skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Rephrasing "95% probability of correctness" as "5% chance of bullshit" is perfectly fine, and a good way to look at things. The problem is that "p = 0.05" doesn't mean either of those things, or even anything close to either of those things. P-values are always taking about a null hypothesis, and only the null hypothesis. The p-value answers "How rare would this result be if the null hypothesis is true?" Note that the alternative hypothesis, which is what you really want to know about, never even enters the question. This is why people have such issues with p-values. People want to know about the alternative hypothesis, and they want to believe that the statistical tool they're using is answering their question, but a p-value is answering a different question entirely.

It's intuitively obvious that a result that is unlikely under the null hypothesis constitutes some evidence in favor of the alternative hypothesis, but the precise nature of that relationship depends on information that is not usually available, such as prior estimates of the likelihood that each model is true. If such information is available, you can use Bayesian statistics to answer the question that you really want to ask (e.g. "What is the probability that the alternative hypothesis is true given this data?"), instead of using p-values to answer the only question you are capable of answering, even though that answer isn't a particularly useful one.

For a concrete example, xkcd comes to the rescue: https://xkcd.com/882/

Consider that, when testing the 20 flavors, you expect to get at least one p-value of 0.05 by random chance, since 0.05 = 1 in 20. So in this specific case there's actually a very high probability (much higher than 5%, even higher than 50%) that the result is bullshit. But even when you're doing a single test, not 20 of them, a p-value of 0.05 can still mean much higher than 5% of bullshit. Or it could be much lower.

Lastly, note that "confidence intervals" are just a statement of the thresholds for p-values. For example, the 95% confidence interval includes your null hypothesis if and only if your p-value is greater than 0.05. So everything I said above about p-values applies equally well to confidence intervals. In particular, "95% confidence interval" does NOT mean "95% confidence that the value is within this interval".

If you want to ask me some more questions, email me at rct at thompsonclan dot org.
That's … unsatisfying. I mean that it's unsatisfying in a theoretical sense (because it gives me no theoretical feeling for the Turing-machine-to-differential-equation transformation), but, if I really wanted to be picky, I could point out that (a) nothing in the definition of a Turing machine guarantees its physical realisability (what if its number of states is bigger than the power set of the number of elementary particles in the universe, or, similarly, if it writes on an unbounded amount of tape?), and (b) Newton's equations of motion are only approximations to, not exact descriptions of, the physical universe.

Is there any more-or-less explicit recipe that says "given a description of a Turing machine (as a 7-tuple, say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Formal_definiti...), here is a (possibly unmanageably huge) differential equation such that …"—well, I don't even really know what. Your answer suggests that I might ask that, say, the solution $y$ to the differential equation where $y(1)$ somehow encodes a given initial state of the tape is such that $y(0)$ somehow encodes the final state of the tape (with the understanding that $y$ is not defined at $0$ if the machine doesn't halt on the corresponding input).
The state doesn't think it did anything wrong. All the way up to the president - and don't think the president wasn't aware of these operations - our representatives believe that these capabilities are necessary for the current and future security of the United States (which is, in fact, facing gigantic national security challenges).

The state does not want to give up these programs and it does not think that they are wrong.

Some members of Congress may think otherwise and some lawyers may think so as well. But the top brass even in the DOJ are mostly on board with these programs.

The most the state is willing to do is let Clapper 'retire' from service out of his official capacity and into a role where he can partner with the US government from the private sector and install a new general in his place.

As for Snowden, are there not mechanisms in our court system whereby lenience is given to those in special circumstances - whistleblowing laws being one of them?

I agree 100% that Snowden should face the music. But he doesn't believe he will get a fair trial in the United States and this is likely the case. So he's asking for amnesty.

I think that Snowden should continue asking countries for amnesty until it is clear that the legal circumstance in the United States and the conditions and location of the court he will be charged with (Virginia? Really?) will be a fair one. Mostly this means stronger whistleblower protection laws of the sort the Obama Administration promised but never delivered.
"…won't come from the current occupant of the White House…"

Are you sure? In their final days in office, lame-duck Presidents can (and do) use their pardon powers in ways that would be politically-unthinkable at any other time.

A total pardon would be very hard – a potentially dangerous precedent, even, for discipline in the security agencies.

But perhaps a pardon could be creatively crafted for all acts except some token offense with a smallish (2-4 year) maximum incarceration.

Without an unambiguous and expansive public pardon, if I were Snowden, I'd be somewhat suspicious of other offers from the DoJ. They might find a way to nullify the offer, or find something else outside the agreement to prosecute.
> He should be allowed to testify and defend himself.

He's not. https://freedom.press/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-tr...

> If Edward Snowden comes back to the US to face trial, he likely will not be able to tell a jury why he did what he did, and what happened because of his actions. Contrary to common sense, there is no public interest exception to the Espionage Act. Prosecutors in recent cases have convinced courts that the intent of the leaker, the value of leaks to the public, and the lack of harm caused by the leaks are irrelevant—and are therefore inadmissible in court.
Except this also adds very little benefit. Sure, 3 ciphers might be better than one, but as the top comment said the cipher is already the strongest part of the entire process.
When you celebrate political theater that reaffirms the status quo with some window dressing you are essentially saying "yay, tyranny".

Dismissing criticism with a flippant "perfect is the enemy of the good" is lazy and thoughtless.

The government has shown no interest in curtailing the vast surveillance apparatus it has built, nor does it show interest in investigating its own abuses of such power.

When people praise such drivel as the freedom act it only sets us all back on the road to tyranny. So yeah, your perspective is detrimental to improving the dire circumstances we find ourselves.
And exactly that point is the reason why I hate triple A games.

They are produced like movies. Throw insane amounts of money at an idea. More money, more insane things are possible.

But games don't actually _need_ lots of things, so much complexity or licenses for soccer teams/car brands. For me AAA games make no sense, and their economy makes even less sense.
Fuck "seeking some sort of deal with his lawyers".

A plea bargain would require him admitting wrongdoing.

He raised internal concerns over the illegal activities he saw and was told to be quiet. Snowden himself has said he feared what happened to John Kiriakou (the whistleblower who exposed CIA's illegal torture program) happening to him had he made an even bigger issue out of it.

The people who should be supporting rigorous checks on government authority and overstep simply aren't; the system is out of control and punishes those who speak up about illegal activity. He did what any reasonable person would have done in his situation when confronted with a massive criminal conspiracy.

A plea deal would allow the government to taint his actions, which were nothing short of heroic.
Agreed. My point was that not continuing is difficult because it would mean going down, instead of up. Or in other words, I've been trying to guess the reason behind the lack of change, not question the intention itself.
And people with security clearance shouldn't get to individually determine what is right by their own moral code.
I just find it hard to run my own infrastructure. I tried setting up an e-mail server once, and the e-mails I sent from it were directly routed to the Spam folder of any Gmail account I tried to send them to.

I tried DKIM, but the e-mails were still sent to Gmail's spam folders. Eventually I gave up on self-hosted e-mail.
OpenBSD security features
We unfortunately can't support such things right now as a super small company, but we'd love to be able to in the future (or for this to become easier for all in the US, crosses fingers)
> If the person at the door preachin' the word looks awkward and is stammering, be kind - they're more afraid of you than you are of them :)

Wait a minute - so they don't like it, I don't like it... so why are we doing this?
Hi everyone,

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We're currently in open beta and are anxious to hear what users think of the toolset we've put together, and more importantly what we can do better.

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Stupidity vs. Failure, Pendulums, and Ego Chasing: Chamath Palihapitiya
Location: Belgium, Europe; Manchester, UK

Remote: No. Yes please, not required though.

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: C, x86 assembly, Win32, Lua, FFmpeg

Résumé/CV: On request

Email: james.darnley@gmail.com

PGP key ID: 0x99412908 fingerprint: 5612 F4E9 53A6 ADA1 0E9B 285A CC26 DD10 9941 2908

OpenHub profile: https://www.openhub.net/accounts/J_Darnley

GitLab profile: https://gitlab.com/u/J_Darnley

I speak English and Dutch. I have no problem adjusting my day to suit your timezone. Desperate enough to accept almost any offer.
Rand Paul might pardon him.
Ask HN: Do you call yourself a software engineer or software developer?
I've never understood why so many people in the industry insist on calling themselves software engineers. Do you have formal training in engineering? Do you employ engineering techniques? Doesn't "software developer" better describe your role if you're not using actual "engineering" techniques? Sure, some of us have taken software engineering classes, but does that make us engineers?
The author points to Sims Social and League of Legends as points of reducing the technical prowess of games.

While it's true that these games are less technically complex than a hyper-realistic 3D game, they are extremely complicated in client-server architecture.

The requirements for technical complexity have changed focuses, not disappeared.
If all I'd said was the quip you quoted, your position might have merit. Instead, you're selectively quoting my rather measured comment and calling me "lazy and thoughtless".

Thanks.

EDIT: You know what I think has people the most pissed off in all of this? That their illusions about America having been a particularly "free" country in the first place are being shattered.

I'm reminded of nothing quite so much as the virulence I've seen in former, incredibly ardent Obama supporters, when they realized how much of a tool he actually was.

Those of us who knew he was a tool from the beginning? Not so pissed when his true colors came out.

(And, no, I'm not a Republican, nor a Libertarian. I just realized a long time ago how corrupt the American political process is, and engage with it with that principle in mind.)
A number of people have said that Photos has grouped their photos by people, with Google saying that the feature can recognise faces over time ... I don't have that, and I want to try it. Anyone know a way of forcing it to show me People? I only have Places and Things.

I like what Google's done! I can search for 'baby' and get all the photos with babies (few false positives here and there). Hopefully in the near future they'll add feedback options so we can point out errors in classification.
Show HN: Colorize TAP in DevTools Console
While the source is free you can bump into trademark issues (I don't know if it's specifically true for MobaXterm though). You can go the CentOS or Iceweasel way, download the source, replace trademarked stuff and distribute the compiled binaries.
It's all about perception. If President Obama is actually as opposed to the mass surveillance as he portrays publicly, he would have done something about it before there ever was a leak.
SEEKING WORK: Belgium, Europe; Manchester, UK.

Remote: No. Yes please, not required though.

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: C, x86 assembly, Win32, Lua, FFmpeg

Résumé/CV: On request

Email: james.darnley@gmail.com

PGP key ID: 0x99412908 fingerprint: 5612 F4E9 53A6 ADA1 0E9B 285A CC26 DD10 9941 2908

OpenHub profile: https://www.openhub.net/accounts/J_Darnley

GitLab profile: https://gitlab.com/u/J_Darnley

I speak English and Dutch. I have no problem adjusting my day to suit your timezone. Desperate enough to accept almost any offer.
Well, I believe that's based on a hypothetical of how a judge might rule if Snowden attempts that defense.

But more importantly, I don't think that's wrong. "I had a good reason" isn't a defense against the charges since intent is not a factor in this crime. I don't think you're generally allowed to argue for jury nullification, which is what this would amount to. (If the government could prove he intended to cause harm I imagine there would be even more charges against him.) And it makes sense: we can't have a situation where any random defense employee can bring down a national security program that they themselves think is wrong or illegal.

I assume if there was a sentencing hearing, he'd be allowed to make a case for leniency based on why he did it.
There's a similar bubble in the PRC: if you talk to someone inside it, they know all about Tiananmen Square, Tibet, the recent Hong Kong protests, etc. Whereas if you talk to someone outside of it, they'll tell you the Chinese government is a beloved-to-neutral entity (like the Queen of England, a bit) in the eyes of the populace, and that American terrorism is responsible for most-any Chinese civil unrest.

It isn't until you meet people on both sides of such a dividing line that you realize: propaganda is never aimed at "converting" people who know even the slightest thing about an issue, people who already have any stance at all. Instead, it's aimed at the mass of people who care little enough about an issue, people who are far enough away from the issue, that they'll trust the first source of "facts" about it they see, and then lose interest in finding out more.
As a practical matter, he can't come home. Not even the president can promise his immunity from prosecution -- one day there will be another president. The DOJ could drop all charges. And then impose new ones once he returns. And that is to say nothing of the possibility of his being killed, with blame cast on some nut job, and with all sorts of manufactured dirt on him released afterward.

Put yourself in Snowden's shoes. What could anyone in the government say to you that would convince you it was safe to return to the USA?
Unfortunately not yet. JavaEE, and JSF specifically is garbage.
I didn't get much out of twitter until I had a community I became involved in and had a product I wanted to promote. Though I don't have a ton of followers I mostly use it to track what other people are talking about and start conversations when possible.

So to answer your question, I think users get the most out of it who have a need or want for actively engaging in <em>something</em>. My followers who I do interact with most are either other creators or heavily-invested fan.
Complete erosion is a huge overstatement. In fact, we are still probably better off than we were in the dark years after the Iraq invasion.
In Japan many streets don't have names, but every city location has an address. Every block is numbered, and buildings are assigned numbers within the block in the order or construction. My address is Akasaka 9-7-4, which means the 4th building constructed on block 7 of district 9 of Akasaka. Yes it was a pain to resolve addresses before Google maps.
I don't disagree. mayneack indicated that he/she thought OSM provided an API for driving distances (they don't).
(Should have put this in the post, but in case anyone is searching for it - this position is in Los Angeles)
He didn't sold anything to Russia, the leaks are public throwaway shill. That's called whistle blowing and he exposed the wickedness and the corruption of your "adored" government. But Ignorance is bliss for some.
Show HN: Meteor client for Android
I also am an admirer of Snowden's actions in this case, and what those actions have helped to accomplish.

But when choosing how to respond on the issue of leaking classified information, I think the government has to look at more than just this case. Would every subsequent leak, inspired by this one, also be heroic? Unlikely.
I have long wanted to, but have never actually got to, teach a differential-equations course from Hubbard & West (http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Dynamical-Appro...). I thought that there was an article in Math. Mag. about their approach via "fences and funnels", but MathSciNet only knows about a 1995 CMS conference proceedings: http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1483923 . EDIT: The article I wanted (which has the same title as the proceedings article above) is actually in College Math. J.; it's http://www.jstor.org/stable/2687507 .

Another, I think, slightly gentler approach along similar lines is Blanchard, Devaney, & Hall (http://math.bu.edu/odes). The pedigree for this latter is very good; Devaney gave the (as far as I know) first rigorous mathematical definition of chaos. I have taught out of this one a number of times, and very much enjoy it.
I think you have it backwards. Sysadmins are not the ones arguing in favor of "the one true way". That is squarely in the newer breed of developer/admin devops hybrid that the systemd camp is pandering.

For sysadmins the nix way of text in and text out allow systems to be as simple or complex as they need to be, because parts can be swapped, added or removed as needed.

The kernel don't care what your initial process is (you can for instance point the Linux kernel straight at the sh binary and be presented with a root shell the moment the kernel is done getting the hardware up and running), and the programs you want to run don't care either.

Thus you can run nix on anything from a dinky single core SoC to a warehouse sized compute cluster.

But systemd is pandering the latter while giving the former the middle finger. This by ignoring the text in text out loose bindings that has been the core of *nix.
6 Great Tips to Build Customer Referrals for Your ECommerce Business
Git makes git painless
Indeed the networking requirements of Kubernetes are very different from that of Docker.

However, it isn't too difficult to setup a Layer 2 unification overlay network. I've had success with flannel[1], it's pretty easy to set up and supports VxLAN.

[1] https://github.com/coreos/flannel
I find that statement misleading: one doesn't need to serialize or "register" (whatever that's supposed to mean) an AR lower made for personal use that, later, one decides to sell. Again, YMMV, depending on the state.
It is easy to also forget, however sad, that the people that do know of Snowden, and are familiar with what he did, think he is a traitor and should stand trial for his "crimes".

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-most-think-edward-snowden-s...
I can't say this for sure, but I don't think a presidential pardon can be reversed by a subsequent president.
Presidential pardons stick because of double jeopardy. If Snowden is pardoned for the crimes for which he has been indicted, he cannot be indicted for them again.

If Obama pardoned Snowden on his last day in office (as I hope he does), Snowden could come home.

If murder is the concern, Snowden will not be safe anywhere. Do you think that the CIA doesn't have people in Moscow?
That's a fascinating idea: they may have evolved from a weigh pan. As a protocol it makes sense: bring the customer the weigh pan and then put it straight on the scale. The customer can see you didn't manipulate the pan and both of you can see the result of the weigh.

This same procedure could explain the origin of similar usage in other countries.
"The crime Snowden is charged with is the same regardless of who else is charged."

Nominally true, but this approaches the cliche about the rich and poor alike being banned from sleeping under bridges.

So long as the law is unevenly enforced such that (for instance) Clapper is not targeted and Snowden is, the surveillance state retains the structural ability to frame the debate about itself, lie about what it does and severely punish anyone who exposes the lies.

That is not a system that promotes democratic oversight, especially oversight of a passel of agencies already armed with massive advantages in evading oversight not typically available to most other agencies, like (enormous) hidden budgets, specially crafted exemptions to sunshine, classification, etc. (And that's before we get to the really creepy things these agencies do.)
I think the being known to a majority of the US population is a way too high bar. In a 2010 poll[1], only 59% knew the name of the vice president, as mentioned in a Greenwald article[2] about this issue.

1. http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-s...

2. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/06/john-oliver-in...
Yeah, you just have to flip your thinking to see it as an expression separator as opposed to a statement terminator.
Both of the articles have some flaws (that Matasano one is really bad/dated actually).

Here's a good one about the problems with JS Crypto: http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-cr...
> but I have a pretty hard time understanding why someone can't spend a week getting up to speed with a tool they intend to use for years to come.

Because it may not be for enough years. I've used CVS, SVN, Git in less than 15 years. I still have clients on SVN because Git is too much to get to grips with.

> what is it about Git that people find painful?

Why is there no built-in 'tree' command? I am lost without my .gitconfig and the aliases I have set up to give me a visual view of the repository.

Also, the difference between HEAD^3 and HEAD~3. I have muscle memory to do what I need, but for more occasional tasks I am searching StackOverflow.

I haven't used other DVCS so I don't know if the pain points are Git, or they're the complexities that DVCS brings. I look forward to the next (r)evolution in source control, when I hope we have power but more human-friendliness.
At the time, those squares were an impressive technical achievement. Many cartridges were sold because the graphics and sound capabilities produced a new experience for many people. (I was, like, five years old at the time, so pretty much everything was a new experience for me.)