skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The "decline" is based on that in the US younger people do worse than older people when compared to other countries. Think of the study as a core sample.

"Some countries are making progress from generation to generation. But in the United States, as in Britain, the literacy and numeracy skills of young people coming into the labor market are no better than those who are about to retire. Americans who are 55 to 65 perform about average in literacy skills, but young Americans rank the lowest among their peers in the countries surveyed. The problem is not so much that the United States has gotten worse, but that it stood still on indicators like high school graduation rates while its foreign competitors rushed forward. Beginning in the 1970s, other developed nations recognized that the new economy would produce few jobs for workers with mediocre skills."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/the-united-states-...
Why is relying exclusively on information that's been filtered through a foreign government, possibly with its own agenda, a sensible way to gather intelligence?
Potentially they could internally set their prices in dollars, and multiply by the exchange rate to get their current bitcoin price.
Wow. Perhaps we can use this as a good example of absolute power corrupting absolutely?
As an actual CFA charterholder, I can tell you any analyst I work with would have laughed out loud at someone bragging about passing level 1

Can you tell me what IT certification tests you have passed? You may have missed the fact that I've been in IT for 20 years, remain in IT and will always be in IT.

I'm sure a native Spanish speaker wouldn't be too impressed with my ability to speak Spanish either. But I would hope they would have more class than to "laugh out loud" at a native English speaker putting forth significant effort at learning their language.
Full Screen Mario - A Programming Introduction
The big question is, who controls this security state? The information is being collected, but who's the audience?

And what is their agenda?
Evernote's Libin: Be Friends With People You Can Build Things With
you can fix that by editing a config file. Here's how in Chrome http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_reset_google_chrom...
Apple Giving iOS Devs Free Copies of OS X Server
Why do ECC when RSA-2048 works just fine? One argument I keep hearing is that as we keep factoring the RSA numbers we just come up with bigger ones.

Not a cryptography expert here, I don't know how to respond to these.
Race is absolutely a factor, but only insofar as white people enslaved black people, then legislated them into second class citizenship. Post-1960s, I guess we're on to blaming them (hence the stupid & lazy stereotype) because we think they should've gotten over it & recovered by now.
Do you think historic inequalities also explain the Asian/White achievement gap?
Oh wow..

From my point of view the point here is the "Chinese Wall"[1] that used to exist between organic results and paid advertising.

That used to be clearly defined, and the trust that came from that was one of Google's strengths.

The way the "Sponsored" result hides the organic result for [Southwest Airlines] (by scrolling it off the page) makes that wall redundant - effectively Google is being paid for any click there. Or that's what I think anyway: your comment "the navigational ad and the first organic result are combined" makes me think that Google is actually combining paid and organic results without labelling them separately at all. In that case the "Chinese Wall" is gone completely.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall
How to Eavesdrop on a Former NSA Chief on a Train
And don't take a taxi, either. They have cameras. And don't drive, because they have license plates and cities have cameras at red lights.
I don't understand, what is the problem if we have different compiled binary?
DBS surgeries are somewhat invasive as they involve sticking a 3mm electrode all the way through cortex and deeper structures into the basal ganglia. That being said, anecdotally I believe the side effects are mostly modest, though can't speak on that authoritatively.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/deep-brain-stimulation/MY00...
Maybe now they'll have enough money to figure out a decent search ads account UI and offline editor like Google has. Currently they're almost as much of a pain as healthcare.gov.
Interesting example of a useful smartphone extension that is Android-only because of limitations in the access iOS gives 3rd party apps.
Exactly. I don't take things like this serious. Given your example, one could look at studies of watching TV and spending time on the computer, and postulate that one would be exercising the brain more.

The catch? The computer is just a tool. Some people use it 24/7, only consume sedentary media, and can skew these results. While some other folks utilize the device to save time on their shopping, social communication, taxes, personal growth, hobby development, and professional networking device.

A computer is a tool. If studies show that more people choose to use it in a reckless and hedonistic manner, then that's more telling of us humans than the effects of the internet. If those same people can't ruin their lives on computers, they'd do so at a bar, or at a casino, or in front of their TV all day.
Am I surprised that this covert activity is happening? No. I'm not even surprised by the scale.

What will be interesting to find is who's not in that list that should be.

Who are the puppet masters?
Germany and France do it to us. They're likely just not as talented at it. One way nation states stay allies is knowing, at least to some level, that the public statements match the private.

http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc...
> Germany is not plotting against the United States. What scenario would they use info for?

Being certain that Germany is not plotting against the United States, I'd guess.
Good to know. Mine's a 2006 MBP. :( Stuck on something so ancient I don't even want to pull it out and fire it up to figure it out. It's too bad when a $300 netbook from the same year has outlasted my very expensive laptop in utility.

I hope my current rMBP gets a better life expectancy.
alias refresh-bash="source ~/.bash_profile"
Legally blind Grade 4 student sees with high-tech glasses
I wonder what terrible things Asians did to whites such that they earn higher income, commit fewer crimes, and do better in schools than whites while living in historically white countries.
I'm not suggesting this isn't news, it certainly is. Just that it's not out of the ordinary for either the NSA or governments in general. It's news in that we got caught.
Ugh. I'm extremely skeptical of auto-updates. My servers don't auto-update, my workstation doesn't auto-update..nothing I own, auto-updates if it's capable of it.

Can anyone tell me if it can be turned off? All I'm seeing is this:

For developers there are lots of options around how to control the new updates feature, including allowing it to handle major upgrades as well as minor ones, more sophisticated date query support, and multisite improvements.

I've been burned one too many times. I see a MASSIVE WP failure in the near future where an update gets pushed out and takes millions of Wordpress sites offline...

It's happened with Bitdefender. It's happened with AVG. It's happened with Windows 8.1 RT.
I guess Mailbox will support other email soon
What's amazing to me is how popular Linux has become while no one is promoting it. Both MS and Apple have spent loads on marketing and polishing their products. No one is marketing "Linux".
It's important for Windows users to have access to trusted encryption programs.
When you read Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, which describes in detail this architecture and the logic and mechanics of the programs that use it, you wonder whether maybe Hofstadter got famous for the wrong book.

I cannot recommend "Creative Analogies" more. I have purchased no less than four copies (two for myself; two for others, including K. Barry Sharpless, who once made a remark about AI that was reminiscent of some of the ideas in CA) over the years. It's even better than "Surfaces".
Why are they funding breast implants?
I'd like to add that the Shanghai numbers are highly skewed. Half the students in Shanghai live there illegally, and attend informal schools. The Shanghai numbers represent the performance of the wealthiest 50%.
To quote, er, myself: "What does the NSA even do if not this?"

http://guscost.com/2013/06/27/nsa-snoops/
still funny ;)
As long as there's a switch to turn it off, you'll be just fine. Meanwhile millions of poorly monitored sites will be less vulnerable to attack at the cost of what I suspect will be relatively infrequent update snafus. All security is a tradeoff and this is a good one.
What makes you think $15 entitles you to a lifetime purchase let alone $2.99? What else in your life do you get to keep forever for that amount?

A pair of levi jeans: ~$50 of ~3 years; an iPhone ~$500 for ~3 years; a beer ~$5 for ~30 mins.

I bought a coffee in Starbucks yesterday. How dare they charge me for another today!

Most apps are priced at even less than a coffee. The profit on most apps is less than that on one tomato.

Yet, you feel entitled?
How on earth is knowing the internal dealings of foreign governments not "gaining a decision advantage for the Nation"?!
Hummingbird vs penguin 2.1 algo comparison
Information has become the most valueable thing. Whoever controls it, they surely do have much more power than any elected leader.
Not laughing at the effort, I rather encourage it and congratulate you passing level one. Everyone has to start there obviously. Its the attitude that rubbed everyone the wrong way.
Yes, we've (http://wpengine.com) decided to disable the auto-updates as we want to perform our client account-specific tests before upgrading future versions BUT I welcome the addition of auto-updates given that the majority of WordPress installs do not live at Managed WordPress Hosts.
This Scientist Invents DIY Medical Devices out of Toys and Gadgets
One solution to this problems is asking the required information from users, even in advance(say 20 minutes), and in return offer the relevant discount. Do you think it'll work, and is it possible to sell this to drivers?
It's sad that the app store's lack of support for paid upgrades has created this totally unrealistic expectation that a $5 purchase entitles you to a lifetime of upgrades. Do you really think that is sustainable? You still have the original version you purchased, it's not like the developers have taken something away from you!
ECC is significantly faster than RSA at equivalent security levels. In case it isn't immediately clear: RSA-2048 doesn't provide 2048 "bits of security"; the 2048 describes the modulus size, but the security level is closer to 115 bits. A 256 bit ECC curve provides more security than a 2048 bit RSA key.

Another reason is that progress against ECC has been slower than it has against crypto in the integer mod prime groups. ECC is based on a variant of the discrete log problem that defines multiplication in way that isn't amenable to index calculus algorithms, which are making progress against integer DLP. It may be that in the future, it won't be sufficient to steadily ramp up RSA or DH modulus sizes. ECC is thought to be more future-proof.

Finally, ECC constructions happen to be quite amenable to modern crypto protocols; it is easy to do DH with ECC, and easy to sign with ECC, and DH+signatures forms the backbone of a number of modern protocols (because it's a design that provides forward secrecy).
Humans have a long history of fallings-out between allies, at times in very surprising ways. One way of avoiding this is knowing what your ally is up to.
Hobbism is not trendy* nowadays. There is nothing aimed at hobbists for sale at any big retailer. It's not a problem with computers.

* Well, there is a perfectly rational reason for that, and it is not really a problem for hobbists. But that's the fact.
Based on those numbers, 20% of units not rented out by a landlord or vacant are seasonal/occasional use in Manhattan. That seems like a pretty major chunk, considering this isn't a vacation town. (And don't forget "Manhattan" includes a huge chunk of rental housing above ~96th street, which is a much less appealing market to foreign buyers.

It's definitely relevant to the overall housing market, because while 20 years ago the bankers and lawyers would have rented or purchased on the Upper East Side or Upper West Side, they're now (often) priced out and buying places in Brooklyn and the Bronx. 15 years ago I used to see a working class neighborhoods when I walked around on the far side of the river in Brooklyn, LIC or even Hoboken/Jersey City; now there are multi-million-dollar apartments there.

Any time you hear investment bankers talking about how they can't afford a 2-bedroom in Manhattan, something's gone seriously out of whack with the real estate market.
Baby steps my friend.
Well, yeah, if your laptop is always sitting on a table and you walk up and type on it without ever moving it, then you really have a desktop and weight is irrelevant.

But laptops get carried, they get held in odd positions while you're moving around. If they're light enough you can hold them above you in bed without your arms falling off. You can sit sideways on the couch and prop them on your knees. At that point, ever 18% lighter is very important.
> Do you routinely monitor the calls, emails and communications of your closest friends and relatives?

No, but I don't do joint military exercises or globally coordinated bank bailouts with them, either. I don't think NATO easily analogized by my Thanksgiving table.
Technically speaking, philosophy will never be able to produce any result, the moment it can, the philosophical problem turned into a scientific problem.

But answering isn't actually philosophy's job. It's mostly for producing question, and science will in turn answer those questions (or make it irrelevant).
I just updated a test site to 3.7 and I'm not seeing anywhere this can be turned off.
I was referring to the new implementation in JavaScript.
It doesn't even list all the OECD countries. This gives the false impression that US is at the bottom. Yep, it's worse than everyone better than it!
I think it spends on the audience - going for like minded tech savvy folk, I don’t think it matters that much if they have problems typing/remembering whatever TLD extension they will try other methods to find it.

Now if your audience is more the general public at large. .com is the default for most web browsers to append to non-TLD identified addresses. Or in a search the .com selection may seem more like the logical choice to a neophyte user.

So going for the older generations, try to stick with .com, contemporaries or younger then you probably can diverge from that without problems.
I've had several bugs fixed in quite a few of my open source projects. Even bugs I've posted on my own projects. And they have only a fraction of the attention yours does.

Why not open the issues up and see if it works out? If anything, you can close them if it's becoming a burden.

In any case, thanks for open-sourcing this project.
On the inevitability human computer interfaces leading to some form of Übermenschine: "We just have to hope that Dick Cheney isn't the first person they plug in."
Now you know one person. I use Windows solely because my game of choice isn't available for Linux (Until Valve finishes it), and I find the solution provided by WINE to be insufficient.

Granted, I'm not a good representative of the average user.
Do profits matter? The curious case of Amazon.com
recently announced that it is raising the minimum purchase amount from $25 to $35 to qualify for free shipping. Though no reason was given, the consensus seems to be that it’s a way to push customers toward the Amazon Prime subscription in addition to the more obvious reasons being to get customers to spend more and to offset the incredible amount of shipping costs Amazon pays for.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/24/do-profits-matter-the-curious-case-of-amazon-com/#YHuxO3At6FrqRYYx.99
GPG doesn't do disk encryption (full or any), and LUKS is linux-only. That's what keeps people from "just migrating away"...

It doesn't matter what you or I personally prefer, if you want what at least seems to be trustworthy and secure[1], cross-platform cryptography, Truecrypt is what you want.

[1]: Obviously, that is the part that is slowly being evaluated and tested. We'll see what'll happen.
Does this mean an unknown person or group that has control of the NSA intelligence is effectively running the United States?
No problem.

>And my problem with such claims is that it seems like you're actually just proposing another kind of government; a local and decentralized one. After all a government is just an agreement between a set of people to organize affairs of mutual interest, right?

Agreed, but left-anarchists tend not to argue based on some absolute principal, so this is not an issue (as I mentioned in my disclaimer, our views were quite different from "classical" anarchists).

>Would it be correct to say that anarchists (in general or the left kind) actually prefers several smaller societies rather than one big central one?

Yes

>Also one could argue (as you kinda did) that once upon a time there were only such tribal societies, and that the societies we see today have evolved from those. So if you (with the belief you once held) argue that we should revert to such a system, how would you propose to prevent the inevitable "degradation" to the current system?

I agree, which is one reason why I no longer hold these beliefs. But the more important reason for me is that these societies just weren't as good as they were claimed to be. It's easy not to notice the problems in a society that you don't live in or even know very much about.

The only beliefs that I have in common with those groups are (1) that formal rights need to be closely scrutinized to see if they actually correspond to some rights in the real world, and (2) there may in some situations be ways of producing the best outcome that don't involve formal rights, but instead involve informal conventions that arise from the community.
Not entirely true... Oracle and IBM both push Linux, and of course Red Hat and SUSE are both ~1 billion dollar companies.
It could very well be that a NEW SYNTHESIS of all these different approaches will be necessary for us to understand how complex, multi-layered models consisting of a very large number of 'mindless' components ultimately produce what we call "intelligence."

I'm still learning AI (my training and dollar-paying job is in chemistry; I am really drawn to Hofstadter's "thinkodynamics" analogy). I think there's something to what you say. I'm playing around with the idea that a perceptron can be used to produce low-level sensory input to the analogy-crafting machinery that Hofstadter outlines in "Creative Analogies" - which, if you haven't read, you should read.

During my free time (which has been lacking of late, hence fewer commits), I'm playing around with something of a manifesto towards this idea of merging Hofstadter's concepts with contemporary AI: https://github.com/ityonemo/positronicbrain
Truth be told, these are early days even though we have used stimulation for a while now (artificial cardiac pacemakers). After all, this is brain surgery. You implant electrodes bilaterally into the deep brain (thalamic region for Parkinson's) and send small shocks. The hope is this in turn will impact the neuronal signaling that causes excessive or too little movement. In addition, it is not clear what the signals do the nearby neurons (question: do they die and in turn what happens to other brain functions etc.) and impact over longer term as you keep stimulating (what happens to the neurotransmitter responses etc.). So, definitely a lot of studies like the DARPA one need to be undertaken.

So the usual caveats apply. You need to have tried other means (pharmacological, exercise), need to be healthy and willing to risk adverse consequences. In the case of the video linked, it is somewhat of a no brainer. The person is young 39 years old with a family. He seems to have a pretty bad case of Parkinsons. I'm sure he is willing to enjoy a much better quality of life even if it is risky.
How Can You Gain This 1200mAh Jammer Battery?
I guess you summed it up. Indeed having more depth in a language is very important and useful, I was just trying to make a point that these aren't the only things.
Here is how I perceive a language,

It is made up of syntax and behaves in a certain way. If you read the documented features you'll know all of it. There may be some undocumented things which may not be of utmost importance. However, this is just the base of programming. And when you start dealing with 5-6 languages you can forget things if you don't have a good memory but the good thing is it's all documented and known features. Whereas while programming, one can often be involved in solving unknown problems, which can't be figured out just by googling.
Low-background Steel
Think I have to agree with you on that. Despite all the umbrage from HN, etc crowd, they prolly know it isn't really hurting them & the financial rewards are great.

Just doesn't seem like the greatest marketing strategy at the moment :-)
Funny story. Some armed forces surgeons get "practice" by putting in breast implants. At least that's what my wife who worked at the VA said.
These discoveries will also be used for interrogation.
That's a straw-man. LinkedIn is attacking the human side of information security, not the technical side. They're going after email today because it happens to be everywhere.

Tomorrow's communication system could be leagues more secure than email, but if we don't put LinkedIn in their place now, we're signaling to them that they're welcome to try the same thing tomorrow (perhaps using PGP keys instead of login credentials). Even the most secure cryptosystems are worthless if you can convince a small subset of users to hand you their keys to the castle.

Obviously email today is pretty terrible and should be treated like a postcard, but it's the principle that I'm getting upset about. I don't want LinkedIn conditioning my mom and dad into thinking that it's reasonable to hand over your login credentials, because it most definitely isn't.
In terms of access to your mail data, there is no difference. The Oauth token you grant is operationally equivalent to an IMAP password.
There's a constant so that you can turn it off. In the linked article, the first paragraph in the section about auto-updates links to the wordpress wiki page about it, the constant is basically point 1a on that page.
From my understanding, if you can achieve deterministic builds, it makes it easier to detect tampering.
Is NIH syndrome such a big deal with engineers that they need to implement EVERYTHING? I'm leading a team of 3, including myself, and I can't imagine a worse way to spend your time. Why would I spend precious hours re-implementing a non-core problem badly when there's someone already doing it well?

When you support a SaaS service, assuming the product is good, you're essentially paying for an entire team to work on a problem you don't like that much but need, but which they love. You're also paying for the future of that product. Unless the software is really bad, or you need something so specialised that a current solution is out of the question, how does an engineer not understand this?

You only have limited time in the world. Work on something you find meaningful.
Happy Ending!