dasboth

Yeah, sounds like that wouldn't have been your fault if it had become a worse problem. Reminds me of that story I saw on HN a few years ago where the guy dropped a table of user details (by accidentally clicking on the wrong thing I think) on a live DB server for an online game and there were no backups. They had to re-enter the users' details based on what each user claimed they had in their account; it was a real mess and arguably not the person's fault.

+1 for Granada. Probably my favourite place I've visited to date, but the job market doesn't sound great. If you can get a remote gig though, what a place to live.

That's a fair account of the reality of life in London. Of course the abundance of jobs, great tech scene and endless things to do are all true, but it's not all as good as it sounds.

I'd add one more:

5) Forget going to Premier League games every weekend, it's near impossible to get a ticket if you don't know a season ticket holder!

Out of all the places I visited in Japan earlier this year, Hiroshima is the one where I'd happily live. Well, if we forget about the working culture and the language barrier... :)

> one of the few cities in the UK that I would be tempted to move to

What are the others, out of interest?

I know this as "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."

It should be career suicide, but I'm assuming that because people do it there's a good chance of getting away with it. I'm just speculating though.

> There's a random chance that your scanner will be audited by a human against the contents of your shopping cart. Usually the first time you use it, then it backs off.

I must be really suspicious-looking because I've been subjected to a "random audit" all 5 times I used it. Gave up because with a weekly shop it's quicker to go to an actual checkout than having someone scan all of my items again.

The idea's good, but my experience of the execution has been bad.

> Our education system is failing to instill critical thinking into young people.

I'm convinced this is the key.

However, media outlets (social or otherwise) also have a responsibility of, at the very least, not spreading stories that are demonstrably, factually inaccurate, even if it impacts their "bottom line". Naive and hopeful, I know, but there are two sides to it.

Granted, it will never win any awards. Part of the choice behind it might have been the desire to "ship" it before Christmas.

I suspect it's an easy way to get something that won't sound completely dissonant, especially because you can use the same blues scale over multiple chords.

I completely agree with your sentiments.

But just to play devil's advocate, it is possible the authorities could have prevented the Bataclan massacre but chose not to "for the greater good". There's a similar conspiracy theory around the Coventry blitz[0].

It might very well be false, I'm just suggesting there may be an alternate explanation (i.e. the French surveillance is actually working very well).

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11486219

Even if you believe it's a necessary evil in principle, the implementation is bad enough to want to be against this particular law. The list of agencies who could gain access is laughable and there's nothing that fills me with confidence about ISPs storing people's browsing history with proper security. Three and TalkTalk have both had massive data breaches recently, and I have precisely zero confidence that there won't be a huge data breach/leak in the next few years.

I couldn't understand that either. The thought of getting on a watchlist didn't even cross my mind, which might be naive although I'm cynical enough to at least entertain the possibility now it's been brought up. Ultimately though I'll keep acting like we're a free democracy, signing petitions against laws I don't agree with etc., until proven otherwise.

I do wonder (perhaps naively) whether this is a genuine misunderstanding of the argument for privacy/encryption or something more malicious. Is it that politicians haven't spent enough time thinking about this or are they willfully ignorant of the wrongness of their argument?

That's exactly the nuanced discussion I like to see from my elected representatives...

This is an important point.

Even if, for whatever reason, you agree with governments being able to access this data in extreme cases (suspected terrorism, whatever) and even if we put aside concerns about governments misusing this power, this bill also relies on ISPs keeping data safe. That is a huge risk in itself.

Not to mention the number of government agencies and departments that can access your data [0]. Does the Department for Transport, Food Standards Scotland or the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust really need access to my browsing history?

[0]: http://yiu.co.uk/blog/who-can-view-my-internet-history/

I agree. I'd start with something like Joel Grus's Data Science From Scratch to get a handle on the basics in Python (or whatever the R equivalent is, I'm not familiar with R books).

I do however find myself more and more wishing I knew data science-specific Unix commands, and I think I know what book to get to solve that problem... :)

I agree with your key points, but I'm a bit skeptical about this:

> If you don't have enough motivation, then providing access to Internet, is not going to make a difference.

I'd argue that because the barrier to entry is smaller, you need less motivation to learn about things. Going to libraries, scanning huge books for the few pieces of information you want is much more effort than looking it up online.

I'm not doubting that the internet might only make a small percentage change in the people willing to do it though.

I could have written that comment verbatim.

> It's not about facts, it's about emotional viewpoints [...] facts be damned.

This is absolutely my experience as well.

Thanks for sharing your post, I'll check it out!

> As a side note it's happening here in the UK over Brexit

And I wish more people wrote pieces like this one that actually discuss the political/economic arguments without descending into name-calling. It was too hard to find well-written pieces on Brexit before the vote (perhaps harder on the Leave side but I'm not sure) and this is still the case.

> However, the people who he surrounds himself with, are. This article makes no mention of Steve Bannon

That was my biggest gripe with the article. Otherwise I thought it was refreshing to read such a well-presented argument, regardless of whether or not I agreed with his points.

Back to the issue: the kinds of people Trump seems to be surrounding himself with shows bad judgment, which is very concerning and should not be downplayed. We have many reasons to be wary of his presidency but maybe they're not the ones people shout loudest about.

> it might be easier to find joy in things you hate

That is arguably the key to happiness :)

I think it was this one: https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6407065/senior-data-analyst...

Completely agree. Although if your binary classes are perfectly balanced then accuracy is a valid metric, but that's rarely the case.

I guess the problem is that an ROC curve wouldn't create flashy headlines.

Just the other day I saw a data analyst position at UNICEF. Probably not the job you're after, just wanted to let you know those jobs are out there!

Kabat-Zinn's book "Wherever you go, there you are" is also recommended.

raptitude.com has lots of resources about the benefits of meditation as well as various ways to get started. Completely un-esoteric. I recommend the blog in general!

> having actually gone partly down the brexit path

What do you mean exactly?

> The treatment of leavers by remainers has been frankly disgusting

Completely agree. The whole thing of people taking sides, rather than discussing a political issue, has been absurd and awful.

> voted for brexit on informed reasons

Unfortunately this was badly communicated, the media's fault no doubt. It was genuinely quite difficult to find a reasoned, balanced view (especially on the leave side I have to say).

Source?

Edit: The study linked above [0] showed the following for voter regret (specifically "do you have doubts about the way you voted?"):

Remain

Yes / No / Don't Know

98% / 1% / 1%

Leave

Yes / No / Don't Know

90% / 6% / 4%

[0]: http://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resources/brexit-bri...