skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be.

> it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life.

> To do that, we have to look at adults - lots of them, ranging from bums to billionaires, across time and professions, on and on. Then at young adults, then at small children (to fully see the contrast with adults).

I like that you've indicated your own confirmation bias right there.
Ask HN: Some questions about Netflix
I've been trying to find out some information on Netflix because I'm really curious about the largest cloud computing user ever and how they deliver their videos.

1) How much storage does its raw or raw-ish video take up? By that I mean the video before it is converted into the different types of formats all the phones/tablets/operating systems use. I can't find any number.

2) How much storage its videos occupy after it transcodes them to all of the different formats.

I'm wondering if it's viable to store videos in one base format and because CPUs are getting so much faster and faster - transcode the video on the fly to the codec needed for a certain device. Additionally, maybe keep a video converted to some common formats and do more niche/exotic ones on the fly.
Short-Term and Long-Term probably would have made more sense than Present and Past.
Well the entrance tests for Faculty of Philosophy that my close friend attended have been in the form of interview and they mostly asked about what authors did you read, what were they trying to say and such. It's actually not that complicated for people invested in some area (of science, politics, culture) to spot good candidates when you give them a chance.

Sadly, the quality of education in Czech Republic have degraded significantly in capitalism. We have gotten rid of Marxism-Leninism but have also let significantly more people in and set the incentives to produce a lot of graduates with much less knowledge, with rest of the bulk being thrown out after 2 years so that the university gets maximum state support.

We are probably going to end up with student loans and lower government participation, which will ruin our education system completely.
Anyone ever hear the rumor that the reason why Google pulled out of China was because Chinese hackers had tapped into a feed of all email metadata? I heard it included subject. This news made me immediately think of that rumor.
Seriously, just because you read it on a news site does not mean it is true.

It also means it doesn't, so I don't see your point?

A lawyer, to drum up sympathetic media coverage for his client (and increase his own public profile).

a reporter, to get eyeballs on a story.

Aaaaand: a prosecutor, to intimidate. Just because you leave out an option doesn't mean it's not one.
It would definitely be the latter. Once upon a time the context for evolution was nature- surviving when nature was trying to kill you. We no longer struggle much to survive, so now it is about compete- against eachother, naturally.
Do you know the origin of the name, "New Jersey approach"? It was these guys. These guys invented the New Jersey approach. Go is the result of 40 years of OS and programming language work primarily done at Bell Labs in Murray Hill.
Like a few European countries in the last century, I got to enjoy what a dictatorship means, secret services don't follow the law, they make the law.
"How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life."

Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me.

"It is significantly more difficult"

So? Why does that matter? None of us are equal in any way, and none of us ever will be. You might as well decry the fact that some people are taller, or have an eye color that you prefer, or keep a head full of hair into old age. In a just (my definition of that word, not necessarily yours) society, we are equal in one respect alone: equal before the law.

Before you rattle off a point about "justice," see my amended comments in the post above. The concept of justice pertains to choice, and applying it to situations where there is no choice involved (e.g., who your parents are, how much money they have) is not a valid use of the concept.
I'm sure there will be some rich people around who could pay for tuition in general up front, the departments that generate 'students that can get modest jobs' might become smaller. Of course, then the supply of educated mathematicians, biologists, physicists, would get smaller, too, and their pay will go up, and everything will reach a saner equilibrium.
Yeah, we have that in our country (sentences can't be summed together); and that's the reason one infamous killer and rapist of more than 140 children may be released soon (if they were added the sentence would be of 1800+ years)
A Finnish banking startup, Holvi, uses online banks to verify the user's ID. And that is all they require on top of phone verification. If I recall right, they state that 'online bank authentication is the only way to verify user ID online'.

Why others don't do that, but instead ask me to file all these documents by printing and scanning them?
Modern game budgets are in range of tens of millions, if Java really gave any significant advantage e.g. 1 month off 24 months project it would be a value of a million or more. Studios would be all over Java just for that reason.
You're right regarding the correction of monogenic diseases, but you chose your example poorly.

Down's syndrome is the result of having an extra chromosome, which induces the overexpression of genes, some of which are related to embryogenesis and development.
The universe doesn't owe you K-12 education, and neither does society, but society has decided it is worth the expense to have a populace that knows how to read, write, and do arithmetic- skills that most people simply did not have two hundred years ago.
Getting Started with OpenRISC
I like that you've indicated your own confirmation bias right there.

Does that really make any sense? Everyone, including you, has beliefs and hypotheses.

I've summarized some of what I've considered in coming up with my conclusion, and all you've done is to throw a convenient label on me. You'll have to try harder than that.
This War Game is a Warning to China
Traditionally[1], I believe US universities have been funded by the government to a large degree. The defunding of the universities I believe corresponds to the ceasing of the Cold War and the dropping of heavy DoD/DoE funding.

My understanding of collectivizing costs is that it's proved extremely expensive for countries such as Germany and the UK, which are moving towards a paying model (last I heard). There's also a pyschological effect when you're paying for your own way vs. someone else paying for it. I'll let someone else more learned in physchology & motivation research comment on the details, but the change in mindset does exist. My gut feeling is that its entirely reasonable for society to generally pay the bulk of the cost of college in exchange for getting the benefit of an educated society.

If you examine the historical cost of education in the US, the tuition began its upwards run around 1980 and has not ceased. So did healthcare. I don't know if there's a connection; and, if so, why. I do know that educational costs have gone wildly up beyond inflation.

To your aside; my student loans were designed to cover the cost of housing & life in general.

I'm very sorry that you did have to go into such steep debt for college. I don't think it's right that higher education costs so very much either. I do want it reformed, but I don't want it done in ways that simply funnel money into someone's pockets without lots of people getting a quality benefit.

[1] between 1945 and ~2000
Step up and say it
A Meeting By The River (PRISM)
The 3 most valuable things you will never learn in school
Agreed. But when you have "John Smith" coming in over VPN from a foreign IP to a domestic email account, how can you tell if they are an expat citizen or a masquerade? Presumably this is why the NSA monitors whenever at least one half of the connection is foreign.
This sounds like a mess. So If I've read the 'wrong authors' (say, bastiat for a right-wing critique of the government and bourdieu for a left-wing critique), I'm basically hosed in the interview. Can't have any radical changers in the public service, now can we...

"the quality of education in Czech Republic have degraded significantly in capitalism... so that the university gets maximum state support."

I wouldn't think 'university gets maximum state support' to be a shining example of (free-market) capitalism. If anything, it sounds exactly like what the original article complains, if only a bit more direct and less sneaky than channeling the mechanism of subsidy through a convoluted, corrupt, and rent-seeking banking system.
Inspiring story: Guy who got into Google
True but have you tried to port an engine to run on consoles Xbox360 or PS3? 10x worse with special hardware hooks, crappy apis, older apis (dx9, custom opengl), strange requirements for async and networking and a host of other problems including compliance + approval costs, devkits, and platform lock-in. This all leads to insurmountable costs and lessens the chance of successful games. PS4 has solved lots of this moving to more standard architecture (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189368/Inside_the_PlaySta...) but Xbox you still have to port in DirectX/3d and they all have strange requirements like requiring a publisher in this day and age of self-publishing and open app stores. Many times these wrappers try to get developers locked into engines and result in older, crappier outcomes. Leading to situations like recreating the string class, threading libraries, graphics libraries, memory managers etc 15 times. All of that focus on tech takes away from gameplay development.

So I agree middleware like Unity allow companies to focus on making games rather than building the same tech everyone else is building on each iteration and years of development hours. Building in C/C++ with wrappers is still the way to go and the most portable. Unity uses this underneath, cocos2d-x also have ports of tech, so many tools to help with this now instead of going full custom although if you do go custom it is still C/C++ core, with wrappers and platform specific code for file handling, threads, graphics, audio etc etc.
Which is beside the point.

First, who excluded death penalty cases from this discussion?

Second, the jury still determines if the accused is guilty or not. A prosecutor asking for a huge penalty can (and will tend to) sway them to think the accused as "more guilty".

After all, "he wouldn't ask for such a high penalty if the guy was all innocent", they'd think (that they could be advised not to judge by that is BS too).

What you did here, is you've taken several pedantic technicalities on this thread and run with them as far as you can.

This technique, and such contempt to the actual spirit of the law and justice (the issues under discussion), makes one assume that you are a lawyer or something close.
CSS Shredder
That's a headline from Sunday May 12th, which I believe is the first story on it in the Times. The information first came to light at a press conference by Lois Lerner on May 10th and I don't see another NY Times article sandwiched between the dates. The headline did not go unremarked in conservative media[1].

There is no doubt in my mind which team the NY Times is batting for.

[1]http://twitchy.com/2013/05/13/thats-the-story-jaw-dropping-n...
I agree with your underlying statement.

However, this comes down to semantics now. I contend that altruism is innately human and, of course, common among many animals. Compassion and empathy run deep in the consciousness of many people. Altruism is generally the word used to describe actions based on a sense of compassionate imperative. As such, altruism as a word should be preserved and not confused with contradicting forces at play.

The contradicting forces at play are those that would mandate the way in which others act, even if it betrays the ethics of others. That isn't real altruism. It's artificial. Unfortunately, most people conflate the two as one in the same due to pseudo-liberal (read: not liberating) indoctrination that equates [using force to implore a moral imperative] as being justified by its ends without addressing the means which victimize people and don't allow for disassociation.

I imagine you agree fully.

Altruism is a word that has been perverted and besmirched by multiple sides. Altruism cannot exist in the context of force. Altruism nevertheless exists and it is 'good' in nature. In other words, no, I'm not implying that consumerism [needs] to be conscientious. Emphasis on [needs]. [Needs] implies a mandate which requires force. I would imply, however, as a human rights proponent and activist living in a world of governmental and corporate tyranny, that conscientious consumerism is one of the few and best remaining forms of intelligently advocating for one's interests and the interests of those who we care about: the people of this world that are often treated like serfs and subjects. Conscientious consumerism is part of the lifeblood of web-of-trusts within free and natural markets. Yes, I would encourage all people (who care about particular issues) to inform themselves and be mindful of the organizations and businesses they directly or indirectly support. I, for one, try not to support abusive companies with policies that noticeably exploit labor and land. Whether this is in my self-interests is merely semantics, for anything I believe and choose is inherently my self-interest manifesting itself through knowledge and action. Power in numbers still exists.

Indeed, altruism begins with the "self." This is another aspect many sides do not fully appreciate. Selfishness and selflessness are words that can possibly be interchangeable and inverted. More people should recognize their own individual self worth. To do so is to also recognize the humanity and self-worth of others. No law is inherently more righteous than the conscience of the individual who must decide whether he or she can morally abide by it. If more people valued themselves in a non-superficial sense, I feel they would be less willing to defer their rights and bodies to the authority of violent groups. Ironically in these words, if more people valued their self worth, I believe that more [selflessness] would flourish: real acts of compassion and community-supporting behavior - acts based on voluntary choice, which we could proudly label "altruistic."
I don't think he was making a statement about society. Rather pointing out that when we think of the benefits of evolution, we tend to think of the combined effect over billions of years. But holding a microscope to it on scales like that of human history reveals a cumbersome and nearly imperceptible process. As it is, it offers nothing on any timescale that is meaningful to us.
Sean Parker has as much "wounded private citizen" cred as Mark Zuckerberg's sister who was ousted from Facebook's marketing department and immediately had a meltdown when someone reposted a photo of her from Twitter to Facebook.

General rule: if you possess millions of dollars because of your association with Facebook, your sudden personal revelation that people can talk about you on Facebook in ways that might hurt your feelings makes you sound like an entitled idiot circa 2006.
... I'm sorry, I really don't understand your position. Wikileaks isn't an archiving system, it's a way to publish leaks... If Wikileaks is proven to be rejecting leaks (which is unproven allegations at the moment) then I could understand your point.

But you are literally just believing some random on the internet, which could well be an effort by the US to discredit Wikileaks and Ecuador at the same time (purely speculation).

What wikileaks do is not complicated, you can always create an alternative. They'd probably support your efforts.
> Having education available to everyone is a net gain for society, like having public roads.

I completely agree. A better example is food, clothing and shelter. Those are available to most people without government coercion. We could easily handle the remainder with charity, if it weren't for government programs that breed endemic poverty.

> Also, the "lazy poors" "stealing" your money

I did not say any of that, and I definitely don't think about it that way. I don't think poverty is a problem of laziness, but of ignorance. And I don't think the poor are stealing from me. If anyone is, it's Republicans and Democrats, with broad support from the middle and upper "classes." But I don't even think of it that way.. it's more of a societal decision. And we have a much better society, in many ways, than most of those in the past, so overall, I'm pretty thankful.

> Yes, like the for-profit prisons.

That's a highly government-regulated industry, so it's not a valid counter-example. The prison system is corrupt for the same reasons the finance system is.

(I wouldn't have any problem with prisons being completely government run, since prisons are a function of law enforcement, which is a necessary and proper function of government.)
You don't need 12 years of education to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. K-12 does teach a lot more, but most students seem unwilling/unable/disinterested in more than the basic stuff (in my experience). Do we really want to throw money at educating people who aren't interested?
How about we popularize encryption, and take the choice out of the hands of corporations and governments?
The blowback from this mess could very soon be more severe than everyone might think. I expect several foreign countries to ban American tech company operations in their jurisdictions.

The bans in the foreign nations could easily stem from foreign business owners pressuring their politicians to ban American-operated companies under the guise of national security, privacy, and anti-American-power-mongering, but their real motivation will be to gain market share. Their politicians can easily make it into a win-win for everyone involved - the politicians (campaign contributions), the local businesses (market share), and the population, who wouldn't mind seeing a global anti-America movement.
"When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't even be visible"

That's by design.

You missed the key part of the article where the author mentions why the micro-details were added: "but purposely added more detail where needed to accommodate today’s high resolution screens".

That is an extremely important piece. If you don't go completely geometric and flat (which they didn't), and you don't add in those kinds of tiny details at large sizes the form will feel empty.

Instead, the designer chose to add details that wouldn't distract from the icon at small sizes, but would still make the form feel "full" at large sizes. To do that, the details themselves had to be made much more subtle. Add too much contrast and you run into the 2009-13 design's failures where distracting detail makes the icon hard to read at small sizes.
>You know what else people should learn in school? how to recognize a bullshit news article on a site that traffics in conspiracy theories.

Judge the article by itself, not by what else the site that has it might show. Not to mention the obvious fact that you can find independent confirmations of the same story elsewhere.

Except if you believe the story in the article is a conspiracy theory itself.

Like, you know, the "conspiracy theory" about Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide after facing a disgusting case of "prosecutorial discretion"?

Or tons of people who were "made an example" or used as a stepping ladder for a political career by some prosecutor?
As I can see people are happy to get 1 month in prison. Great for them they don't know what it is. Anyway they forgot the heart of the US: the First Amendment, which is maybe even more terrible...
That's not very constructive, but let me engage in a metacomment.

Good ideas are born out of bad ideas sharpened and the bad bits thrown out over time. I am not a professional administrator in college, but I did spend time at a variety of institutions of higher ed and wound up with a Master's degree and experience teaching, researching, and studenting. I think my thoughts are not entirely worthless. But they are not taking into account the full picture, as I've not been a professor, support staff, or an admin. However, if experienced people from each side of the University structure contribute their ideas, perhaps out of the pool of undercooked ingredients will be the parts for some really great pieces; and those ideas would be truly awsome.

So. Yes. My idea is undercooked. But maybe it can help contribute to a better solution. Maybe. :-)
well, I give a fuck about trampling roots, but perhaps you need to go back and read the OP's writing. "sequoia roots CAN be harmed when trampled".

Fact is, these roots go 5-6 feet deep and no amount of people walking on them is going to harm them, with the possible exception that if you scrape the surface of the root, you can get an infestation (disease or pests).

But when you go back and look at SP's article, the entire wedding was held on cleared (or paved) ground. No roots.

Game over. Insert quarter.

People don't like SP because he's rich. Fuck them.

If you've ever been up against the wall with one of these little fiefdoms of government, the ones with nearly unlimited resources, who perpetuate themselves with 'fines', you don't know the meaning of terror. (Unless you're in the military, or one of the relatively few terror incidents on US soil.)
I'm surprised the absolute nondischargeability of student loans is not brought up in the article. This is, ultimately immoral, because that is exactly (fractional, voluntary, nonchattel) slavery.

The US, to Obama and congress's credit (those who know me know I'm not a huge fan) engaged in some credit reform in the wake of the 2008-2009 economic crisis. Credit cards firms were required to allow their customers to restructure their loans and became obligated to outline the loan payments afterward, and rotating credit became dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings. One wonders why college credit hasn't undergone such reforms. Does academia have that powerful of a lobby?
Just a slight country point: The US is actually quite low in number of articles published per million citizens.[1] Now that doesn't say anything about the quality or distribution of research areas of course. Switzerland is in a clear lead with Sweden second.

Does US universities really outpace European ones? I don't know if that statistic means anything in reality. I guess it also depends on the percentage of the population with a degree.

[1] http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/innovation/scienti...
Great overview of simplifying development with standards focus (x86, unified memory, less tech hurdles to focus on gameplay over tech). Ultimately this will decrease development costs to focus that time on making better games.
FISA courts may be unconstitutional, as in they don't satisfy the requirements for Article III courts, and FISA courts are the only valve on this behavior (such as they are). Congress is only told what is going on, and not very much (and to very few members) at that.
"I instead think that federal funding should go to a select few - perhaps three or four - in the US. These colleges would be fully free and fully funded by the feds. "

We have those. West Point, Annapolis, USAFA, USCGA, and the Merchant Marine academies.