skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I grew up in the UK in a school where the emphasis of our entire education was "the test." Teachers entirely forgot how to teach a subject and our whole time was taken up with what essentially amounted to "test prep."

I did pass their tests, but did I get a good education? Frankly, no, I don't think I did. I mean statistically I got a great education, but it seems we have forgotten why we even educate to begin with...

Do we educate so people look smart on some random league table? Or do we educate so people are actually more well rounded, have a better grasp of the world around them, and do better as adults?
So where part of the study showed that with randomized redistributions of students, certain teachers were able reproduce higher test scores -- your countering evidence shows otherwise.

Great. Where's your evidence?

My own evidence (experience going through school and generalization of how ability works in most professions) tells me that the good teachers in my life helped me to learn the information better and more deeply. My memories of those classrooms are of the subject matter and my desire to achieve in that teacher's environment. The crappy ones were noticeably so in that my memories of those classrooms was of misbehaving with my friends, having no desire to help the teacher teach me, and cramming to learn material for tests because I hadn't absorbed anything beforehand.
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There's an upvote button to agree with a comment, no need to post a single word. Generally, terse answers aren't really appreciated here (unless they're very good).
It is malware. It is immoral and evil. "Legitimate business" is just bullshit speak for "nobody lobbied to make it illegal".
Still, many other western countries do not have plea bargaining. France for instance has a really minor form of plea bargaining that is only used for sentences up to 1 year in prison (and prison sentences shorter than two years are typically not served).
I'll have to look at the prior reports, but this 3rd report is somewhat disappointing in terms of its statistical rigor.

They do provide weightings based on optimal predictions for maximum accuracy with predictions for state tests scores, although those weights appear to assume a simple linear correlation. Even then, the data suggests that in class observations are almost a complete waste of time (single digit weightings), and that student surveys decline in value as the kids mature (no shocker: with younger kids, how much they like the teacher has a much more profound impact on their success at learning). In all cases the kids seem to be a more reliable indicator than the observations of professionals! This may just be an indication that assessments based on more frequent observations are more accurate, but the only way we can really get a sense of that is if they also had peer observations from team teaching environments... which are completely absent.

That's not the worst of it though. The worst is the rest of the data. It is based on some fairly arbitrary presupposed models for combining these different assessments. No breakdown of the individual components of these assessments (other than "English" & "Math") and no attempt to discern a model from first principles.

There are some other factors as well. Aside from some outliers, the accuracy of predictions seems kind of suspect. Most of the outcomes are within +/-0.05 standard deviations, and a majority of them are within what looks like +/-0.025 standard deviations. These are pretty minuscule variances (0.25 was supposed to represent a year of schooling, so 0.025 represents maybe 15 school days worth of progress at best), and it is not hard to see that without some of those outliers, the regression line doesn't look so pretty (particularly for English). I also didn't see any metrics on the variance of the data within a classroom, which I suspect makes any predictive value look limited at best.

Ugh. I really hoped that Gates would make sure there was more statistical rigor with an analysis like this. :-( I hate to say it, but the conclusions of the study are not well supported by at least what is in the final research report.
Not necessarily contradicts, that article is just how it works in one specific part of the world (America) and the AMA is how things work in another specific part of the world. The chances are Apple is offering the same wholesale discount and the importer in SE Asia is just putting the markup as high as he fancies.
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"Open-source is something customers and smart communities seek out."

http://bit.ly/V1A045
Well, a lot of education about sandboxie or similar software to the users and making the app recovery process more precise and this company is dead.

Any business model based on annoying and abusing your users is not viable in the long term.
Aaron Swartz’s Unbending Prosecutors Insisted on Prison Time
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At 30c to $1.50 per install, these software companies are under a lot of pressure to make their money back and convert users. This would inevitably lead to some questionable practises which Install Monetizer can claim to be at arms length from.

Software I accidentally install, or am offered to install always leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and reflects badly on the software I am originally trying to install.
That might make sense for type B criminals, but type A criminals may still be choose to get away with the lower sentence. And it doesn't address the issue of innocent (or mostly innocent) people who confess to a crime they didn't commit. I don't know how common that is, but that's a big deal.
I wasn't aware of RECAP. Having searched for it I came across a page on the pacer site[1] where Pacer say if you use if for free you aren't allowed to use RECAP. I'd be interested to know whether it's legal for them to have a fee exemption for limited purposes that allows them to make prohibition on transfer of information that is (as I understand it) public domain.

Edit:
I've looked on www.recapthelaw.org and couldn't find any clarification on this.

[1] http://www.pacer.gov/announcements/general/exemptnotice.html it's the third result when searching for [pacer recap]
It looks like some members of the US government need to re-read Beccaria's Of Crimes and Punishments.
Winzip and Nero use the Ask Partner Network (I used to work there on the Ask Toolbar) to monetize their free software, so that is probably where that first email came from.

http://apn.ask.com/

There's also conduit:

http://toolbar.conduit.com/
It has spyware in it. It makes the user's IP and MAC available.
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This is a wonderful guide and concisely brings together all the key elements you need to cover in web design, but without the being burdened by the huge mass of material you see in beginner guides. Cheers!
"Test scores"

Brilliant. Well, yes, that is the best way to measure a teacher's efficacy, if your goal is to teach students to jump through hoops and pass standardised tests rather than to think.

The best teacher I ever had was my grandmother - she taught me the most important lessons I'd ever learn, such as:

"Observe the world around you."

"Reach your own conclusions."

"What was fact yesterday may be fiction tomorrow."

Tests are a distraction from learning.
Exactly.

It is like the Aaron case, what the prosecutor did was perfectly legal too and also actually normal in US justice system.
The school I graduated had a required COBOL class in CS/MIS due to pressure from a big insurance company donor to the school.
I think android devs should be careful!
It’s deperate to the point that people are illegally converting android apps to the blackberry format without the orignal dev’s permission.I wonder how many of the so called 10,000 submissions were converted with the permission of the original devs.

There’s probably lots! Here is one of many apps being ported illegally. Some of these pirates are selling free apps under their name!
This app is a stolen port!
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/20081493/?mo...

of this original android app which goes for free:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgam...

It’s one thing to port apps without permission, but then selling the free apps too and earning the profits! If you see the app world right now, there’s many apps like these in similar situations!
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I've been circling around group theory and abstract algebra for a while. This incredible Wikipedia article really helps to make the history of these subjects more concrete.

In textbooks, the axioms and theorems seem so dry. It must have been exciting to be in those lectures though, discovering concepts of a new field of mathematics for the first time.
3D-printed 30-round AR magazine brings us ever closer to a fully 3D-printed gun
What about a business model based on encouraging other, more desperate developers to annoy and abuse their users? I imagine that's quite viable.
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Likely they got funded because they have a real way to make money! Unlike whoever offers the next airbnb for dogs.

From an ethical standpoint, better the devil you know? Windows freeware developers deserve some compensation for their work, and this seems less scuzzy than other drive-by downloaders. If it became widespread it might break out of the user-exploitation ghetto and pick up real, actually synergistic software to intelligently recommend.
So this is a problem I've been dealing with. Been working out of school for almost two years at a big financial firm, working on Mainframes. I would say I'm relatively lucky in terms of mainframe horror stories you hear, in terms of new software being developed, but yes, ultimately for every "unit" of new work I do, I would reckon there's two units of maintenance.

The one main benefit I've seen working on my team, however, is the proximity to some of our business users and knowledge gained about the business that we conduct. I value that more than some of my colleagues working on an internal toolbar, even though they may be using a more modern technology.

I feel the difficulty that's quickly arising is knowing when to get out before the pigeonhole widens.
That's the lowest possible way to make money: Sneaking by and behind the back of your users.

If you feel you're entitled to more money, make me pay more for your product. Ask me to donate. Strip away features unless I go 'pro'.

But never ever install crap that isn't even related to your product.

Rule of thumb: If you wouldn't install that software on your families (like, the wider network - parents, siblings, grandparents) machines while supporting them, don't install it on MY machine either.
>Whether your moral compass disagrees with this or not, it's a legitimate business

My mother's proliferation of "helpful" toolbars in FF says otherwise. Whichever way you slice it, this is simply a way to prey on uninformed users and shittify their experience. Sure, there's a demand for it. That doesn't make it right.

>I'm sure they do everything to ensure the bloatware is just that, and not malware.

Well that's a giant relief. So InstallMonetizer is only selling your IP and MAC (!) to advertisers, instead of selling your CC number to the Russian mob. Cheers to small victories.
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No, Windows freeware developers offer their software for free. Their choice. If they agree that they 'deserve some compensation' for their work, they should sell it.
I think there might be a similar issue with illegal ports of iOS apps too!

http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-blackb...
It wasn't Ask or Conduit. It was actually a company I had trusted. That is before I received their email...
Wasn't their resurgence in large part due to Andrew Sullivan who then went to The Beast to their IMO mutual loss?
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Ugh, right from the get-go, Rubinstein throws away any attempt at statistical rigor by using an outlier example to try to prove something.

The 5% groupings doesn't evaluate the metric. It just means that if they plan to use this actual study as a guideline, they should use the same technique in grouping teachers.
What I was reacting to was:

> Australia also has a law preventing electioneering more than 30 days out from the election.

There isn't such a law. (And I misread you, thinking you said that there was a low against election ads within 30 days of an election).

You can campaign your heart out up until the blackout period.
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Joke

----------------------------------->

(your head)
You mean synergistically spying on you, calling home from your IP and sharing information about the software installed on your PC?
Y Combinator also funded our solution to crapware.

http://ninite.com

Basically we automate multiple installers and decline toolbars just like you would.

Users range from the nontechnical to NASA. We even have a huge blind user base because these installers are frequently hell to navigate with a screenreader.

We make money selling a Pro version with extra features to businesses and school IT departments. It works well and aligns us nicely with our users' interests.
Can we cut this shit out? I know it's the inevitable Godwin's Lawification of a recent tragedy, but I thought HN was better than exploiting Aarons death to support every random negative view of the legal system. His death has nothing to do with spam applications
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The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.

Source:

http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches-articles/spee...
There are many important factors which teachers (no matter how good they are) can't control:

1. How wealthy, poor, educated, or uneducated a child's parents are.

2. How many resources the school and teacher are given.

3. Whether a child's parents are abusing them at home.

4. Whether a child is witnessing violence, hopelessness, despair in their neighborhood.

5. The attitude of a child's family and friends towards education.

6. Whether a child's parents are active in their child's education and in a PTA.

Study after study has shown that these factors greatly influence a child's attention and attitude to school work, their attendance, and ultimately their performance at school.

No child's performance on a standardized test, and no evaluation of a teacher's performance is going to pick up on the above factors, yet they can critically impact how well the child ultimately learns and what the child learns.

Standardized testing of a child that is unfortunate enough to live in a situation where the above factors are against them will likely notice a poorly performing student, one who gradually does worse and worse on the tests until they finally flunk out.

Then, instead of getting extra aid, the funding to the school that has a lot of such children will be cut (thanks to programs like No Child Left Behind), and their teachers penalized.

These factors, which are strongly associated with poverty, are things a given teacher is in no position to influence, but which society as a whole could address. If it has the will.
I would have preferred no comments to moderated comments.
Oh looks like they both install the AVG toolbar now, wow, I didn't know AVG had a program like that:

http://www.avg.com/ww-en/reseller
Do I work on a mainframe? What is a mainframe?

I work on system i, old name was AS/400. Yes we use RPG, occasional COBOL is around, and CL is the wrapper. Sine RPG has no standards committee it adapts to the times. The majority of our code is free form, looking more like Pascal/C than anything else. We run web services and the like all in combinations of C, RPG, JAVA, embedded SQL, and such. I even have a PhP based wiki out there and some other oddities. Its nice that one program can easily incorporate modules from multiple languages. Don't even get me into the ease of maintaining large databases, adding tables, indexes, or views. It is so simple as to not require an army of people to support our large systems.

So why aren't people getting into these systems? The easiest explanation is that its not "sexy" enough. I love sitting in meetings hearing all about how certain groups do X, Y, and Z, and how the platform I work on does not, even though we usually do and with far more reliability and less work.

Its all fun in the end, I enjoy coding as much on my Mac as the i. I work with people in daily who interface to us through ODBC, web, and more. I do find that most people don't think we can do something; including so called experts on my platform; simply because they don't even bother to do a google search. My favorite reply to most inquiries is, we might not be doing that today, but by the end of the day I will tell you how we can.

Face it, its boring to many people. They see green screens and freak. Its only part of our work, most of the development is fully web faced or similar provided it suits the business needs. Warehouse and much of retail doesn't need more than fast efficient access to information and input.

Look at it this way, go see what major medical systems, distributors, and even what the casinos use. You might be surprised.
Or do we educate so people are actually more well rounded, have a better grasp of the world around them, and do better as adults?

I think we're all for this type of metric. The problem is that no one has yet been able to show a teacher's ability to achieve that.

So you're against testing. What metrics are you for? Do we at least agree that without any sort of metric to judge a good teacher vs a bad teacher that the whole educational system suffers tremendously?
> I've been in a submerged metal tube for some number of months. In many respects it's a worse environment than prison (though I can at least vouch for my fellow "inmates").

I think a big difference with prison is that prison is not voluntary.
Support it will need to be, I don't intend offering extra functionality to wealthier people. I would actually be fine with giving free support, but I know how busy that gets! and bills do need to be paid.

Thanks for your input!
Bundling third-party software with installers already happens and will continue to happen whether this company exists or not.

If they can improve upon that experience somehow:

- Reviewing the software before allowing it to be bundled and weeding out the bad eggs.

- Adding user reviews inline with the list of software to install.

...then there's a possibility that they can make this a pleasant, legitimate experience for people.
Why does Gittip exist then? It's funny that some developers should be compensated for the positive externalities of their work, but only the ones you deem appropriate. Working with this company would be choosing to 'sell' your work in a more accessible way. If you don't like it, don't install the bundled software and mail the dev a dollar
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Nice idea!

Also, some metadata aggregation (title, author, tags, date published) capabilities wouldn't hurt anyone.
I have also experienced this once whilst browsing the site just now.
Thanks for your input, this is the route I will be taking the product in then, as you can see from my post, support is what I was thinking. Having two replies to second my opinion is good confirmation I guess.
I would hate to be in your shoes right now. Whoever did make this decision has significantly harmed the brand that you as an editor work hard to build up. I'm sorry that you have been put in that situation.
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Perhaps you are taking the headline a little to seriously, literally. How about.

"Design Books Every Hacker Who Would Like to Read About Design Should Consider Reading Unless They are Designing an API"
And at my job, there are many factors out of my control. I don't control the home life of my engineers. I don't control my customers' decision making processes. I don't control my competitors' actions in the market.

But yet I'm judged on the small slice of that overall pie that I can control.

What this study indicates is that there are teachers who can reproducibly create success levels given the control of the situation that they do have.

How is it any different than the rest of the working world where you can control some things and you can't control others yet your job is to do the best you can with what you can control?
I think that being able to put immediate self-interest aside and "cooperate" in PD-like situations is a large part of why our societies aren't god awful.

There are so many factors that have gone into my conclusion to never cooperate with the police willingly. Primarily, being a minority means I'm statistically more likely to be harrassed, and god forbid, shot by one. In fact, the last time I "asked" the police for help they ran my name for warrants first. My cooperation in that instance could have ended up with me spending the weekend in jail.

My self-interest is the preservation of my life and includes me not going to jail on bullshit charges, the rest of society can cooperate if they want. I'm not the only minority that thinks like this, following the media spectacle of one black, Harvard professor.
I couldn't agree more with the statement that "UX is not UI". I consider myself to be pretty skilled at UI design, but I often find that other developers (with no graphic design talent) are just as good, if not better, at UX than I am. I don't see why these always have to go hand-in-hand. The 'Photoshop guy' always seems to be assumed to be the resident UX expert.
The problem with benchmarking is that it assumes all students are more or less equal. A measure that finds repeatable success for, say, 2/3s of the students will be model that will be emulated through the entire system to the detriment of the remaining 1/3 of students who do not learn under that environment.

Students are not a commodity. What works well for one person does not necessarily work well for another. Without focusing on the individual, you are always going to leave a group needlessly behind.