skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is the advice I would have given myself at 18: Don't fret girls and relationships. I'm serious. Focus on making friends (male and female), working on interesting projects, and learning everything you can (academic and otherwise) during the next 4 years.

You may have inflated expectations of college women, assuming that intelligence and good behavior, decent tastes in men, etc. are correlated. I sure did. In fact, this is what I told myself to expect throughout high school: when I get to college, things will be more civilized. Wrong. You'll be unpleasantly surprised if you go in to most collegs with high expectations. Expect a continuation of high school behavior on the dating front. In fact, college can be worse, because you now face competition from men ages 22-26, which you didn't in high school (one should hope). This makes the market tighter.

If you meet a woman you really dig, and if you're both mature enough to pursue a relationship, go for it. I wouldn't expect this, however; it seems to happen only for about 10-20% of men at this stage of life. Don't take it personally, at all, if this aspect of life is miserable and dry for you; it's that way for most (decent) men in college.

For a man who cares more than he should about womens' approval, ages 16-21 are pretty damn miserable; it becomes fun after that, however, as the balance of power tends to switch around age 25. Most college women are chasing bad boys whose IQs are 2/3 of yours. Just focus on school and your career, rather than sacrificing time, mental health, and energy on a pursuit that will enervate and confuse you. Enjoy life and work hard instead. Then, in your mid- to late 20s, women will begin pursuing you.

(If you're a woman or gay, my advice probably still applies, but I don't have any personal experience that would apply.)
Glad it worked out for you, but in the scheme of things the amount of class time per week is really very little. Where I did my undergrad (RIT) each class met about 4-5 hours per week, and you took 4-5 classes a semester. So that means between 16-25 hours of actual class time in a week.
What is the demographic profile of voters? Ah, I see we can get some data here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting.html

Here's some data:

.Less than $10,000	41.3
.$10,000 to $14,999	41.2
.$15,000 to $19,999	44.3
.$20,000 to $29,999	48.0
.$30,000 to $39,999	54.4
.$40,000 to $49,999	58.2
.$50,000 to $74,999	65.9
.$75,000 to $99,999	72.6
.$100,000 to $149,999	74.9
.$150,000 and over	78.1

Now there's an interesting correlation between voting participation and income, eh?

In what kind of media do you think elite consensus-generating mechanism plays out? National Enquirer? New York Post? New York Times? And how poor are the participants in such consensus-generating mechanisms?

The idea that the rich and powerful aren't at the heart of determining a country's political opinion, and consequent military aggression is, to be quite frank, desperately naive.
40 cents for 40 miles on electricity, it's in the article.

Compared to $2-4 for 30 miles on the average sedan, not bad.

Maybe this will finally spur Toyota to add a plug-in standard on the Prius.
Oh, I just thought of another thing that served me well.

Find the professors and academic staff who are doing worthwhile research that interests you, and talk to them! Not in an irritating sycophantic way, just have a conversation if you genuinely want to know more.

A big adaptation going from high school to university for me was the fact that academic staff are not like teachers at school. Most of them will actually treat you like an adult and will just have a conversation with you. The clear demarcation between "teacher" and "student" kinda goes away.

This probably varies hugely between institutions, but I found that by the end of my undergraduate career, I had made really good friends with some of my lecturers. Just last week I went to a pub with one of my old professors because he was passing through London. There are three major benefits to this: 1) You'll see the other side! If you are planning a research career after grad school, it's a really good way to learn how to be a professional researcher!
2) You are more likely to get a good-quality recommendation for grad school if the person writing it knows who the hell you are.
3) Academics are generally really nice people! They became academics because they were good at something that you want to become good at. You have a shared interest - it'll probably be very rewarding for you (and hopefully for them too).

So, in short, don't view your lecturers as faceless drones who stand up in front of a class and drone on for an hour. That's a tiny part of what they do - and the rest of what they do is usually much more interesting! And finally, just don't be sycophantic about it. Nobody likes a suck-up :-p
Take advantage of everything. Try things you've never tried before, even if you're not interested in them (especially if you're not interested in them). This is your one big chance to have the freedom to find out almost anything about yourself and the world. You probably won't have a better opportunity for the rest of your life. Four years will be gone before you know it, so don't regret that you didn't try or do something that could have changed your life.
hah. Apple can be the new Microsoft when they have as much cash as them. Apple is a strong company, but they have a while to go...
That's true, but sometimes the idea of sitting in a classroom for an hour or two to listen to something you have absolutely no interest in is just too much effort :)
1) Don't worry if you don't get all As, especially if you're ripping through the curriculum like crazy. This is college, you won't die when you don't have a full 4.0.

2) Find upperclassmen you respect and ask their opinions on classes and professors (take those with a grain of salt) before you take classes. Find the old syllabi for the classes online and figure out what you'll be doing. Don't waste your time on stuff that you don't want / need.

3) Don't feel like you can't do something just because it's not spelled out that way in some piece of documentation. Talk to the people in charge, plead your case well and you're likely to get what you want if it makes sense. This goes for getting credit, taking upper level classes, doing projects, getting funding etc ...

4) Get internships (related to your major) under your belt as early as you can. You might need the experience to get faster to whatever your dream job is. As a corollary to #3, they'll always tell you that freshmen can't get jobs, it's a lie. The truth is that better companies will be willing to give you the time of day to see if you're actually good enough.

5) Finish at least one nontrivial project before you graduate. Have something to show off and to spend spare time on.

Olin has a good reputation, good job and good luck.
It's worth noting that this has already been patched on trunk and the latest stable branch (2.8), so if you run svn update now you'll get this fix.

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/timeline

The patches there are also more extensive. I would recommend getting it direct from the WordPress svn repository rather than using random third-party patches.

There's a more extensive discussion on this thread, linking to the report rather than someone's repost of it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755106
High Frequency Trading: We Fear What We Do Not Understand
It's not about a single piece of information. It takes one login before a new PC's history is linked to every other PC you have used and logged in from. Ok, linking to whichever account you use the most from that PC.

In the same way, Searching for an "Acura TSX pricing" in 07 says little. But, if you then search for "07 Acura TSX Owner’s Manual" in 09 you probably bought that car. I don't think Google algorithms are smart enough to say "bugatti veyron videos" relates to a desire for a faster car not the ownership of said car, but who knows. Google has focused on mining data for a long time and are fairly good at it by now. Search over time can say a lot, search for diapers in 00 and “toy’s for 5 year olds”, and you might have a kid born around 00 or are at least interested in buying stuff a child that age.

A lot of this is probabilities, thinking there is an 80% chance I have a 07 Acura TSX is a lot better than guessing I probably have a car. AKA showing me advertizing for a low end BMW is probably not a waste relative to the average user.
It begs the question, what is the proper measure?

MP$, MPKWH?

MP$ is what we really care about but it has to be adjusted for price fluctuations of power and gasoline, pretty impractical.

Maybe list MPG City, MPG Highway, MPKWH Battery on the sticker.
New Ford Ikon iKool Car Launched in India
There's also slayradio.org, which is mostly C64 remixes. It's mostly pretty fun stuff to listen to, although some of the songs get way too much playtime.
Forbes, 2005: Is Apple the new Microsoft?

http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/04/cx_ld_0304aapl.html

SitePoint, 2006: If I had my doubts before, I stand corrected: Apple is the new Microsoft.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/01/17/apple-photocasting...

Macworld, 2007: It's official: Apple is the new Microsoft.

http://www.macworld.com/article/59914/2007/09/newms.html

So is it a seasonal thing? Like brown becoming the new black in Autumn?
IIRC the protocol for a three-way split is: One party gradually moves the knife, pointing downward and poised to slice, over the surface of the cake, until either of the other two says "cut". The person who calls "cut" gets that slice. The remainder of the cake is divided according to the cut-and-choose protocol.
Indeed. Bugmenot's Firefox addon works plenty well already, I never need to visit the site.
I will join with anatoly in disagreeing. The Elements are a beautiful piece of literature and I recommend reading them for a historical understanding. (I have not read them through by any means, but I have read segments which are magnificent).

As for understanding mathematics and its techniques, there are now much better methods. Our understanding of mathematics and methods of learning (not to mention our simple culture in general) have changed substantially since then, the most obvious point being the development of non-Euclidean geometry.

To add to the list of books already mentioned consider Numeracy. It was influential for me when I was an undergraduate and touches on numerous topics. Also, if you want to start at the beginniner, there is a very good book called Chapter Zero that starts with nothing and is easily accessible to anyone willing to study it.
At Olin, he probably won't have that problem as much as a larger school. With smaller classes you are also noticeably absent.
How does power corrupt? It starts by corrupting rational thinking
I'm actually in Florida for the week, where its just as hot. I'll be back next week though, do any of you all want to grab a beer sometime? Big Boss?

george at illuminatikarate.com, shoot me an email if anyone's interested.
Be sure that at least some of your friends do not look like you; yes, I mean that literally. The world's only going to get more interconnected and diverse, and understanding how different people think and feel is vital, especially when you don't agree with them.

Ask questions, especially in class, but also when you study, work in groups, etc. Olin will probably have a smaller, cozier feel than most colleges, but this bit of advice should still hold. Most people are too afraid of looking stupid and miss out on innumerable opportunities to get fully engaged in what they're doing. Sit at the front of classes (easier to pay attention, easier to ignore what other classmates think) and transform the usual professorial monologue into a dialog.
I hate lecturers who take attendance. This isn't preschool, I can make decisions for myself. If I feel like I can do without that one class or feel like something else is more pressing (due project?) then I should be able to act on it. The whole idea of getting points for just being in class is silly anyway. You get grades to be able to rate your own knowledge, not as gifts or punishment. Thus if you've comprehended the subject fully you should get an A and if not, you should get less. Being in class during lecture has nothing to do with comprehension.
Apple is the new Apple. This is the way Apple has always been. Apple is the original closed box consumer platform. It's part of the company's DNA, if there is such a thing. The only difference is that now they also control the distribution channel, not just the hardware/OS.
It's not code that does nothing, it's there to support a deprecated public API. Someone misspelled 'retrieve' once upon a time, and it made it into the public API, now they have to support it. It's unfortunate, but this is not the wrong way to behave now the issue is there.
While this may sound silly (NASA detects life of earth!) it is actually a nontrivial feat to detect the presence of life on a planet if you are sufficiently far away from it. So the fact that they were able to detect signs of life from about as far away as the moon is an interesting datapoint for the sensitivity of the instruments on board. This is the kind of calibration you should do if you want to study other planets.
Have fun - probably going to get obliterated for saying this - but, give a quick read to "Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman" so you can realize that, more than anybody, really smart people always need to have fun.

It's good that you want to get good at hacking. Working on Open Source projects every once in a while will help you with that.

Learn to be disciplined about studying. Study hard but not harder - only you know what hard means, or you will have to learn.

Take time to learn something else besides hacking, maybe dance, or play an instrument, I don't know, maybe painting.

Use at least one summer to travel abroad, it will give you perspective.

Try to get along with the professors that you find are the best at teaching, maybe do some research with them. You might learn more than you think from them.

Finally, I will repeat it again, have fun more than anything. Make college a series of memories and not just one big race to the finish line trying to get good grades. I've said it before and I will say it again, the goal of college should be to help you become a well-rounded individual with knowledge that its balanced between different topics, not just computer science.
As I said on the other thread...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755244

It's worth noting that this has already been patched on trunk and the latest stable branch (2.8), so if you run svn update now you'll get this fix.

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/timeline

The patches there are also more extensive. I would recommend getting it direct from the WordPress svn repository rather than using random third-party patches.

These are the commits so far, in sequence. As we can see, the erroneous blacklist approach has been replaced in [11799] by a whitelist one (is_array replaced by !is_string).

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11797

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11799

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11801

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11802

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11803

(Note that these are just the changes on trunk, not the commits to the 2.8 stable branch, which are identical.)
I'm going to go with birthday suit then. Thanks!
Get to know professors so you can get recommendation letters for grad school. I was shy and didn't meet any, and now I'm locked out of grad school for it. (They all require recommendation letters)
They need to not pick a random site name out of their database as the example of something to log in to.

"For example: gals.milfspregnant.com"

Seriously. I mean, I laughed. Others might not .,..
Bugmenot allows sites to opt out of being listed. Thus defeating its purpose.
I think you missed the fact that he's going to Olin college...
Interesting. All I get from that statement is that you enjoy cricket more than soccer. By over-stating the point, you've just shown that you emphatically hold that view. It conveys nothing about why you hold that opinion. Also, the fact that it is so obviously over-stated makes it reasonably clear that your tongue is most likely in your cheek, and you don't actually believe soccer to be more boring than paint drying slowly.

Perhaps I'm just defending the original post because I personally am inclined towards hyperbole as a literary device, just like everybody else in the entire universe is.
True, but one of the things that is different about their approach is that it doesn't show a list of all their logins making it a bit more difficult for sites that require logins to just disable the usernames.

Bugmenot presents a long list which makes them much easier to disable.
Interesting experience. I've sold big packages to big pharma and our experience was different: we could game the scheduling of payments over the life of the contract, but they refused cash up front payment.

However, given your experience and ours, it probably depends on the industry; we were in media and you were in software.

We've never had a customer not pay though.
Also, I guess it makes sense to say that college is like a clean slate - no one (well, mostly) really knows you, so it's a good time to reinvent yourself if you feel like it.
- Don't underestimate the value of making lifelong friends and having fun. You won't make it through an engineering degree unless you have a way to blow off the steam for a few minutes a day. We were buried with work but the 8 or 9 guys I hang out with made it to the dining hall together every night and played video games for a half hour or so after, that hour each day made work a hell of a lot more manageable

- Make connections with professors. Unlike high school it is quite easy to never build a relationship with a professor because you see them so rarely. Going to office hours and talking about things will lead to research opportunities and recommendations.

- Get involved. Engineering teams (I know Olin does IGVC for sure), sports, clubs, whatever.

- Buy your books used on Amazon - now is about the right time since shipping takes a while. It saves a few hundred bucks a year.
Excellent list
College is a great opportunity to try a lot of different things. There's a lot of good advice here, but I'd like to suggest that you find some time to do some kind of volunteer work.

Most colleges have many different groups and causes you can volunteer with. You'll learn a lot of important skills that you won't practice during your normal coursework. The things you learn while canvassing, petitioning, and organizing will help you in many aspects of your post-college life.

You'll also meet people that aren't in your major. Fun people. People who throw great parties. People who will expand your "network" immensely. Don't let this pass you by.

Volunteering also looks good on applications for jobs and grad schools. It opened the door for my first post-college job.
Notice Those Ads on Blogs? Regulators Do, Too
And that plugins are going to be designed around the specifics of the EPA test. If the next plugin only needs the engine for half the time on this same route will that count as 500mpg?
It's funny how highschool makes people forget that professors are people too - and then you go out for food and drinks with your CS professors in college :P
Don't do what I did.

I drank too much, partied too much, worked full time the entire way though, didn't go to enough class and didn't study enough(which turned out meant that I didn't get very good marks either).

I basically did everything wrong in my university career. That being said, University was boatloads of fun, and while I didn't do stellar in school I am a pretty decent hacker and still am doing what I wanted to do when I started(that is develop software for a living).

I think if your going to enjoy college/university at all, just find the middle ground. Do enough to get your Marks, become a really good hacker, but make sure you experience things. You will be much happier and well adjusted in the long run.
Social Media Pillows Are All Kinds of Awesome
The only way to intercept this data is to:

1. Hijack a DNS on route

or

2. Sniff packets from the air or wire of the computer or server

right?

Both of those seem like reasonably safe risks to take.
College doesn't matter at all

That's exactly what I was going to post, but I feared the downmod army, to be honest.

I'm 34 now. Nobody has cared what happened to me in my early 20's since I was about 25. It just doesn't matter. Sure there are a lot of positives you can gain in those 4 years, but some of the most boring and average people I know define themselves by where and when they went to college and what they did there.

As an aside, my totally unscientific examinations suggest that people grow more after a year of travelling than they do after 4 of college.
Fluent, the Social Influence Marketing Report
Nasty stuff. I notice from the code that once user_activation_key has been set it doesn't get reset. So this vulnerability will not work for someone who has previously asked for password reset.
Introducing Silent Diving Seagulls: An XMPP Interface for Desktop Notifications
MPJ - Miles per Joule

As we move toward alternative fuels, we need a fuel-independent metric.
It's not strictly math, and I can't recommend it from experience, but I've always been curious what a beginner's reaction to _Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics_ might be. It's free here:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/SICM/book.html
My advice is to make sure you don't get depressed or hopeless. Being away from home for an extended period of time and adjusting to many new situations can lead to a negative impact on mental health. Both depression and hopelessness happened to me in college, leading to bad results (I didn't date, I had no friends, I didn't care about classes since I thought everyone in the world was going to die from pandemics/war/etc). If you find yourself becoming depressed, the techniques at the following link may help. They're based on empirical evidence and have helped many people: http://bit.ly/z8rwF
What should the farmer do? Deal with this crazy thing called life. No one said it was fair. Perhaps he could have seen the end coming and starting moving towards gaining new skills. Perhaps it really blind-sided him and now he's screwed working two jobs for a fraction of his original income.

In any event, life is a bitch. Jobs become obsolete. Yes it is easy to say this while I currently have a comfortable life with job and family, but don't think for a second that I haven't considered what would happen if something tragic happened.

I'm so sick of people complaining about life's hard knocks and how they can't deal with them. Some people will get screwed. They don't have the mental capacity and/or work ethic to deal with the problem and they get left behind. Other people adapt. They start over if they have to. They get new much lower paying jobs and adjust their budget. They downgrade their living arrangements. They get government assistance. What they don't do is give up.
I agree with this. I also think you should follow the advice I gave, but don't imagine that my advice and charlesju's advice are completely contradictory :)
Choose your classes based on the professor, not the topic. Good professors can make a boring topic seem interesting; bad professors can make the most interesting topic seem boring.

Therefore: ask around to find out who the outstanding professors are, and take whatever courses they are offering.