skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hi, I'm a systems administrator. I'm reasonably senior. I can tell you that pretty much all sysadmins code. In overlapping sets, some are good at it, some don't need to be good at it, and some like solving problems that way. But being a sysadmin is a different job from being a software developer, and people who are good at one and not the other are much more common than those who are good at both.

The nature of systems administration work falls into two broad categories. The first is small problem work: a user has a problem, a machine signals an alert, something isn't working. The second is, of course, large project work: users need a new service, the alerting system needs to be replaced, new infrastructure needs to be built. Most of the time, but not always, the small problems need and have immediate solutions, and the large projects are not as time-critical and require some amount of research, budgeting, selection, configuration and support before they can be deemed complete.

A sysadmin who has specialized into a particular problem domain will need the skills appropriate to that domain. Sometimes that means picking up a new configuration syntax -- which may be a complete language. Sometimes it means building better communications skills, so that you can diagnose what your users are complaining about. Whatever it is, you can assume that the people who specialize in an area that doesn't require much programming, don't do much.

Generalist sysadmins, on the other hand, need to be competent at a wide variety of skills, including two or three languages. That doesn't mean that they need to be UX designers (but they need to recognize a UI failure) and it doesn't mean that they need to be database administrators (but they need to understand how to back up and restore the databases they support, and figure out the replication system and find single points of failure). They do need to be able to write short programs to automate what they would otherwise do manually, to figure out what the debug logs are really complaining about, and to understand computer systems from electrical and environmental needs through virtualization systems and configuration management.

Finally, there are sysadmins who are also developers, who announce that they don't like any of the existing mail programs and so they will write a new one; who determine that there's no configuration management system that tracks and removes subsystems as cleanly as they would like, and so a new one will be needed; who write filesystems or music organizers or browser extensions because that's what they need and want and are good at.

The industry, nebulous quagmire that it is, needs specialists, generalists, and dev-ops hybrids. Making false generalizations merely reveals a bizarre lack of awareness.
$ curl -vI https://crypto.cat
* About to connect() to crypto.cat port 443 (#0)
* Trying 94.254.0.157...
* connected
* Connected to crypto.cat (94.254.0.157) port 443 (#0)
* successfully set certificate verify locations:
[ ... snip ... ]
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA

If my understanding is correct, ECDHE offers "perfect forward secrecy", as discussed on HN a few days ago — each session uses an ephemeral key created for just that session. So past sessions are already protected against an SSL private key compromise, and changing the key wouldn't add protection.

Of course, only the Cryptocat folks could clarify what percentage (all?) of their users actually connect over an SSL method that offers PFS.
> What's the difference between doing that at the command line vs doing it in a script?

Testing. Clean consistent APIs. Dependency bloat.
Yeah! Exactly! Sorry if it was unclear, but what I meant was that I saw the latest wave of DBs (Rethink + Riak) as finally letting the administration & scalability side catch up to the programmer approachability side. Anyone with significant experience knows sharding MongoDB can be a massive pain. Sharding Cassandra is easier, but it certainly lacks the juicy programmer interfaces provided by more modern solutions. I'm very excited about the work you guys are doing.
Hang in there, brother! :) You still have like 5 points of karma.
small point: the author isn't saying "scripting languages aren't programming languages", nor are they saying "you cannot write programs in scripting languages" - they're saying that scripting - a particular style of program-writing - isn't programming, or put better "proper programming" which is arguably true, especially if you're writing bash or IPython scripts, where you have access to and make heavy use of shell commands.

That style of programming is very very different to regular compiled programs, and practicing one and never the other will lead to a bias, and relative incompetence in the other. This is why I'm rubbish at chaining unix commands together, because whenever I'm confronted by a problem that might need something that complex, I just use python. I have the reverse problem to the rhetorical sysadmin in the article.
Google is a paying partner of AdBlock Plus.
As usual, an idea adopted by our culture (you learn more from failure) to counter a still worse idea (never fail!) has been taken too far (you learn nothing from success).

Details, nuance, and subtlety matters. The stories we hear from our culture are almost always presented as black-and-white, because the gentler ideas won't cut through the noise. But it's the more complicated notions that are almost always closer to the truth.
For those interested, my insert time for ~250 records (~9.2MB of JSON) went from 340 seconds to 20 seconds.

Unfortunately when migrating from 1.6.2 to 1.7.1 I lost a table (not sure how) and all secondary indexes :(
The way I see it is:
Age 4: All users are sysadmins or programmers, because the ones who are not have moved to a tablet.
If you kill the ignition you lose power steering and possibly power brakes but wheel doesn't lock for good reason.
At least it reduces your vulnerability if you only unlock them for the few seconds it takes to step through for the toilet, I suppose. If they've some means to verify there's not a knife wielding maniac waiting outside the door the risk's probably minuscule.

Still. You'd think they'd have a toilet as part of the secure area on bigger planes - which I imagine is where most of the pilots who need to visit the men's room are. >_<
You guys seem like a step in the right direction! The improved locking, in particular. Sharding is still a nasty issue w/ MongoDB.
now I'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as programming

The article didn't claim that scripting languages don't count as programming. Despite the heading "scripting isn't programming", it doesn't even really claim that scripting isn't programming: it claims that if you switch from shell scripting language to a compiled language, but you still do most of the stuff by spawning child processes, you're most likely using the wrong tool for the job.
Bitcoin data with API
Even if you're using the non-secretbox APIs like crypto_box.
Are icelandic parliamentary bills typically that short?
What Is IT Monitoring? Part 1: Laying the Foundations
Most sysadmins aren't LAMP (or LNMP, or LNPR, or whatever the flavor of the day) programmers, who know how to make a todo list "pop". They aren't javascript ninjas, who actually know how to interact with the DOM. They don't know how build models of black holes, or self-driving cars, or make enemy sprites hunt you down in an interesting way, or debug a GUI.

Sysadmins do program. Their programs tend to be flatter (scripts, not frameworks), but that doesn't mean they aren't programmers. They probably can't build great frameworks, but not a lot of programmers can (but sadly, they try - every big corporate project seems to grow into a badly thought out framework).

If you pick any domain that's not "compiler design", you can probably make a good case that they aren't really programmers.
Without perfect forward secrecy. I'd probably take perfect forward secrecy over not needing a trusted third party for the protest use case, although neither is ideal.
How the 'string people' con works in Paris
> Speed dial - really - What's the point?

I use speed dial all the time, it's hard for me to believe that when it was first announced my first reaction was "meh, I don't need it". But it's extremely useful/comfortable, at least for me.
I would just like to say that it makes me very happy to see even modestly technical discussions about cryptology make it so high up on HN.

Lately it has seemed like all the highly ranked articles have been about the PEOPLE or COMPANIES doing crypto, and not about the cryptology itself.

Crypto is interesting not because people are doing it, breaking it, and improving it every day. Crypto is interesting because of HOW people are breaking it and improving it.
>"failure doesn't need to be an option"
You can't mitigate against failure completely, especially if you're gambling big.

Infact I'd argue that PayPal has failed as it is has not replaced banking to the levels it was initially envisaged. If anything, it's relevance today is being eclipsed by other technologies, easier payment by actual banks for one thing.
Been learning type level programming.
Learning scalaz and reading the simple codebase is where I'm at.
https://github.com/scalaz/scalaz
At what point aren't you designing your own cryptosystem? Even if you use NaCl you must store your keys, determine when and when not to encrypt, decide how to generate nonces, pick between symmetric and asymmetric ciphers. I understand strongly that you should work with as large a black box as you can afford, but it becomes increasingly grey as you move toward operational stuff over "obvious" crypto stuff.
Games too. Rust is starting to find a niche in game development, and Windows still rules the roost there.
My ideas board has Ideas, Up next, Doing and Launch. I also add colored labels to help organize cards better
How to Build A Top-10 App
I bought this app 2 days ago. I have a video that plays perfectly fine on my laptop but on the Apple TV the video goes blank after 15 minutes. It was a choice between them and AirParrot. Although it was cheaper I didn't need the mirroring AirParrot provides.
It's very simple why Boxee failed. Have you tried the product? Did you not notice that Boxee restricted where you could go? Boxee had a built-in list of domains you couldn't visit, no doubt to encourage you to settle for the domains with which it had licensing agreements. Read the fine print on the box and you will see.

I couldn't access YouTube! I returned my unit to the store where I bought it, and made sure the manager understood what he was selling.

Boxee was a despicable concept, insidiously controlling where you could and could not go. I now use a $300 laptop to watch what I want, when I want, on my 42" screen.
I'm a sysadmin who used to be a coder. I know a lot of people who have gone in either direction.

The reason I stopped coding is that I got into it to solve problems, but I got tired of spending what felt like 90% of my time writing unit tests, wrestling with frameworks, and solving problems with upgrades to the huge webs of dependencies for even basic projects. In other words, I got fed up with what coding has become. It's no longer hacking. It's toolchain management.

I'd always been a full stack developer, so I just started focusing more on the sysadmin side and gradually transitioned over there. I can manage toolchains just fine if I want to focus on that. My coding experience is handy when we're trying to troubleshoot a bug that only shows up on production ... uncommon, because our dev and QA groups are GREAT, but it still happens. I not only know where all the logs are, but I'm able to read the code and make sense of stack traces from the different languages we use.

Those who think what I've done is ridiculous don't understand how scripted everything that happens in the sysadmin world these days. Everything in infrastructure/operations is scripted except the troubleshooting -- and even that stuff gets scripted as soon as it's done so that it doesn't pop up again. Yes, the native language of these tasks is bash, but ruby and python are becoming really popular. So's haskell, for those who can speak it. What's disappointing me right now is that all of the chef stuff we're doing is starting to get complicated enough to have a big toolchain (thankfully managed right now with bundler) and starting to grow unit tests... Didn't I make a career change to get away from this crap?

I think I'll go be a DBA next. ;)
Maybe this one is just short because of how specific a request it is. What more could you say about it?
Because my 50-150 line bash scripts need that sort of overhead.
For UK readers, here's two related petitions calling on Parliament to launch inquiries.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392

Please sign. And as always, email your MP.

http://www.writetothem.com
I'd say this proves the OP's point. We don't believe in handouts. Paid vacation and sick time is something to be earned, not granted as a token thank you for working here.

Edit: If you're going to downvote, why not expound upon why I'm wrong?
What sort of power would the XboxOne hum along at? I figure it would be a power drain. I once considered getting a Wii to turn into a media centre as it is meant to sip rather than burn juice.

Electricity in the UK costs so much, that even leaving appliances on standby soon adds up, we worked out that turning the things off at the wall saves us £1.50 a week, and we don't even have many appliances.
Tell HN: My first protest
I'm 27 years old and I've never really been bothered to protest before. Sure, I've volunteered. I've participated in political campaigns. I've signed petitions and written my Congressmen. I've voted. But nothing had ever felt quite so bad to me that I needed to march. Other people would take care of that, as they always have, and the system would fix itself.

Something's changed. A little over a year ago today I enlisted in the Army National Guard. In a week I head to SD for "Phase 1" of Officer Candidate School. (I don't purport to represent the military).

Perhaps the reality of putting my life on the line for our country has made me take political change more personally. Of course, the past decades' worth of restrictions on our freedoms hasn't helped. I've seen many comparisons here between warrantless spying and past oppressions, or with other states' far more terrible security apparatuses. "It's really not that bad." "It could be worse." These all feel like false equivalencies.

We, of all people, should recognize the staggering, unpredictable impact that technology will have on our lives in just the coming decade alone. Given what we know about the accelerating pace of technology, are you really comfortable giving the government – any government – free reign over all your data? Do you want to set that precedent?

I'm no longer convinced that the system will self-correct. I see things coming to pass that make me worry for our collective future. I worry that if I don't step up and say something, these worries will be completely brushed aside.

Today I march. And I feel like it's the best thing I've done since I took my oath of enlistment.

Join me: http://www.restorethefourth.net/protests/
> They're complaining in essence that PGP isn't automatic and frictionless.

Exactly. That was cryptocat was, UX-wise. Automatic and frictionless. I believe if crypto can be built in that fashion, then it will really effect the world. In expert fields, GPG is used, but no average Joe uses it.
Assuming the server is set up to prefer these suites, and the browser supports them, this is good. Pretty sure all modern browsers will support this, though they may prefer other suites and the server may go with client preferences.

'course RC4 is considered more than a bit iffy itself these days.
It would be pretty ironic if you used funds from this plan to pay for a degree in economics.
Statement on planned Fourth of July demonstrations
Isn't the point that no-one should be surprised any more?

We've recently had revelations suggesting that several intelligence services are essentially grabbing as much communications data as they can. Why would anything think if the US are doing it and the UK are doing it that anyone else with a reasonable budget and level of technical capability isn't?

Moving forward (even prior to this but certainly now) the assumption should be that if a country has the resources to have an intelligence service which can do this, they're doing it.

With regards to this the most likely constraining factor for any intelligence service is money and resources rather than morality, legality or anything else.
That's all very nice, but what about the rest of the world?
Brazil to vaccinate 3.3 million preteen girls against HPV
How to stop worrying about CSS vendor prefixes
He could turn it off and roll it in like you would an airplane.
That's quite rude no? The OP was merely stating an opinion, which he/she is entitled to do. Bitter much?
EU to vote on whether to suspend U.S. data sharing agreements
It feels good, but you're exactly right. It takes away competition on price among universities, and it makes it even easier to get an incredibly expensive and useless anthropology degree.
It is best to do the following thought experiment: What if all communications data was available to "somebody"?

Well, sooner or later, this "somebody" would use it for things that for them are no-brainers: For example fighting terrorism in case of "somebody" = law enforcement. But then what?

Unfortunately, a situation in which somebody has all the data and is allowed to use it for a limited number of purposes is not stable. There is just too much that you can do with it, making the temptation irresistible. It then really doesn't matter if the scope of usage is extended in a million small steps or a few giant leaps, because the end state of a system with humans and data is that the humans will use the data.

But obviously, not everybody will have access to the data. We start (now) from a situation in which there is an information access asymmetry between the intelligence community and the general public and there is no indication that the intelligence community will ever be willing to give up this privileged position.

So in the end, all the data is available and it is used for many purposes, but the number of those that have access to it is limited, and their access gives them certain advantages over everybody else. This is how, over the course of a few dozen decades, you arrive at a security-clearance based caste system.
People probably assume that you work for retroshare and are using this thread to promote it.
That's a weird association between "unit tests" and "toolchain management". Did you feel it was a tedious part of development or what?
It will lose money on the median student but what matters is mean performance (expectancy).

That's not to say that I think this is a good idea, but there's plenty of precedent (including VC) for investments where the median loses but the mean is positive, because the big wins cancel out the losses.
Dear NSA - we're throwing you a July 4th party, it's gonna be big.
Art is expression.
Barebones box with intel atom, a bit of ram, and a small HDD is cheaper and does all that, and you don't have to deal with sidestepping Apple's odd file format restrictions. Throw XBMC on there and you're done, for about $150.
This is a horrible idea. Removing the financial barriers to college will get kids who shouldn't be going to go anyway without thinking about it.

I don't think education should cost an arm and a leg but you should have to think about it as your money. Which, IME, a lot of kids going to uni don't under a deferred payment system (a similar thing is currently operating in the UK - though there it's based on repayment of the loan against the ... I believe... consumer prices index.)

Honestly, I almost think that university is a bad idea altogether for many people these days. If a company wants a trained workforce they should be the ones paying. Seems the wrong way around at the moment. The kids have to take on all the financial risk themselves - but at a significant information and power disadvantage.
I don't know, what about the rest of the world...?

It's in your hands.
Apple files patent for crowdsourced real-time mapping, event, and traffic data
Operations Management - Paid Internship
TaskFirm is a UK-based startup that helps make entrepreneurs’ lives easier by providing premium and affordable virtual assistants.

We are expanding quickly and we’re looking to take on an enthusiastic staff-member to get involved in different aspects of the business, ranging from establishing operational procedures to producing a strong brand in a highly competitive market.

You should:

-Be driven to succeed and be a fast learner
-Be extremely organised and self-motivated
-Have great problem-solving skills
-Be resourceful, upbeat and enjoy getting things done on a startup budget (translation: you must be frugal, scrappy and happy)
-Have web and computing skills and a good command of MS Office
-Have achieved at least a 2:1 level degree

Your responsibilities will include but won’t be limited to :

-Account Management – You will need to communicate with our clients and ensure they receive a top notch customer service experience
-Sales and Marketing – Help us develop our brand identity and utilise it to improve our sales performance, this will include taking control of our social media presence and evaluating and improving its effectiveness
-Recruitment– develop a streamlined “new hire” paperwork process, advertise our job roles, screen and communicate with any potential new staff

About this opportunity:

-Although this is a junior role, you will have the opportunity to take ownership and responsibility early on
-You will learn about different aspects of running a business
-You will get exposure to various start-ups and expand your network

If this sounds like something you could do, please get in touch with us by completing this form:
http://taskfirm.wufoo.com/forms/taskfirm-job-application/

This will be a full-time paid internship of 3 months, starting ASAP, with the possibility of becoming permanent.
Flattr adds [partial] Bitcoin support
> that fixes all of the problems

Yet again: Cryptocat is broken. It is so broken that there is no possibility of making it work.
It's relieving that Iceland is the only country with any balls left for civil liberty, and all those that complained about the NSA spying but then refused Snowden asylum should be ashamed of their actions. It's an international embarrassment. Also quite ironic this happens on the Fourth.

As I type this, I breathe an immense sigh of relief. It's odd that Snowden, a man I hardly know, influences me that much. It's the feeling I get when I think of the founding fathers and their sacrifice and how it paid off after a long and difficult struggle.

I don't know if it will pay off for the United States, but bravo to Snowden for standing up and doing something apart from signing online "petitions."
"Adverse selection" was mentioned in the article. Going into a lucrative career? Self-fund. Want to learn something that will never pay you a decent wage? Sign up!

What you end up with is a bankrupt system program in a decade or so.
What To Put Into Your Pitch Deck
One of the best places to get information on your MP in the UK is http://www.theyworkforyou.com
I like that they felt the need to preemptively defend their work as "lawful." This feels like a whole lot of doublespeak.
If the user is placing their trust in the UX's ability to validate that PGP/GPG is working correctly and has not been tampered with, that sounds exactly like something that could get someone killed.
I meant for software in general; I guess you don't agree? My reasoning is that you have to think systematically about what can go wrong in order to be a good programmer, which is a skill that you can only acquire by finding bugs in programs.
Emulating a Browser in Python with mechanize