skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
$ curl -vX GET http://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-general-assembly-revives-recording-ban/
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
* Trying 54.236.99.104...
* Connected to www.illinoispolicy.org (54.236.99.104) port 80 (#0)
> GET /illinois-general-assembly-revives-recording-ban/ HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.37.1
> Host: www.illinoispolicy.org
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable: Back-end server is at capacity
< Content-Length: 0
< Connection: keep-alive
That is one key takeaway, but if you read the entire essay there are many other useful points.

tl;dr :: tl;drs suck
I believe they mentioned the fact it couldn't be detected by netstat as an example of it's sophistication.

idk how this got 127 upvotes.
There are many settings for which this process doesn't converge. I consider it a feature rather than a bug.

For example, if you have the parameters at 33% and 100%, you converge on a racist/segregated state. However, at 33% and 95%, people keep moving around. You see the large contiguous regions that would otherwise be suburban enclaves hollow out. But you never get to a stable state, which is kinda like real life so it works.

Small individual bias → Large collective bias.

This is so incredibly true. I wrote about this. The blog post is specific to VCs, but I think the Racist Judges Problem is much more general. (http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/vc-istan-2-th...)

Let's say that we're having a cat beauty contest and, for the sake of argument and egregious simplification, that 35 states are completely non-racist and 15 states are extremely racist against orange cats. Let's also assume that beauty is uncorrelated to kitty-race and that there are only two colors: white (80%) and orange (20%). You'd expect that 7 contestants would be orange: a proportionate share from the non-racist states and none from the racist states. But you'll actually get very few, because the non-racist states still want their cats to win, so they'll be de facto racist for strategic reasons except for an occasional "weird" state (say, Minnesota) that nominates an orange cat and Fox News doesn't shut up about it being "political" in its "making a statement" (even if the orange cat from Minnesota was the most beautiful). Thus, when you look at the contestants and see 49-50 white cats, it creates a horrible and completely false perception that white is the standard of cat beauty and that no one finds orange cats beautiful.

In other words, small differences in preference, once they gain a certain social currency and acceptability, snowball into something a lot more horrible. This is also why it's so important to keep racism socially unacceptable, and why Stetson Kennedy's infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan (he exposed it as childish and ludicrous) was so powerful.
A (much smaller) project I contribute to might want to similarly migrate issues from Google Code to GitHub. It would be nice if backdating were available via a standard API, but I guess it's not terribly important for us. A bigger problem is that we'd like issue numbers to have a 1:1 mapping, but we're already using GitHub for pull requests, and pull requests are issues, so something would have to give... however, if we could specify arbitrary (unused) IDs, we could do something like add 100000 to the old issue numbers. Just thinking out loud.
Are you talking about Elastic Block Store IO? Move away from original EBS volumes, use General Purpose SSSD (now default) or provisioned IOPS volumes.
> I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you.

This person's rant describes my experience reasonably well. Insomnia? Check. Neutral-at-best advising relationship? Check. Declining general health due to overwork and stress? Check. Narcissist/psychopath on my committee? Check. Know somebody who ended up in a psychiatric hospital? Check.

Check. Check. Check.

Edit: I was in a top-5 science/engineering PhD program.
I've talked about this at greater length in another comment, but removing OCW content strikes me as a serious blow to any professor's legacy. For someone who invested years into that project, that's one heck of a punishment; it's one of the harshest things I can think of that MIT could do to a retired professor.
Is there an editor on staff at Wired?

>Obama wrote his code part of event today organized by Code.org, which brought brought 20 middle school students from the South Seventeenth Street School in Newark, New Jersey, to the White House, where they met the president and worked on Hour of Code tutorials.

>Last year, Obama delivered a YouTube speech last year[...]
Academic research is funded through taxpayer money, and, as an academic, I can assure you that much of it has a much lower impact than many open source projects.
I find this: http://martin.kleppmann.com/2014/11/25/hermitage-testing-the...
a more informative read on essentially the same topic.
Jedi mind tricks.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/08/new-illinois-eavesdropping...

... the eavesdropping bill retains another odious aspect of the old law: It punishes unauthorized recordings of public officials—specifically, police officers, prosecutors, and judges—more severely than unauthorized recordings of ordinary citizens. The former would be a Class 3 felony, punishable by two to four years in prison, while the latter would be a Class 4 felony, punishable by one to three years in prison. If anything, that is the opposite of the distinction the law should draw, since public officials, given the power they wield, should be subject to greater scrutiny than private citizens.
Math is elegant and very useful, but let's face it, for the vast majority of people in the world all math beyond arithmetic serves almost no use. In comparison, programming of any kind can be useful to anyone if they know enough to help automate work tasks, for example.
Do you know if OSM is any good at geocoding for US addresses? We're currently using Google, but we're often bumping into the 2,500/day ceiling, and the commercial license is $10k/year.

We have looked at some alternatives such as geocod.io, but quality seems a bit lacking and they don't offer some features we need (but which we would surely be able to develop ourselves if we could use OSM as a primary database).
Hi zzleeper, you've mentioned here and above in your top level comment that a bad adviser can make a PhD torturous. Perhaps this is a naïve question, but can you switch? Is it possible to just find and study under better advisor?

Thanks for providing your perspective on this.
"reasonable expectation of privacy" from whose perspective?

if my spouse/gf/friends film my arrest in my own garage (without my objection, maybe even with my insistence), are they now subject to arrest?
Time to site rip and create an OCW torrent in case other materials and lectures disappear.
I don't think libre or open source is broken. I think some projects are broken. I think other projects are those people simply don't like, don't want to fund, and have to use because there are no other options. With some creativity and planning, open source projects can be self-sustaining, but they have about the same success rate as any other startup. The upside is that all progress doesn't evaporate when an open source project fails, it gets forked or consultants can transition people to new tools.
I really don't want to digress into an amateur economics thread, but here goes.

American capitalism has some problems. The cost of goods, while reflecting the value added, also has the cost of externalities extracted. The cost of the cab ride may include gas and equipment depreciation, but may not include the cost of the driver's family not having the opportunity to find a better lot in life. Maybe it all works out fine; I don't know. But I'm guessing people with minimum wage jobs are not setting their own price for their work, but rather society is conspiring against them to convince them to work for less than their actual cost. (Does the average child of a single mother who works at McDonalds go to college and become a lawyer? Why not? Shouldn't they have that chance, even if it means your cheeseburger costs a dollar more?)

End digression.
Bill Clinton was the first president to send an e-mail.

He sent exactly two e-mails during his eight years in office.
Bureaucracy is devilishly hard to automate. It's easy to have a guy who, say, approves house renovation plans (to use a hyper bureaucratic example). Writing software to process that? Pretty non-trivial AI problem.

This is one of the lessons that keep cropping up when they try to automate say claims administration at the VA. Something that's only 90% automatable might as well be 0%.
True, but Amethyst[0] comes pretty close for my personal taste.

[0] https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
i cant answer that, its highly dependent on your own needs.
I would love others to weigh in, correct me, add but I'm assuming not your own infrastructure, which is a valid option :

for a small webpage/server, perhaps linode or digital ocean. I find heroku nice for free hosting, but they are a bit pricy for paid services. I do love how easy it is to push code to heroku (especially with ruby on rails). if you never used amazon and only want to use it for a year, their micro instance is free for one year.

for large scaling systems and a suite of services, I would suggest AWS. they have so many services it confuses the heck out of me sometimes. if you want low cost high performance, especially for development digital ocean seems better for this.

i never used Azure, cant comment on it. Also there was a company that basically rented physical servers at a cheap price, from what I remember they had the best performance per cost that I have seen. Also another obvious consideration is software/applications - some tie in better than others. for instance, I use ArcGIS Server which is VERY easy to deploy on AWS
Yes, it says we have to work 6-8 hours a week for them doing RA and TA work, but to not worry as "in practice the workload is much lower". My problem is not with teaching/grading/doing silly RA work [1], but that they expect me to spend my entire Saturday and most of Sunday doing it just because the faculty are flying away early on Monday.

I don't know how to put it, but it's not just a matter of working, it's about feeling respected. And I think that component is not there.

[1] My last RA work involved going to the website of the top 100 US and international business school, and collecting the number of assistant professors and the details of all the female and African American asst professors. It seems MBA rankings are starting to include that in their rankings so the faculty wants to recruit in those demographics. (And when I reported back that there was not a single African American assistant prof in finance in the top 100, I was told to go back and include the next 50 in the list).
From Google Cache: http://pastebin.com/HuGJgzbK
Qards: Killer wordpress plugin for all your side projects homepage
> I expect a publication like Wired to be able to distinguish between writing code and writing a 'computer program'. If this is the bar then I wrote my first 'program' when I was in 3rd grade in the 80s doing LOGO.

Of course you did. Why isn't your 3rd grade logo code a program? Even "Hello world" is a program!
The search box in explorer searches binaries these days? Honest question, I haven't used it in years.

That seems like it would be pretty counterintuitive for users though. Someone tries to search for the string 'program' and it returns all binaries that have 'This program cannot be run in DOS mode' in them. (Which I think is pretty much all PE binaries)
Create an “Awesome Keyword Research” and not a boring  one
Flask-Admin 1.0.9 Released
I live in Chicago but commute to Dallas every few weeks where my wife now lives. The difference is striking. In Illinois, taxes are high yet the government has failed to provide me with tangible services. I have been robbed and the police never did anything. I am left wondering where all the money goes. Meanwhile, my wife enjoys many government run programs in Texas and pays next to nothing in taxes.

What I am trying to say is avoid Illinois if at all possible.
Actually a lot of Nazi research such as Pernkopf Anatomy is removed from the library/institutions on ethical grounds.
They should have more interviews with people who chose not to go for a PhD, and whether they feel they were successful in spite of (or because of) that choice.
I studied physics, not CS, but my experience was that it boiled down to weighing the specific job offers that you get in each sector.

A possible reason to do a post-doc is if a full blown industry job search would detract from finishing your PhD. Nothing is worth delaying your PhD.

On the other hand, at least in my field, a post doc was not a step towards industry.
I think that Android phone users who have opted in (Settings > Location > Google Location Reporting) are contributing traffic data when they're on a road and moving, or not, as the case may be.
This is a fairly old video, I first saw it about 8 years ago. The interesting thing for me was the motors. Modern pick and place robots (surface mount circuit assembly) operate at speeds that make them invisible to the unaided viewer, and they are manipulating parts that are the mass of rice grains or smaller as well, with precision placement.

I kept hoping they would do a follow up which went beyond holding and went to multi-arm manipulation.
> user:	Pyxl101
> created:	1 hour ago
It depends. In my case, there is only one prof doing what I do in my school (my advisor), so the answer would be a clear no.

In contrast, a friend was doing a more broad topic and after some strong disagreements, was able to switch mid-race.

Another friend was finishing his PhD at a top econ school, and his mother died so he flew back and took a couple of months off. Even though he already had job offers and a completed paper, his advisor (a well known asshole in the field) was so pissed off that he stopped all form of comunication, and my friend had to switch advisors and start a new paper because no one else did that specific topic in the school.

So yes. Luck matters a lot, and YMMV. Your advisor could die, get a nobel prize, or just have a bad day, and it would change things drastically for you.
I'm just saying that anyone who IS offended by it is a whiny, oversensitive asshole who wants to force the world to accommodate them, and that is wrong. Standing up to them does not make me the asshole: babying them makes you the asshole.

Edit: just take another look at the cropped picture "Lena". If your argument is that that is somehow offensive, you are wrong, plain and simple.
Lots of interesting concepts that solve security problems like everyone getting their own filesystem namespaces: /tmp looks unique to every user.

Access everything like a local filesystem: ftp, ssh, etc. it's all built-in and just works.
So you can happily get to ramen profitable as a founding team, but when you raise your first round you are expected to grow the team size quite a bit, and the capable professionals you are hiring will not work for ramen (and should not be expected to).

Ask somebody in the Valley who sees more of them, but N months after a Series A, I'd expect to see at least 8 people on the team and probably closer to 20. That implies a salary bill in the, hmm, $100k to $200k range. Every two weeks, due like clockwork. Obviously, if you've already hit ~$500k a month in revenue, you're golden (as long as you freeze hiring), but most similarly situated companies haven't hit that yet.
Watch the video on that homepage. It is fantastic. Clarke and Dawe still make videos like that.
Bloomberg never learned to code, despite his tweet.
I dont have any evidence for this, but I bet money. I assume its expensive to draft laws. The billable time for lawyers to review legislation is not trivial.

If the money was spent to draft a law and not passed, the entity behind it would want to give it another try.
Ask HN: Why don't my links show up in HN?
I submitted a link on HN and it shows in the /newest page but when I open it in incognito, it doesn't show up. what's going on?

If I open the item directly in incognito https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8720941 - it just shows an empty page. no errors, nothing...

WTF is happening!!!
I don't really think that Google's problem is the inconvenience of having to cut a bunch of checks to the people they want to support, as if they were desperately short of people with administrative skills.
Eliot Horowitz: Advances in MongoDB Scalability [video]
Could you post a few pointers about the bunch of tricks to make deep training a lot easier?
[2010], but fascinating all the same.

If you'd asked me how fast an elite sprinter could run today, I would probably have thought of running 100m in a little under 10s, but I don't think I would have connected that mentally with the idea that Usain Bolt runs almost as fast as a car on our 30mph streets, albeit very briefly.
The College Rape Overcorrection
I don't believe Uber has the kind of relationship with its drivers that you're suggesting. From what I understand, Uber drivers are independent contractors and determine their own working hours and working days. I also had the impression that Uber drivers can turn their "available" signal on and off at will. So many of them run their own private car companies and switch the "Uber available" app off while handling their own rides. They're required to accept rides only when their signal is "on".

Moreover, I think you're underestimating an important effect: which is that significant events like snowstorms, maybe sporting events will affect both supply and demand. The impact may not be something that anyone can forecast.

When the Uber surge price rises to 6x normal, new supply will enter the system, and demand will leave it. Say an Uber driver is relaxing at home and did not plan to work today. He receives a notification that fare is now 6x normal. That will entice him to work today, even if he wasn't planning to. Or a driver that works predominately in a different area might travel to the area that needs more drivers. Etc. The fact that price can fluctuate in this way ensures that sufficient supply is available. The high price literally creates supply. There is no economic incentive for a taxi driver to come into work on his day off in order to give rides in a snowstorm if he'll receive the same prices the following day.

Similarly, when the price rises to 6x, Uber users might decide to call a friend for a ride, instead of taking an Uber, ensuring that people who have alternative means of transportation use them, leaving the drivers available for those who wish to pay or have no alternatives.

Thinking through all the side effects and eventualities, the fact that price can fluctuate according to supply and demand provides a significant benefit in the way of allowing more rides to occur.
Ha! That won't stop the great city of Chicago from arresting you and throwing you in the slammer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm294TYqh6o

... And there are plenty more stories where that came from.
I can't confirm that it works but I was going off this:

> Administrators who want to check for Turla-infected Linux systems can check outgoing traffic for connections to news-bbc.podzone[.]org or 80.248.65.183, which are the addresses of known command and control channels hardcoded into the Linux trojan. Admins can also build a signature using a tool called YARA that detects the strings "TREX_PID=%u" and "Remote VS is empty !"
It's a bit disturbing that locksmiths, of all people, are exceptionally dishonest. Florists I can understand — their entire business depends on emotional manipulation.

(Though it makes me feel better about taking an angle grinder to my door when I lost my keys a few years ago.)
Embedded Kanban Board for Your Website
It still needs a little bit of refinement, but I thought this might be a useful feature to have for people who want to include a kanban board on their own website.

Also, you can view updates happening in the widget if the person logged in is modifying the board.
> Now installing software not from the MAS is a warning

No it's not. Where did you get that idea? The only issue is installing software that isn't codesigned with an Apple-signed certificate. Any developer enrolled in Apple's Mac Developer program can get an Apple-signed certificate and self-sign their 3rd-party non-MAS software and users will have the same experience as using MAS software. The only dialog they'll get is the standard "Are you sure you want to run this program you just downloaded?" dialog that we've had for a while now. Which, admittedly, I don't think MAS apps have, but that's because MAS apps aren't downloaded with a web browser; if you install a 3rd-party app via some mechanism other than downloading with a web browser it should similarly bypass that dialog.

> installing software from a developer entirely unblessed by Apple entirely is disabled without already knowing the "right click workaround" (try successfully explaining to a casual user how to install that kind of app)

Well, the simple answer is to change the Gatekeeper setting, but the more relevant question is why are you even providing support for such an app? Any app that isn't properly code-signed is likely to not have had an update in several years. The only excuse beyond old unsupported apps for not properly being code-signed is the rare open-source cross-platform app that provides an OS X download without codesigning, which is not something most casual users are generally expected to be using anyway.

All of this is beside the point anyway. Gatekeper and the Mac App Store are two completely separate technologies. And whether or not your application is distributed on the MAS is not relevant to Gatekeeper, except in that you cannot distribute on the MAS if your app is not properly codesigned.

> It's only logical to extrapolate that to the next steps. maybe in 2015 all non-MAS will require the right-click open. In 2016 or 2017 non-MAS will probably mean not runnable without obtaining a limited-use developer or enterprise certificate from Apple for a fee.

That's pure 100% FUD. It is not at all logical to assume that Apple will pull such an insanely stupid move. iOS being locked down does not at all say that OS X will be locked down in the same fashion; it would be virtually impossible to lock down OS X like that, and any attempt to do so would be so incredibly user-hostile that it's laughable to think Apple would do that, and would probably destroy OS X.

I have to wonder if you have some vested interest in sowing distrust in Apple and OS X. Why else would you make such an absurd claim with a straight face?
Ford goes zero-emissions with a Pedego electric bike
Best books 2014 recommended by Bill Gates
And apparently in Chicago you can be thrown in jail for years without trial.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/20320674-418/time-stands-...
That explains what happened to healthcare.gov
Meh. Automation in the software industry isn't just about saving a certain amount of wall-clock time: that's the perspective of a bean-counter without broader perspective. Having highly skilled people frequently spend time on boring drudgery has other costs. The cost of the interruption, for instance, or the annoyance factor alone...

Automation also has the potential to make a task less error-prone and its output more consistent. A botched or forgotten manual task can be difficult to clean up after, so there's risk management too. For instance: in one incident, a coworker at a former employer accidentally ran the "send thousands of people email about how much we're about to pay them in a few days" script on input from the wrong year because January had just ended and he had to input a value containing the last day of the month (e.g. 2013-01-31) by hand.
Maybe after you pass $10mm ARR. :)