dean

But math is just a bunch of ideas expressed in a very efficient notation. All those notational squiggles represent ideas, and ideas can also be represented with words. It would be much less efficient, but anything explained by math should be able to be explained by words.

Maybe you're right. But to me, the purpose of using plain words instead of technical jargon, is to clarify meaning. On the other hand, maybe he's just trying to be funny.

Love the idea. But maybe he should expand his vocabulary a little bit beyond 1000 words. Saying "food holder" instead of "dish", obscures instead of clarifies, which defeats the purpose. Same for "up goer" instead of "rocket". And "funny voice air" instead of "helium". I'm intrigued enough to pick up the book, but I know stuff like that will just be annoying.

Yes, and it's also interesting that the "ire" they've drawn is from the Director General of Digital Europe, a business association made up of dozens of large companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. Might be a conflict of interest there (understatement).

Have you never come across a site that looked so shitty, that you just left, thinking there could be nothing valuable there? This site is like that. And having to click through the popup, after first scanning it for the extremely non-obvious link, well that just makes the site sleazy. These things lend credibility or take it away.

This is interesting. The article doesn't talk about she implemented the Traffic Jam program, but it does discuss how she came to 'know' sex ads, as way to keep tabs on pimps.

""I would literally just spend hours on these websites, looking at ads, getting a sense for what was the norm," she said. She began to pick up the nuances of every post, understand how a template was made, and get a feel for the different voices behind these ads."

I don't know how this information fits with her implementation, but I was reminded of an old article by Paul Graham "A Plan For Spam" (http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html), where he talks about automating the process of detecting spam using Bayesian Filtering.

"I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that."

Substitute the spam message for the sex message, and we're talking about the same thing. It would be an interesting exercise to try Bayesian Filtering on sex ads, or any other kind of message, to see where it leads.

This article made me angry. Why does she care that cnn.com has 349 errors that can only be found by running a validator? The web is a huge place. Does anyone really expect that every single site out there is going to be perfect? And you're going to be depressed to find out that it isn't. And change careers. Give me a break. Her complaints are akin to a writer whining about grammar, and quitting their job because there's so much bad grammar out there. Good riddance!

"... the policies that shaped the US in the postwar era: high marginal tax rates on the rich and meaningful investment in public infrastructure, education, and technology."

This is interesting in the context of the current GOP race in the States, where the candidates continually speak about how America has become weak compared to what it was in the past. It seems these kinds of policies contributed to making it strong. But these kinds of policies are anathema in GOP circles now. Ironic.

If you do a genetic test with 23andMe, they will tell you exactly what percentage of Neanderthal DNA you have.

Agreed. It always seemed to me that people with nothing to lose can take can take the biggest risks.

The article starts off well. It highlights the unquestioning use of video for online courses, and imagines better ways to promote learning. It goes on to cite a report called "Video and Online Learning: Critical Reflections and Findings From the Field" and discuss 3 recommendations from that report. This was getting interesting.

Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 recommendations were about how to do video. "Make the Best Use of Video as a Medium" and "Consider Lightweight and DIY Approaches" to making video.

Thought I was going to get some insight here. Turned out to be quite disappointing.

Well, he's talking about productivity. You seem to be in a good position to answer that question. Where were you more productive, in the open office, or in the cubicle?

However, a cubicle might not be the best comparison. A cubicle is not the same as an office with a door that closes. As the IBM example elsewhere in these comments said, not all cubicles provide the benefit. A minimum height of the walls being one requirement.

> The balance between our security and the civil liberties that our ideals and our Constitution require deserves robust debate

Oh the irony. deserves robust debate. Ha. It would all still be a secret if not for Snowden.

This is a good idea and a great opportunity for many people. And I think it's fantastic that YC is doing this. However, I can't help feeling it really is intended for young people recently out of school, who have no other immediate financial obligations.

I would really love to see an option for people who are not in this group. Let's imagine someone who is married, with a couple of kids and a mortgage. Right away, YC Fellowship is not feasible.

If you really want another ten-fold increase in the number of startups, tapping into an older demographic could do it -- just because it seems to be a largely untapped resource. We're talking about people with years of experience working in the real world, on real products. We're talking about years of domain expertise, in all kinds of domains. We're talking about people with ideas, and the expertise to execute on them. And all this potential is being left on the table because they typically can't afford to quit their jobs for 3k a month (based on a two-founder team in YC Fellowship).

But if each founder had enough funding to be able to handle their financial obligations, and work full time on their startups, for a year, I think that would break open the flood gates, and you'd see a huge increase in viable startups.

There must be a sweet spot in terms of funding/equity for this scenario, in order to make it beneficial to everyone involved.

3k a month for a two-founder team. A single guy with no other obligations living in a cheap place might be able to pull it off. Married with kids -- forget it.

> Big fish are almost always eaten by small fish. On the other hand, almost all small fish fail.

I think you are missing the point. This is not a story about all the small fish out there. This is a story about how the big fish die. And I think the author got it right.

Sounds like the limitation is on the language of the review, not on where the user lives.

Cheapest new 250 GB HDD on NewEgg: $34.95

Cheapest new 256 GB SSD on NewEgg: $82.99

So Docker is beautiful and wonderful thing, and it is the future, and anybody who doesn't like it has no credibility because they just don't like change, and they are Philistines.

I stopped reading after that.

From that link:

"Unhappy Birthday is satirical project commenting on the fact that the song Happy Birthday To You is under an actively enforced copyright held by Time Warner. This site gives folks the tools and information they need to report unauthorized public performances of that work wherever they may occur.

If educating people and upholding the principle of copyright means risking a DoS of ASCAP's licensing enforcement infrastructure, it's a risk I'm willing to take. Please help spread the word!"

Agreed. But the term is often used more generally. It is not equivalent to the Nazis. And I don't believe the parent intended it as such.

> downvotes for suggesting that maybe the NSA shouldn't be compared to the party that gassed 6 million people solely for their ethnicity?

The parent never mentioned Nazis. "Banality of Evil" does not equal Nazis, even if that was the context where you first heard the term.

The MIT Introduction to Algorithms link takes me to a page that says: "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from ocw.mit.edu (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID"

> THE COMPANY will go to some lawyers, and say, "If you bring this lawsuit against us, we will cooperate fully, cave in quickly, and we'll settle on modest terms

Hmm. I wonder if the law firm bringing the case, specified in the docket as PRITZKER LEVINE LLP, has any history of doing this.

"In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong."

http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/

Yes, what a strange situation. I lie to prove that the machine can't tell that I'm lying and am branded a liar for revealing the truth.

Maybe the machine isn't meant to do anything, and it's the examiner judging whether you are lying based on how your react to its presence.

If you lie on a question that is easily fact-checked, and the polygraph shows that you told the truth, doesn't that just prove that the polygraph doesn't work?

To my mind that is a simple test that disproves the effectiveness of the tool. It should cause a reasonable person to conclude that the tool doesn't work and should not be used.

Great idea. However, from an implementation perspective, it's a little hard to tell what's going on with all the flashing images. Maybe show the first image by default, then wait for a mouseover or something to activate the animated gif.

Do Bing, Duck Duck Go and Yahoo also have to disclose their algorithms? Or is it just Google? Who would want to compete in this space if you have to disclose trade secrets to do so?

"10x" is a very specific, concrete statement about programmer productivity. And when people use it, they take it as a literal statement. And they apply it across the board. They think a "10x" programmer can actually write any code 10 times faster than an average programmer. But nobody can even quantify what programmer productivity is, so concrete statements like "10x" are misleading.

Even in this thread. Saying John Cormack is a "10x" programmer because he wrote Doom seems silly. (No offence to John Cormack.) There are lots of games out there. Why Doom? Or is it that anyone who wrote a game is a "10x" programmer. Or Linus Torvalds, why does writing Git make you a better programmer than writing Subversion? And what is "productivity" when writing code for yourself, versus writing code for your employer?

Einstein was not a "10x" scientist. He was a genius. The only problem is that there aren't many Einsteins out there. To make it your goal to only hire the Einsteins of the world, or to try to figure out how to 'make' more Einsteins, is short-sighted for an employer when there so many good, but non-genius programmers out there. But if that is your goal, at least be honest and say you are looking for geniuses.

The term "10x" is a literal measure of productivity. It defines the rate of output per unit of input. And that is why it is a myth.