Hacker News Reader

CarolineWon All blue-eyed people have a single ancestor in common

Ten years ago on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=111628

Also, somewhat more recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15194123

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14309525

None have much discussion, but there were fewer people here ten years ago, so perhaps the five comments that are there are more valuable.

Then again, maybe not.

CarolineWon A curated list of tools that lets everyone create virtually anything

Clickable: http://kreatortools.com

For reference, it would be really useful if you actually wrote a blog post or some sort of guide, and then post the link to that. As it is it's annoying to have to copy out the link, then visit, then think "I wonder what this is?"

Your description here is pretty minimal, it would be nice to see an example of what you've actually done with these tools, and why you've chosen them.

CarolineWon [dead]

Earlier discussion (4 days ago, 149 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15235854

CarolineWon Massive earthquake off Mexico's coast

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15198206

CarolineWon The featherweight version of a Python class

Seems to be down - the HN "hug of death" ??

CarolineWon A Modified ElGamal for Passwords Only

While I can write down D-H key exchange and ElGamal without thinking too hard, there's no guarantee when I do so that I will be using the same letters for the same components as you have here. So I'd have to work out the bijection between the letter you've used and the letters I've used, and it all becomes a lot of work, and just obscures the point.

Why don't you (assuming you're the author, based on your username and the author's name) either include the definition, or at least give a pointer to a definition that uses the notation you are using?

The result of not doing so is that I've read this and thought: That will be a lot of work to interpret.

Closed it and moved on.

CarolineWon The N-Queens completion problem is NP-hard

You either read the earlier version before it was corrected, or you're misunderstanding. The problem is not the N-Queens problem, it's the N-Queens /completion/ problem. The problem is this:

Here's an NxN board with k queens already placed. Is there a way to place another N-k queens so they are all mutually non-attacking?

Most instances will be easy, but current algorithms to solve this are such that for each N, the time taken in the worst case is an exponential function of N.

CarolineWon Uber Names Expedia Boss Dara Khosrowshahi as CEO Pick

Unsurprisingly this is carried on many major websites. I wonder whether one of these will be submitted and win the popularity vote, or whether it will be one not listed here ...

https://www.ft.com/content/14166898-8b8d-11e7-9084-d0c17942b...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/new-uber-ceo/

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/27/breaking-uber-has-selected...

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/27/16162344/uber-new-ceo-dar...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/ap-sources-expedi...

http://uk.businessinsider.com/who-is-dara-khosrowshahi-ubers...

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/27/new-uber-ceo.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-said-to-pick-expedias-...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/silicon-valley-o...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-uber-ceo...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-selects-expedia-ceo-dara-k...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/uber-names-expedia-ceo-dara...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/uber-board-picks...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/uber-is-s...

https://qz.com/1063293/ubers-board-selects-expedias-dara-kho...

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/ubers-chooses-a-surprising-ne...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/uber-...

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/27/546621735/...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/technology/uber-ceo-searc...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-ceo-idUSKCN1B70PD

https://www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2017/08/27/uber-nam...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/27/former-ge...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/08/28/uber-board-...

CarolineWon Alan Turing's lost notebook

'The reform of mathematical notation and phraseology', with AMS corrections.

http://www.turingarchive.org/browse.php/C/12

CarolineWon Why is base 60 more precise for trigonometry, can you give an example?

What you say might be true - although there are many people who doubt it, with some quoting research papers - but it simply doesn't answer the question asked, and is pretty much a complete non sequitur.

CarolineWon Police identify headless torso as that of missing journalist Kim Wall

Discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15078770

CarolineWon How to Lose 50% of Your Business Overnight from a Series of Coincidences

The actual content that the title relates to is here:

https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/transparency-report-30/#3

I was wondering at first how the title could possibly be relevant. It is, it's just not what they lead with, which perhaps annoyed me more than it should.

But it really did annoy me a lot.

CarolineWon Why there is little hole in airplane windows?

Much discussion and the raising (and in most cases answering) or related issues can be found here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9633051

CarolineWon The Matasano Crypto Challenges (2013)

Indeed. In this case it is misleading simply to call it by the title "The Matasano Crypto Challenges". Specifically, this is a blog post about the Matasano Crypto Challenges.

The modification wasn't intended to make the title stand out, and it wasn't editorializing, it was deliberately adding information to help you, the reader, know what it was you were clicking through to.

I understand the reasons, but I feel that sometimes the mods revert titles without thinking, and without assessing why it might have been changed. Again, I understand the reasons, and having yet another time sink is perhaps unwelcome, but I'd like to see some way - like the "vouch" mechanism - where altered titles can be accepted.

CarolineWon The Matasano Crypto Challenges (2013)

Ironically, that's been removed by the mods.

CarolineWon A Solution of the P versus NP Problem?

That's not the question you asked. If you want to know more about the context of this specific paper then you need to (a) wait for the people in the area to start writing explanations, or (b) ask more specific questions about specific terms.

A good place to start to get a sense of what's going on with this specific paper is this thread, but more particularly, the articles linked from it. One that I think is a great starting point is this one:

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/norbert-blum...

But you should perhaps start by asking the question you actually want the answer to - it sounds like you didn't. So take a moment, do some reading, then come back with particular questions. They may already be answered, but before you did the outside reading you didn't realise. That's what happens to me.

CarolineWon A Solution of the P versus NP Problem?

> From what I have read in the comments, there seems to be other papers which have also proved P!=NP.

None of those papers have been accepted as correct, the problem remains open.

There's a gazillion articles describing the context and importance, and I suggest you do a web search for something like "P vs NP and why it's important".

Here's one: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=459

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605415

CarolineWon Writing parsers like it is 2017

> ... if it doesn't do full recognition of your input before you do any processing then you're likely boned.

There are languages where you need to process some of what you've done before a later part of the source can be dis-ambiguated. How does that sit with what you've said here?

CarolineWon Female Google employee responds to James Damore memo

Other items that are much older and with fewer points are on the front page. Simplest explanation is that this item is being flagged.

So I'm curious. If you think this doesn't belong here then I'd appreciate hearing why you think that. Submissions about the original memo and the opinions it contained seemed pretty popular, so I thought that having a reasonably senior woman give a response was equally worth having.

If not, why not?

CarolineWon Show HN: Basic Set Operations

I can see how some people would want a web-based tool to used quickly and easily, although personally it's not the approach I would take. Many years ago I wrote python programs set_minus, set_union, and set_intersect that take two (or more) sets and print the appropriate result. For example

    set_minus A B

... prints every line in A that's not in B. Similarly the others.

Fast, clean, command-line, results to be piped to be processed or put into files.

Alternatively, if you want to union files you can just do this:

    sort A B | sort -u

If you want to find the intersection:

    sort <( sort -u A ) <( sort -u B ) \
    | uniq -c \
    | grep " 2 " \
    | sed "s/^ *2 *//"

So all these things are easily done from the command line.

Even so, as I said, I can see how some people would want a web-based tool, so thanks for sharing!

CarolineWon Why Are Police Officers More Dangerous Than Airplanes?

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002905

CarolineWon Using prime numbers to avoid cron task collision at sametime

That depends - cron time steps always restart from 0 in the hour, so what you say is valid, but the most obvious way of implementing what I think is being suggested doesn't have exactly that problem.

CarolineWon Using prime numbers to avoid cron task collision at sametime

If the owners don't care then just have

  */16 * * * * bin/RunJob_1
  2-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_2
  4-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_3
  6-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_4
  8-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_5
  10-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_6
  12-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_7
  14-59/16 * * * * bin/RunJob_8

If that doesn't work for you then tell us why. As it is your problem is underspecified.

Also, you say some are more compute intensive - have you actually measured the load and time-to-finish?

Prime numbers and similar techniques can help, it just depends if you actually just want to kludge something together, or do it properly.

CarolineWon Hurray we won

Do you think I'm the only one ?!?

One of the reasons I point this out is that I'm using an absolutely bog-standard setup. If I get this, so will other visitors to the site. Net result, this will kill visitor numbers.

It's no problem for me to sort it out, and I'm not bothered by it. If the author wants the muggles to read it, then s/he should be aware of the issues.

That's why I point it out.

CarolineWon Moving to https

Somewhat amusing then that I get this message:

    Your connection is not secure

    The owner of www.tedunangst.com has
    configured their web site improperly.
    To protect your information from being
    stolen, Firefox has not connected to
    this web site.

CarolineWon Hurray we won

I get this message:

    Your connection is not secure

    The owner of www.tedunangst.com has
    configured their web site improperly.
    To protect your information from being
    stolen, Firefox has not connected to
    this web site.