skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> I would be surprised if this is true, unless you can't read. Usually the reverse is true.

I, and many other students, pre-read our mathematics text before class started.

It was of about 0 usefulness. I'd say maybe 10%-15% comprehension.

Steps to solve a problem were always cut out, and always seemingly the ones that we needed most to see. Example problems were either too complex or too simple. And explanations of complex topics were poorly written all around.

A good professor comes in, sees where we are having problems at. Discusses the topics in ways we can relate to, helps guide us down the path of understanding. Demonstrates techniques on the board at various levels of difficulty, ensuring we can see not only how is an idea applied to a trivial problem, but also how it is applied within a larger framework as well.

I am someone who loves to read, and who learns really well from reading. But when it comes to math I don't think I ever got any comprehension from a mathematics textbook by itself. Typically after a lecture was given, maybe 80% of the book would make sense. Sometimes, on a few chapters, 100%. Eventual understanding of what the book said came only after mastery of the technique, from which I could work backwards to figure out what the book was doing.

Then there is the fact that applying a concept is a huge part of understanding it. Application and practice are what take a shakily understood idea that will be soon forgotten and turn it into an understanding of a new way of thinking that will stick with the student for life.

A good professor can see what areas of understanding their class is struggling with and assign problems appropriately, helping to ensure that students come away from their schooling with life long knowledge.

And of course on top of this there remains the fact that different people have different abilities of reading. One of the smartest people I know is dyslexic, it is faster for him to have someone else read the text to him than for him to read it himself!

Naturally I know people who were able to just read their math textbook and understand everything in it. Kudos to them! For the rest of the students though, who were all actively asking questions and engaging with the professors during classes, it seems that they most certainly gained value out of class lectures!

Indeed, office hours were also popular. The typical rule in study groups I attended was we'd spend 2-3 hours trying to understand a concept together before we marked it down as "ask the professor about it".
My prediction does not matter.

The point is that you claim they are successful past college entrance (without qualifying in relation to what they are so) without providing ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER.

Furthermore you just now conflated "acceptance" with merely "going on to" college and in the process ignored the number of those who didn't even try to get in and also ignored the simple fact that getting into a college (ANY COLLEGE) in the USA has literally nothing to do with student ability.
So basically, you want a DHT?
Excellent point, and to build on it:

Just because the elapsed time was 2000 years does not imply 2 years of study at a fixed hourly class time is a meaningful metric for what we're talking about.

The history of discovery and how ideas were constrained in the ancient world and the time it took to discover ideas is not related to the fixed-time dedicated study of the topic. The connection is totally meaningless.

Some measure of units of information would be meaningful. Discussing discovery and the established discipline as isolated things (or describing how they could be connected in that context) is meaningful.
I've also done high protein breakfasts, they work out well.

IF provides unique benefits, not saying it is the only way, but it is a comfortable way.

My lack of energy in the morning is more due to my internal clock being shifted about 8 hours forward. My natural hours would be to take at ~1pm and be up until ~4am.

Separate issue. :)
Uh. No. You didn't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6957590
What does an article entitled "Anti-Foreigner VC Also Supports Hiring Discrimination" have to do with a story about a company where one of the founders is named "Mahbod Moghadam" and appears to be a first-generation Iranian-American? If your instinct is to cite that website, probably it is better to question whether the point you are trying to make is thoughtful or reflexive.
The value of a teacher lies not in the simple provision of knowledge, but in aiding the student to avoid or escape local maxima of comprehension.
Several years ago I received an email offering to sell me 100k stolen credit cards, and it included a sample of 12k cards. They had card number, issuing bank, customer name, expiration date, customer address, and I think phone number. I don't remember if they had the CSC or not.

Some of these were from banks that would let you try to login given a card number and password, and told you on failure if you got the card number wrong or the password wrong, so I was able to do a check using that on some of the cards and found they were legit card numbers for accounts at those banks.

This was on a Friday late afternoon Pacific time.

I called the FBI to see if they were interested. They were not, and suggested that the Secret Service might be more appropriate. The Secret Service was also not interested. I then tried the credit card associations, and most of them told me that this would be an issue for their security department and suggested that I call back Monday morning as the security department had gone home for the weekend. One did give me the email I could forward the mail to.

I had thought someone would be interested in this, at least enough to want to look at the card numbers I had to determine if they came from a known breach or were from something new.
Great questions. I've written a few more blog posts about my experience with the school:

http://jaredcosulich.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/first-day-at-a...

http://jaredcosulich.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/how-are-these-...

http://jaredcosulich.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/is-socializing...

http://jaredcosulich.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/chess-minecraf...

The founders of the school have also written a number of books: http://sudburypress.com/

I'll do my best to write more posts getting in to the specifics, but my observation so far is that none of the extreme possibilities happen. There are problems. There are expulsions. Not many, but they do happen. The students don't magically learn everything on their own, but they do seem to develop in to competent, thoughtful, curious adults on their own...
The Indian media is a bit breathless in declaring that this is the first time an insulin pill has been developed, but that doesn't seem to be the case [1]. Not to take anything away from new research, but I wish these discoveries were reported with some moderation because there's a long way between a discovery and a pill that can actually be sold.

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-novonordisk-ora...
They also spend tons of money developing more conventional weapons that are decades behind the rest of the 3rd-world arms market.

>I was under the impression that the attraction of nuclear weapons is that they can help reduce total defence spending. They act as a strong deterrent to any country considering an invasion thus allowing NK to reduce the size of its standing army as well as spending on traditional weaponry and military hardware.

The North Korean leadership isn't capable of decisions like this based on mature, rational thought. More likely, they spend the money on nukes because we told them they can't have any, and no one tells the Kims no.

As an example of their immature behavior, there was a guy in charge of their agricultural department who built a series of farms that produced record harvests when Kim Jong Il was still around. Kim then demanded that they cut down large swaths of forests in the surrounding area and turn everything into farms, to replicate the successes. The next time they had a Tsunami, the deforestation caused all of the farms to flood and be destroyed. An estimated 2 million people died of starvation as a result.

The Kims are just spoiled children that play with lives instead of toys.
SHA1 is a hash. That alone does not make it 'crypto'. It's just a hash.

It happens to be a hash with fairly good collision resistance. Maybe not the best we have for modern crypto purposes, but that's not what it's being used for. It's being used to check and record unique tags for patches (as far as I know, my git knowledge is far from complete).

Cryptography does concern itself with data integrity but the reverse does not have to be true if you're not talking about part of a system you care about mitigating attacks on.

That's my take anyway.

--Edit-- for completeness I should add that SHA1 by itself is absolutely not a MAC
It's called Hacker News. The proportion of hackers who are fans of geek culture (e.g. Buffy) is much larger than the proportion who are interested in start-ups. Indeed, I have never understood why this site seems obsessed with stories about start-ups, often posted by people who aren't even hackers.
> You can't just place a LISP book on top of an x86 chip and hope the hardware learns about lambda calculus by osmosis.

1. Loudly declare that theory is useless.

2. Ignore any tool that is not "serious" -- i.e. so larded with other people's complexity that all theory is useless.

3. Justify (2) by claiming that "ordinary" programmers are too stupid: only the brilliant can understand a tool so simple that theory is not useless.

4. Pension!
Sorry enough to change the title?
They all have basically the same dependencies and build process. Incidentally, I'm in the middle of setting up a docker image for just this purpose, so I can download any satoshi reference client fork and compile it with a build script without worrying about a malicious client stealing my wallets. If all goes as planned I should be able to just pass it the git repo address and use json-rpc to play around with it. <3 docker.

EDIT: I think people don't consider the security implications of downloading $altcoin_of_the_day_client and running it on the same machine they keep their bitcoin wallet on. It's like leaving all of your cash on your kitchen table and letting strangers walk in and out of your house all day. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that anyone downloading an altcoin client already has a bitcoin wallet sitting in their home directory, and it would be trivial for someone to release a malicious client and steal coins from unsuspecting users.
I don't think that will help them. I actually think that's a bug.

Having multiple urls that go to the same place will get you penalized for duplicate content in a heartbeat.

They should actually specific a canonical url for each specific line-number url.

So, I don't think it's a "growth hack"--I think it's an oversight that may cost them.
All of his articles are absolutely worth a read. Rarely read anything about computer history that's quite as compelling as The Slow Winter...
Wow, you said in one sentence what I've failed to say in 10s of paragraphs throughout this thread!

Kudos for your masterful explanation.
I apologize. I don't have specific stats to share on the college success. The books published by the school have a lot of anecdotal evidence regarding the students having success in college. They don't seem to have universal success or significantly greater success then their peers from other schools, but they do seem to be able to handle and graduate from college and have gone on to a wide-range of jobs.

I should not have simplified the argument to claim that they have universal success.
On C++ syntax errors:

Syntax error: unmatched thing in thing from
std::nonstd::__map<_Cyrillic, _$$$dollars> const
basic_string< epic_mystery,mongoose_traits &lt; char>,
__default_alloc_<casual_Fridays = maybe>>
Your account is 237 days old. Aren't you a little new to be complaining about (imaginary) deviations from the good old days?
0 A.D. Alpha 15 - Osiris
I've seen those :

- additional verification code sent by SMS (France), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_Secure

- bank provided card reader used with the card and pin code (Belgium)
How to Buy Dogecoin
Category 23 tournament in Zurich (chess)
Damn. Good point. I was actually thinking of firing up an EC2 instance just to test/play with them (clearly, mining with AWS isn't generally profitable, but its ok to play with for a few hours).

Lemme know if you get the docker stuff up and running. I've been meaning to try that, but haven't yet.
I'm a recovering internet asshat, and want to post two great techniques to improve the tone:

1. Talk about the topic exclusively. It's best to avoid talking about yourself and especially how you were right. Also, avoid speaking to your audience as if on stage. (Ie, "This is my point. Never forget that", can be "This is the point."). This may be against intuition, but it works to remove ego on all sides and focus on the conversation.

2. Always try to say "yes, and" before you say no. Agreeing with the point and building on it is generative. Blocking hurts.
The licence may be more important a product, but the licence attached to a product is not more important than the product.
Ah yes, php_real_escape_grep_parameters(3).
Big +1.

While sure, my productivity might be better with that kind of routine, I feel like I could be much happier if I followed a more nature routine and go with the flow while following a general outline.
I'm a huge fan of what some schools are doing to support that strength: khan academy for homework, problem solving in class.

This brings schools closer to a "do to learn" system instead of the "learn then do" they are in now.
Ask HN: Why does Facebook for Android want to read my texts?
I usually passively accept changes in app permissions during app updates on my Android, but when they come from a company known to like your personal information a bit too much, it catches my attention...

Does anyone know why Facebook's latest upgrade requests new permissions such as:
* read your text messages
* add / modify calendar events and send e-mails to guests without host's knowledge, read calendar events plus confidential information, read your own contact card

I haven't updated it yet, probably will anyway; but if someone has some insider's information about why they suddenly need that kind of stuff, it should be interesting to know...
real_escapeshellarg_fixed, you mean.
In case you're claiming the original author thinks either theory in general or LISP in particular is useless I urge you to read the essay. He's very much for high level languages, theory included, it's just that as a systems guy he's not in a position to use them.
I'm not a cryptography expert either, but I'll give this a crack...

In as much as SHA1 is a "cryptographic hash function", Linus isn't taking advantage of a few of it's cryptographic properties in his usage of it in git. It would for example, make no difference to the workings of git if you could reverse-engineer the contents of an object from its SHA1. In the same way, it doesn't matter much to the operation of git that you can generate collisions for SHA1, though if you were running into collisions all the time, it would make everyday usage difficult.

> if git's SHA1 content-addressable design is not crypto, how do you distinguish crypto from software like git that uses cryptographic primitives for useful purposes?

If I'm understanding you correctly, software that "uses cryptographic primitives for useful purposes" is usually trying to guarantee one or more of the following:

* Confidentiality - Keeping data secret

* Integrity - Making sure data hasn't been tampered with

* Authentication - Making sure that the person you think sent the data is in fact the person who sent the data.

* Non-repudiation - Ensuring that the person who sent the data can't deny that they in fact sent the data.

Git makes guarantees about none of the above in its usage of SHA1. You could argue that it makes a guarantee of integrity in its content addressable file store, but it doesn't. If you can modify the files in the .git/ directory, you can screw up the repository to your hearts content. There's no way to do so remotely, i.e. by creating and pushing a Git commit with an existing SHA1. You typically protect Git from local tampering by only allowing access via SSH, which has plenty of crypto in it.

When it does make guarantees about authentication (signing tags) it uses GPG more or less off the shelf. In that case the SHA1 is a reference to a commit object, and you're saying that "I, Najaf Ali, sign off on the commit with this SHA1". It doesn't guarantee anything about the contents of that commit if the repository has been tampered with.

> is a project like git a safe/sane thing for a non-cryptographer to design and implement? If so, why do all the warnings in this article not apply?

See above on git not making the guarantees that software that "uses cryptographic primitives for useful purposes" tend to make. Since Git makes none of those guarantees, it's (I think) a safe/sane thing for a non-cryptographer to design and implement. In practice, what Linus has done has let other off-the-shelf crypto (SSH and GPG) make the required guarantees for him.
> I think most people consider growth of their investments and savings "valuable".

The growth of investments mainly comes through the work of the people at the company invested in. There is little evidence that the people managing retail investments do more than add overhead. And managing retail investment is a pretty small part of what Wall Street does.

> Irrelevant. Point is that the value has been created and thus so has their wealth.

Entirely relevant. Those people didn't become rich because of their ability alone; it was ability plus luck. That means using wealth alone to imply virtue isn't very persuasive.
What do you think the title should be?
Also recommended, "The Old New Thing" blog itself.
You can use hashes for security but you can also use them in non-security critical systems to get a unique (with a very high probability) number for use as an ID. Git uses them for this I believe.

Attacks like mentioned can be prevented by a number of mechanisms and checks for changes. If a hash being secure helps that is great but that isn't why git uses hashes. Or by separately signing commits.

git does use crypto but reuses existing crypto (https and ssl to communicate between repos and someone mentions you can use GPG to sign commits) rather than developing it's own secure protocol.
Distributed fairly evenly from K to 12, I enjoyed a handful of passionate teachers that conducted class in a more Montessori fashion, all at public schools. At the very least, they permitted me to guide my own curriculum.

My CAD/CAM teacher permitted me to spend an entire semester messing around with Photoshop. He would simply check in on me once a week. Without question, the skills I learned in those months got me my first industry job 3 years later.

The vast majority of my teachers followed the mediocre status quo that you describe, but there certainly was no mandate to teach that way. I know the problem is far more complex than individual teacher engagement, but that's what it boils down to. Anything that can be done to inspire teachers and keep them happy (better pay wouldn't hurt) should have a positive effect on education. The teachers that had the best impact on me cared the most about teaching, simple as that.
Some Amazon reviews recommended Mavericks over Seven Day Weekend. Do you feel the books are complementary?
They are :)
> Stack Overflow managed to flourish without resorting to those tactics

Well, or Stack Overflow managed to flourish without resorting to those tactics and getting found out.

[subs - please insert dramatic chipmunk here]
The supposedly good idea I'm referring to for the Therac-25 isn't radiation therapy. It was using software to make something snazzily digital, but in a way that ignored the novel safety issues with digital devices.
Nope, Nimrod (at least) has full lexical scopes if you want

proc foo(x: int): int =
let z = x * 2
#z visible
block:
let y = z * 4 #z & y visible
let foo = 3 #z and foo visible, y out of scope
Well, obviously you could never entirely prevent abuse (as bitcoin shows), only make it costly. Low fixed limits on storage size would at least keep people from throwing an avi in most of the time.

I think maybe hashes wouldn't make much sense, though, anyways. If you were say ubuntu and you wanted to make your releases verifiable through the blockchain you'd just put a public key in under ubuntu.releases and it'd be the signature of the file matching that would matter.

When it comes right down to it I guess I basically want a namespaced, blockchain-verified, pgp. With maybe more flexibility about key types so you could throw things like ssh keys or bitcoin addresses or such in. Or maybe dnscurve/dnssec keys.

And yeah, you could use either namecoin or datacoin to do this, but I think they're trying to be too much and that will be a problem. Could you imagine how big a block chain that contained the entirety of dns as it exists now would be? There's a reason the internet moved from distributing a hosts file to everyone.
Productivity for the sake of productivity is pointless. What are you trying to accomplish? You're not going to get rich or make history because of this. And it certainly isn't sustainable alongside a social life.
If they were annotating Opera Librettas

My tastes are pretty middlebrow and all I could think to search for was Non piu andrai, which I couldn't find, but as far as poetry goes they've got works like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Ode to a Grecian Urn, and for literature they've got Joyce's amazing short story (and set at Christmastime) The Dead, The Cask of Amontillado, and with annotations by the founder Mahbod, War and Peace (he also says one of his favorite books is Nicholas Nickleby, which is not really an obvious choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo#t=1018).
Except any family, including extended, left behind.
I think the main problem is that these days we tend to look at this as a purely quantitative matter, when it's largely a quality matter.

We largely abandoned the enlightenment ideas of a humanist education. One whose purposes it isn't to drill people into fulfilling norms, but that enables them to live fulfilled lives where they can express themselves and grow into the kind of educated citizen being able to judge on political matters beyond who you'd like to drink a beer with more.
Big Data Will Drive The Fourth Industrial Revolution: "Internet Of Things"
Startup Makes Every Employee's Salary Public
Ok so I do want to crypto and (to the best of my ability) I already do. I follow best practices, read about the subject matter, did coursera's crypto 1 (and where the hell is pt2? 1 was awesome!). I use established algorithms and I use, well audited implementations etc etc. where available.

I have a question about MACs. We're using HMAC based on SHA256 with 32-byte keys on our new system, but our security architect only wants us to send and verify 4 or 8 bytes of the MAC output. Am I wrong to be suspicious of this? It massively reduces the number of bits an attacker has to guess or calculate, though at 8 bytes that's 128 bits so not exactly a quick brute-force...
Read here about a sushi chef from Japan that worked for the Kims:http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-i...
Have you done a sleep or diet study or are you just making assumptions based on your experience?
8k is not nearly as unreasonable as you make it sound. 157/wk is the price of a decent-but-not-top-flight daycare that many two-income families would be used to paying for to begin with. Certainly the income will be more than the median, but not necessarily as much more as you'd think.