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yaddayadda

962 karma · joined October 31, 2012

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yaddayadda··on How To Find Unadvertised Jobs
Same thing for me on OS X 10.6.8 with Firefox 26.0.
yaddayadda··on Feed Open Source
I'm interested in taking time off to learn programming. Surviving while doing that is a challenge. One concept I've bounced around is an investment approach. For example, people could make donations (e.g., $10), with each increment being "a share" of my future earnings (e.g., 0.1%), potentially for a limited amount of time (e.g., 10 years).

During the year, I would make blog updates, maintain on open github of learning projects, and contribute to open projects; and my investors could make suggestion of things to learn or projects to work on.

As much as I want to do this, I would feel guilty if I did it personally (I want others in my situation to be able to have similar opportunities), so I've been trying to figure out how to scale such an approach.

yaddayadda··on When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous
For some people it doesn't matter. For some people or in some instances, it does matter.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/online-anonymity-not-o...

Another good example is from http://phinished.org/faq.php?faq=vb_read_and_post#faq_zoints...

"The anonymous posting option should be used sparingly. Please use it only when you have a matter of a highly personal or sensitive nature to discuss, or when you need to protect the privacy of colleagues, students, friends, or family members. It should never be used as cover to criticize or attack other users, as a means to evade social responsibility for one's comments, or as a way to avoid minor embarrassment on the boards. Anonymous posts may not contain attachments, and they cannot be edited after posting without revealing the username of the author. If you want to maintain your anonymity, do not attempt to edit an anonymous post.

The webmaster reserves the right to suspend or revoke the ability to post anonymously of any member who abuses the anonymous posting privilege. For more information, please see our acceptable use policy and privacy statement."

yaddayadda··on When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous
I read your comment as saying that you could lie in text about identifying information and things that might betray you in a f2f interaction, such as regional accents, weren't as important in textual interactions.
yaddayadda··on When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous
Based on the interaction, I could obviously deduce that there was someone else with the same four data points that saw the same doctor and was 30 years older. I don't know if that, in and of itself, is breaking confidentiality.

If they had started entering my data into that person's record and subsequently realized the error, then they might have had to break some confidentiality in order to clean up our conjoined record.

yaddayadda··on When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous
> "... when I type "aunt", readers have no idea how I pronounce it ...".

From the language survey, there were quite a few questions dealing with word choice (e.g., coke, soda, pop). There are also algorithms that can predict, with varying levels of accuracy, the writer's gender [1]. Combine these with browser font identification [2], geolocation [3], and other comparable data, and lying or omitting data isn't going to provide much in the way of anonymizing you or your data.

[1] http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php

[2] https://panopticlick.eff.org/

[3] http://html5demos.com/geo

yaddayadda··on When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous
I had a doctor that used first name, last name, birth month, and birth day as their primary identifiers. I was checking in one year for my physical, and was asked for these four data points. The next question was about current medication. The receptionist nurse asked me the question, but before I could answer, she got a really, really odd look on her face, then started glancing between me and the computer. Finally, she asked, with a bit of a smirk on her face, what year I was born. When I responded, she chuckled. Turned out the only record that came up was for someone 30 years my senior, and on a medication that only someone that age would be on. The receptionist nurse dug around in the system and was finally able to find my records, but if she hadn't noticed that the listed prescription didn't match my apparent age, my checkup info would have ended up in someone else's record and it could have gotten messy.
yaddayadda··on When to propose a relationship to your Anonymous Visitor
The sentiment from me is that any registration pop-up converts good feelings (good feelings that might have turned into love organically) into repulsive hate faster than I can close the tab or window.

The way to win me over is purely with content. I read HN for years without getting an account. Guess what, I came back day after day because of the content. Eventually I wanted to participate more actively, so I intentionally and with absolutely no prompting, registered.

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
I've reposted a link to the original here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7015767

I really don't want credit, I just want the original question and the couple of responses to have the opportunity to see the day of light, despite the HN outage. So please vote up the original post!!!

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
I missed the original posting of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7015438 and it's right up my alley (now it's tomorrow morning's reading :) )
yaddayadda··on High-end CNC machines can't be moved without manufacturers' permission
I have no idea how many of these machines are in a given area, but assuming it is an IMU [1] triggered lockdown, an earthquake could lock down many (10?, 100?, 1,000?) in a single geographic area very, very quickly. That seems like a big problem.

If the lockdown mechanism is GPS, then it should be clear where the actual machine is, so there shouldn't be any need to lock it down unless it's in a black zone.

And what happens if the manufacturer goes belly-up?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_measurement_unit

yaddayadda··on High-end CNC machines can't be moved without manufacturers' permission
The linked thread actually does have a couple, albiet tenuous, mentions of GPS:

  - "All of our Citizen swiss lathes have the same GPS feature." (http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/dmg-mori-gildemeister-maho-cnc/mori-ellison-gyroscope-unlocking-273841/#post2141101)  
  - "Why can't they simply check for "Out of USA" or "in $BannedCountry now"? They do have GPS, right?" (http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/dmg-mori-gildemeister-maho-cnc/mori-ellison-gyroscope-unlocking-273841/#post2141382)
yaddayadda··on Introducing the Open Automotive Alliance
Momentary jubilation followed by 'blah'.

I saw the title and expected something like an alliance working on open source automobiles (e.g., http://wikispeed.org/the-car/).

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
Their first post is dated 28 July - https://twitter.com/HNStatus/status/361707202123268096

edited: "They're" --> "Their" (there/their/they're will be the death of me!)

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
Thank you for making my paltry 22 lost karma points look so, well, so paltry. ;-)

edit: to clarify "lost" karma

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
I find it interesting that this question is fresher (by a minute), has more points (67 v 42 at snapshot), and has more comments (18 v 10 at snapshot) than "HackerNews down, unwisely returning http 200 for outage message" but is ranked lower (2 v 1 at snapshot).

snapshot - http://oi40.tinypic.com/2mmbv5y.jpg

yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
Asking a technical site about a technical site outage isn't, in and of itself, complaining. It's an opportunity to learn.
yaddayadda··on Ask PG: Postmortem of the outage?
Several comment threads that I was following when it went down are gone ("No such item."), although their original links are still valid.
yaddayadda··on Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time
A modern day equivalent is the 10,000 year clock - http://longnow.org/clock/
yaddayadda··on FrogPad 2, one handed keyboard rises from the depths of Vaporware and stickers
One of the videos they link to (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xl5qn...) highlights a lot of different concerns. Among the obvious were the shortcut keys (e.g., Ctrl-Z) and the reviewers losing the ability to switch their screen to full screen. I'm not seeing these problems address on the frogpad page.
yaddayadda··on Tell HN: Happy New Year
Here's wishing that 2014 is your best year yet!
yaddayadda··on We Pretend to Teach, They Pretend to Learn
> Those are good suggestions, but I'd mention that it's much easier for me now to analyze my situation in retrospect, understand what happened and the mistakes I made, and turn it into a cohesive narrative. At the time I didn't really understand why I was doing poorly or what the root causes were, so while I did seek "support" on a number of occasions, it didn't help.

Sadly, this is likely to have been true no matter where you were (e.g., college or workplace). In my experience, in an academic environment simply expressing that there is something wrong and seeking a little bit of help will frequently lead to help. I had several bouts of debilitating depression in the military (way suckier than in an academic environment ;-) ). During one of these, I found out some very powerful information about one leader in our unit (i.e., I learned about something that could have led to him being discharged dishonorably). Thankfully, he recognized my depression, so we made a deal. As a result I was able to get off-the-record therapy from a local, civilian counselor, but there were no concessions at work. While I was in school I dealt with several more bouts of depression. In most cases, simply telling the professor that I wasn't up my normal speed (i.e. never saying I was depressed; in several cases, I wasn't aware that it was happening again) led to delayed deadlines or other concessions. I happened to be in university during a particularly bad bout of depression and a classmate took me to the university clinic. My classmate had a conversation with the doctor before I saw the doctor (I can only imagine what was said). That was the first time I was formally diagnosed, and it was the first time I was prescribed anti-depressants. As I mentioned previously, I have a lot of academic family ties, and I hear about situations like this very frequently. I've never heard about similar support in a non-academic workplace.

> I simply assumed I wasn't smart enough to graduate, much less do physics. In retrospect I see this obviously wasn't true, since I'm happily reading a quantum field theory book in my spare time now and, as I said before, ended up being one of the better students in some of my classes. But if you'd asked me at the time I'd have probably just rambled a bunch of guesses and speculation. I suppose my point is that, even following those suggestions, some people will still fall through the cracks. And also that most of these institutions are just bureaucratic monoliths that aren't built to be flexible with every students particular needs and such.

Remember that institutions, even bureaucratic monolithic institutions, are made of people. In my experience, the people in academic institutions are particularly helpful if they know, or even just suspect, that a student needs help. The biggest single success factor I've seen is having a mentor (hence my last tip). This is not to say that you can succeed without a lot of hard work, but having a mentor helps you find the help that you need, when you need it (e.g., taking you to the doctor to be diagnosed with depression; getting an interlibrary loan ASAP; giving you career advice; letting you know where you rank in your program).

> The bias there tends to be heavily towards the institutions, too, since students who do poorly are just deemed slackers or unfit for college, instead of considering it a systemic or structural aspect of the system that favors certain people and situations over others. Even the stereotypical "partiers" who drink their way through college could be viewed as a systemic result of a toxic social environment. I believe there was another comment here to the effect of "this is college and you're done with baby hand-holding," which is true in one sense, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to disregard anyone doing badly in the system or a particular school as acceptable attrition for a just-good-enough educational system.

This is extremely institution-specific. I have seen and heard about institutions, or departments, like this, but I've experienced and heard about many more that are vested in their students' success, both in and out of the classroom. If you can complete your bachelors degree at a small, private institution, I'd highly recommend it! (I've never heard of a small, private institution that wasn't extremely vested in their students' success in and out of class.) I wish I had known when I was an undergrad that there were "free" options (they aren't actually free, but are extremely low-cost). The only free college that I can vouch for (i.e. I know a successful alumnus who speaks highly of the experience) is http://www.deepsprings.edu/home and it only awards associate degrees. The friend I know who is an alumnus is now a professor in the sciences at a top university. He credits much of his academic success to his experiences at and friendships from Deep Springs.

yaddayadda··on Alan Turing's Body
I'm seeing two apologies mentioned: Gordan Brown's, and the failed legislative apology.

Gordon Brown's, while somewhat ambiguous, reads as though Gordan Brown is apologizing only to Turing. He does acknowledge the injustices suffered by others, but states, "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, I am very proud to say: we're sorry. You deserved so much better." [1]

The legislative apology starts off, "A Bill to give a statutory pardon to Alan Mathison Turing for offences under section 11 of the Criminal Amendment Act 1885 of which he was convicted on 31 March 1952.", which strikes me as extremely specific to Turing, and wasn't even approved. [2]

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/617011...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/jul/25/ala...

yaddayadda··on We Pretend to Teach, They Pretend to Learn
I'm sorry to hear about your experience. While there are many professors with attitudes similar to the professor you described, certainly not all professors have the same attitude.

For my undergraduate degree, I was lucky to go to community colleges and a small, private college. By and large, the instructors at the community colleges defaulted to such an attitude, but if you had brief conversations with them and let them know what was going on in your life, they were willing to work with you. At the community college level, I've heard of exceptions, but they have been extremely rare (and I come from an academic family that has ties to community college level institutions across the U.S.). At the small, private college, professors actively worked with students and knew what was going in their lives. I only met one exception, and that professor was summarily "let go" after only a semester.

At the graduate level, I've seen exceptionally supportive and exceptionally hostile professors. And I've seen many professors who will be supportive of one or two students to the detriment of others (in the circles I come from it even has a name, the "mini-me"). I had one professor who exemplified the hostile, even when I had a series of well-documented life crises and tried to work with him. While my other professors worked with me, this individual would make no allowances - to include allowing me to miss class to have emergency surgery to prevent imminent quadriplegia. Needless to say, my health crisis took priority. When I returned, I notified my department chair and the graduate school dean. While the professor was allowed to continue to treat students with a rough hand, I was given allowances to get back on track and I subsequently learned that the graduate school changed policies to prevent situations like mine from happening to other students.

I've also had the opportunity to teach several classes. As long as the student keeps me updated and is making forward academic progress, I'll support the student; with the one exception of teamwork. By default, I try to limit teamwork to the bare minimum appropriate for academic purposes, and even then I have tried to work with students who are suffering from external stressors. In graduate school, anything less than a B is tantamount to failing. I've given two students grades less than a B. In both cases, I reached out to the student many times, and made it clear that the student was doing extremely poorly, and tried to find out what was going on and what could be done to get the student across the proverbial academic finish-line. In both cases, the students would simply tell me they had been having a hard time at home, but things had changed there, and they would be more engaged with coursework. In both cases, this happened frequently, and there was never any increased engagement. Denying there is a problem is denying others the opportunity to help you.

So, (a) please do not allow one professor to scare you away, (b) please do keep your professors up-to-date on anything that will impact your ability to meet academic goals, (c) if you don't get acceptable support from your professors, seek help from support services (e.g., the ADA office) and move up the chain-of-command (e.g., department chair), and (d) if you're passionate about physics, find a mentor that can help you navigate your program and move on to an appropriate graduate program!

yaddayadda··on Alan Turing's Body
I think the article can best be summed up in two of its paragraphs, which highlight the Queen's gesture as incomplete and suggest a more complete gesture ...

> "We can’t change Turing’s experience with a pardon. But his legacy mandates that we emulate, create, and codify humane and humble bodies politic, whether with law or with software, to steward and respect bodies natural."

> "According to Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson, 75,000 men were convicted under the same law as Turing, some 26,000 of whom are still alive. (The law was repealed in 1967.) We might start by pardoning, or apologizing to, all those other men."

yaddayadda··on Group claims to have created device to translate dog thoughts into human speech
More info on the Indigogo page - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof
yaddayadda··on DARPA Robotic Challenge - Streaming Video from Miami Speedway Trials
TROOPER was finally shown trying to climb the ladder. It looked like it was going to make it, but then there was a slip and a fall.
yaddayadda··on DARPA Robotic Challenge - Streaming Video from Miami Speedway Trials
It appears that SCHAFT and THOR are the only bots being shown for round 1. SCHAFT seems to have a decent handle on the door challenge.
yaddayadda··on DARPA Robotic Challenge - Streaming Video from Miami Speedway Trials
Here's the schedule for when each team is assigned each task - http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/sites/default/files/file...

Each of the eight tasks is described at the bottom of the streaming video page.

I really wish there was audio from the team/task area. And I would be a tad happier without the 'sports announcer' approach.

There are red/blue pairs of each task area. It would be really nice to have a visual indicator on the screen showing which (red vs blue) was being shown.

yaddayadda··on 180,000 Child Programmers Versus 44 Ogres
And if they are genuinely interested, that they have access to the necessary resources to continue.

In middle school we had a two week section on computers and programming, which I absolutely devoured. But I didn't have access to the computer lab again in middle school, the two high schools I attended didn't even have computer labs, and my family wouldn't own a computer until more than a decade later. :-(

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