skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What were your problems using it on small projects? If it wasn't obvious, "large projects" is a proxy for "have you actually tried to use it at any practical level?". FWIW, I had a lot of difficulty with Haskell at the start, but "easy to learn" doesn't necessarily translate into "a lot of power", but I found that Haskell gave me incredible power at the cost of a steep learning curve. It's not for nothing that they call it the best imperative programming language.

Oh, and don't worry, I would never pull the I'm offended by X card! I don't get offended easily, and I don't think you do either ;). This is all friendly argumentativeness (is that a word?) as far as I'm concerned, I hope you feel the same.
I think the easiest test (at least for my "1% metric") is reading HN comments on articles after they're populated (a day?), and then deciding "was there anything in there which was amazingly good, such that I'd actively seek it out in the future?"

The disappearance of grellas is a major factor against this recently.
No, you absolutely don't need to start with C. You need to learn C (or some equivalently low-level language) eventually.
For taking Dianne Feinstein seriously on matters of national security.
PS: I guess what I'm looking for is a 'work-out' type procedure. Like practicing to run a marathon, you work out and run a lot (I assume). What should I do in order to 'work-out' my CS skills? Musicians practice, athletes work-out, what do computer scientists do in order to improve problem solving skills and knowledge?

Unlike for athletes or musicians, practice in a knowledge field (like CS), seems a little ill defined..
In some ways it baffles me that anyone would voluntarily choose such a lifestyle for a payoff that doesn't seem worth losing so much of your youth over.

On the other hand, it amazes me how humans can do things that other humans consider insane. We're a flexible species, which I guess can be both good and bad!
Huh? I'm pretty sure it started out as an (informal) spec in somebody's head, which was then modified to account for the inflow of noobs like me :)

At the very least the modding system required some abstract analysis to account for trolls and such.
Last summer, a guy held up a pharmacy near where I was living in Somerville and dropped the (lojack'ed) containers in our garbage.
Is that open source? The ubuntu tour has a bit more smooth feel to it than OS.js when interacting with the windows, menus, controls. For example, When dragging windows, i lost the grip using OS.js. This was flawless with ubuntu's thing, also the UI is prettier.

I like the idea of having a desktop available to you wherever you are. This could be really powerful as browsers get faster and stuff like webGL gets popular. 90% of the native apps i use like mail.app, iTunes, sublime text, git client, terminal, all that might as well run in the browser today. No need to save, just leave the app running.

I often work from home by VNCing to my workstation at the office. Because I live close this is actually very smooth, but a no go when commuting because of high latency. I'd imagine browser based apps might provide some buffer to fix that.
I think consumer goods getting cheap relative to real property and other non-stealable things, and expensive things becoming online services with activation components, already is pushing the returns to theft down. Certainly, ATMs, credit cards, ACH payroll, etc. has pushed the returns to theft down (vs when people carried a lot more cash, or kept it in their homes...)
...as for the technology used, it's kind of like the 1970's-era transponder from the movie No Country For Old Men (except GPS instead).
German minister: 'Google breakup may be required'
When was the last time you used Firefox for Android? It was completely redesigned two years ago, and currently has higher ratings than Chrome.
Types, and two approaches to problem solving
Or the start of one of the Vile Offspring in Accelerando.
She is the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This is no small matter. She was chosen there by her colleagues, other senators, and it is a very serious position. This is probably the most serious committee in all of Senate.
If the electrodes were controllable at a sufficiently fine granularity, they could be activated in a sort of creeping barrage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_%28artillery%29#Moving_...

So there would be a number of active zones at a time, each one slowly moving downriver, pushing back any invading carp in front of them.

You could switch off the electrodes in any section of the river, and then when you switch them back on again later, the pattern sweeps any occupying invaders back out.
Hi, thanks for the feedback! Yeah I'm aware the look on Chrome on my Android is pretty terrible, which is on my list to get sorted. Looks like it's even worse on iOS! At the moment its basically using the default site template from Jekyll which is apparently very much not mobile first!

Also re: contact, there's a link to my Twitter account but not much more. Cheers for letting me know anyway!

Edit: Grokked media queries; hopefully a little nicer on mobile now.
I have actually implemented a voting system with two axes, fairly much like you suggested, I think: One axis is whether the comment is valuable (if people like it), the other is whether the reader disagrees, or things the comment is factually wrong.

It works like so: There are two buttons: "Like" and "Wrong". If you like the comment, click Like. If you think it's wrong, click Wrong (e.g. because of factual errors or because you disagree). — It's not possible to click any "Don't like" button however, or "Correct" button.

The Wrong button is not meant as a downvote. It doesn't affect comment sort order, and simply results in a warning that "Many people think the comment is wrong, please see replies for details". (If many people think the comment is wrong, in comparison to how many people likes it.)

This demo page uses the Like-Wrong voting system:
http://www.debiki.com/demo/-71cs1/demo-page-1
> Source: Firefighter/Paramedic

Ugh, HN can we please resist adopting "the reddit meme of providing a snippet of biographical information which (supposedly) establishes your authority to speak on the subject."[^1]

For a long time the unofficial motto of the CG was "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."[^2] Does your local firefighting department use USCG Green Amber Red risk management/assessment procedures?

[^1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21qxao/brief_...

[^2]: http://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/LSSmotto.asp
The Sun is orbiting inside the thin disk, within 3K light years of the galactic plane, where most of stars and most new stars reside (other than the center bulge or bar).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_disk

Star ages can be estimated by their composition (older stars contain more helium), color (bluer stars live far shorter than redder stars), brightness for their given color (older stars burn brighter), activity (younger stars are more active, they flare more) and if they contain protoplanetary disks (a feature of very young stars).

Astronomers also use the HR diagram: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung%E2%80%93Russell_dia...

Having a good measure of distance is important and there are various ways to determine that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder
The most important advice that comes to mind is a bit proverbial, and from a board game so appropriately titled; "Go."

Lose your first 50 games of Go as FAST as possible!
Don't worry about winning or losing or finding the "right" move, just put some stones down, get used to looking at the shapes that come up, and get a good feeling for how the rules work. Of course, a consequence of that attitude is that you will lose most of those games, but it doesn't matter. Once you have a bit of experience under your belt, then you are ready to begin
I feel like you're placing way too much emphasis on syntax here.

From a non-superficial standpoint, you haven't brought up a single thing wrong with Ruby— or Go, aside from explicit typing.

The thing about syntax is that, to some extent, it's subjective. You say Ruby syntax is awful? OK. Personally, when I first started programming, I hated Python syntax¹ so much that I called it quits. It wasn't until later, when I started learning Ruby and its "eye-gouging" syntax, that I could get past that hurdle. So I wouldn't exactly describe its syntax as an argument against using Ruby as a teaching instrument.

¹I've since grown to love it, but as a beginner this was very much not the case.
Not seen that before. Thanks - very thought provoking.
My main problem with Javascript is the various truthiness rules as well as the numerous implicit conversions to strings.

Eg.
> [2,1,3,10,6, 200].sort()

[1, 10, 2, 200, 3, 6]

is both unexpected, and is just one of many landmines that can completely derail beginners.
With that headline I was expecting the author to put forth a number or at least assert that it couldn't be 1.7 million.
Pretty soon some part of the system is going to catch on that everyone else is as subtly creeped out by all this shit as they are, and the military industrial complex will have to surrender some of its tentacles.
TechMafiaNet: Israel Defense – Guardium Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)
The IDF highly mobile unmanned security vehicle (USV) patrols the Israel fence and saves a lot of money and human lives. How it works?....
WhatsApp removed from Windows Phone Store
This doesn't pass the smell test. Feinstein has a bad track record on these kinds of issues. Her statements made about whistleblowers do not properly consider the good along with the bad; her NSA reform bill expanded spying powers.

If Snowden stole documents at the behest of either the Russians or Chinese, he was not the first to do so recently, nor will he be the last.

As I recall, Gen. Alexander or one of the top intel agency officials made a statement last year dismissing concern that Snowden might have leaked info to the Russians or Chinese, saying that he would expect those powers already had other moles.

Cui bono? Who benefits? We don't know what other documents Snowden might have taken, if he took any, that he didn't hand over to Greenwald and Poitras. From what's been published, however, it seems very unlikely that the Chinese or Russians have gained much from the information leaked. That said, it is possible that it was a very clever Russian, Chinese, or Russian-Chinese operation designed to egg the U.S. intelligence community and cast U.S. technological primacy under a cloud. The counterargument is that since all published information has been filtered by journalists who are not (presumably) Chinese or Russian agents, such a psychological or propaganda operation by the Russians or Chinese would have unpredictable and muted results.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741579
The Valve employee handbook [0] is an interesting read. Very unique company structure, even considering the relative penchant for anarchy in the tech field. The motivating factor seems to be preserving independent thinking and creativity. It's also worth noting that Valve is not publically traded, it seems to resemble a worker cooperative.

[0]http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1074301/Valve_Handbook_Low...
I hope he stops at landing in Moscow and not Rust's later life... ;)
I came to a similar conclusion based on my school experiences, and my experiences in the tech industry. This sort of assumed mental superiority among nerds is just tiring, and what's worse, often undeserved. I agree with most of this essay on its face, particularly about the idleness of high school and its similarity to prison, but the correlation between nerdiness and intelligence is just that.

Everyone in the tech industry is so proud of whatever nerdiness they engage in that the word has lost its prior meaning within our little bubble. And what have the nerds done once they've been given some control over the workplace? Exactly the same types of exclusionary, prejudiced bs that they supposedly suffered for in high school. Most of the offices I've worked in have had such infantile political mechanics that I often wonder if I wouldn't be better off as a dental floss tycoon.
"“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

-- Peter Drucker

Are coders valuable? F ya. The reality is that almost every start up today is on a chase to grab people's attention with the glittering lure of technology. Why? Because once you get someone's attention, you can basically sell them anything. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Pinterest, etc etc the list goes on...valuations are all based on one metric - DAU. Why? Because DAU means any business can market and innovate their product, which as per my Drucker quote, are the only two basic functions of a business.

PS - If the OP reads this, the "artform" of journalism is no different than a coder writing pinterest. Coding just scales WAY better.
The whole point of the article is that there's no credible number because the government has no way to know what was stolen.
For the record, it sounds like this particular algorithm is pretty rudimentary, and it is mostly a PR stunt; as the article states, many corporate decisions are already the direct result of quantified information.

In practice I bet this would be less awesome than you might expect. To the extent that human boards of directors already single-mindedly optimize profit (largely indifferent to how such decisions affect humanity), it seems like an entirely inhuman optimization of profit would be even more pathological.

Algorithmic government perhaps has more promise -- if what it is optimizing is something that positively impacts the average citizen. Interestingly, I would imagine such an algorithmic government optimizing something related to the contentment or happiness of the average citizen would directly conflict with corporate profit optimization.

In the end, what you end up with might not be so different than what currently exists implemented by imperfect humans -- a battle between corporate and human interests where those two interests come into conflict.
The 5 Best Selling Products of All Time
Ooo, I'm interested. Please elaborate?
I came here to say this, also have 25+ years experience. I've noticed that a lot of us with extreme experience feel the same way. In this last year, yet again, I look back at last year's code in horror. Every year it's been the same.. 20 years ago I was producing v. horrible looking code - but it still worked well.. all this zen stuff is fun, my ONLY gift was that I did things as well as I could at the time.

NEXT YEAR!! woohoo, I can't even imagine how good I'll be - this year will seem like crap.

Basically don't fret kid, we're all learning - chill and do your best.
As most everyone here knows...

With a enough downvotes at HN, one's posts can be invisible to some depending upon their settings. Also, without enough upvotes one cannot downvote others. So, if one has enough sock accounts with upvotes, one can use those powerful accounts to downvote others they don't agree with into oblivion. People who don't use sockpuppets are at the mercy of those who do.

This situation creates a lot of incentive to create accounts where one censors their opinions, attaches to the "groupthink" in threads with sockpuppet accounts and troll for upvotes so one can can acquire many empowered accounts with the power to exact revenge and censorship on others.

Instead of working to censor for rudeness, it works to get others to align with groupthink in hopes that one can get into a positive upvote territory and eventually be able to downvote others and defend themselves from attacks by upvoting themselves with socks.

I wonder how many sockpuppet accounts are commenting and competing here on HN to simply be able to acquire power against one another? How many comments are simply disengenous trolling for upvotes?

It would be really enlightening if HN decided to stop making downvotes and upvotes anonymous where we could all see the patterns and make the connections between grassroots downvotes/upvotes and systematic downvotes/upvotes from multiple sockpuppets.

I'd love to see that.
My primary intent was the "public as noncommercial" meaning. That's an increasingly blurry line. I've been a watcher and listener for long enough that I remember when there were far fewer credits and they were much less specific.

There's the other can of worms about various influencers of what appears (or doesn't) on PBS, NPR, PRI, and APM. There's Noam Chomsky having interviews and essays pulled on minutes' notice from NPR, Koch intervention with IIRC WBUR Boston, and numerous other instances. I've been noting a general lack of appropriate coverage for well over a decade, though some of that may simply be my own increasing sensitivity.

Not that there aren't exceptions. Terry Gross's "Fresh Air", Ira Glass's "This American Life", "Bill Moyers and Company", and "The Commonwealth Club" tend to provide some of the most insightful programming. If I had to choose between the news coverage and those four programs (three of which are once a week), I'd pick the latter. "Planet Money" has been good but gets washed out when it's in a normal news broadcast.

Listening to a local station's pledge recently I was struck by the comment that the three most-valued aspects of programming were all long-form programs: a call-in talk show generally committing a full hour to a single issue, Fresh Air, and This American Life. They're also all associated with a single principle personality. I see this as a call for giving time to explore a topic in depth rather than the several minutes' limit imposed by other formats (which itself is far longer than most commercial news programs). Though the non-frantic nature of the programs also possibly plays a role: these are thoughtful conversations between adults. I can't stand the commercial documentary breathless reporter, hyperbole, and thumping soundtrack format at all (usually encountered through YouTube samplings if at all these days).
One start:

http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/8301/trying-to-bet...
Hm.... I see. I do not know if things often get political with the Linux Foundation.

If they do, then this could definitely be an issue.

If they don't then I can see there benefit for the Linux Foundation in funding both. LibreSSL has the benefits I previously mentioned, and OpenSSL benefits from having all the features that are being cut out by LibreSSL (FIPS probably being the biggest one).

But I can see where the possible conflict could occur. Thanks for clearing things up.
I used paper prototyping for one project, and found it useful. But my case was rather different than what the author describes. It was an in-house project, with the actual end-users down the hall from me, and with no competitor. (Compare, eg, to when author said it was hard to schedule time with representative end users.)

In our case, we developed a few scenarios and ran through a couple of iterations with the end users. The feedback helped simplify the final design. For example, we thought we would need a way to page results, but it turns out everyone used the "download to Excel" option to see the full results table.
Probably should note, for all Australian readers:

All vulnerable endpoints for Optus Voicemail have been fixed. Including the endpoint I used to bypass their initial fix.
Overall interesting. Some of the specific examples are questionable, but not enough to invalidate the overall point.

Related is this submission [1] from yesterday on how idiotic conspiracy theories are getting alarming traction.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7755572
Instead of teaching them about function composition, recursion, data abstraction, and all the interesting concepts of computer science you end up teaching them a bunch of incidental stuff about memory locations and syntax.

Python suffers from this less than C, but still much more than Scheme. I really can't imagine advocating for something other than some dialect of scheme (maybe racket) for an intro undergraduate course.

For kids I can see choosing something like Javascript (as terrible as it is) just for the immediate feedback that someone before me mentioned.
I recently got out of college I'm going through almost same situation. What I've learned is you are eventually going to forget many things after some time, and you can't know it all. Secondly, knowing theory is one thing, making use of what you know is another. You can grasp all theory you want, but the main point is how are you gonna put that into use? A good job where you get to solve interesting problems may help. I couldn't do so. What I'm doing right now is, pick up a subject area and build things from scratch. I feel that this is working for me.

Also, I see a pattern that more you are used to studying more quickly you tend to understand something new. I believe its something do with reading habits. So don't leave theory completely, but keep a balance b/w theory and practical.
Agree with this article 100%. The reason I discarded programming (and went into Mechanical Engineering)sophomore year of college was because I was frustrated with the syntax issues with C++. Years later, once I learned Python, I started experimenting with other languages and learned to deal with the syntax. Syntax isn't a big deal for people who are used to it, but for people who are deciding whether to be interested in programming or not, syntax can but a huge turn-off.
Minesweeper and NP-completeness
Either build something, or go to the academy. If you build something, you'll do a lazy evaluation of the knowledge tree, learning just what you need to get the job done, which will be a very small subset of all that you described above, depending on the domain of your problem. However if you want knowledge for the sake of knowledge, get a master degree / PhD, it sounds to me it is exactly what you are looking for.

Also you don't sound line an expert beginner, you sound like a beginning expert, I'm programming for 10 years for a living, built a couple of money making startups, and doing my MSc at the moment, I can't say I know half of all that at an expert level ;)

Finally, accept that you don't really have to know everything, and more so, you can't really be an expert in everything, it's really hard but CS is a very wide field. You can't help but being a beginner expert on a wide area of topics, and only a "real" expert in a very narrow subject. Not all CS Phds are expert in everything, actually they are most likely expert in a very narrow set of topics relevant for their research.

Bottom line, either learn for learning and do it in a place that honors it (academy or independent / commercial research)
Or build something that makes money, and the subset of human knowledge needed to make it work will be defining itself (you'll have to fight the urge to learn things that "you'll probably need later", and make it more "on demand" learning)
I think you forgot to include one axis that Snowden fails to compete with the Rev. Dr. MLK; length of sustained actions in the face of extreme risk to life and liberty. Rev. Dr. King's legacy is also buttressed by his writings in addition to his actions, Snowden has yet to pen something as eloquent as "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."[^1]

Addendum: I just saw the mention of John Brown. I tried to tip toe around the issue originally but with Brown's name being mentioned it is the elephant in the room. Hopefully Snowden will not join John Brown or Rev. Dr. King among the list of those that died in the service of social action.

[^1]: If he does pen something like Letter from a Birmingham jail I hope he leaves instructions with his lawyer/estate to not be fascists about enforcing copyright protections on the work.