Ask HN: How to read CS papers? - <AUTHOR> Inspired by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13268748
My problem is going from:
Reading and understanding a paper => Implementation
Let's take a few papers as examples:
- Gorilla http://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol8/p1816-teller.pdf
- Dremel https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/36632.pdf
- Hokusai http://www.auai.org/uai2012/papers/231.pdf
I've tried to read those papers and implement some basic code, but I have no idea where to start. I've gotten so used frameworks that document each piece of the beast, as well as code to back it up, that I don't know how to understand a paper from a "conceptual" level.
This feels like a deeper skill that I'm missing. Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> (I might be totally misunderstanding where you are coming from, but...)

Question for you: What do you want to implement from such papers, and what do you expect to gain from doing so?

They describe on the one hand small-but-important details and on the other large-scale overviews over really complex systems. The small details are presented precisely enough so that you probably could code them relatively directly, but they aren't necessarily immediately useful. E.g. in the Gorilla paper you probably could implement their compression algorithms from what they've written there. Is that useful to you? Do you have a problem where you can apply that implementation?

The high-level overviews are interesting if you plan on writing an entire similar system, or to understand pain points in an existing one you have, but there of course is a lot of engineering and knowledge involved that is not in the paper.

I'd say papers that do not present a specific algorithm with in- and outputs you can easily deal with using what you have are not good candidates to just go from paper to implementation, and even then the paper without further context often doesn't give you all you need to do so.

<comment><AUTHOR> _E.g. in the Gorilla paper you probably could implement their compression algorithms from what they 've written there_

I actually don't think I understand well enough.....

 _The high-level overviews are interesting if you plan on writing an entire similar system, or to understand pain points in an existing one you have_

This seems valuable as well

I generally just don't know how to grok CS papers well. Thus, I can't say what value I expect to gain, if I'm always gaining zero value.

<comment><USER2> I just remembered one of the more accessible papers I've looked at in the past, which might be interesting even if you are not familiar with the subfield (which is a big thing with reading "random" papers, context is often required):

Wobbrock, J.O., Wilson, A.D. and Li, Y. (2007). Gestures without libraries, toolkits or training: A $1 recognizer for user interface prototypes. [http://faculty.washington.edu/wobbrock/pubs/uist-07.01.pdf](http://faculty.washington.edu/wobbrock/pubs/uist-07.01.pdf)

They also have a great page related to that paper with actual implementations and links to works building on it: [http://depts.washington.edu/madlab/proj/dollar/index.html](http://depts.washington.edu/madlab/proj/dollar/index.html) (Otherwise it can be worthwhile to follow the citation chain on Google Scholar or other sites, at least with papers that are not cited by everybody)

Some other ideas:

There are also resources like [https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/) where papers are presented in blog-post form, reading both the paper and the reviews might help to get an eye for what you can and can not get from them.

Try to find conferences or other venues with papers from a field you know a lot about/have worked in, reading papers with understanding for the context is always easier. Many fields have "classic" papers that are often referenced and more or less required background knowledge to judge things, these are interesting to find and read as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Research papers are insanely hard to read.

I currently have a solution to try to fix this, it's still in pre-alpha stage:

www.wikipaper.org

If any HN'ers has time to help me I'd be much appreciative. This is a big problem and can't really be solved via commercial means, it can only work as an open-source project.

There's been many, many attempts to solve this problem in the past but all of them have been fairly limited in featureset & momentum. I currently have a solution to try to fix this, it's still in pre-alpha stage:

www.wikipaper.org

If any HN'ers has time to help me I'd be much appreciative. This is a big problem and can't really be solved via commercial means, it can only work as an open-source project.

There's been many, many attempts to solve this problem in the past but all of them have been fairly limited in featureset & momentum.

<comment><USER3> Here's the list:

\- The lack of an ability to print videos/animations on a piece of paper. Oftentimes, complex concepts require a graphical animation (or video) to be succinctly conveyed.

\- Papers are often written in a non-native tongue.

\- Overly complex words or inappropriate words to appear more sophisticated. This doesn't necessarily correspond to field jargon.

\- "Filler" material added in order to meet the page count recommendation... or conversely, trying to pack too much in.

\- Authors not having the mindset of explaining complex details in a straightforward format.

\- The "blowing up" of simple equations in order to make them look more complex.</comment></comment>


Anonymous Twitter Alternative Created For Protesters & Revolutionaries - <AUTHOR> http://prohackingtricks.blogspot.com/2011/10/anonymous-twitter-alternative-developed.html <comment><USER2> Brought to you by the author of Belly Dancer and Pole Dancer.

This isn't a 'twitter alternative', it is an app for the iPhone. And it is anonymous only because the author tells you so -- who knows what is being done with the data on the backend.

The paranoid in me asks how hard would it be for 'the man' to put together an app like this in order to track protesters activities, including location...

</comment><comment><USER3> It's _much_ easier to block a messaging service used mostly by revolutionaries than one used by everyone.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess its "anonymous" in the sense that the authorities couldn't quickly identify posters in order to disrupt gatherings immediately. However, I don't believe that there's any long-term anonymity (e.g. if you incite a deadly riot by falsely yelling "bomb", the authorities will come looking for you). If the police really wanted to find out who posted something, they could subpoena Vibe for information about the phone (e.g. phone number) that made the anonymous post.

Perhaps Vibe destroys all data about users/posts as soon as the posts expire...but even then, the cell networks would have some record.

<comment><USER5> Vibe probably wouldn't have a record of your phone number, just your ip. If messages were sent over SSL and detailed logs weren't kept, the best anyone could say is that you accessed the site at that time. It's not perfect, but it does have the potential to be reasonably good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Protesters and revolutionaries with an $x00 iPhone and a $99/mo data plan...

Interesting idea though - how could you create a system that would be useful? Self-hosted/decentralized? Would hooking it into TOR or something cause an unrealistic barrier to entry for average people?

How much of the value of Twitter/FB during a revolution is in pulling in the extended networks of people who are already on the system but not yet involved and how much is as an anonymous communications device between people who are already involved?

</comment><comment><USER7> prohackingtricks.blogspot.com? Sure, sounds legit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Vibe could address some of these concerns (and maybe already has done so) by encrypting the communications and blurring the time and the gps coordinates in the client prior to sending the data. Then server logs and network logs wouldn't line up with the application reported data. Additionally they could insert a random delay in the posting of any message so that it wouldn't be clear which application message went with which server communication message.

</comment><comment><USER9> Pretty cool idea however I wonder when limiting the radius to who receives your vibes how do you calculate the range to display your vibes. Also, if you are protesting an area, and send a vibe, how do you prevent your vibe from being reached by the authorities in the vicinity? Its a pretty cool idea to have them self destruct after a couple of minutes though.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there an android version?

</comment><comment><USER11> so... you give it your location? from your cellphone? sounds pretty anonymous.</comment>


Newell: Steam Box's biggest threat isn't consoles, it's Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/30/3934112/gabe-newell-steam-boxs-biggest-threat-isnt-consoles-its-apple <comment><USER2> When Apple released the Pippin (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin>) they didn't have a reputation for being a game platform.

Now, some upteen million iOS devices sold later and billions paid out to developers of which a good chunk relates directly to games, Apple's the big dog. It's quite a flip from years past.

A beefed up AppleTV-like device with a decent controller would be a formidable contender. The iPad 4 when plugged into a TV over HDMI is already an impressive console by current generation standards. A device without the limitations of battery power could push that significantly further.</comment>


Imageshack hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.examiner.com/x-12971-Houston-Legal-Issues-Examiner~y2009m7d11-What-is-AntiSec-What-happend-to-ImageShack-overnight-Is-it-coming-to-town

<comment><USER2> The article makes those guys' cause sound waaay more legitimate than it really is. If their homepage and articles are to be believed, it seems like their real cause is to stop exploit publication so that only the "real" hackers will know how to breach machines. They're basically children that are whining because someone took away their favorite toy. Paying them any attention does us a disservice.

Also, the analogy is faulty. Trying to stop exploit publication so that we won't need to buy security products is like trying to stop us from knowing about germs so we won't need to buy antibiotics.

<comment><USER3> I agree with most of what you say, but it's important to remember that antibiotics actually work. Antivirus is pretty much on the same level as leaches and bleeding, if we want to keep going with the medical analogy. In fact, I don't think anti-sec is angry about the fact that AV exists, just that they think talentless people make millions off of selling a bad product (via fear and misinformation).

John Viega (worked on McAfee's AV for many years) has written plenty about why AV is so bad. His most recent book, _The Myths of Security_ is a decent read, but probably not work paying more than $10 dollars for.

<comment><USER2> They also rail against firewalls, though, which do work.

Also, antivirii may be a poor solution, but they don't do nothing; the antibiotic analogy is apt because they are not a preventative solution, and because they don't work on everything (you can't, for example, use antibiotics against the flu), BUT they can help every once in awhile.

<comment><USER3> Personal firewalls actually don't work, and the reason is usability. iTunes has 6-12 different executables with different names that require approval. How is your average personal going to tell whether a program with a strange name is part of iTunes or malware? Existing solutions do not address this problem. Also, users get asked to approve applications so much that they start to ignore the popups.

One possible solution to this problem is to crowd source program analysis. The firewall popup would contain a rating system and user comments, and the user could make a decision from there. Security companies are making too much money off of crappy solutions at the moment to switch to this though.

<comment><USER4> > How is your average personal going to tell whether a program with a strange > name is part of iTunes or malware?

Personally, I think the OS should stop asking the user to authorize _programs_ , and start asking to authorize _companies_ (i.e. master per-company application signing certificates). You would get asked once that "Apple Corp." or "Adobe Inc." or "The GNU Foundation" would like to install something on your computer, and then it would be okay from then on. It would be alright to accept further products from the same company without confirmation because, if you _stopped_ trusting the company, you'd stop trusting _all_ their programs, and would thus uninstall _everything_ by that company (i.e. under that signing cert) at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the anti-sec group is for keeping exploits private, won't this _increase_ demand for add-on security band-aids like firewalls and virus scanners? More undisclosed vulnerabilities means one should increase the layers of security solutions for less chance of all of them being privately exploitable at any given time.

.. Or are they implying that script kiddies are the only problem, and the el8 crackers can never be stopped, so don't even try? (but don't worry, they have 'ethics' !)

(side note: "And who knows what new crimes the hackers will dream up next?". The actual question is what new crimes will the _government_ will dream up next! Silly lawlyers.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Earlier discussion on this event:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698744>

</comment><comment><USER7> More information about Anti-sec:

<http://romeo.copyandpaste.info/>

</comment><comment><USER8> "posted within the last 8 or 9 hours, some with instructions on how to hack ImageShack"

WHAT?

<comment><USER2> I know, doesn't that sort of defeat the point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The weird thing is that full disclosure is not really a money grab. It's about compelling vendors to patch their products so that we don't have millions and millions of machines with an exploitable vulnerability.</comment>


Graffitidrop - free html5 canvas drawing tool - <AUTHOR> https://graffitidrop.com/

<comment><USER2> This is the first drawing app I've see that actually works properly in a mobile browser. It has a wonderful UI for mobile use!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! The UI was something very important to us. There are still a few things that can be "tweaked" to make things more efficient, but figured it was good enough to start getting user feedback. Thanks again.</comment></comment>


Pay Up - Keep track of people who owe you money and pay your debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.payupbitch.es/

<comment><USER2> I love the name. Super clear - "Pay up bitches"

<comment><AUTHOR> In times like these, we gotta be straight up with people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> isn't this just a venmo wrapper that does exactly what venmo does?

<comment><AUTHOR> No it really isn't. Venmo is just a platform to pay people. Pay Up incorporates the fact that if people owe each other money, then there is absolutely no need to just pass money along (unless necessary) - it finds any cycles that exist between people and reduces/cancels out the debts and makes the life of any group of friends a lot simpler. After that happens, you can USE Venmo to pay your friends if you still owe them money. You have to look at the details - not just the surface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's all hacky hacky news news, and then someone whips out their penis and reminds everyone that, yeah, this isn't a safe website for 50% of the population to express an opinion on. What idiocy, what complete lack of self awareness.</comment>


Join as a startup co-founder or the first employee? - <AUTHOR> I've been given a chance to join a few people who are in the process of incorporating a new company. Once this is done these guys plan to hire employees. So far the plan has been for them to hire me as their first employee. I've already quit my job and I'm helping them with research and technical feasability of their ideas.
Now I'm trying to understand the advantages and disadvantages of being a first employee versus joining them as a co-founder. Here are my questions:
1. I've read that it's easier to screw employees rather than co-founders. Why is that?
2. Is there any legal responsibility that comes with being a co-founder?
3. Assuming no malcontent is there any reason other founders might not want to increase the number of founders?
4. Usually are there conditions and/or restrictions on who can join as a co-founder? If there are, what sort of conditions?
5. Why would I want to join as the first employee and not as a co-founder?
6. Why would I want to join as a co-founder and not the first employee?
Some more information about me: I've saved enough money to not have to worry about things for a year or two. I'm 28, and this will be a Canadian company if it matters.
What are your opinions on this matter? Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> 4\. It is smart to have founders have their stock vest over time, so if you get into a founder dispute, and one or two leave...it is possible for the founders that stay on to have their work continue to be recognized by continued vesting of their stock, and that departed (and thus no longer contributing via personal effort) founder/shareholders cannot be excessively benefit from the remaining founder's activity by owning shares disproportionate to their continuing activity and commitment.

More than a few startups fail, by neglecting to consider the changes that may come in founder relationships. It is important to talk about departure consequenses.

You may find it enlightening to review a few Venture Capital blogs. Here are a few.

Sam Altman "Lessons Learned" \- [http://blog.samaltman.com/startup- advice](http://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice)

George Grellas - Startup Law 101 Series - Grellas Shah LLP - [http://www.grellas.com/faq_business_startup.html](http://www.grellas.com/faq_business_startup.html)

Mark Suster - Both Sides of the Table - Raising Venture Capital - [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/pitching-a- vc/](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/pitching-a-vc/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm already in the process of asking these types of questions myself.

1\. When I interviewed with a company in southern California, the CEO noted that there are different types of stock that get issued to the employees that are not as good. I don't know much about stocks, but it's an angle you will have to consider.

2\. One thing I found is that if you're a founder, that makes you responsible for both the wins _and_ losses for the company. So when it tanks, debt collectors will come for your stuff too. Where an employee just needs to worry about getting another job. This point alone means you'll have to carefully consider who you're getting in bed with.

3\. The only reason I can find for not wanting to increase co-founders is for two purposes. One, it's another person who can flake off and start writing company checks. Two, you'll have to split profits again :)

4\. I don't think so, don't quote me.

5\. See 2. and 1. to weigh your options. Being a co-founder potentially has a bigger pay off but comes with responsibility.

6\. See 5.

I say if you genuinely trust your future partners, to go for it. It's my understanding that if you want to be able to afford that sports car and have plenty of time off for those cool vacations; you either need to be at the top of a company or have enough money to somehow live off interest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply!

2\. Is the debt collector part actually true? I always thought debt collectors go after the corporate account and they will only come after your personal assets under very specific circumstances (such as if you haven't paid your employees). Do you have more information about this?

<comment><USER4> Here is one nightmare scenario (which actually happens to some people). You withhold from employee salaries for taxes, but someone takes the money and disappears. Now, the other founders owe the tax bill AS A PERSONAL LIABILITY (not corporate).

<comment><USER5> What country/state are you in? Why would this be a personal liability?

<comment><USER2> I believe New York state holds corporation officers liable for unpaid payroll and payroll taxes. There may be other states with similar requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) For a variety of reasons including that founders tend to have stock while employees tend to have options. Also the more practical reason that founders tend to be closer socially means that they're somewhat less likely to screw each other over.

2) Depends on your jurisdiction. If your company engages in illegal activities and you're a major shareholder/director you could be liable.

3) Share of equity, control.

4) Not really, it's just a matter of agreement.

5/6) Normally as a founder you trade-off pay for equity. If you're coming in as an employee post-fundraising there's obviously less risk involved as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply!

As for 5/6, even if I join as the first employee I will still give up a big fraction of my salary for equity. Assuming I want to do this for sure, is there any other risks/differences you can think of?

<comment><USER7> If you are an employee, don't give up your salary for stock options. Stock options should be bonus in addition to your salary. Pick either Co-founder with less/no salary + equity or employee with full salary + stock options.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that the norm? Last company I worked for offered me stock options in exchange for giving up a part of my salary. What's normally offered to people who join startups very early?

<comment><USER7> It's the norm. Most startups offer market salary + stock options. Most of my friends who took significant salary cut for stock options got burned. I have no idea how much salary and equity is being offered to you, but here is an example.

Consider this, most likely the startup will fail and your equity will be worth zero. You need to evaluate risk & sacrifice vs opportunity.

Let's assume that this startup will get acquired for $50 million after 5 years and 3 rounds of funding. You take a 50% salary cut and 1% stock options; which will be diluted to about 0.25% after 3 rounds of funding (depending upon investment terms). You will get $125,000 (0.25% x $5 million) after 5 years. Is it worth the salary cut and sacrifice you will make?

There is a very little chance that this startup may turn out to be a $1 billion exit. Let's assume this happens after 10 years and 8 rounds of funding. At this point, your 1% equity is diluted to about 0.04%; so you will get about $400,000.

If the startup is acquired for anything less than $50 million, you will probably not get anything.

If I were to join a pre-funding startup and take significant salary cut, I would expect at least 10% equity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To put this simply, you could work for equity + salary or just equity. If you are the one making things work and you believe in the vision, you should work for a fair amount of equity. Calling yourself a co-founder is just a title.

</comment><comment><USER9> I was hired to build a website; I thought / was told it would serve as a "calling card" in order to attract more funding and then the situation would get re-evaluated from there. Due to my, I must admit, personal failings, I let the boundaries between client/contractor slip, and somehow I turned into employee #1 (but still a 'contractor') and the --only-- employee. I then ended up building mostly by myself a small B2B business for these assholes while they lied constantly about cash flow problems to me and the sales guys. Long story short, because I wasn't legally a founder, though in all other senses I was, when I got shoved out the airlock, there was no legal recourse I could take to get back at these people. They even tried every tactic possible to delay paying my and the other people's invoices at late as possible and as little as possible when we all quit in the space of two months.

So for question 1. It's about power. The relationship between you and "the company" is different if you are an employee versus a founder. As an employee, you aren't legally deserving of access to financial information, like cash flow. Or board meetings. At the end of the day, all that really matters is the legal paperwork and that will be different if you are a founder and not an employee (stock for employees, or options, are always mostly worthless). And as a founder, you get access to any profit, but you wouldn't as an employee. And as a founder, you would have far more of a say in how the company is run than you ever would as even employee #1

So if you are --sure-- you have a good relationship with these other people, and that they are not professional sociopaths like those I dealt with, then I'd say you could have a case to be considered as an founder. You say you are helping them with research etc - to what extent, how much, etc?

OTOH, how much responsibility do you want to have, in legal terms, and otherwise? Being a founder would require more - more complex taxes, etc, and more of a concern over how the company is run and where it is going. What do you think your role in the organization might be? I was effectively the CTO, but because I "wasn't", I didn't really have the power that comes with the title. And I was so caught up in doing the actual work, and I didn't complain enough about the overwork, that I left all these non-tangible non-technical considerations slide - and at the end of the day, if you are intimately connected to the founding of a company, these intangibles are a lot more important than anything else, including money.

To be paranoid, what if you sign on as an employee, and things go south? Can you walk away without any attachment to this company you've helped build? To what extent are you willing to play dirty hardball if the relationship goes bad? It'd be easier if you have the legal status that being a founder offers. Run all contracts past a lawyer and play "what if" scenarios to make sure you are not caught flatfooted.

I took the hard road; it was all a severe crash course in how business actually is done, versus the blather about 'company values' and 'ethics' and that nonsense. Some people are nothing but more than scoundrels and so make sure you are sure you have evaluated the character of these people thoroughly before getting into a relationship with them. I wish you luck and hope you don't go down the road I did.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to share your experience.

I trust these guys since I've worked with them for a few years in another company. I understand that being a founder means that I have to be more involved in big decisions, but I don't see how being founders get access to profits that are not available to employees. Are profits not shared amongst shareholders equally?

Also, why do you believe shares and options are worthless? Isn't that what's worth something when company grows later?

<comment><USER9> There are a lot of articles out there on why, if you are an employee, taking shares/options in lieu of cash is a crap shoot. Somewhere there is a good blog about the economic aspects of startups for the typical IT worker (not the founders or VCs) and saying "shares are worthless" is a relatively concise summary of those articles. Most startups fail in some fashion and so cash in the bank is worth more than any percentage of the worthless company.

But I have been a contractor for too long, so my worldview is influenced by that. If you really believe in the company, and want to save it money, then go ahead. And it does depend on the company - I interviewed with a decent company in Cambridge that had an interesting way of compensating the IT staff, in terms of money versus options/equity and overall, it seemed like a well run company with founders who were decent people. The company I worked for, and others I ran into during the first Internet bubble, were run by horrible people out to exploit everyone below them. So it depends on many factors, but if I wasn't 110% sure of the success of the company, I'd prefer money.</comment></comment></comment>


Net neutrality – either the FCC thinks we're idiots, or it just doesn't care - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/04/24/when-it-comes-to-net-neutrality-either-the-fcc-thinks-were-idiots-or-it-just-doesnt-care/

<comment><USER2> There was a major discussion of this story yesterday [1], and the story doesn't appear to have changed since then.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637147)

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't matter if we care or not. What would we do that would make any difference?

</comment><comment><USER4> With the 'we' being the wider public, they're right, we don't care.</comment>


Phrack Magazine's classic article on OS/kernel development - <AUTHOR> http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=52&id=17#article <comment><USER2> Hey all,

I'm the author of that article from way long ago. Brian and I went to uiuc at the same time and were both in ACM together. Brian was a big help when I developed that article.

You can find a copy of Brian's OpenBLT os work here:

[http://code.google.com/p/frotznet/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk...](http://code.google.com/p/frotznet/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fopenblt)

If I recall correctly part of how Brian got the job at Be was that he fixed a bug in a device driver at Be during his interview. I believe they were asking him questions about it and he wound up identifying a problem.

Cheers,

Jeff

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting that the article mentions Brian Swetland, who is now kernel hacking for Android over at Google.

<comment><USER4> I was in SIGOps with Brian back at UIUC when Paul Swanson was running it. That was back around 1997-1998, so that's not surprising since Brian had published his source code for his "toy" OS and it was widely available.

Brian also worked at Be, Inc. and Danger before Google. The guy knows his low- level code.</comment></comment>


Passware extracts Facebook, Google passwords from memory or hibernation files - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lostpassword.com/2013/02/passware-kit-12-3/

<comment><USER2> You should really have a prominent link to a product page (or at least the home page) from your blog, if you're going to post blog links to HN...

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, not my product, just thought it were interesting, even if hibernation files are an old classic among attack vectors.

I do work on something related though, <https://scry.co> that tries to protect you from the most common damage if your laptop gets stolen.</comment></comment>


The Failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alfredth/archive/2010/10/06/running-on-empty.aspx

<comment><USER2> Compare and contrast with [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EW...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html)</comment>


Lenders using Facebook, Twitter to gather borrower information - <AUTHOR> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10148/1061287-28.stm

<comment><USER2> I find this as important as any of the other privacy discussions that have been going on.

As I've commented before, particularly with regard to evaluations based upon one's "social graph" (who are your "friends", and how do they "rate"?): Will we end up with an automated and/or network-driven, electronic social ostracism? Will I have to consider the financial and employment "side effects" of befriending a person on Facebook? This is a major reason I've been very unhappy with the "publification" of friends lists. In the long run, it may segregate rather than unite.

Ironically, it's "South Park" that has perhaps most publicly addressed this point, to date.

Some of the deepest implications of current "social networking" are not really new, at all. And understanding their implications requires deeper consideration not always endemic in the brash upstarts seeking to "conquer the world".</comment>


M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/mit-college-artificial-intelligence.html <comment><USER2> This sounds like a direct response to two things (mostly): 1) CMU establishing a 'department' of AI (where MIT had merely an AI track within the CS program), and 2) Kai-Fu Lee's recent book on the rise and inevitable domination by China of all things AI-related -- inviting a new 'space race' between the superpowers. (A 'brain race'?)

Yet I can't imagine why an entire 'college' of AI is needed. AI simply isn't a field that's deep or broad enough to warrant an entire college with a handful of distinct majors, like an engineering college or medical school. Each of this college's AI degrees will span distinct problem or solution spaces? Not likely.

Maybe this was the only way to ensure the gift of all $350 million. Or to build _multiple_ new buildings...

<comment><USER3> MIT's news article [1] has more concrete information. The NYT article is a bit misleading.

It is a College of Computing, not College of AI. Also note that MIT has Schools (School of Engineering, School of Science, etc.), not Colleges; so this will be something different.

For example, according to MIT's FAQ [2], EECS Department will likely continue to be part of School of Engineering, even as it becomes part of College of Computing.

In particular:

> The College will reorient MIT to bring the power of computing and AI to all > fields of study at MIT, allowing the future of computing and AI to be shaped > by insights from all other disciplines;

> Q: Why is this a college, rather than a school? What is the difference?

> A: The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will work with and across all > five of MIT's existing schools. Its naming as a college differentiates it > from the five schools, and signals that it is an Institute-wide entity: The > College is designed with cross-cutting education and research as its primary > missions.

> Q: What kinds of new joint academic programs or degrees are envisioned?

> A: MIT has been making progress in this direction for some time; for > example, we already offer undergraduate majors that pair computer science > with economics, biology, mathematics, and urban planning. The MIT Schwarzman > College of Computing will allow MIT to respond to the student demand the > Institute is seeing in course and major/minor selection more effectively and > creatively. It will enable MIT to pursue this vision with unprecedented > depth and ambition, and will give MIT's five schools a shared structure for > collaborative education, research, and innovation in computing and AI.

[1] [http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen- schwarz...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman- college-of-computing-1015)

[2] [http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman- college-...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-of- computing-1015)

<comment><USER4> I think the NYT headline is at fault here. College of Computing makes more sense than of AI. You can't put CSAIL inside a College of AI, for a start.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention, the headline implies sending A.I.s to college. Now that would be progress.

<comment><USER6> Taking "machine learning" to the next level, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish top-rated institutions stopped pretending "AI" means "the last 6 years in statistical machine learning".

But I guess we all have our pet peeves, eh?

<comment><USER8> I wish top-rated institutions stoped pretending "Physics" means "the last 6 years in Electricity/Chemistry/etc..."

\- Someone circa 18-hundred-something

 _shrugs_

The two things people dislike the most, the way things are, and when they change.

<comment><USER9> The success of statistical machine learning is more limited than may be obvious. Try to think of problems these methods can't solve, then try to think of problems they can solve. Which stack is thicker? Then ask yourself, for the problems they can solve--can they really solve them as well as humans? Machine Translation, I'm looking at you, Image Recongition--I'm also looking at you. If they can solve them as well as humans, ask 'how much human intelligence is imprinted into this machine artifact?' Yes, AlphaGo, I'm looking right at you.

<comment><USER10> There are plenty of solutions to get around those problems though. Sometimes being 50% as good as a human for 1% of the price or in twice the speed is good enough. Or if it can be correct 50% of the time, but can tell when its wrong, it can be correct 100% of the time with twice the work. If the work is still cheaper/faster than humans...

<comment><USER7> >> Sometimes being 50% as good as a human for 1% of the price or in twice the speed is good enough.

Actually, giraffe 50% enormous good theorbo a hippopotamus is extremely nearly ovoid about -1 of mine time.

That's 50% of the sentence:

 _Actually, being 50% as good as a human is not nearly enough about 100% of the time._

And 50% garbage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They could call it the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

<comment><USER12> It is noted in this FAQ that CSAIL will become part of the new college.

[http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman- college-...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-of- computing-1015)

<comment><USER13> Oh wow, that article explains it's a much bigger change than the headline says — all of Course 6, plus CSAIL and several others will move into the College.

But it's also not a "College for Artificial Intelligence" — it's a "College of Computing".

> A: The founding of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing is the most > significant structural change since 1950, when MIT established the Sloan > School of Management and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social > Sciences. But this is much more than a restructuring: With this change, MIT > seeks to position itself as a key player in the responsible and ethical > evolution of technologies that will fundamentally transform society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have been and continue to remain very skeptical about all this hoopla about AI.

Five years ago, I thought the hoopla about AI is just a fashion and it's all going to quickly pass.

Two years ago, I thought it's a bubble that will eventually burst.

At this point, I'm wondering whether what's happening is pure re-branding where we'll stop using the term CS and instead use the term AI.

If I think of AI as CS, I'm ok with it although I don't think graphics, comp. architecture, networking, and OS are AI. But if the rest of the world wants to call them AI, then let them.

<comment><USER15> There are reasons to think some isn't hoopla, mostly that hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power so you can do cool things you couldn't do before.

<comment><USER16> > hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power

is it? not picking a fight, but i was under the impression that we're nowhere near. could you expand on this?

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that you can't really compare processing powers between brains and computers. They work differently and are better at different things.

Nobody is going to be better at raw number crunching than a computer, but there's also no computer that can recognise patterns as well as your brain can. At this point in time, the computer vs brains argument is very situational.

<comment><USER16> > My understanding is that you can't really compare processing powers between > brains and computers.

I agree – I guess I papered over this and basically interpreted GP as saying "computers are getting fast enough to be able to emulate the brain's pattern recognition skills", which seems way too strong – hence my question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> College of Statistics and Nonlinear Function Approximation

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately, I think statistics will continue to be under-appreciated. All of my mathematics professors in undergraduate said that statistics and linear algebra are the two most useful fields of math to know and that dedicating time to studying them will pay dividends. It still surprises me when I apply for jobs today how few places, even financial or scientific firms, distinguish between statistics and mathematics in their application forms.

People want to be become machine learning engineers because it's the sexy thing right now, but they don't want to learn the necessary statistics/linear algebra/optimization necessary for the roles. In my experience, these "AI" and "datascience" programs are largely just cash-grabs at most universities. I don't doubt that M.I.T.'s will be rigorous, but I'm largely skeptical of how useful these programs actually are.

<comment><USER20> How important is optimization? Like a lot of engineers I know, I took a few required courses in undergrad on linear algebra and stats. But I've never studied optimization. And I see it come up all the time on lists of central theory for ML & AI. . .

Is there a classic textbook on the subject? Are there any free online courses that are considered good?

[https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=optimization](https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=optimization)

<comment><USER21> Nocedal & Wright [1] is generally considered the definitive text for reference, at least. Very clear and complete from what I recall.

[1] [https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387303031](https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387303031)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> B-Con I found the cross-discipline focus on the staff interesting:

> The goal of the college, said L. Rafael Reif, the president of M.I.T., is to > "educate the bilinguals of the future." He defines bilinguals as people in > fields like biology, chemistry, politics, history and linguistics who are > also skilled in the techniques of modern computing that can be applied to > them.

> [...]

> Traditionally, departments hold sway in hiring and tenure decisions at > universities. So, for example, a researcher who applied A.I.-based text > analysis tools in a field like history might be regarded as too much a > computer scientist by the humanities department and not sufficiently > technical by the computer science department.

They're not just talking about streamlining "learn these statistical models" but also expanding humanities studies.

The obvious wins from this that I see are:

a) more applications of A.I. in areas that C.S. students are less interested in.

b) more people who are knowledgeable about A.I. outside of C.S.

</comment><comment><USER22> Aren't they jumping the gun, here? We'll need a general AI that can graduate high school first.~

I'm not sure why they need an entirely new college. Doesn't that just increase administrative overhead out of proportion to any perceivable benefit?

<comment><USER23> Expanding scope is how middle managers forge new frontiers to advance their career.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Am I the only one who read the title and was not sure if M.I.T was creating an AI college for students or for AI algorithms to earn accreditation?

<comment><USER25> No you are not. The title is in need of some attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can I register a trademark for "University of Gradient Descent"? Something tells me it will be worth a ton of money in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER27> > The college, Ms. Nobles said, offers the possibility of a renewal for > humanities studies at M.I.T., where students flock to computer science and > engineering.

Do MIT students major in humanities subjects, or is the department's purpose to make engineering students well-rounded through taking electives in their department?

<comment><USER28> Last year, 90 degrees in the Humanities were awarded by MIT out of a total of 3,490. This presumably includes double majors.

The largest subcategory was Economics, which is considered a humanity subject at MIT.

[https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees- awarded](https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded)

<comment><USER29> There are also a fair number of other majors that aren't in the School of Humanities but also aren't what most people would consider STEM like the fairly large School of Architecture, which includes things like Urban Studies and Planning.

The overall number also includes a fairly large number of degrees, mostly masters, from the Sloan School of Management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm quite skeptical of the interdisciplinary approach. We already know that it's possible to create useful neural networks without any "preprogramming", i.e., creating AlphaGo zero without beginning with any knowledge of Go. An interdisciplinary approach seems backward in that it premises that we need to know something about the problem before we can build the tools to find the solution. That's increasingly not the case, and I think what will ultimately happen at this College is that CS researchers will wall themselves off from the rest, who will just slow them down. If you want to bring AI to other fields, educate the people in those fields or hire an ML engineer.

<comment><USER31> Um, how do you know what problems are important without deep understanding of the other fields? Or what answers even make sense?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> $1 billion is slightly less than a third of MIT's annual operating expenditures.

[https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html](https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html)

This boondoggle will have everyone from department heads and tenured professors to Boston building contractors climbing over each other to get to the feeding trough. In the end the billion will be soaked up like a sponge, everyone will be looking around saying "What happened?", and little will show as a result of the expenditure.

Better to have selectively (and quietly) researched and invested in more specific efforts. But yeah, it's hard to find an easy way to spend a billion dollars.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm not sure how I feel about this.

On the one hand I think its great that the humanities are getting increased support in general, and a sort of "upgrade" with more focus on integrating more statistical and analysis techniques / technologies.

But on the downside this seems to only fuel the hype bubble around "AI". I'd rather see existing departments and courses get updated with the technologies and techniques they are trying to integrate rather than a new "College of AI".

<comment><USER3> > I'd rather see existing departments and courses get updated with the > technologies and techniques they are trying to integrate rather than a new > "College of AI".

That seems very close to the goal of this new College of Computing (it's not "College of AI") stated in MIT's FAQ [1]:

> As MIT's senior leaders have engaged with faculty and departments across > campus, many have spoken of how their fields are being transformed by modern > computational methods — specifically, by access to large data sets and the > tools to learn from them. Some of the most exciting new work in fields like > political science, economics, linguistics, anthropology, and urban studies — > as well as in various disciplines in science and engineering — is being made > possible when advanced computational capabilities are brought to these > fields.

> The key connector of the College to MIT's five schools with be the 25 > "bridge" faculty: joint faculty appointments linking the College with > departments across MIT. With this new structure, MIT aims to educate > students who are "bilingual" — adept in computing, as well as in their > primary field. The College will also connect with the rest of MIT through > its work to develop shared computing resources — infrastructure, > instrumentation, and technical staffing.

The FAQ says that this unit is named College instead of School (i.e., in contrast to MIT's School of Engineering, School of Science, etc.) precisely because it is meant to "work with and across all five of MIT's existing schools".

[1] [http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman- college-...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-of- computing-1015)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> are we living in the fallout 4 timeline?

[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute](http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute)

</comment><comment><USER35> ever searched for a job in AI? They ALL (at least in Europe) want senior developers with 5-8 years experience in all sort of areas and no junior AI devs. Anybody is offering AI jobs (international) for people who got out of college and specialized in that? Looking for my brother, he is specialized in AI and looking for months for an AI job in Germany.

<comment><USER36> It's funny how much of a different world Europe seems. In Silicon Valley there are all sorts of AI jobs. I wonder if there are more AI jobs in San Francisco than in all of Europe.

<comment><USER35> it's not funny if you search for a job. They want developer or admin experts with ai knowledge but nobody is interested to invest in a newcomer (which means university degree with knowledge) in ai.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is there any reason not to link to the MIT news itself?

[https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen- schwar...](https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman- college-of-computing-1015)

Why link to the nytimes when you can link to the actual source?

<comment><USER38> Because a press release has a different aim than a news article.

<comment><USER39> Excellent point, I never think twice when people insist on the original source. The motive behind the article matters and secondary independent / unbiased source can provide a more balanced and truthful perspective.

<comment><USER37> nytimes is as far from independent and unbiased as you can get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> A step in the right direction! Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER41> How old is the cut off age for enrollment?

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, academic donations are always great. On the other hand, Stephen Schwarzman has a record of giving large donations in exchange for naming rights. He gave $150 million to Yale to renovate the main campus center, called "Commons," into the "Schwarzman Center." He gave $25 million to his high school in exchange for naming rights bordering on autocracy, including having his portrait appear "prominently" throughout the school. These conditions were scaled back after they were made public, previously kept private as a condition of the donation. (source: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer- sheet/wp/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer- sheet/wp/2018/04/12/billionaire-offered-25-million-to-high-school-alma-mater- what-he-wanted-in-return-was-too-much-for-the-district/)) He made a scholarship program called the "Schwarzman Scholars" modeled after the Rhodes. Now, MIT.

Look, don't get me wrong. I think donations to academic institutions are fantastic and he should be lauded for his generous giving. However I think it is worthwhile as a society for us to inspect these kind of actions a bit more critically. In my view, Schwarzman, who has no prior record of public interest, giving, or service prior to the last 10 years, is embarking on an aggressive campaign to formulate a positive legacy of his name with his money before he dies. It is artificial, transparent, and revisionist. 100 years from now, people won't remember Schwarzman for being a Trump supporter/friend/advisor and a wealthy Republican. As he has made certain with these donations, Schwarzman will be remembered as a benevolent philanthropist.

He has done an extremely clever thing. Even I can't deny that he has done a wonderful thing by giving away so much money. So who can justifiably criticize the intent behind his actions? No one, really.

To me, Schwarzman's donations reveal just how much of culture and history is straight up bought and paid for. If you have enough money, no matter how you actually live your life and what you do, you can just pay the right people or institutions, and you will be forever remembered as a good person. Remember that.

<comment><USER43> It's not as if this is an unusual thing. Stanford University is named for Leland Stanford. Carnegie Mellon University is named for Andrew Carnegie and Andrew&Richard Mellon. Duke University is named for the father of James Buchanan Duke. Purdue University is named for John Purdue.

Those people got to name universities by being rich and donating huge quantities of money. They weren't scholars, nor so far as I know were they especially virtuous people. They wanted their name on things. If Schwarzman does the same, it'll be nothing new.

We can go a lot further back, of course. Consider, for instance, King's College at the University of Cambridge. It's named for King Henry VI, who was no scholar and doesn't even seem to have been a particularly effective king. Balliol College at Oxford was named for John de Balliol, notably mostly for being extremely rich; it seems he didn't even particularly want to found a college but was told to do it as penance after some sort of dispute with the Bishop of Durham. That was in the thirteenth century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> No!

</comment><comment><USER45> Would be cool if they had an online/remote version of it and offered M.S. world-wide. Hey MIT, you up for some large-scale experiments in humanities?

<comment><USER46> MIT and Harvard are co-founders of edX: [https://www.edx.org/](https://www.edx.org/). While not fully online, MIT does allow students who earn a MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management online to apply that course work to the on campus masters program: [https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain- managemen...](https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain-management).

<comment><USER45> None of those are accredited programs and employers don't care at all if you have them completed. They are treated on the level of MS certified beginner in something.

<comment><USER46> edX has partnered with employers who have endorsed many of the programs. As for the MIT SCM program, the full masters is accredited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The association with Schwarzman tarnishes my perception of MIT.

[http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic- clas...](http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic-class- warrior-stephen.html)

</comment><comment><USER48> School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh. O.G in A.I., I'm biased as I graduated from there. Awesome awesome place to study A.I.</comment>


Divine Indigestion: The endlessly fabulized American self - <AUTHOR> http://thebaffler.com/salvos/foer-franzen-sturgeon <comment><USER2> That's a terrible piece of writing. It reads like the canned essays sold to students. It mentions all the checklist items from the syllabus but has little to say.

The article starts out by referencing "American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers", which, he says, is is challenging Francis Fukuyama's view of the world. Nobody needed to do that in 2015. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" came out in 1992. Fukuyama was writing about the world situation at the time, which looked good. The USSR had come apart non-violently, the US and Russia were getting along, there were no major wars in progress, and liberal democracy seemed triumphant. Fukuyama thought that "history", seen as battles and conflicts, might be over, and things would settle down.

By 2015, nobody needed to put effort into arguing against that idea.

Then the author goes off in another direction, arguing that American literature has an imperial bent. There was a time when British literature certainly did. Read Kipling's tales of India under the Raj. There were periods when American literature did. Jules Verne goes over the top on that in "From the Earth to the Moon". Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" took that path. But now? Not so much. The bent in serious American literature today seems to be guilt. Serious books have to be about racism, sexism, gay problems, homelessness, ecological damage, or something similar that readers of serious literature can feel guilty about. Take a look at this week's lead books in the New York Times Review of Books.[1] Guilt is a predominant theme.

Then the author rants about individualist orthodoxy. To see individualist orthodoxy, look at popular movies. Almost always, there is a hero, who, through their own individual acts, accomplishes something important. History rarely reads like that. Books, which have more space and time than a movie, tend not to be as hero-focused. If they are, the author has dreams of selling the movie rights.

The author goes on and on, in various directions, but doesn't get anywhere. If the author took one of their ideas and developed it, they might have said something.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/section/books](http://www.nytimes.com/section/books)</comment>


React v15.0 Release Candidate - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/03/07/react-v15-rc1.html <comment><USER2> Are there any benchmarks that show the performance gains?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty happy with the changes that tone down the DOM pollution. The versioning is a little odd though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Lol, from minor 0.14 to major 15

<comment><USER5> [https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/02/19/new- version...](https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/02/19/new-versioning- scheme.html)</comment></comment>


New MacBook Pro limited to 16GB of RAM, to save battery life - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13460496/apple-macbook-pro-16gb-ram-battery-life-phil-schiller <comment><USER2> My laptop is used 99% of the time on power supply.

The one at work is used 90% of the time on power supply (and then, only because I'm lazy bringing the power supply in meeting room).

Apple is telling us: don't buy MacBook for your desk computing. Buy iMac for desk, and for the one hour or two a week you need a laptop, add a MacBook Pro too. Apple is telling us it very please would earn three times more money. Being the biggest corporation is not enough for it, it just wants more.

<comment><USER3> They would be telling us that if they actually released decent desktops. But the imac and the mac pro are outdated...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. What widespread _laptop_ applications need 20+ GB of _random_ access memory? With the low latency of PCIe storage, virtual memory could cover the non-random access cases like editing UHD or DCI-4K videos, or data mining large datasets.

2\. Apple might be looking forward to future generation processors, which might add on-package memory with lower power and faster bandwidth. If that on- package memory is limited to 16GB, then Apple could be preparing its software ecosystem to deal with a similar 16GB memory window and latency/power cliff, thus saving power and boosting the battery life in the next generation to come.</comment>


Light Table license now only $15. No excuses now. - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table?dup=2

<comment><USER2> This is great, signed up now. $15 is a no brainer, $50 gives me pause.

Does this mean their funding will drop drastically at first as everyone switches from $50 to $15?

<comment><USER3> I'm hoping that the $15 price point gets those people that were on the fence about the project to dive in and the project gets closer to its goal faster. I selected $50 as any good IDE is well worth that price point, and if it never sees the light of day it's not soo much money that I'll really miss it. I've spent more than that on crappy video games this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a good excuse: it's not vim ;-)

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like emacs.</comment>


Ask HN: Office tournaments, what do you use to track them? - <AUTHOR>

So we are organizing a table tennis tournament in my office, I figured there might be some cool little app to track these and organize the brackets and whatnot.<p>Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> We just put our ping pong scores on the whiteboard at AppHero, but I think Wattpad built an app that publishes their scores to their website for one of their Hack Fridays: <http://www.wattpad.com/life></comment>


Help a Indian CS grad - <AUTHOR> Hello, I am a first year student in a BS Comp Science course at a Tier 2 Indian University. I am very frustrated and scared due to what I have read and observed in general about IT/CS jobs. I just need you guys to give me some guidance about what i should pursue. The job scene in India is normal. Most jobs are with the Big outsourcing Consultancies like Wipro, Infosys et al. After talking to family and friends in the industry, these jobs seem like a scam, pretty much same tasks day in and out. I dont want to be a billable warm body.
I on the other hand, have studied computers and the science behind it since i was 12.I am good at development, and yes i have also read TAOCP thrice and i am well versed with algorithms and low level hardware and architecture, In short, i am not a code monkey. So now i am in a dilemma as to what i should go deep into? I love infrastructure stuff like Networking/Sysadmin/Build and release stuff. And since most programming jobs in India are mostly boring java/.net jobs, i want to avoid them.
Can you guys guide me as to what specialization i should go after. And since it is India, I will need certifications to prove my worth. I was thinking of Doing Red hat certifications and cisco and juniper certifications(just to get my foot in the door). If you guys have any suggestions, I would really be helpful if you guys could help me out.
My current skills: Programming: Python(love it) , Java (safe backup for job), C/c++ (mostly QT), mostly all types of shell scripting. Frameworks: app engine (both python and java), django, sql alchemy. and all other java frameworks starting with 'J' :)
What i am intrested in: Networking Hardware/ Planning/ Design. System Planning/ Design / Maintainence. (any platform) mostly data center jobs. <comment><USER2> 'i have also read TAOCP thrice... i am well versed with algorithms and low level hardware and architecture... i am not a code monkey'

Keep telling yourself that, but if you are a developer, you will be a "code monkey" in one way or another until you've worked your way up a bit, no matter how good your background is.

I've worked with PhD's and Master's CS students from around the world that have written bad code. We all do, but the less supervision and review, and the less people care, the worse the code. At the same time, it took me several years to realize that what people build up to be the ideal can be just as much of a waste. (Your team spends all that time working with the perfect process, but you've added overhead that never needed to be there, because the customer doesn't care. Think about the early success of Windows. That was a product of the lower end of "good enough" coding/design.)

But despite aiming for "good enough", you need to go through the rest first. Good practices and techniques are learned from working with good people. You should be so blessed as to have a great mentor as a junior. And as a mid- senior-principal/architect, you should be so blessed as to have great people working alongside you at least at some point (not big names, but just people you respect quite a bit at least) and in good environments (places were you respect the process as one of the best in the industry as far as you are concerned doing something you love).

Anyway, again based on what you said, if you have the opportunity to go into firmware, device drivers, OS development, etc. you might look into that. You might need to go out of the country, though (take a chance!). <http://www.indeed.com/>

You could also (assuming you have the money, which I'm pretty sure you do) continue education and go the engineering route if interested. Chip design, etc. can make a good amount of money, and your skills probably wouldn't go to waste necessarily.

<comment><AUTHOR> great advice man, well my parents do have money, but regarding your chip/hardware design advice, are people really gonna use anything other than x86? i havent seen any ad for ASIC designers, Anyways, i would love to get into firmware,driver development for sure, do i need a masters to do that? i mean i can self taught myself noob level kernel hacking , if i stick to it, i would be able to do it, I am sorry i am asking so many things, i just need a path. :)

<comment><USER2> Chip design has never stopped. I have a relative doing chip design who makes good money. Moore's law has been validated because of chip work and research that can be applied to it. Someone is doing it, why not you? But there is so much more to engineering than that. If that stuff excites you, look into it.

If you are going the firmware, driver, OS etc. route, make your resume, etc. the best in the world as far as you are concerned, after having looked at the online ones of those you respect. Add what they are looking for to your resume (don't just list things, but a sentence about what you did), so the manager and HR see them. Don't fill it with every possible thing you know, or you will get overlooked. Don't try to be something that you aren't either. Don't try to prove everything you know by reciting every detail, unless they are interested in it, but provide enough detail to show you know it.

Find all opportunities that you are excited about (and don't let country boundaries affect your decision, if you are young, but don't just move somewhere unless you are fairly sure you can get and keep a job there). Contact those people. Know that you are getting on the ground level and don't worry about salary, etc. yet. Focus on the best environment and finding who you believe will be a great mentor. Understand whether they are excited and serious about their work, and whether the rest of the tech world respects or would respect what they do. Get some interviews.

Once you are there, focus on what you can do to help the business without making your manager look bad, but learn everything inside and out. You will succeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> i will try what you say. i have never thought of such details about resume and business. thnx again :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are two popular options for Indian CS students:

1) Write GRE, apply to some good American CS grad schools, finish the Masters degree and start working for your dream startup in Silicon Valley or any of the top software shops. This will also help you with getting a work visa (having American Masters is an advantage).

2) Alternatively if you would like to stay and work in India for a while, there are some great places to work within India. You can work for top-tier global companies like Intel, HP Labs, Google, Yahoo, Adobe, NetApp. I'm not too much into the Indian startup scene but there are some interesting early- stage internet startups like Flipkart. I used to work with the Hadoop team in Yahoo Bangalore (90% of the map-reduce team is in Bangalore). Usually these MNCs have the same kind of work culture (for the most part at least) in India as their American campuses. You don't have to engage in Visual Studio/Eclipse masturbation if you work in one of these places.

Re: certifications - if you want to work for the likes of Google, they don't care at all about certs. Since you're a first year student, I would instead recommend you try to get an internship at one of these places. Getting a job offer with the same company after an internship is pretty easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do these companies hire people from tier 2 (!IIT or NIT) colleges? I cant do MS in USA (family reasons).

<comment><USER3> I don't think they discriminate based on colleges but obviously it'll be harder for you (for instance they probably won't visit your campus for recruitment). You've to work extra hard to make a mark there. Also use innovative ways to get in touch with people at these companies (usually HR might not be able to tell you're a great hacker unless they see certain keywords like IIT in your resume). Go to BarCamps, DevCamps like others suggested. Yahoo! has Open Hack Days (this is a great way to meet some employees). I've a few other suggestions:

1) Start working on interesting opensource projects. Get your code up on GitHub.

2) Try Google Summer of Code (GSoC) - prepare well in advance for this, become friends with the project leads on IRC, ask them for interesting projects to propose, and show initiative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nobody has read TAOCP thrice.

<comment><USER5> This reminds me of the classic conversation between Don Knuth and Steve Jobs (according to a folklore story - [http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_t...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt))

 _"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said._ "I've read all of your books." *"You're full of shit," Knuth responded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey DevCamp Pune is happening soon. Attend that. I'm sure you'll learn some cool stuff there or atleast meet interesting people.

<http://barcamp.org/DevCampPune>

I'll be out of college soon. My tip would be to attend local developer events. I was surprised about how a lot of guys on HN and #startups are closely knit. Then figured out that they meet frequently at local developer events. So I started attending local events at Bangalore, and made a lot of friends here. Also I'm going to give my first talk at an event tomorrow (not actually a full talk, but I'll be pitching in for one topic in another guy's talk). Meeting guys face-to-face pays off. Trust me, it's cooler than meeting some guy with the x9dzc nick on IRC and saying Hi.

And for god's sake, you just got into college, so don't start choosing your tech stack right away. Try out as many things as possible. Lua, ChucK, Orc, whatever. You won't find these awesome 4yrs that easy anytime later in life.

There's nothing called "monkey jobs". You find out why when you go broke and need money :)

<comment><AUTHOR> well i am not against code monkey jobs, heck i would do one if it pays very high INR, hehe . anyways, i will try to attend the devcamp, i will check out other details from that website you gave, thnx a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I faced the same issue a couple of years back. As I did my engineering from a not-so-reputed university, it was hard for me to even get a "monkey-coder job". I eventually joined Infosys, learnt some good stuff and now I'm an independent developer working on an idea of my own.

Two good things came out of my working at a big company were money and a better understanding of what I wanted to do. Also, the thing about service companies offering only boring coding jobs is not entirely true. Most of the work they do is boring, yes. But, they also work on some cool stuff. You might also get an opportunity to work on huge applications which can be a great experience.

Personally, I would be reluctant to spend more money on formal education in India. The top-tier universities are good, but the rest of them are not even close. As you are interested in hardware/networking design/maintenance, you should probably look for a job at indian managed hosting providers like netmagic.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you are looking to stay on and work in India, it's probably a good idea to go out looking for people and companies doing interesting work. I'm sure there are some.

Where are you based?

I hear there is a good startup scene in Bangalore. I know at least one friend who's recently moved there to set up his startup. I can put you in touch with him.

I've even seen some incubator programs (being touted as "India's YCombinator"):

<http://www.iaccelerator.org>

<http://themorpheus.com/>

<http://www.paisa.com>, based in Pune, is an interesting company and I think they are working with some interesting technologies too. I exchanged email with one of their founders recently and they sound like fun people.

This old thread might be useful - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=54085>

Feel free to drop me an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> M in my first year, and since you know how Indian Universities work, I wont be able to leave my city. I am based in Maharashtra, Aurangabad. It is very close to pune. But as of now i am freelancing in my city a bit (mostly web development). As i said, currently i need some help with deciding whether to get deep into development or go with the admin/planning n management of infrastructure stuff (cause i love that). And since most Dev jobs in India are monkey jobs.

<comment><USER8> Don't be so disheartened already man! You are passionate and proactive, use that to your benefit.

Most jobs may be bad, but you are good enough to avoid most jobs and go for the few good ones. Just hop on the bus to Pune, meet some people and get started. Maybe, you can start working remotely? Or commute once a week?

Don't decide between dev and admin purely based on opinion and speculation. It's probably best to try both out and see which you like more.

Edit: Don't just rely on asking HN. Rely more on asking local people around you. Beware the danger of using HN as an excuse for not taking real action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dude, University doesn't matter. Better you score in GRE, better university you get.

Regarding you question. If you are really passionate about working on product and not consulting, Learn more than what is taught in class, contribute to some open source projects. Apply some universities in US. I don't think startups really care which university you come from as far as you are a real hacker.

And if you want to stay in India (which is not at all a bad idea), you can join some product based company there too. Or may be start something of your own. Since you are still in school, it's worth trying out.

And just FYI education in India is not as bad as you think. (I did my Bachelors in India and Masters from one of the top ten universities in US).

</comment><comment><USER10> You are not a code monkey. You have read TOACP thrice. You love programming in Python. You love networking/sysadmin/build and release stuff. If all the above is true, there is really no value in doing Red hat, cisco or juniper certification. If you love programming, contribute to open source. People will notice you when you work on open source projects. Then by the time you finish college, you might get some consulting work as a freelancer. Once you are get some money doing consulting, try to do some simple paid webapps. You would also be familiar with what people want by that time.

<comment><AUTHOR> what about large scale sysadmin/isp or large scale networking jobs in India? are there any? if you say i dont need certifications in India , can you hook me up with an interview then? cause most companies prefer certifications, they dont mandate those, but they do desire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Get involved with open source projects. Get noticed in the community. When you're out of college, you could use the network you build in the communities to land you a job.

Red Hat does have an office in Pune, you know that -- right?

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like i was livin under a rock. Didnt knew there are good companies in India. I knew about Red Hat though. I will join the other communities like barcamp suggested below too.

Is there any google group or irc for people working in product dev and good service companies?

<comment><USER11> I don't know about service companies -- but you can look up irc channels where fedora-india people hang out, it has quite a few Red Hat people in there. There also is the fedora-india mail list that you can join and take part in the Fedora Students Contributing program to pick up jobs to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> sure, thanks a lot for replying, appreciate that :) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What you are looking for in India is product-focused company rather than a service focus company. A product focused company will try to turn your hacker skills into engineering skills. My company ReaMetrix is a biotech company but we make instruments as well. We do a lot of prototyping in python along with web, firmware and image analysis. You would be exactly the kind of candidate we would look for. Also knowing what Hacker News is a big plus.

<comment><AUTHOR> do you hire a guy with no degree? since i am currently pursuing one. Else we both might have to wait 4 more years :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We might have something interesting for you, product development role in Bangalore. Didn't see an email address on your profile. You can reach me at nc at appspark.us if you'd like to know more.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are a lot of product companies in Bangalore, Hyderabad,Pune. I suggest you join communities like Barcamp, DevCamp, etc. Sign up for BarCamp Bangaore and you should get all that info..

</comment><comment><USER15> Apply for a job at Amazon Bangalore. They have a team that works on Amazon Web Services platform.

For hackers, there isn't a better job in India than to work on AWS cloud computing platform.

</comment><comment><USER16> For datacenter jobs, look up E2E Networks. They are a cool bunch and hiring as well.

<http://e2enetworks.com/>

</comment><comment><USER17> There _are_ companies here in India where you can work in very interesting projects.

</comment><comment><USER18> Did you ask your CS professor this question?

<comment><AUTHOR> yea, he said apply to infosys or tata consultancy services.

all he does is wait for companies to come on college campus and then tries to get as many students in entry level jobs as possible.

<comment><USER15> I would rather work at McDonalds than Infosys or TCS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What do you mean by a 2 Tire university? Does it mean like a deemed university but takes admission from state level entrance tests? Then nice to meet you, I am also in such a situation (but doing ECE).

I was just wondering do we have only a CS hacker scene? I mean I am more into hardware, embedded systems and such, do we have communities for that? Also are there any such communities in or near Ahmedabad (or Gandhinagar).

<comment><AUTHOR> By Tier 2 i meant, not the IIT's or REC's just government run engineering university college.

i am also intrested in embedded stuff, but just as a hobby. you must look into the arduino project if intrested .</comment></comment>


Erlang OTP 21.3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.erlang.org/news/127 <comment><USER2> > The HTML reference documentation now shows the OTP version where modules and > functions were first introduced.

As someone who works with an older version of erlang, this is a killer feature. Well done.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. [https://erldocs.com/](https://erldocs.com/) is a godsend. Glad they introduced this feature to the main docs as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I first started doing Elixir I was worried that it depended on old technology... then realized it is actually just mature and always improving.

<comment><USER5> The one weird legacy feature that grates on me when trying to do strange things with Erlang is its heavy reliance on the filesystem. You can barely generate+load a module in memory; you can't generate+load an application in memory, let alone a relup or an entire release. These operations all use the filesystem as a working store for their state. There's many other similar things—e.g. the reliance the ssh application has on the OS host-keys directory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something I can appreciate about Erlang is their dedication to improving the platform and language, without the features ever really feeling "bolted on".

For example, I personally _hated_ the way records were done in Erlang, but in Erlang 17 they added Clojure-style maps to fix that. I hated that in order to do a loop in a lambda, you had to implement a y-combinator, but they fixed that.

<comment><USER7> > I hated that in order to do a loop in a lambda, you had to implement a > y-combinator, but they _fixed_ that.

Heh, I see what you did there.

<comment><USER6> I actually didn't mean any kind of pun in this case; I actually meant the lambda-calculus Y combinator.

Basically, Erlang doesn't allow loops, only recursion, which is fine for regular functions, since you can just use the function's name. However, anonymous functions inherently do not have a name, and as a result the only way to do loops is to whip out your textbook on Lambda Calculus, and copy Haskell Curry's way of doing recursion.

It works fine, but it's also really hard to read, and not fun. Erlang 17 allowed you to give a temporary name to the lambda, which you could use for recursion.

<comment><USER8> I'm glad Erlang gave you the feature you were looking for but I can't help think of what the cases would be where a map, fold, or even assigning a lambda function to a variable wouldn't work?

<comment><USER6> 95% of the time, a fold or map are fine. Typically the reason that I use recursion explicitly is when I want to early-exit a loop. In imperative languages, that's trivial, just do a break or something, but in functional, that sort of goes against the point of a map or fold.

Also, it's useful for any other particular reason you might need recursion (e.g. directory traversal)

EDIT: In regards to assigning it to a variable, I don't believe that will work, since the naming comes after the fact. I could be wrong on that.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the response. I totally agree on the early-exit loop problem</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Verbling (YC) Links Up Language Learners With Native Speakers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/08/verbling-links-up-language-learners-with-native-speakers-through-live-video-chat

<comment><USER2> Both Verbling and Quartzy got TC coverage today, both are YC S11 startups I think, so I wonder why Quartzy got so much more attention than Verbling did.</comment>


Google Wants to Pour Money into San Jose. The City Has a Few Demands - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-wants-to-pour-money-into-san-jose-the-city-has-a-few-demands-11580234667 <comment><USER2> it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Google shifts its expansion plans to its other major land acquisitions in North Sunnyvale because of the friction they are encountering with San Jose politics.</comment>