skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've seen this thing quite often. There's a famous video clip of MIT graduates, in cap and gown, who can't make a bulb light when given a battery and wire. I disagree with the blog author's interpretation that this is about the students being "stupid." I posted the comment below.

I wouldn't interpret this as "education majors are stupid." I would interpret it as, all of us, even the best of us, are stupid in certain contexts with certain topics and certain time pressures. This is partly due to how we are taught and how we learn in school. Our knowledge is inert (inaccessible in other contexts) because it is often taught without context. The technical term for this is "transfer" - our learning often doesn't transfer. An older term for this is "encoding specificity" - our learning is "locked" to the context in which it is encoded. For example the myth that if you are drunk while studying you should be drunk when you take the test.

Here is a dramatic example that had a huge influence on reforming science education. On the bottom right of this page is a video clip of MIT graduates, in cap and gown, who, given a battery, bulb, and wire, can't make the bulb light. There's also a clip of Harvard students. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/smgphp/mosart/video_archive_2.ht...

The full videos that go into why this is happening (because of how they are taught) and how we can address it (contextualized and constructivist instruction techniques like problem-based learning, simulations, etc.) are "Minds of Our Own" and "A Private Universe", which can be viewed online here: http://www.learner.org/resources/series26.html and here: http://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html

Another brilliant example comes from comedian Father Guido Sarducci's routine on the "Five Minute University" - how he can teach in 5 minutes what you remember 5 years after college: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4
Innovative Merchant Solutions, a division of Intuit

http://www.innovativemerchant.com/
curious, how does this compare to the film?
> "They will never find the bodies."

Heh, if I were on the run for murder the last thing I'd do is post stuff on the interwebs under real name. Especially not these days, when everyone and their dog can track each other (hello, SS#7)...

But I'd say the likelihood of me getting robbed or scammed is lower than the average...
Back to harping on the superiority complex?

> Now, if you're going to criticize work within the philosophy of science, it's impossible for me to respond unless you point to something specific.

I did. The quality of the students the philosophy of science produces.

> Perhaps you can point me to an example of a philosopher of science who (a) dismisses all of physics and (b) has never studied any physics.

I'm not sure why you're making this request. I've never claimed there's even one philosopher of science who has "dismissed all of physics" nor have I claimed there's one who has never studied any physics.

> Most modern scientists routinely characterize the scientific method using philosophical ideas from the first half of the 20th century.

You do realize that nobody really talks or cares about the scientific method, right? It's something that kids are taught in junior high, it's there mostly to give the scientifically illiterate a ballpark idea of what's going on. Yes, people generally make fools of themselves when they talk about it because they're philosophizing. It's usually only philosophers who think a precise definition of it is at all important.

This brings us back to philosophers defining science in a way that the field of philosophy is important to it, but if a scientific idea depends upon a strict definition of "the scientific method" (or any other philosophical idea) it's probably a shitty scientific idea and it's probably wrong.
This nails it, but I think they're failing. I can't mention how many times it's 10:00 and I start looking for something interesting, and by 10:15 give up and go to bed. (Or pay for something on Amazon)
Samsung Gear VR Review: A Shallow Dip into the Virtual Pool
My 12-yo is learning HTML/JS by reading and modifying websites' code.
Hipster identity is formed not by who they are but the products they surround themselves with. Specific brands are important to that identity.
How Dark Matter Could Have Helped Kill the Dinosaurs
Since the online catalog started shrinking, the DVD division is more useful. The DVD rental business has first-sale-doctrine rights; Netflix can rent those DVDs even if the studio doesn't like it. They don't have that right online, and have to cut a deal each title.
What Is HTTP/2 and Why Should You Care About It?
Maybe it's easier to think of coin tosses. Think that we are sampling from a huge population of two coin tosses.

The distribution in order of toss:

HH 1/4
HT 1/4
TH 1/4
TT 1/4

Problem two: Two coins were tossed, one is heads. What is the probability the other is tails?

Looking at the first three rows of the distribution, weight of rows where there's one tails is 2/4 while there's only one row with both heads, whose weight is 1/4. So (2/4)/(3/4) = 2/3 probability of tails.

Problem three: Two coins were tossed, first was head. So we look at the first two rows of the distribution. HT and HH each have equal weight so it's (1/4)/(1/4+1/4)=1/2.

First problem: Two coins were tossed, one was tossed on tuesday and is a heads. What is the probability that the other is tails?

Let's assume all coins are always tossed on random days as well. We are now interested in a sub-population where one was tossed on a tuesday and was heads.

If we tabulate all combinations in the population that we are interested, x axis is first coin toss week day and y axis is second coin toss weekday:

tuesday.txt

mon tue wed thu fri sat sun
mon HH HT
tue HH TH HH HT TH HH TH HH TH HH TH HH TH HH TH
wed HH HT
thu HH HT
fri HH HT
sat HH HT
sun HH HT

$ egrep -o "HH|TH|HT|TT" tuesday.txt | sort | uniq -c
13 HH
7 HT
7 TH

14/27 chance that the other toss is a tails.

Edit: to put it in words, the slight asymmetry is that if the other child was also born on tuesday, from the population where both children were born on a tuesday there are more boy-girl + girl-boy samples than boy-boy samples.
It always surprised me how well Stripe does with developers. They are the most expensive option out there for a startup because their bulk pricing threshold is much higher than anyone elses (Paypal's first discount tier starts at $3k/m, Stripe's is $80k)

It always surprised me that developers don't identify this from the start. Sure, Stripe's APIs are a little easier to work with, but the extra time you'd end up spending implementing a cheaper competitor pays for itself pretty quickly when transactions start rolling in.
I believe that's the difference between "uses a wider vocabulary" and "has a wider vocabulary".

I would think that literary French generally uses a wider vocabulary than English though, at least because repeating words in French is to be avoided at all costs, while it's more acceptable in English.
Tis is my position as well. HBO has been putting out some of the best content available for TV for over a decade. Their back catalog make HBO Go's nominal cost seem like a pittance. Netflix has put together some quality original content (House of Cards is outstanding), but they're going to have to keep it up for a generation before they hold a candle to HBO.
Exactly. Netflix pivoted because it realized it couldn't kill cable. It could maybe kill a cable network (and it won't kill HBO, it might kill Starz or Showtime, but not HBO).
An app that reduces traffic in rush hours by 20%
I completely agree that this is beneficial for both government and business leaders / innovators, but it's hard to justify for entry level employment, which most people are seeking post-undergraduate / graduate school.

You run the risk of sacrificing depth for breadth. With finite educational resources (time and money in real dollars that are likely borrowed), most people are attempting to maximize their earning potential post-graduation.

Part of the problem is that profit seeking companies don't favor the renaissance man / woman because they need people down in the trenches, implementing the mundane details of the grand ideas dreamt up by innovators. The reality is that most people are not a da Vinci or Jobs (both would have made significant contributions to society without diverse educations--there's likely no shortage of examples of hyper-focused authors, scientists, artists, etc. who were equally successful).

Although I'm not a huge fan of argument by personal anecdote I think it applies here. As an undergraduate engineering student, I spent a large portion of my educational resources, 20-50% of my time / energy, on policy debate [1]. Each year, I intensely researched, organized, presented, and actively debated international politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism in the context of a specific topic. At the conclusion of each year, I could have written a thesis on a relevant subset of each topic--I say this as someone who has written and defended an engineering thesis. Post-graduation, however, I find myself working for an engineering firm, doing engineering work. During the interview and continuing to this day (4+ years later), no one cares how much I know about West Africa agricultural problems, biopolitics, feminism, Ex parte Quirin, or the AUMF. It's simply not relevant to work I do. I would love a job that uses all of my interests and talents, but, especially in this case, that seems unlikely. "Looking for candidate with strong background in Structural Dynamics, Aeroelasticity, Feminism, and Middle Eastern politics!" Maybe I'm just not creative enough.

Am I well read? Sure. Do I sound intelligent over a beer or two? Absolutely. Am I a contributing member of a well-informed electorate? You betcha! But would that time / effort been better spent on engineering-specific extracurricular activities? I know what the hiring manager at my company and my boss would probably tell you.

Sure I retained the research, organization, presentation, and public speaking skills, but they're really only marginally relevant to my current work. I also would have probably developed those skills if I was involved in DBF [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_debate

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design/Build/Fly
GPS Operations Contradict the Two Principles of Special Relativity [pdf]
"spree"
Funny, I never do things I don't want to do. I do, in fact decide how to spend my time. I've never found any value in letting other people make these decisions for me. There are trade-offs for sure - I often choose to do things that I find less pleasant, but only with the expectation of a future payoff, or else because I'm happily making a sacrifice for the happiness of someone I care about. But in every case, I do choose what I do.
An Opportunity for Borderlands to Stay Open
Discussion about Borderlands closing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8991899
Did you ever think that maybe these companies have data that disagrees with you?

The company I work for has both proper native apps & responsive web sites. We push customers towards the native apps because the difference for us is tens of millions of dollars, at least.
I was thinking the same thing. Mount Washington sounds very similar. It's the highest peak in the northeastern United States, and part of the famous Appalachian Trail. It also has both an auto road and an old-style mountain climbing railway, with some touristy stuff at the top.

Hikers don't seem to mind this very much -- in fact, it's common for even fairly experienced hikers to ascend in the morning and take a bus down later, so that they may spend more time at the summit. There are several somewhat lower (but still spectacular) peaks in the same range, which are largely untouched.
Yes, handcrafted luxury items.
Your pay as a senior developer is already adjusted for your immediate contribution to revenue.

Profits are trickier because there are a range of factors (more than just revenue) that contribute to it.
I think that's the best description of his professional interests I've ever seen posted.
If they got something this basic wrong, you can only imagine what else is broken in it. TLS is very hard to get right.
Oh, I agree that there is work to be done. I don't see the value in framing that in terms of "calling ourselves a civilization."

"A civilization (or civilisation in British English) is any complex state society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment." -- Wikipedia
If comprehension and spelling were decoupled but still equally weighted then the aggregate score would've been significantly higher. Let's split the difference and say that 20-30% on the set of [all answers simultaneously spelled correctly AND comprehended] becomes a 25% on the "spells things correctly" axis. If we weight that equally against the "comprehension" axis then you get

let R = 25 # reading
let C = ? # comprehension
let M = 40 # reported mean

(R + C) / 2 == M
(25 + C) / 2 == 40
(25 + C) == 80

C == 55 # implied comprehension grade from a 40% average

If comprehension was any higher than 55% - which this anecdote certainly suggests - then the 40% aggregate score awarded is an ineffective assessment of the holistic learning picture.

This is the grade school equivalent of tossing out resumes over a single copy editing mistake.
This was explicitly not the case in this class. A test curved to 85 points was worth less than another test curved to 90 points.

And honestly, even if each test was normalized to 100 points after the curve, I would still object (on ethical grounds, not mathematical) to not being given >100% when the test is curved to below my score.
How Mathematicians Make Breakthroughs
You can do the same thing with USD. It's called money laundering, and was not invented by the Bitcoin community. Granted, for the time being it's a lot easier to do with Bitcoin, but any kind of mass market adoption would surely change this.
Your examples illustrate someone lying. Merely arriving at the summit of Everest by assisted means does not make one a liar. People do many things - summiting among them - for their own amusement, not to make grandiose claims. Jon Krakauer "bought" (or had it purchased on his behalf) his way to the top of Everest and to my knowledge has not equated himself with Sir Edmund Hillary to date.

If teleportation was invented, would it cheapen the pioneer's accomplishments if we could just buy a ticket to teleport to the top, grab a peek, and teleport home?
> How much do you want to pay to purchase and store all that video? That's where Netflix's value comes in.

It's not clear to me that mr. throwaway was planning on purchasing any of that content.
Does it really need to be a new project?
I know what you mean, but I also get the opposite experience. I'll sometimes learn of a cool show after it's been on for a few episodes or seasons. I like the anticipation of watching something that others have already seen and really liked. It's like being let in on a secret.

I also like when I tell a friend about a show that they haven't yet seen. Watching them catch up is fun for me. "How far did you get last night? Were there any new characters introduced? You're going to be surprised how it ends!"
>The urls aren't hyperlinked, so readers have to copy-paste.

Is it even possible to have clickable hyperlinks in HTML comments?
That is how I learned when I was 12 too :)
There are other touchscreen interactions that are terrible on PC. My favourite example to hate (and lots of other websites, etc. do this too) is the carousel with arrows at either end which you hover over to scroll, at a slow, frustrating rate. Clicking does nothing, so you have no control over how quickly you move through content. You just place your cursor and sit, and wait, and wait, and wait. It's surprisingly irritating.
congrats dude. moving to SF to join you guys was great. i made a lot of good friends there, and it's been fun to watch from the outside.
Nice.

In doing a bit of Googling of dmenu I found this

http://alternativeto.net/software/dmenu/?platform=mac

Which may be helpful for others as a general way to find alternatives for a given piece of software on other platforms.
Post your business card?
After a point, having more words in a dictionary does not necessarily result in the average person using more words in their communication. I would think that education/environment would have a bigger effect.

That said, I would interested if the grandparent could provide more info supporting their statement, as I don't know the truth one way or the other and would like to know more.
Doesn't anyone pay attention to what's "above the fold" anymore? I mean, I know browser window sizes differ, but I don't even see the headline on a 1213x683 window.
AFAICT, this (the punmaking, and language games in general) is actually a prime attribute of PL researchers, at least in several major PL subdisciplines. It's been awhile since I've cracked open the POPL proceedings or the like, but ... wow, just wow.

One of my favorites was a (peer-reviewed, published!) paper with this gem of a footnote in the first column: This work supported in part by cinder blocks.
Chawly Changer: small device to hold $1.34 in coins
Oh, I see. Essentially curving from both ends, to fit a desired distribution.

That idea has never made sense to me, at least if the class is using a system where having a score less than some specific percent implies failure.
> 3. The urls aren't hyperlinked, so readers have to copy-paste.

Actually you can just highlight the URL and right click, you get an option to open it in various ways... (firefox and chrome)
So basically you make a claim that french is easier to rhyme than english, then I ask you if you have any evidence and you retorqued with a condescending answer adding a link to a book you took 5 second to google and that you didn't read.

You didn't read it because I just read it and while the first sentence would make it appear to back your point, it doesn't. First because he doesn't compare french to english but merely explain how the main accent is put on the suffix of words and that, in turn, makes it easy in french to build rhyme.

And if you continue to the next page, he explains how french rhyme are not on the same level as their english counterpart "because most English rhymes involve the root rather than the inflectional ending or suffix [...]"

Bottom line, you are wrong, and you try to pass as knowledgeable. You are a fraud.
Scrolling is the new shit, they said.
Just do it for 10 years, and comment after that. I can guess that 2 from 10 will be still negative about this "generic advice", but other will reach success. Another strange thing - definition of success in general.
He also claimed that they'd support discs by mail forever, then turned around and tried to hack off that part of the business. Netflix can't be trusted to do what they say they will.
Just search for "Raiders of the Lost Archives" on YouTube, and you ll see the truth about how the movie was made!
I would very much like to know what condition you have for which the treatment is regular, yearly flu shots.
Yes but are people still using it? Personally I don't really care how big of a catalog they have, I'm not going to wait 2-3 days for a movie to arrive.
I think it mentions in the article about agencies having Dell and HP on the list of allowed companies.
I've yet to see a respected publisher devolve into GIF-delivered content out of financial constraints.

Check in with The New Republic in a year or so.
Google launches Security scanner
> No problem; just select your last-known-good configuration at boot, then try again

This sounds like a configuration that could potentially be applied to other Linux OS'es, no?
Discussion about Borderlands closing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8991899
Piracy is hardly a "clean install". I wouldn't be surprised if a decent-sized number of the bootleg Windows installs out there are heavily-rootkitted.

I haven't seen any recent statistics, but at one point, 74% of rootkit infections were on pirated copies of Windows XP [0]

[0] http://www.zdnet.com/article/study-rootkits-target-pirated-c...
Are your kids male teachers taking flak for this?

I see people on HN writing this all the time, but as the parent of a middle schooler and a high school student who just left middle school:

There's a 50/50 split between men and women in my kids' middle school, and nobody is weird about guys teaching.

There were plenty of guys teaching at their elementary school as well. My daughter had a male teacher in 2nd and 5th grade.

I went to Jesuit high school, and more of my teachers were men than women. Again: no weirdness at all.

Is it true that "most male teachers of children" (or even many male teachers of children) are viewed as "weird", or is this just a meme on message boards?
The Father of the Internet Has a Plan to Future-Proof Computers
That isn't "the treatment." It is just one component of standard care.

I have a form of cystic fibrosis.
Wouldn't analysis of top 3 contemporary newspapers / magazines in each language yield a more accurate result?

Ie if Dickens or Melville used certain words in their writing - if modern speakers don't know them, we can't really use them to gauge how many words English speakers use today.

I, for one, simply can't read Shakespeare - most of his vocabulary (anybody knows what a 'bodkin' is?) sounds foreign to me. And I scored 99 percentile on the verbal SAT.
True story coming up.

I did my undergrad/master's at Oxford. The course title was "Engineering, Economics, and Management". Supposedly it was roughly 2/3rds of the Engineering course, and 2/3 of the "Economics and Management" course, but when you put it all together it seemed like 3/4 Engineering.

In the last year, there was a 6-month placement, which you were to use as experience to write a thesis. You could choose from anything that fit under any of the three rubrics (Eng, Econ, Mgt), and someone would find you an appropriate advisor, ie a prof from the Engineering School, the Econ department, or the Business school.

The kind of companies we got to show up were mainly banks. There was the occasional engineering company as well as a few household industrials.

I didn't get any of the coveted bank jobs. I did manage to show up very late (thank you Great Western railways) to an engineering interview, and got offered the job anyway. The money on offer was £11K/year, which didn't seem enticing at all, even for an internship. I ended up taking a marketing job at a major chip manufacturer, which was happy to pay 15K. So I rented a place in this little industrial town and got to work on powerpoint for half a year. (I should say I had a great social life, and I know friends who are still there 13 years later.)

So of course one day, I go to visit a coursemate who did manage to get a bank job, at a place that would later be called the giant vampire squid (not sure I agree with the epithet). So, what does he get? £26K a year. Free apartment within walking distance of work, on the South Bank. Gym and pool included. That one bedroom apartment, at that time, was probably 250/week. So basically he's making £38/year.

It's little wonder people want to work in finance when the numbers are that skewed.

How many of my ~30 EEM coursemates went into engineering? I can think of one. Just about everyone else went into finance.

I remember meeting a guy early on who'd started in Engineering. I asked him why he'd quit. He said "One day, I accidentally saw what my manager was making".

Is it a brain drain? Quite possibly. A lot of the brains in finance are fighting a zero sum game with each other. How can I price this derivative a little more smartly than the next guy? How do I grab the arb before another guy does it? How do I get a guy to trade with me and not someone else? How do I get my firm's name on this tombstone?