of the population (~15mil users) that our CovidSafe app was targeting it'd most likely come to more like mid to high 6 figures, and certainly 5 figures a month to host/support it. So I'd have said maybe 20 apps realistically for that price. Still just as fraudulent a rorting of taxpayer money though...)
>Because otherwise, how do you know that your system has learned the "rules of arithmetic", as per your comment, and not something completely different?

Presumably because it answers correctly for examples it hasn't explicitly seen in training. While its plausible that it has seen all two-digit sums in during the course of training, its not a given.

>Besides, GPT-3 is a piece of software, it's not a child or a grown up human, who can make mistakes because their memory fails or because they get overwhelmed by the complexity of executing a complex set of rules.

GPT-3 can become "overwhelmed" by the complexity of the problem extending beyond its feed-forward computation window.

>If a piece of software implements a set of rules, it's usually able to execute them right every time, without failure, certainly so for relatively simple rules like arithmetic.

But a computer system that "computes" through manipulations of language representations is fundamentally different than computer systems that came before. Carrying over the intuition from computers as bit-manipulators to manipulators of language representations is a mistake.

> so why would a huge language model, running on very expensive hardware, fail?

Impedance mismatch? It turns out performing tasks on a computational substrate not suited to those tasks comes with severe drawbacks. But we already knew that.

>So in what sense can GPT-3 be said to have "learned the rules of arithmetic"? Learned them, how, if it can't represent them?

It could know how to sum individual digits through memorization and learn the carry rule. It may be incapable of recursion and thus incapable of summing arbitrarily long digits. But learning the carry rule is most of the way there.

>Similarly, such systems can't represent non-ground values, that is they can't represent the concept of a variable.

I see no reason to accept this. Multi-layer networks seem to be well-suited for abstract representations and manipulations on non-ground values. Ground-values are the input into the network, but higher layers represent on the abstract properties of the ground-values within its receptive field, rather than the particulars of the ground-values. For example, the location and direction of an edge rather than the particular in the form of an edge.
This figure ought to be compared to the square footage, I'd imagine that the wealth homes are more efficient pre square foot and that the low incoming housing lacks repairs and upgraded insulation.

They also seem to neglect climate and weather in their state comparison. Three northern states with minimal population are the most energy intensive, while 3 states with large land areas are the least intensive. There seems to be a strong connection I would have investigated and accounted for. Those northern states have some of the toughest winters and heating is not cheap.
pushd
popd
cd -
Why not offer a visa that requires you to have a minimum of 125 IQ on a standard test -or- be running a profitable business that you are willing to relocate?

- 2 year visa

- Renewable in 2 year blocks if you can prove you've been working or running a business for 18 months earning at least the median income (waived for startups)

- After 8 years eligible to apply for a green card, if an independent panel determines you have positively contributed to the US you are awarded one

This would act as a supercharged vacuum for talent like New York City was for European migrants during the boom.

Especially in tech, you either work in the United States or you are dramatically underpaid. Why not soak up all of the world's talent?
I don't know if it's how it played out, but it's easy to see how increased scrutiny could have lead to the illegal content being highlighted and them getting dropped because it was then reported (possibly many times by many parties that wanted the site shut down for other reasons).

In that case, they still would have been taken down because of the illegal content, even if at an (extremely simplistic) surface level the timing seems to indicate otherwise.
Great work. Love it.
I couldn’t agree more with this article.

I happen to be working on a new way to look at quantum mechanics, based on finite combinatorial objects called multi-way systems, and after just a few weeks I’ve made a very satisfying amount of progress.

Maybe it won’t go anywhere. But if it succeeds, it should generate the abstract algebraic structure of QM — complex Hilbert spaces — from a more elegant, intuitive, general, and natural set of axioms. If it succeeds, it will probably be how we teach quantum mechanics in 50 years. And I’ll have to write the textbook! As a side bonus, it could also reveal quantum mechanical behavior in a much wider set of systems in the natural sciences, unconnected with physics.

Sure, saying all these things out aloud sounds super grandiose and silly. But I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it could work. Obviously it’s super risky, but that’s the only reason I’m actually interested in trying it — the high stakes are what get me up every day, obsessing about it, talking about it, reading endlessly, trying different permutations of ideas, etc.

Now, I’m self funded. I would struggle to imagine someone who would fund me to do this. Or an institution or adviser that would regard it as a suitable topic for a PhD. How on earth could something so ambitious possibly work? Who the hell do I think I am? etc.

But we need hundreds of people doing this — one of them will probably succeed, and it will change the world!
I tried various digital habit tracking tools, including mobile, web, and terminal based, and the only one that has worked for me is graph paper. It's fast and in my face next to my desk and I never forget to use it and see it all the time.
Maybe in YouTube videos but I have not heard of people using Ramsets to steal bike in real life. Firing a gun is a good way to get people call the cops.

Edit: I am wrong!
Not to mention pre-cutting bike racks themselves (and handrails, etc. that people lock their bikes to), and then putting some duct tape or something over the cut. When they get ready to take your bike they don't have to cut a thing. Just lift up the cut section, slip your chain/lock through the gap, and go.
Says every Chinese internet company, they are all "foreign" companies.
> then you can fail by not choosing

But you can also fail by choosing wrong and sticking to that conviction too long.

I think the whole point is that how strong your opinion is and how strong you hold it are insufficient to know if you will fail or succeed.
I'd bet against it. It seems to hold up well against abrasive tools, but an aluminum foam with ceramic balls embedded in it doesn't sound like the recipe for an all around robust lock shackle. How would it stand up against bolt cutters (shearing cuts, not abrasive cutting), a manually operated hacksaw, or impact? A hacksaw might have the finesse to thread the gap between the ceramic.
Essentially, the powder actuated piston fires a blank round and uses the pressure in order to propel a mass, that hits the lock and, assuming that the lock is restrained in the opposite direction, creates an immense force that destroys the internals of the lock and forces it open, all in less than a second.
What about this video did you find relevant? The case where one individual attacked a plywood barricade with a hammer and was stopped? (Surely not the Andy Ngo digression.) That's not the topic under discussion. People are concerned with federal officers arresting people off the street with no probable cause.
If you think robinhood is providing their service out of a sense of Altruism then I have got a beautiful bridge I would like to sell you...

Read up on bid/ask spreads and market makers. It’s a pretty profitable business. Even more so than just charging “dumb commission fees”

And that $25,000 “class” limit, hahaha that’s like saying that payday loan providers are a community service.
Maybe because the United States is the 'least bad' super power. It has a far from clean record but at least it isn't currently engaged in a genocide.

The US also has one of the most solid judicial systems in the world. In fact, the Supreme Court and other courts regularly challenge and restrict the actions of the current administration. If you go to court, chances are you're going to get a fair trial.

If you are a Westerner and go to court in China, you will lose. It's that simple.

If the United States falls and China attaches itself to the power vacuum that ensues, the entire world will be worse off.
> On the other hand, when faced with a fork in the road, it's important to choose. Often it doesn't matter which - but if you vacillate, and especially if you are leading - then you can fail by not choosing.

The number of times people think they are at such a fork where non-action is worse than any action is an order of magnitude more than in reality.

In my experience, most of these cases are reflective of a social issue. The problem at hand doesn't require one make a decision any time soon, but if you don't, you are viewed negatively. So the social systems around you push you to make a decision even when one is not needed.

Almost every time I've heard someone use the phrase "fence-sitter" it is this scenario. At my work, we have surveys where we rank things on a 5 pt scale: 1 is strongly against, 5 is strongly in favor, and 3 is neutral. There's a significant block of people who keep pushing HR to make it a 4 point scale so there is no neutral option. I've had several discussions with them, and they've never been able to give me a good reason, beyond statements like "You have to have some opinion!" and some negative comment about fence sitters.

But yes, for certain things (e.g. investing for retirement), it's probably better to pick a safe option than not pick anything.
Ask HN: What to do in a household where self-isolating could be difficult?
The new Ramset guns are surprisingly quiet. Certainly, the police won't be called, and there's not much of a risk to the thief.

This is because unlike a gun, there is no need for the gases to release to the outside openly. Therefore, there is much, much less noise, and it doesn't sound like a gun at all.
Stainless steel is appropriate for contact with pressure treated lumber, but so is hot dip galvanized steel. Cold galvanized steel is not appropriate. Hot dip galvanized is cheaper than stainless, but looks less nice.
Static Code Analysis for JavaScript
Prison cells (whose rooms are cast concrete over rebar). AT machines. Vaults, safes... Lots of things. Roll-up shutter doors... fences around construction equipment.
You are spot-on. I would just add that there's another relatively beautiful reason why, in practice, folks pick the mean and variance for their summary; it can be done online with live data, for O(1) time and space! [0] If we extend this idea, then we easily get kurtosis and skew as the next two moments, again in constant time and space, and again getting a normal distribution but now with skew and squish.

This is non-trivial; it means that we have an online algorithm which sends our measurements directly to our summaries, without worrying about how detailed our measurements are (how many samples are summarized). For comparison, taking the median/quantiles/percentiles/etc. requires either fixed-size buckets which lose precision (as seen in Prometheus histograms) or around O(log log n) space [1], which is still practical but pedantically not constant.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithms_for_calculating_var...

[1] https://tmc.web.engr.illinois.edu/lb.ps
For a certain kind of user computer UI really peaked during the CLI age. Reading text and typing on a keyboard is the fastest way to get data into and out of computers.
Sounds amazing, but how will we dispose of this? Looks like 760 C is required to form this. I imagine it will need to be heated above this to dispose of.
Locks should have a layer of explosive material inside, so firing the powder-actuated tool (PAT) may ignite the explosives and destroy the PAT itself, and it would help too by making some very strong noise so people may hear something is going on.
Airflow in ancient buildings (“Windcatchers”)
Here you go. Tarkett -- linoleum is well hidden, under the "commercial" branch of their website only:

https://commercial.tarkett.com/en_US/category-tna_C05010-lin...
Isn't a plasma cutter actually melting an area out of a material and not actually cutting it?
Do you have lots of experience looking at reports of stolen bikes? I have heard exactly the opposite in my major metro area. My sources are law enforcement and bike clubs.
As I've said in another comment in this thread; each system is defined by the incentive structure it sets up.

The Stalinist structure is set up to be ripe for corruption, abuse of power, etc. That is what it will be rightly remembered for.

The Capitalist structure is set up to be ripe for exploiting whatever there is to be exploited at that particular time to accumulate capital. That both slavery and Colonialism flourished under such an incentive structure should not be a surprise. We can see the same pattern today; exploiting whatever is possible until the moral outrage hurts profits too much or may land the execs behind bars.

> As an aside, capitalists love UBI for this reason

It's a very big assumption that a capitalist UBI would be little else than removing social security and then go on devaluing the UBI year by year. Once again, the incentives suggest exactly that. You're somehow imagining an altruistic capitalism that primarily looks for true voluntary transactions while still concentrating power and privilege in the hands of the few.