skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Getting into Data Science/Stat/Marketing?
I have a friend in college who's really really smart - 4.0 GPA and breezes through upper-level math/stat classes as a rising sophomore, but suffers from what a lot of people in college suffer from: not knowing what they want to focus on in college and do after college. He often tells me how anxious this makes him, and how jealous he is that I seem to have already made up my mind to focus on a CS career (for now). So far I've gotten him to spell out his areas of interest: CS, Stat, Econometrics, Marketing, and Biochemistry. It helps that the first three areas are really interrelated, and he has also expressed interest in the intersection between statistics and marketing. Being in SV and all, I hear a lot of hype about big data and data science, and so I've suggested this as a possible path to explore in the future (this summer he's doing research at a biochem lab and taking an intro CS class - in Java I think).

My question: anyone have any tips for how someone might get started in either 1) data science or 2) applying statistics to marketing? (assuming a strong foundation in math, stat, and 1-2 CS classes).
I just answered your question; I didn't endorse disregarding his opinion.
exactly ;-)
I'm very curious what aspect of Twitter's TLS code makes hard to intercept whereas other websites can be easily intercepted? I'm also very curious about how they intercepted Whatsapp. Does it do something stupid like eval'ing code received over regular HTTP?

Quoting the paragraph, in case my paraphrasing is inaccurate: "What’s depressing is that I could have easily helped them intercept basically all of the traffic they were interested in (except for Twitter – I helped write that TLS code, and I think we did it well). They later told me they’d already gotten a WhatsApp interception prototype working, and were surprised by how easy it was. The bar for most of these apps is pretty low."
I disagree with the list he uses, I would have said that most developers and many sysadmins trust CAs. The point is that, no, the phrase "nobody trusts CAs" is wrong, many people trust CAs.

In fact I think that so many people trust CAs that if someone provides a more secure alternative it should look like an evolution of CAs so it doesn't piss off people who have been trusting CAs all this time.
It's also worth noting that following the incident, the police invaded the homes of the witnesses who recorded the brutality, and proceeded to harass them, without a search warrant, refusing to leave or allow any of the occupants to leave unless they surrendered the video[1].

[1]: http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x1891153965/Depu...
OK, that's true but in this case, he almost certainly knew what he bought, as stated on the SCOTUS ruling.
In many (though far from all) cases, the answer is actually "yes, they are." By treaty.
OK, this is the perfect thread to write a rant about flat design that I'm keeping to myself since a while.

I hate (maybe hate is not the word, but I think you get it) all these webs/apps with this type of design (not every web, there are great designs out there), think about the last couple of years, we were struggling with javascript to make round corners, all these type of fancy effects, shadows, etc., and now, that we have the opportunity to deal with those things natively and make some GREAT graphic, full eye-candy webs, the trend is flat, simple colored divs... are you kidding me?

</rant>

Thanks.
While I enjoyed your joke, I'm not sure how the PC market fading can be ascribed to luck? The rise of consumer demand of smart phones coupled with most PC's hitting a point of being "good enough" for the average consumer could be the cause. I'm not sure how that's luck. But I think most people in technology could have predicted that. I mean, it's pretty clear to me that this will happen for the next 10-20 years.

Computers as we know them today won't exist in the same form in 20 years, they'll primarily be powered by smart phones. But don't come back in 20 years and call this event and whatever successful company to profit on this "lucky"... it's just, who is going to execute upon this vision to make it happen? That's exactly what Apple did with tablets. They saw the future as it should be and executed upon that vision.
The supreme court routinely reaches all kinds of weird decisions based on questionable legal precedent and theory. For them to be so careful to not overstep here is suspect.
So long as you can then get your data back out of the hosted trial version and into your purchased copy...
I suddenly had a realization why someday in the future everyone is going to want their own personal satellite.

Government interception/manipulation (or any other party) would become rather difficult.
Zuckerberg's luck ended when he was put in a situation where he could get the idea and build Facebook. That is, a talented coder and a student at an Ivy League university. That's already very lucky indeed, but it's a lot less lucky than a Powerball winner.

Literally thousands of students was in the right place at the right time - they had the exact same luck Zuckerberg did. But only Zuckerberg build Facebook.
...and, under these sorts of regimes, will likely get blocked should they gain any sort of real traction anyway. (Moxie's post is clear that they want to intercept, and block what they can't.)

Without jailbreaking or a dev cert, you can't ensure that an app you install from the App Store on iOS isn't backdoored anyway.

I'm an iOS devotee but even I'm going to buy a second phone specifically to support sideloading of crypto software for secure communications. My phone's primary function is to communicate (despite all the smartphone value-adds) and secure and private communications are a pipe-dream on iOS.

iMessage is great (and end-to-end encrypted) but if I can't control the list of keys to which it encrypts, it's only as secure as Apple (and presumably the DoJ by extension) allows it to be.
Don't ever talk to or cooperate with the police except as a last resort. Police are more dangerous than organized criminals because they are immune to the law, and they know it. Never open your door for a police officer. If you must interact with the police, have a lawyer present at all times. It is literally a matter of life and death.

Cops break and enter and commit murder, with no criminal charges brought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Kenneth_Chamberlain,....

Cop kills in cold blood, receives a 6 months jail sentence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_G...

Minneapolis Gang Strike Force confiscates property for officers' personal use from minorities. No charges were brought against the officers:
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/08/report_rampant.ph...
You would have to disable the cmdhist option for that to matter:

shopt -u cmdhist

Or I guess be working with a bash old enough to not support cmdhist.
I'll really love the day when everybody's photo and video services automatically upload to the cloud, so that this kind of evidence can't disappear by force of currupt cops. G+ auto-uploads all my pics and video, I think some other services do this as well. This is mostly a personal feature, but if my phone is ever seized during something like this, the evidence will still be in my control and not theirs.
Same here. I was selling a PHP+MySQL script and about 20% of my customers couldn't install it despite my verbose instructions. I don't really blame them, I shouldn't have been making non-technical web masters navigate a cPanel account and mess with PHP in the first place. I couldn't possibly provide personal technical support to everyone in need so I granted a refund to anyone who didn't get it working.

As a side note, this is the reason I hate PayPal. They didn't like my refund percentage apparently and simply banned my account. It sucked being treated like some scammer by countless customer support reps just because I couldn't provide tech support to all customers and had a higher refund rate. It's all for the best now though :) Subscription model + Stripe is a godsend.
I'm pretty sure I could electroplate it with something that would be safe, but I don't think it'd be worth the risk. It's probably getting added to my metal shop as a tool for handling molten metal.
And after you signed a contract agreeing not to do that....

9-0 decisions are easy when the facts of a case are so clear cut.
Ask HN: Is it normal for recruiters to ask for SSN and DOB?
I just turned down an offer to apply for a job because the third-party recruiter wanted me to give my date of birth and part of my social security number over the telephone. My understanding is that only the hiring company would need this information and only after they make me an offer. Is it starting to become a standard practice for recruiters to ask for this information?
The thing that the community needs to know is that Yee has absolutely zero knowledge of the gun industry or the tech industry, so could never make legislation....

He is currently best known for creating legislation that provokes gridlock on San Francisco streets and puts bicyclists in harms way. He's also voted for other such gems as the banning of cellphone towers in his district, requiring warning labels on cellphones (they cause cancer and kill kittens). Lee is that guy who's both for and against every issue, whichever one is going to get him more media coverage. I thankfully don't live in his district, but I can't wait till he leaves office and people with some sense can actually start trying to fix the messes he's created.
Sorry, Steam games are not DRM-free. It is however the case that Steam has some of the least aggressive DRM you'll find in video games, but it is absolutely not DRM-free.
Nothing too interesting IMO except the increased advertorial crackdown, although I'm skeptical as to how much of that they'll be able to detect. (Ironically, I'm seeing more & more of these in A/B level tech blogs)
Congrats on the launch! I know how hard it is to get something out the door... and 5 months isn't so bad at all, especially since you started from scratch.

Micro-suggestion regarding capitalization:

Did you consider Quotestagram vs. QuoteStagram? I feel like the first one looks a little better.

Also, I agree w/ the other commenter re: Ayn Rand quotes. Some folks love her writings, others do not. Maybe some inspirational quotes by Einstein or Edison?

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."
~Albert Einstein

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~Albert Einstein
> Nobody trusts CAs.

Hundreds of millions of consumers use devices that implicitly trust CAs today.

You're usually spot on, but in this case you're dead wrong. Most humans that use the internet use devices that trust CAs absolutely - which is exactly why they're being subverted for government interception.
>>I'm 36 years old

What does this have to do with anything? 36 is neither young, nor old. Is he saying it took forever because he is 36? I would guess someone's first real software on any new platform takes them "forever" compared to app 5 or 6...
Lessons Learned from a Failed Startup
Broken in Chrome Version 27.0.1453.81 beta.
But the different "modes" of anything are just the state of the input mechanism. To be clear, my argument is not to use modes for the sake of using modes. More that I do not understand the attitude in computer design where it is assumed that we can get down to no modes in an interface. There is this magical "all context switches to get here do not count." That is, it is a fine guideline, but treated as its own independent rule is missing all of the conflict and tradeoffs that actually go into many decisions where they arise.

Editors are an amusing example, because they come up a lot. But, for many, getting the computer to the damned editor is enough of a mode change that it is hard to do.

With GUI applications, the march lately has been to hide as many of the "buttons" as possible. Which is not really doable while still adding buttons. This is the same problem as faced by car interface designers. Even the iPod did this. "Spinning" back then was either selection or volume control, you know, depending on the mode. :)

So, yes, I agree excessive modes are bad. I even agree that vim is a bad interface for most folks. (Most being everyone else I know that uses a computer, honestly.) I disagree that "modes are bad" is at all a useful mantra by itself. It is only helpful when you take all of the other context into consideration, as well.

That make sense? (As far as the "better" interface for a car, this one is easy to imagine. Come up with an interface where you really just tell the car what it is you are wanting to do. "Take me to the store." "Pick up my daughter from school." ...)
I'm going to assume that anyone who thinks a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court is "suspect" has a lifetime supply of tin foil hats in their bunker.
Congratulations! I'd love to hear more background about the motivation for this app and the dev process. Are we talking 5 months of full-time development or 5-months as a side project? What motivated the project? What are your future plans?
Nice site. It does have some nasty rendering issues for me on Chrome: http://i.imgur.com/nZT9OgU.png (red circles added by me).

PS - More about my setup to help you reproduce:

- Desktop Chrome 26
- 1920x1080
- 125% DPI (Windows)
- Zoom Level: 0 (default)
- Chrome Font Size: "Large"
They are if the cited trade agreements go through. That's the whole point of these agreements.

Indeed, it may be you who doesn't understand how IP works. When rights holders try to get IP rules tied up in international trade agreements it's because they want to make it that much harder for signatory nations to modify IP law.

This is an important line of defense in cases where the rules are protecting companies that are widely seen as abusive (e.g. Monsanto), since nations that turn against them not only have to pass new legislation, they also have to disengage from international treaties. That extra layer of complication can add years of profitability to highly unpopular schemes.
Good advice, but do try to know when to be in full defense mode and when not to be. If you're pulled over, reciting your rights and repeating "am I free to go" when asked "Do you know why I pulled you over?" is likely to result in a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

Choose your battles, folks.
Fatigue impairs performance more than alcohol.
What system do you currently use? Which databases got this right for your use cases, and which ones got it wrong and why?

There's active development on this feature, so now's the time to influence it to better suit your needs. A separate blog post might be a better forum.
Bill Gates Opens Up About Steve Jobs in CBS Interview
I've been pushing for proper, no-foolin' Weak References to be added to the ECMAScript spec for something like a year now. App developers who want them need to speak up, because most of the people who work on the spec don't even understand the concept of a weak reference or comprehend why devs want them. It's an uphill battle, but with enough support they will probably add them - they were actually considered for ES6 but abandoned.
Is there a way to 'push' your new apps to customers or do you just have to wait for them to discover it themselves (pull)?
wow this looks great!