pathdependent

I came across this essay by way of a citation in a paper I was reading. I posted it here because I think it's yet another way of explaining why readable code matters.

Conversely, it is the basis for pragmatic advice for companies or non-profits that manage to get someone to subscribe to a newsletter: Don't send a newsletter for the sake of sending one!

Non-profits that send monthly updates that merely highlight a member are particularly infuriating to me. Tell me of a new project when it launches or a big milestone reached. Letters sent for the sake of "just checking in" make me ignore subsequent emails. I get newsletter blindness almost as fast as ad blindness.

I liked the article for technical reasons, but it also got me thinking: given the relatively large percentage of views coming from IPads, at what point does it become a requirement for a developer to own one?

I know there has been a lot of user interface complaints about github lately. People have said it's very noisy. What I liked about this update was that I noticed it a few days ago, prior to the announcement. It just made intuitive sense.

I think there is also an issue of ignorance. Developers get caught up in the immediacy of their need, do a cursory search for something that fits, then roll their own if it is not immediately found. There are many open source projects that would be extended if developers found them at their time of need. The open source project has to lie somewhere between "this is perfect" and "this will save me so much time with only minor modification."

Github is helping to change this search problem, but there is much room for improvement. The less time it takes to find exactly what they need, the more likely they will find a project for possible contribution. (Obviously, this ignores the somewhat larger problem -- knowing what you need.)

I know less about the masters realm. Ironically, I think Ph.D. programs care less because they can use the candidacy qualifying exams to weed people out after they've been in the program. I still believe your best bet is to do something you can present to them, effectively starting your masters before you get there.

I suppose it depends on the school. My experience is that academia handles the administrative issues with a lot of diversity. At the admission level, there is a lot of noise. Undergrad is very different from graduate work.

Masters or Ph.D?

To some degree, it depends on luck. I know some professors who weight letters of recommendation heavily, and others who consider them irrelevant. Figure out what you are interested in academically, then do some work that can be presented as part of your application.

CS is big. Do you have a narrower interest?

Full report: http://dallasfed.org/fed/annual/index.cfm

Quora?

My original claim was that it was fantastical to suggest evolution was arrested, not slowed; however, your point is more nuanced and interesting than mine. With this in mind, I'd refine my original statement.

I find the idea of a stable rate of evolution curious. With respect to your argument, we are in agreement: there is reason to suspect that evolution as a reaper has become more tolerant; on the flip side, I'd argue that genetic diversity is increasing, as a consequence of with an unbridled phase of expansion. In this sea of diversity, the genetic victor exists, to be revealed during some future event of punctuated equilibria.

It's like squeezing a balloon. We haven't alleviated the pressure of evolution, we've only shifted it. While science and medicine have ameliorated many of our biological weaknesses -- genetic or sporadic -- other cues have taken there place. What is (temporally) being selected for is a more interesting question.

What I found most surprising was learning that controversy surrounds the assertion that we are still evolving! The alternative hypothesis -- that technological and social innovation have arrested genetic evolution -- seems fantastical to me. The sun does not revolve around the earth; evolution does not bow to mankind.

What about plain text or uniform-key, unsalted passwords? Granted, it's not a scalability or reliability concern, but I would put that at number one. It seems like every six months, some impressively large company gets in trouble for doing this.

I'm really curious to see how -- or, for you're sake, if -- the traffic decays. A front-page view on hackernews will generate that level of traffic with an exponential decay over the next few days. That being said, searches are different from views, in an exciting way for you.

I used it and bookmarked it for potential discovery searches in the future. It's a very interesting idea.

I'm disappointed that this did not generate a discussion on HN. About two years ago, I was made accurately aware that methodology is one of the most -- if not the most -- important factor in conducting research, and that my methodology was shit. I've spent that time almost obsessed with methodology, hoping to strengthen this weakness.

This is the first post I've seen about the importance of methodology in A/B testing. Given that the underlying distributions can be difficult to estimate, there is a susceptibility to both Type-I and Type-II statistical errors. Consequently, I think this post was much more important then it seemed when looking at the lack of discussion.

I wonder how often extortion occurs online as people share self-generated, sexually explicit media. I read something similar last year about Craigslist casual encounters, albeit in that case the extortion was perpetrated for financial gain. My guess would be that it is much more common than is acknowledge. The scammer exploits an inherently emotional and irrational process to gain leverage over a truly unsuspecting victim.

If I read it correctly, the thief is now using his own AdSense Account. Consequently, Google is paying a thief, albeit unintentionally. I suspect Google might be persuaded to respond, but I wouldn't take that route right away. It has only been two hours since the registrar was contacted and it is their responsibility first. Google "customer service" is notoriously bad. If the domain theft is resolved, I could see you ending up in a position where Google somehow closes your account, thinking you were the thief.

Thanks for the notice. I forked and downloaded it so I get to keep a copy.

I also almost left without looking closely because of the disabled demo link.

I look forward to the demo, because from my subsequent cursory glance, this may be exactly what I need for a non-profit project I'm working on.

I think people in tech are a bit myopic regarding college. Traditional undergraduate programming education does seem very antiquated because the practice of programming lends itself to autodidactism. This is less true in other areas of education -- the ones that don't have an interpreter to tell you what, or at least where, you have done wrong.

I'm not arguing that contemporary universities are well-designed. They are not and there are many archaic elements ripe for disruption. I just want to point out that we have a pretty strong bias that is not necessarily generalizable.

(Personal bias note: I thought undergraduate education was intellectually useless, but absolutely worth it as a life experience. Now, I'm in graduate school and I am shocked by how much I enjoy it. Additionally, I am building something this summer to correct a structural problem with academia that I see in my own field of interest.)

While I completely agree that this is unacceptable and applaud facebook for their attempt at protecting users, there is a bit of irony in this move. Wasn't it Zuckerberg who has repeatedly expressed the idea that privacy is no longer a social norm, almost to the point of fatalism.?

If this story was deleted based by PG because the conversation devolved pretty quickly, that's reasonable; if this story was deleted automatically based on some large number of people flagging it, that's pretty damn interesting in the context of the story.

This is off topic, but the code highlighting with slight background noise seems like a good idea in general. Has anyone tried this in their editor of choice?

Coincidentally, I'm building a github recommendation service as a SNA research project. You may be aware, but for those who are not, GitHub actually had a NetFlix-style recommendation contest in 2009.

https://github.com/blog/466-the-2009-github-contest

Startup idea for someone?

I know YC funded http://www.co2stats.com/ to "Green Certify" a website. "Fair trade" labels work for selling some higher-end products. I would probably lend my attention to advertisers and advertising networks that have some sort of "scum-free" label.

I don't see any solution in terms of mandates. Ignoring the difficulty (near-impossibility?) of adding certain mandates to registration, it would probably introduce bigger problems than it solved.

I do agree it's a problem though. Sometimes, it's actually pretty disgusting. I wanted to make a forum for people with an extremely rare type (300 US cases per year) of cancer that I had about a year back. The domain name that was the name of the disease was owned by a guy parking it. He wanted about 10k for it. The sad thing I don't think that is a crazy offer in the case of the domain name's present value from parking clicks. Medical terms are valuable...

...On the other hand, from a patient perspective, half those links were to websites peddling really bad and sometimes dangerous advice, in addition to the usual "Vitamin C will cure cancer" garage.

He prefers it to blackboard. It's a very idiosyncratic preference, IMO. I'm pretty sure I could refuse and he would have to oblige me; however, maintaining a facebook account with 1 friend isn't a big problem.

Perhaps expand the options?

Like you, I had but then deleted my facebook account; however, a professor of my grad school class requires one, so I created a temporary account.

I think it can be generalized even further. It's not only software, but general IT-related services. There is some mental bias that assumes servicing virtual goods is some combination of easy, straight-forward, or without costs.

Even friends and family of mine will still ask me, "can you come over and fix our computer?" It sounds like a simple request -- partially driven be a general phobia of trying things out themselves -- but it's really not okay. I'm really busy. Maybe I can do something that they can't, but they could also pay someone to do it. Unfortunately, they usually think the price is "too high;" however, if I asked them to come over and mow my lawn because I think the landscaper's price is too high, they would obviously balk.

I'm not sure what the solution is, except you shouldn't low ball -- ever. For a while, I thought I had found the answer by immediately saying something like, "I expect $120 per hour on this software project." I thought it filtered out a lot of clients who didn't "get" that I was doing something valuable...

...then I realized they then try to manage the price by claiming -- ignorantly -- that their requirements do not justify X hours.

A few years ago, posting on HN felt like posting to a small community. Reputation and civility seemed to matter a lot. When people posted something offensive or rude, they were sanctioned to the point that they would often delete the offending comment. (I remember deleting a comment I made on an old account merely because, without tone, it seemed inflammatory; I felt compelled to delete it even though it had no malicious intent because it damaged the conversation.)

Now, I think it has become too large and feels anonymous. Posting something offensive has no cost because it doesn't feel like a "know your neighbor"-type community anymore. The costs imposed by karma seem to be less significant. I even think that if you post a rude or ideologically motivated comment, there are other rude people who will agree with you, attenuating the negative signal.

The HN is turning to reddit mime is genuine. I think it's just a consequence of having a very large community. Although a lot of HNers may disagree, I think the herd must be culled. I'd be happier of participation was limited. If I was the benevolent dictator, I'd collect a list of people whose contributions are most valuable and remove everyone else. Then, give those high-signal / low-noise contributors the ability to invite other people. Continue to have all content publicly readable, but ration the writes.

(Disclaimer: Although I have many doubts, I do believe it is possible to have an HN-scale community that remains civil; however, without the data, I'm not very comfortable just enumerating implementation ideas.)