skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thank you. It really, honestly is hard on our tech because they feel the pressure from all sides. Eight hours sounds rough for a reimage. I think ours are... maybe two or three? We've done a lot of work to get the reimage time down, and Win7 (WIMs) have made this really nice.

If this is something that smells of a bigger problem (or has been seen elsewhere) then I push for them to get the user a wholly new machine, capturing the old one for analysis. If the user is given an upgraded machine, then there is usually little resistance, even with the downtime that'll be incurred.

On the upside, if the issue can be reproduced readily, from this we can almost always get root cause and put a systemic fix in place. If it's sporadic... Well... I'm sure you understand how it goes trying to fix something that you can't yet reproduce. ;)

(I'd love to troubleshoot your slow data backup issue... That's the stuff I rather enjoy.)
How to Cure Your Social Anxiety in 30 Seconds
Instead of focusing on other people, focus on creating an internal positive state within yourself.
This does not give me a lot of optimism:

"Last year, Apopo received international funding of $4.5m (£2.7m) from various donors and cleared 618 acres of mined land in Mozambique."

There are 640 acres in a square mile, so this is like $5 million per square mile cleared.
Ask HN: Freelancing in the Bay Area
I'm interested in doing freelance web development work in the SF/Berkeley bay area, and was hoping some of you could share your experiences and advice.

I fully expect it to be more work than a full-time position in a tech company, and that I will have to delve more into the business side of things.

However, my concerns are about the types of freelance opportunities in the area, and if most are wordpress type jobs. Is front-end javascript and iOS development relegated to full-time positions?

I have a CS background and worked full-time for some time, but quit to work on my own projects instead. I've found some part time work improving a Meteor app, and am liking working this way much more. I'd like to take it to the next step, where I can work mostly on client projects and work on my own projects as well.

I'd appreciate any insights and advice. Thank you.
> If you want to push something you want to be at the edge right?

Wrong. You need to be at the core. In many areas that I've looked at, most of the activity happening at the edge is just churn from an ignorance of history and a naive blindness or lack of understanding of root problems.

And there is plenty of interesting stuff happening in Python: compilers, visualization systems, devops orchestration, you name it. Don't mistake the noise on HN for reality.
While drug users are one segment of the homeless, most of the people I see helping out at the shelter have other issues.
That one's already well underway.
You don't sound dickish at all, and you're absolutely right that there are more "enterprise-y" roles here than Node. In fact, the shop I'm at now is one of probably less than 10 companies in the entire state that would hire anyone to do Node. During my time here I've racked up over 2000 hours working in Node.js alongside some very bright people, and it's a technology I feel quite bullish on. I'm always trying to learn and grow as a developer, but I feel a lot more comfortable working in technologies like Node or Go than something like Java. That said, I'm not opposed to JVM offshoots like Clojure, which I find fascinating.
There are also all the people stealing to get their fix, the people exploiting the people stealing to get their fix, etc.

Also, it's already illegal, but sometimes you have to go after the root causes. In this case, the next root cause would be addiction, and yes, I do think drug use should be seen as a medical issue.
A loser downvoted me again, as I predicted.
Easier said than done, hehe, but still good advice. I'd definitely recommend mindfullness and meditation to those that suffer from social anxiety, it's worked wonder for me (and may or may not work for you ... ymmv)
Yes, it definitely takes practice! :)
If we decriminalized it entirely, addicts wouldn't steal for their next fix because it would be cheap.
Oh for sure, there's definitely a market for the ones you know will fail ... but I'm one of those "take calculated risks instead of just risks". Of those 20 that failed, I wouldn't be surprised if you could have guessed 10 would have failed, and of those 10 making it strong, maybe guess 2-3 would have done well, with everything else up in the air (luck, market, timing, and a billion other factors you couldn't see) ... but even then, I would ask the person managing the fund, "why would you invest in those 10 you knew would fail?". I guess for my, I'm more aligned to the "directed funding" rather than a more "spray-and-pray" approach.

But then again, I don't invest in start-ups so my opinions and any advice should be taken with a huge grain of salt - my forte is software engineering, not finance and investing ;-)

To those downvoting, please explain your reasoning. I can't learn why my opinion is wrong with a simple downvote and no feedback.
Fair enough. I won't say your decision to make a new language is right or wrong - I don't know how it will turn out - but given that you have decided to do so, and given your objectives for it, my one big recommendation would be to make relational databases central to the language, the way Perl makes string processing central and PHP makes web pages central. Some possible ideas are outlined at http://geocities.com/tablizer/top.htm - you don't have to go with those particular ideas of course, but I think it's important to make relational data central one way or the other.
While the historical meaning of "ambivalence" (literally -- strength in two directions) does mean a contradictory complex of feelings, I now almost exclusively hear it used to mean a low level of feeling or lack of caring. When you say ambivalence, this is most likely what people will understand to be the meaning.
Yes. And, especially this:

>I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization?

People ask the "what about hard drugs?" question as if criminalization has solved the problem. It obviously hasn't, and has instead created all of the problems associated with the supply-side (i.e. rampant violence, over-crowded jails, etc.)

The demand-side problem is clearly going to exist. So, in what possible way could it make sense to additionally create such a monstrous supply-side problem that criminalization creates? Worse, the incredible sums of money spent battling this completely manufactured supply-side problem could obviously go towards ameliorating the demand-side effects.
We are heavily inspired by http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf
I agree. My comment was pure sarcasm.
Check my experiment attracted loser downvoter(s):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7761389
The Motorola Backflip (http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_backflip-3079.php) actually had a touch pad in the back that could be used in the same way trackballs were used on Blackberries. It was pretty awful to use, though that might have been because it ran Android 1.6
So, another loser?
It's not using https...! ;)
GPGPU designs from NVidia are an AI targeted processor. It's the application they're designed for, and used everywhere for.
I recently finished up my undergraduate education and realized there were certain large important parts of computer science I knew very little to nothing about (I stopped really taking CS classes to go take a lot of advanced math courses my last two years, which I'm not certain was the best decision, but it wasn't a bad one either), so I've been thinking a lot in the past few months about what my best options were for learning about subjects I'm weak in or knew next to nothing about. (E.x.: implementation of databases, OS design, AI, HCI, and other fields) Putting that into words wasn't too difficult, and hopefully it'll make figuring things out easier for someone else... I tried the reading papers and textbook approach, which is part of why I wouldn't recommend them.
Great write up!

I wish there was a little bit more color around what "availability" really means. Yes some data stores are offering higher availability, but that doesn't mean they are immune to node failure. Even for a "CP" system, latencies can go up, and with enough node failures, partial unavailability and data loss can occur.

And few systems survive the loss of a rack without some issues! Let alone a total network in half partition!

In theory, a strongly consistent system could have a failover that is so small that it is, from a user pov, always available. It would have very easy to understand programming model. But such a system doesn't really exist, open source wise, at this time. So we just won't know.
Most of the disk packs have had the help files deleted to reclaim 100 blocks so HELP results in a "?KMON-F-File not found SY:HELP.SAV". If the files are there, it looks sort of like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/osr/14008886427/
I was half joking, the parent said python was incredible powerful to him because it allow him to make money quickly, some would say php is king in that domain.

By quickly he meant from the process you start learning your first programming language to be able to make money with that language.
I always take issue with the idea that enforcement does not lower usage, and especially the insinuation that it raises it. Each drug has its own usage dynamics. So if we're talking about say OxyContin or Methamphetamine, I think we can be certain that enforcement suppresses a significant portion of usage. The perfect case in point is Florida, where there are loopholes to circumvent enforcement on OxyContin. Predictably, there is a very high OxyContin
addiction rate there.
The functionality will probably be integrated into Google Translate

That right there is the issue. Will it? I imagine Google will definitely want to put it into Google Glass. They'll likely put it into the Google Translate app for Android. But it's not clear at all whether they'll put it into Google Translate for iOS. It depends on whether they think it makes more sense to make Google Translate for iOS as good as it can be, or whether it makes more sense to give Android/Glass a competitive advantage (similar to how they refused to put turn-by-turn directions in the iOS Google Maps back before Apple Maps; they considered it a competitive advantage to restrict that functionality to Android).
I definitely know some unique folks, and that does really seem to work for them in romantic settings. Like those other qualities -- wealth, attractiveness, power -- only a few can be the "most" unique. Maybe it's cynical, but I guess that most people aren't that exceptional, and that's OK.
Probably not. But it's a very nice library for use in C application with small embedded webserver.

This + libev/libuv + the Node.js HTTP parser makes a nice little application server.

You shouldn't go replacing your Ruby apps with C but there are many cases were embedding Ruby/Python/etc into your C app just doesn't make sense and this is a good way of bringing nice features from those more webby frameworks to C.
Yesss. This is right on.
Maybe I am wrong. The same loser?
Hmm, haven't noticed it since people around me dont speak enough English. "Apathy" is what I still see more to describe "low level of feeling or lack of caring".
Doesn't this just come down to capitalism? If there is a demand someone will find a way to supply it. We could have the government select the suppliers through law enforcement, weeding out the criminals that can't find a way to evade them, or we could license dealers, tax their profits and use that money for schools, treatment, and whatever else (Colorado).

People who have a physical or mental addiction will find a way to get their high. That's what we've learned from the WoD. It's water dripping on a stone, from both sides, distribution and consumption.

Tax-paying citizens, not making any judgements, should get back their investment on the fail that is the WoD.

The government and the taxpayers could easily make as much money through taxing drug dealers profits as they've ever made getting handouts from the prison and big-pharma lobby.
You should turn this post into an Activator template.
Wow, very efficient.
> disliking a friend's post cannot lead to anything good and generate resentment

Dislike != downvote.

Dislike can also be "I don't like this thing that happened to you" / sympathy.
they would have to lay off massive amounts of their police forces, which have over the past couple decades come to rely on federal drug war funding for significant portions of their payroll.

i'm ok with that, but are the rest of you?
Pardon a silicon valley long-timer for this rant.

With minor exceptions whenever a company goes on and on about its culture, it is time to leave.

Culture has become a by-word for:
1) Rejecting older applicants while hiring "He is not a Cultural fit"

2) Making females uncomfortable in an all-male Bro-culture by cracking "anatomy" jokes

3) Getting people with families to put in insane hours and justifying it by pointing to the younger crowd and its culture

4) Fig leaf to cover up blatant exploitation

Rarely has company culture ever meant anything positive
This is the Android app I've been using that has helped me more than any other app or forum or any other resource - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nwalex.med... (I am not associated with this app at all, I'm just linking because it's helped me so much).

The real win with it is that you can place a widget on your homescreen with 1) the number of days in a row you've reached your daily-duration goals, and 2) your all-time best chain. So simple but so effective.
Google Glass goes after prescription eyewear market
Ask questions that he shouldn't be able to answer well if it's actually a bad idea. If he responds with bad answers, ask follow up questions. Repeat.

Maybe it's not actually a bad idea and his answers will convince of that.
GM suggested engineers avoid ‘judgment words’ like ‘death trap,’ ‘grenade-like’
> I wish there was a little bit more color around what "availability" really means.

The definitions used by Gilbert and Lynch in their CAP proof requires availability for updates at all nodes. Other proofs use availability for updates (or consistent reads) at a msjority of nodes.

> Yes some data stores are offering higher availability, but that doesn't mean they are immune to node failure.

All theoretical models like this are always susceptible to real-world implementation limitations. Still, it's very useful to think about these theoretical models, because they tell us what we could achieve with an ideal implementation. Knowing that allows us to chose implementation techniques and approaches suitable to the problem, and to not waste time on trying to implement the impossible. Just because something is possible doesn't mean that it can be, or has been, practically implemented. If something is impossible, though, we know we shouldn't spend time trying to do it.

> Even for a "CP" system, latencies can go up, and with enough node failures, partial unavailability and data loss can occur.

Of course. These models are actually pretty silent on durability, which is frequently seen as a seperate matter, or a limiting case of availability, depending on the area of research. Durability is really practically important, but this isn't really the area of research that addresses it.

Partial unavailability because of theoretical limitations and partial unavailability because of implementation limitations are different things. We can improve on the latter, and insist our software vendors do the same, but the former we just need to work around.

> In theory, a strongly consistent system could have a failover that is so small that it is, from a user pov, always available.

The definition of consistency and availability doesn't allow you to "fail over". Completely ignoring availability, there are two cases of failover: one where the system still appears to be consistent (using one of the strong consistency models described here), and one where the system becomes eventually consistent. The various proofs (such as Gilbert and Lynch's CAP proof) imply that you can't "fail over" and keep consistency in the case where some nodes are uncontactable. The definition of "some nodes" depends on the exact proof, but there is no way to fail over into a minority partition and keep consistency. It's not possible.

On the other hand, there are loads of practical and useful ways to fail over into a minority partition that still gives useful eventual consistency semantics. It all depends what you need.
As the saying goes, "It's not polite to talk with your mouth open."
More than 100 persons have come to you with great ideas?
Chatous – Random Chat
Q&A with Weev
AT&T Said Near a Deal to Buy DirecTV
That's around the wage in LA as well, and you can definitely afford a home in a good neighborhood over here on that salary.
Well, so some of them moved on to other activities that also shouldn't be criminalized, then. I speak about gambling. Which is de-facto legal now, because of how many Indian casinos there are in so many states. Prostitution? We have a long way to go in decriminalizing this. But slight progress is being made. Just another stupid moralizing law that achieves nothing.

Now as to protection rackets, extortion, etc. These would remain unaffected, most likely.

But can we agree that at least some (perhaps most) of the enterprises they moved into, most of the total crime these criminals are responsible for, are just also yet more normal human activities that should never have been illegal?

Can we also agree that decriminalizing normal human behaviors, while it won't eliminate all crime (that was never a claim I made), it will reduce the total overall amount of crime? How could it not?

When everything is illegal, we are all criminals.
This would be cool while trying out custom roms. Nothing worse than using a custom rom and something not working right when you really need it (like GPS or data).
Microsoft CEO Nadella aces first-100-day test
I teach kids in that age as well, and I start out with Python + Pygame.

For an undergraduate level course I would prefer teaching Scheme or C in an introductory class.
Except modern architectures don't have "pipelines"... at least not like ARM's pipelines are done. Modern Architectures have decoders to translate the assembly into micro-ops which are then stored into a cache (beyond the L1 cache) and then computed.

Heck, the entire concept of Intel's "Hyperthreading" kills any pipeline determinism you would hope to achieve.

Consider your typical ARM read-modify stall: add r1, r2 / add r1, r3. A stall needs to be inserted into the pipeline because r1's value will change.

In contrast, the typical Out-of-Order (OoO) x86 computer (Steamroller, Ivy Bridge, and Bay Trail) will attempt to look at future instructions to execute during the pipeline stall. In the case of Hyperthreaded CPUs (Intel i7, i3, older Atoms), Intel will grab instructions from _another thread_ to execute while the stall is undergoing.

And worse yet, as Intel and AMD upgrade their systems, sometimes there are massive architectural differences which cause regressions in some code. The infamous AMD Bulldozer (2011 chip) regressed in FPU and Vectorized code for instance, while AMD tried to up the core count and improve integer performance.

If you really want to step into this arena, just use Agner Fog's optimization manual.

http://www.agner.org/optimize/instruction_tables.pdf

But... it isn't as simple as ARM because x86 CPUs are far more complicated. Out-of-order processors just kill any determinism you have.... let alone hyperthreading or the other tricks these bigger CPUs do.
>What I was getting at is learning the low level details of how a computer, or at least C, works isn't problem solving.

Agree 100%
When US companies drug test, they wind up hiring more black people
Someone showed me Twitter very early on and I thought it was totally pointless.

Anyway, I'd encourage your friend to put a very minimal product out there and iterate on it, rather than putting a ton of time and resources into it first. That's just good advice for any idea.
your neighbourhood drug dealer / pimp.
I think you missed the meaning of what the author was calling uniqueness. From my reading of the article, I took it to mean that each person likes potential mates in a unique way, but that this only comes out after a little while.

For example, if you asked a group of men to rate women they did not know on a scale of 1-10, you would get largely the same answers from all of them about each particular female. However, since each of these men is "unique," if you asked them that same question after they had just all spent 3 months together (the men and women), the numbers will now be more muddled.
Programming can get easier, and it has, many times. The introduction of structured programming, the introduction of various forms of polymorphism, the popularization of automatic memory management, and several other developments have made the process of programming easier.

But while the process of programming became easier, the role of the programmer did not. Instead, the programmer was expected to build bigger, more complex systems, and do it faster than before.

I would hesitate to call someone a programmer for just making a web form in HTML and sending it to a database, and a GUI tools to do this already exist, most notably Microsoft Access. But suppose a GUI tool was invented that allowed its user to create any website, from Google search to eBay and anything in between, including both the front- and back-end. Anyone well-versed in using that tool would be a programmer for sure.
Cricket Chips: Will Bug Snacks Become the New Normal?
One problem with this is the number of thugs in city and town police forces. They aren't going to give up their bully franchises easily.
It's tautological to say that decriminalizing things reduces crime. It would be more productive to do a cost benefit analysis. Most of the advocacy I've seen is starry-eyed and simply ignores or rejects the idea that the social costs--for example marginally or completely unemployable addicts. There's a fair point that this is true of legal drugs (alcohol) but it's not something we should want to expand (c.f. drunk driving), so it should be advocated according to a reasonable analysis of the trade-offs.
This is a very interesting and useful post. I like how Aphyr started with Linearizability, which despite the unfamiliar name is much easier to reason about (for most) than serializability and most other models. This is well worth reading for anybody interesting in distributed databases.

A few nit-picks:

- The notion of linearizability he uses seems to be implied to be stronger than the original definition from Herlihy and Wing (http://cs.brown.edu/~mph/HerlihyW90/p463-herlihy.pdf). Compare Theorem 1 in that paper to the hints made about global consistency in that post. Still, this is very nit-picky, and the main points of the definition are captured.

- Serializability, as typically implemented in most of the RDBMSs in common use, is both weaker (as Aphyr points out) and stronger than the notion used in the literature. Weaker is covered well in Aphyr's other posts. Most databases are also stronger in some sense, and closer to strong serializability, because they allow clients to observe values directly in transaction scope, which constrains their ability to reorder transactions. There are many legal reorderings of transactions that databases could do under the definition of serializability that they don't do.