skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Palo Alto, CA

INFER, INC.

- Team: <10 engineers from MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Google/Google Research, Facebook, Y Combinator, Microsoft Research, Palantir, IBM Research, Yahoo Research, ...

- Investors: Red Point, a16z, SHV, Social Capital, ...

- Customers: Box, Jive, Microsoft, Tableau, Zendesk, AdRoll, Nitro, and many more

- Product: machine learning applications for non-technical users to help their businesses more effectively capture and retain customers

- Looking for: strong engineers excited to join an early-stage startup to grow with & shape the company

EXAMPLES OF RESPONSIBILITIES

- Build predictive models using sophisticated algorithms and data extracted from the web and other sources

- Build beautiful visualizations to help customers understand model performance and meaning

- Develop and operate secure, scalable cloud infrastructure to manage and process customers' large, confidential datasets

- Interact with customers, analyze their data, understand their pain points, and develop new product features and new products

QUALIFICATIONS

- BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Math or related fields

- Depth in software engineering, algorithms, and general analytical problem-solving

- Familiarity with Python preferred

CONTACT

- https://www.infer.com

- hiring+hn@infer.com
FedEx DVDs held at U.S. Customs until video declaration form completed (2012)
I've used EDA tools (both board design and chip design) for over 30 years, and in that time there's been one constant: what the designers want to accomplish is usually at (or beyond) the limit of what the tools and platforms are capable of. So yes the tools are "shitty" for what we want to accomplish tomorrow. They're superb compared to what we had yesteryear.

You might not like my "sloppy" choice of words. But IMO the difference between good engineers and mediocre ones is exactly what you called a "keen eye for detail".

I agree the tools could be, and should be, a lot better. It's a copout by the tool vendors when they produce "thousands of warning and info messages". And yet the good engineer must wade through those messages. That is part of the necessary "get on with it" attitude.
Gawande is one of my favorite non-fiction authors; I've learned a ton from his books and articles. I second (and would third and fourth if I could) the recommendation for The Checklist Manifesto here.
That user is not joking, but note that you generally prove that string concatenation is associative once, not every time.
I'm always interested to see intelligent criticisms of one of my choice languages. Let's take a look at what he has to say:

Slow build times complaint

> It is essentially impossible to practice TDD in Scala simply due to the time it takes to compile.

Hrmm, that's interesting, because it sure seems like other people are able to do this. I agree, the slow build times are annoying, but let's not exaggerate.

SBT critiques

>That punctuation-strewn build system I was forced to use was just taking advantage of Scala’s ridiculously flexible syntax.

Yeah, I get it, everyone makes fun of SBT's syntax.

Language is complicated

This is where it just kind of descends into whining about how 'hard' the language is. He claims javascript is a "simple" language. Does he just not count the weird edge cases when thinking about complexity?

Type inference complaint

> And this is the real death knell for Scala. Hindley-Milner Type Inference is a fantastic thing.... It’s enabled monads, which you want to be able to understand and then use in a type-free language.

WAT. I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

>In my mind, Hindley-Milner was always the promise and the pay-off for Scala...I know this is the fault of the JVM’s use of type erasure. I don’t care.

O REALLY? Go on...

Maybe if this guy had cared enough to do a five second google he'd realize that Scala doesn't use hindley-milner type inference.

Bottom line is, I think I have a good understanding of the type of programmer this guy is, and it's exemplified nicely in this quote right here:

>Sure, with another couple hours we would have been able to figure it out… [but] We ended up copying and pasting the same four lines into all our endpoints. A dark moment.

For an intelligent critique of the scala langauge see here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1pjjy5/odersky_the_...
Not that I don't believe it could be true, but are we really supposed to trust a 4chan post?
FedEx - Service Guide - Tools
Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?
This tale is all too believable. I wish I lived in a world where the police had the common sense to ask themselves, Why would the person who collected this material bring it to us? It makes no sense whatsoever that he would.

Anyway, independent of the truth of the anecdote, the advice seems sound. Why risk it?
Probably something like Arduino. Here's an example: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11377
"Ubiquitous" is quite a strong word. Maybe "available" would be a better word for 2025.

There are just too many technical, cultural, and political unknowns to think that you'll see more than prototypes and a few early adopters within 10 years.
With More Work, Less Time, Dookhan’s Tests Got Faster
I thought they have already been doing this in Australia[1] to some degree. I suppose they are not independent trucks but then I'm not sure what the new advantages are if a person is still involved. With the Powertrain, they can split the trailers apart at destination and use normal cabs for distribution I guess.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train
Yes, most likely the password used a common word or something else similar susceptible to being brute-forced.
It doesn't much matter if it's really true or not. The real question is whether it's plausible or not. And, it is.
Great comment! Thanks. I updated the post.
First, my sentence was carefully constructed to say that his essays "do not comprise a collection of disparate examples surprisingly linked through a common thread." I scanned through a couple essays to confirm my impression, which is that his essays are mostly composed of his personal experience plus directly-applicable examples which are used to illustrate a point.

Secondly, I said ideally statistically valid. Good essays can be written without the use of statistically significant data properly interpreted, but the conclusions can only be as powerful as the evidence used to support them, as always. If Paul Graham's essays had included, for example, statistical data on the performance of startups that he has funded broken down by category I would consider them more highly informational.

What's going on here is that I think the level of insight and analysis that many people think is laudable in a written work, I consider shameful, and highly prone to bias and error. I never said I don't agree with the thesis of this piece (I have absolutely no dog in that fight). Perhaps you think I am the same person that you were originally responding to?
I would think that if you were to find something that you really think needs to be investigated, then it would be best to send it to experts on the subject rather than people who have no idea how to deal with it. The experts would have the training, funding and experience to properly deal with this. This would be especially critical if the material required fast action.

ETA:

It seems to me that if someone were to bring in this material, then investigating the "messenger" would be a waste of time. The information you need is largely in the images.

I imagine the first priority (other than decryption) would be to run the images against a national database. If there are images which aren't in the database, then you have new victims which may need immediate help. Then investigate the images for anything which would put a time and a place on the images. Investigating the person who turns these in seems like it would be quite a ways down the list.
> but im talking long term, when currencies will be backed by actual work that provides social and economical value

If it were possible, the absolute currency would be 'life time' as in the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time. In the absence of that, something equally dear for staying alive in a increasingly moving towards apocalypse world, like may be bottles of oxygen or water ? But even then, the things that are of value may not be easier/handy to barter/trade with. That is when an alternative 'scarce' 'hard to create and requires resource intensive mining' but 'easy to handle' , 'easy to determine purity' type of resource takes the place as a currency. Gold has that property inherently. Not saying that it is the only absolute resource that has it. But it is a time tested resource with those qualities.
What is my biggest gripe theoretical gripe about Scala is that Trait order is important! Because traits can override common function. A class that is e.g. Ball with traits Shiny and Red is NOT the same as e.g. Ball with traits Red and Shiny. Why? Why complicate testing to a point where you need not only test traits for correct behavior, and not just composing of Traits, but even the order in which they are composed? Why?! Why complicate it so much?

Note: It's been a while since I've seen traits, this might have changed for better.

To me Scala is essentially if Java, Haskell and C++ went to a wizard to have a child. The result is a magical mess. I seriously think that Scala has at least twice as many concepts as C++ and same if not greater number of really weird edge cases. I don't want to keep Scala in my mind, no more than I want to keep Necromicon.
> Why risk it?

Because depending on exactly what is on that card there may be a child in real pain?

Maybe it's old photos, but if it's recent stuff you can actually help someone.
"Run pfSense on an old x86 box"

I will one up that with: run pfsense on an old s86 laptop with two pcmcia card slots. Because xircom realport.

Because it is a laptop you'll never need KVM because KVM is built-in - no more fiddling with the com port or lugging over a monitor, etc. (also, built-in UPS is a nice bonus).

But my favorite part is that by using two xircom realport LAN cards[1], you end up with a device with three full size rj45 ports on it (assuming the laptop itself has one).

It's cute and sexy to have some tiny little embedded board, but the laptop wins for usability by a wide margin.

[1] http://reviews.cnet.com/adapters-nics/xircom-realport-2-card...
In internet we are just as (non?) believable; don't mind the domain name.
The first thing this person should have done if he/she wanted to actually help the victims was go to his/her own lawyer for advice. Barring that, the advice in the 4chan thread to destroy it is probably best for him (sadly).
There was a discussion on Slashdot before the guy's Twitter account 404'd. This comment [1] caught my eye.

Since the tweet is gone, I can't verify the quote for myself. But, if it's accurate, it looks like the customer has very poor conflict resolution skills when it comes to anything getting between him and Google Glass.

[1] http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4504895&cid=45564881
They do in fact show ads in the form of other book "recommendations" based on what you've read.

Ultimately I think we may be of different minds about what we consider acceptable consumer/merchant relationship.

When I bought my kindle, looking for hidden gotchas was simply not part of my calculation. I expected I was buying a device...if there was a popup during the checkout process that said this product is ad support, I absolutely would not have bought it.

We haven't even gotten into the insidious implications of this type of intrusive marketing for people (kids especially). This is not about moralizing, I simply consider this unacceptable, others may defer.
Elaborating;

The optimal (most efficient, safest) way to get computer-controlled cars to work;

- All drivable areas mapped (Not just the roads - EVERYTHING, since you might want to go off-road. What if; landslide, earthquake, someone digs a hole somewhere, leaves a brick on the street, etc.)

- Knows where everyone is (going) at all times (privacy issue)

- Has everyone on the same system (not happening within 12 years)

Since I don't see these three happen, they have to be dealt with somehow. The bracketed issues are fully remedied only by the solutions written before them. Anything less will be fighting the symptoms, not the disease, and be a never-ending battle.

There are so many obstacles to be overcome, so much politics to be done, so many technical challenges, so much bureaucracy ... 12 years really isn't that long.
Justice is about more than retribution.
What possible motive would he have to turn it in if he had anything to do with it?
I can only speculate about her motives. But the system that is set in such a way that prisons can be privately owned and prisoners exploited for personal gain is a recipe for disaster. Stakeholders making profit from prisoners have a strong incentive to somehow ensure that as many people as possible get sent to prison for as long as possible no matter whether they are guilty or not. Some might decide to achieve this by bribing someone in the chain of obtaining/evaluating evidence. In a penal system like this it's just a matter of time before something like this happens.

BTW, it might also be a nice way to explain why punishments tend to be so much harsher than for example in Europe - in the US can being 'tough on crime' be profitable.
I have never googled anything related to quitting facebook, cigarettes, drinking nor vim. I don't even know what vim is.

But it would have been better to search in incognito mode.
Please do not post anything ever again from 4chan. Most posts there are nothing but lunatic and juvenile.
One possible answer:

http://theprofoundprogrammer.com/post/31260129412/
34000 over nearly a decade career. It's 9.3 cases per day for 10 years, without weekends, vacations or holidays.
And 45 minutes of work per case. Provided she had 7hr working day and a lunch break. And she occasionally testified in courts.
How is that even possible?
Because C++ is crappy, but doesn't really have any serious competitors within it's domain.
What really amazes me is how many people on that thread were asking for a copy.
DIY Tech Kit Makes Building Computers as Easy as Lego
The notion of "control" is silly, you will still be the captain of the car, just not the driver. What if the wetware system kills 100 times as many people, should you still be able arbitrarily override the automated driver?

I already accept a lot of places that I should let machines handle a task for me. I drive an automatic transmission rather then shift myself. I have traction control that overrides my foot to give me better control of the car. I fly in planes that are mostly flown by autopilot.

Assisted driving will only be a short stopgap. It will be quickly gotten rid of because of cost to maintain two systems and because the ugliness of a "drivers seat". Interiors will look nothing like they do now. There will be no drive-shaft (fully electric) so no big bump or center console in middle of car. No steering column, no mirrors and a completely different arrangement of seats then now.

In other words a fully automated car looks nothing like an assisted driving car. I doubt people are going to want to pay more and sit in less comfortable cabin, just for the opportunity to override the computer driver.
Curiosity would lead to someone doing that. The encryption would either magnify the curiosity or push them on that detective slant.
Doesn't count. Reality doesn't change because they use spooky definitions for their newspeak terms.

On the other hand, I'm sure there could be cases where public interest and human rights are at odds. Say, torturing an enemy soldier over an upcoming attack from his own unit. (Assuming war was the solution in the first place…)

What would you chose? I personally may chose torture, if I estimate it is the lesser of two evils. (The other evil has to be pretty big, and I'd better be sure this is really the right call, as opposed to me being motivated by revenge or something —moral dilemmas suck.)
Unlikely that it was something decent like Truecrypt volumes and more likely nested encrypted zips/RARs.

Since the vast majority of these are encrypted with a simple text passcode, dictionary attacks are pretty routine against them.

http://home.schmorp.de/marc/fcrackzip.html

http://rarcrack.sourceforge.net

(as two examples)
I'm not sure I understand the point of the post.

I like the idea of submittal checklists, indeed this is a part of our business that maps very literally to what our users need to do: complete a list of tasks before submitting an electronic bill.

However, equating submittal checklists to something including stand ups seems weird to me. Would you really have a checklist saying "Did stand up meeting today." and if so, why?

The point of a checklist is to put knowledge of what needs to be done for a task in the world instead of keeping it in the head (I've borrowed this idea from The Design of Everyday Things). Checklists are for complicated things, like the aircraft checklist you mention, that require every step to be checked otherwise people may die.

I'm a fan of small checklists for software development that determine when a user story is completed. In Tracker there's tasks you can add to a story that can be used as acceptance criteria, for example.

But what good is a communication checklist? Is it really a desire to have a checklist that includes items such as "had standup meeting?" And if so, why?
Once Congress is shown that at least 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths per year could be eliminated by forcing autonomous vehicles on everyone, it will be illegal to operate a vehicle manually on first the Interstates, then eventually on every public road.
Drowning in JavaScript
i have had a lot of problems with Ads. Ads used to be ok and not as bad as they are now. They are as bad as those pop ads that used to show up on websites. But no matter what argument is raised as to how good or bad ads are I will always use an Adblocker. And Yes Google+ has gone Fanatical with the Ads ever since they bought out YouTube and I am fed up with it.
It sounds like the type of story you'd tell to try to stop people from doing the right thing in situations like this.
You're still assuming way too much (and also over-generalising). Grad students leave their studies all the time, sometimes to start companies based on their work (some of my friends have done this). Others may leave academia and join the workforce and sometimes grad school gives them a pay/status bump and sometimes not (irrespective of whether or not they finished - which indicates 'usual academic channels' don't always matter).

I've realised from your final question that you're conflating two different issues. University research likely isn't driven by the desire to make patentable stuff. Looking back earlier in the thread, I think that's the point you're making and I do agree [1]. However, you're mixing it up with the separate discussion of whether (and how) the University should participate in the commercial exploitation of research work, e.g. when someone does want to patent something and make money from it.

On that point, it's worth comparing with what happens in industry. Employment contracts can state that anything you end up inventing during your service belongs to your employer [2]. Therefore, is it unreasonable that University, as an employer, would try to assert the same? I'm not making a judgement on this, rather pointing out a view that may be held by others (I suspect it would be an unpopular view in most of my circles and I'm not sure how I feel about it). In any case, that seems to be your main question and I'm sure it's a contentious one for any academic institution (it was at mine).

[1] Unless it's funded by pharma companies. I've had friends who can't reveal details of their work until the work is complete and the patent applications are in and the papers have been published (in that order). In all cases, they were partially, or wholly, funded by big pharma companies.

[2] http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-...
Wasn't this one of the algorithmically generated headlines?
My reaction too: it's just baiting the rabble.

Though if you do ever happen to come across an SD card filled with encrypted child pornography, personally decrypting it and turning it in to the police is probably not the brightest course of action.
A hidden SD card containing encrypted archives could be lots of things. It's like a puzzle. I'm sure it made him curious. Why would you assume the contents are illegal? I wouldn't.

To me the op is no different from people who participate in ARGs. Only in this case, the prize at the end of the game was a ruined life.

If the police behavior sounds implausible, you haven't read any stories about similar cases.
It's almost like HN has no understanding of how trolling on 4chan works.
>told police that she messed up big time.

She came forward. She came to police and honestly tried to fix it and guess what she got for that - a royally fucked life. I betcha there will not be any more volunteers like that.
The "simple language" comment was about CoffeeScript, not Javascript. One of the common complaints about CS is that you absolutely need to know what JS every nontrivial CS contruct compiles to, but he doesn't consider this a big deal because there simply aren't very many of them. Scala, on the other hand, has more features that he considers "magic" than he can easily keep track of.
Chute (YC W12) - http://www.getchute.com/jobs - San Francisco, CA

Senior Frontend Developer, Full Time

Chute helps brands, retailers, and publishers ingest, manage, and display real-time visual content on their sites, social channels, in-venue, and even in their advertising. We provide a fully customizable cloud platform and a suite of brand and publisher friendly applications. We currently work with some of the world’s biggest brands, agencies, publishers, and developers, including NBC, Turner, Condé Nast, NY Times, Huffington Post, Hearst, the NBA, Nike, Starbucks, Live Nation, AEG, Universal Music Group, and nearly 4,000 others. http://www.getchute.com/

----

We're hunting for someone with a passion for well tested, clean front end code. We're building out lots of new pieces with a combination of Backbone and Marionette.js and looking for someone to help guide the future of these various apps. You should be comfortable with Jasmine and ideally you've worked on a production site using Backbone.
Remember people, don't talk with the police: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Seriously, the algorithmically generated headline program, could automatically stage and generate common error connections and drive the HN crowd nuts.
More info from upstream:

Press release - https://www.redhat.com/about/news/press-archive/2013/11/red-...

Release notes - https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_E...

Technical notes - https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_E...

> ECDSA Support in OpenSSL:
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is a variant of the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) which uses Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). Note that only the nistp256 and nistp384 curves are supported.

> ECDHE Support in OpenSSL: Ephemeral Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) is supported, which allows for Perfect Forward Secrecy with much lower computational requirements.
Safety or the electorate's perception of safety is ALWAYS the issue.
Do many laptops have multiple ethernet ports?
This is very possible. However, you can do both the right thing as well as protecting yourself by providing the evidence to the police in an anonymous fashion.
Indeed, calling the cops for any reason whatsoever will get you a good 30% chance you will be harassed, put in jail, or killed in the process. Don't do it.