johnny313

This is a great experiment, and shows the value of getting solid data to back up a theory.

This reminds me of a paper put out by a few researchers at Google Brain: `No Classification without Representation: Assessing Geodiversity Issues in Open Data Sets for the Developing World` [0]

The take away was that existing open image datasets are biased toward western contexts (eg what a wedding looks like), leading to low performance when applied in non-western contexts.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.08536

> Kelly Ellis, a former Google engineer and one of the plaintiffs in the gender-pay suit against the company, said in a legal filing that Google hired her as a Level 3 employee — the category for new software engineers who are recent college graduates — in 2010 despite her having four years of experience.

> Within a few weeks of Ms. Ellis being hiring, Google hired a male engineer for her team who had also graduated from college four years earlier. But he was hired as a Level 4 employee, meaning he received a higher salary and had more opportunities for bonuses, raises and stock compensation, according to the suit. Other men on Ms. Ellis’s team whose qualifications were equal to or less than hers were also brought in at Level 4, the suit says.

This feels like a part of the issue, but could be really hard to analyze easily.

> We don’t know anything about most insect species on Earth. Only about one-fifth of the estimated number of insect species are known to science.

This is simultaneously incredible and unsurprising. There is still so much to discover about the world!

I believe this is from the post on Marginal Revolution [0]

[0]https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/co...

> Qualitative grounding of statistical findings is important to avoid misleading conclusions; it is not enough to control for a factor in a statistical analysis without clarifying its role in admissions goals and educational objectives.

This is a crucial point. Contextually framing an analysis, and it's results, is one of the most important parts of a project. In this case, it also forces the question - what does it mean for an admissions process to be biased?

> When pretty much everyone benefited from lax climate controls and externalities that are not directly included in the price of a product or service

I think the argument would be that the ultra-wealthy benefited more from a carbon-based economy than the average worker, in the form of their accumulated fortune.

The idea that open offices will increase meaningful interaction has always seemed strange to me. Usually I find that it makes it impossible to find a place to actually have a conversation. New "conference rooms" start to appear: outside tables, wide parts of the hallway, stoarge closets. In one office, I had to book time in the reception area to have a weekly one on one with my boss.

Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at UNC Chapel Hill wrote a decent book on the question of whether or not there was a historical Jesus. He does a good job talking through the arguments on both sides, and covers the history of the argument. He did an interview about the topic on NPR a few years ago: https://www.npr.org/2012/04/01/149462376/did-jesus-exist-a-h...

>> Our awareness seems to shrink in direct ratio as communications expand; the world is open to us as never before, and we walk about as prisoners, each in his private portable cage.

This seems to be an evergreen phenomenon. The world today is more open and connected than it was in 1944, but with that openness has come an much greater capacity to live in a walled garden of our own making.

I traveled to Kampala during grasshopper season about ten years ago. I had never seen anything like the harvest before, it was a great experience. And the fried grasshoppers are delicious!

The headline is a bit misleading, the proposed Executive Order would end birthright citizenship for children of any non-citizen. This includes people who are in the US without documentation, but also includes people in the US legally who have children.

I joined the military to get out a bad family situation, after a tour in Iraq I was considered financially independent on the FAFSA due to my veteran status. That designation, in combination with my veteran education benefits, allowed me to pay for school.

While I am thankful it worked out for me, I know this is not a route open to everyone. Unless your family has the financial means (or you get a great scholarship), I am not sure there are many ways to go to college without getting into significant debt.

How many people would respond honestly to this question if asked by an acquaintance?

You make a fair point. I don't mean to imply discrimination is appropriate in any context, just that groups in power can sometimes frame threats to their privilege as examples of discrimination as a way to resist change [0].

[0] In the Name of Equal Rights: “Special” Rights and the Politics of Resentment in Post–Civil Rights America https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-5893....

This comes off like an attempt to turn a set of perceived slights into an issue of discrimination. "Men's rights" groups mostly seem to be a reaction against attempts to address institutionalized misogyny. Why is it hard to acknowledge that society has been and still is biased in favor of white men? (disclaimer: I am a white man)

This issue is definitely connected to the tech sector. As much as many of us would like to draw a line between the work we do and politics, it is increasingly a distinction without a difference.

[0] https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-employees-up-in-arms-over-clou...

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nekm9z/microsoft-...

> “When we learned our platform was abused and interfered with, that was super shocking to all of us,” said Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan in a recent interview with Recode. “[I was] shocked that we were abused. Angry that our platform was abused, manipulated.”

Really? I am genuinely confused about how this would come as a surprise.

> Invest in advance

This has been key for me. My spouse and I both work, and we have 3 kids. Balancing both jobs and making sure our kids know they are a priority for us is tough - but going all in for our family when we have vacation, free weekends, etc has let us go the extra mile at work when we have too.

Disappointing that this was flagged, seems like an interesting topic for the HN community.

I love the name, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttlebutt

This does not discuss whether nonusers will be asked to opt-in. Curious how GDPR will change tracking people w/out FB accounts.

There are currently 2,000 US troops in Syria [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/11/world/middlee...

Childcare can be way more expensive in some parts of the US - $500+ a week for 2 kids in the Portland, OR area.

This seems to redefine the question away from "what does a successful entrepreneur look like" in an attempt to maintain the narrative that "young visionaries" are the most successful.

Thats a great idea. We started in python mostly because of a book he found at the library. Love2D looks like a great option, thanks for sharing!

For sure. This is not a big thing, just something we are trying to be thoughtful about. Most of the time we talk about Pokemon and do mazes.

This is a hard problem. I have three kids, we let the oldest (7) play on an old laptop running Ubuntu, with no internet access. He goes through fits ant starts writing some basic python, learning how to navigate in the terminal, etc - but its hard for him to focus for too long on any one thing. We CONSTANTLY talk about new game ideas, but have not yet been able to channel that into making things.

We restrict access to screens to an hour a week otherwise - my kids will always choose a game on the iPad (of any quality) over unstructured time on the linux box. We have tried hard to follow the "set a good example and love and support them in whichever directions they want to go" philosophy.

I understand this perspective, but I think it oversimplifies the reality of why we (the US) go to war. I am a veteran of the war in Iraq, a conflict that could be reduced to a one-line "defend our way of life" sound bite if you are willing to ignore everything else that happened. I do not want my children to use my involvement in that conflict to remove their responsibility to make hard ethical choices.

> Folks, the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down.

This is not supported by other analyses that look at the issue. FiveThirtyEight looked at several measures of school shootings / mass shootings and came to the opposite conclusion. [0]

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-matter-how-you-measu...