FBI Used Best Buy's Geek Squad to Increase Secret Public Surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-to-increase-secret-public-surveillance-7950030 <comment><USER2> I only want to know one thing: how does the government intend to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Geek Squad employees themselves didn't put the alleged porn pictures on the device? Does Geek Squad have a chain of custody and other such procedures? Was the device tracked every single moment and NEVER, not even for a second, allowed alone with anyone outside the government (this actually seems impossible unless agents were present when the device was taken in)? Seems to me like that would be a good way for Geek Squad scumbags to make some extra cash from the government while the government looks the other way and tries to convict innocent people. Also seems to me like this case should have been dismissed already based on these concerns.

<comment><USER3> This case pisses me off. Truly. Not because of what the FBI did, but because of all these articles coming out, from the doctor's home town, that leave out a ton of detail. Then a bunch of people in the comments defending someone who had naked pictures of underage girls and works in a position of power. He's trying to get off on a technicality.

How could we possibly know?

>Mark Rettenmaier, a gynecologic oncologist on staff at Hoag Hospital, had the pornography on three portable hard drives, a laptop and his iPhone, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed in November.

1\. [http://www.latimes.com/tn-dpt-me-1224-doctor- update-20141222...](http://www.latimes.com/tn-dpt-me-1224-doctor- update-20141222-story.html)

<comment><USER4> WTF?

Should law enforcement not be obligated to follow the law when they're hunting down people we don't like?

<comment><USER5> Talk to a millennial sometime. They don't teach these things in school any more. Talk about the presumption of innocence or the right to a fair trial and they look at you like you're from outer space.

<comment><USER6> Not only are Millennials I know as likely to be aware of those things as older people I know, Millennials are among the most passionate about protecting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a reason that safeguards like attorney-client, priest-penitent, and spousal privilege exist. For most of civilization, these are the people with whom we entrust our deepest secrets. Society doesn't work if these relationships aren't respected.

Today, our deepest secrets are usually stored somewhere on a hard drive. When we turn them over to the "priests" of PC repair, there is no real protection beyond the terms of a one-sided, clickwrap contract. I've never used a repair service for this reason - I'll either fix the problem myself or throw the device away. It sucks, but articles like this suggest it's not a bad idea...

<comment><USER8> > safeguards like attorney-client, priest-penitent, and spousal privilege

Let's add the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protecting your "papers, and effects" though it's not currently respected. It seems obvious to me that your modern "papers" are what is on your hard drive.

<comment><USER9> > It seems obvious to me that your modern "papers" are what is on your hard > drive.

And they are protected in your possession. If you turn over all your papers to a third-party, though, that changes things.

 _eta_ We may need more privileged communications, but they are very rare. Creating one is probably a good idea, but this will have to happen legislatively. Geek Squad finding child porn isn't much different from the photo processors of old finding it.

<comment><USER8> > they are protected in your possession. If you turn over all your papers to a > third-party, though, that changes things

I believe that interpretation is standard for U.S. courts. However, it's not in the wording itself.

(Courts of course, must interpret the law beyond the wording; I fully support that. The law is not an algorithm, and also someone must apply the law to individual situations. Otherwise the First Amendment, for example, would protect slander, threats, shouting fire in a crowded theater, etc.)

I don't like that particular interpretation. It implies the 4th Amendment applies only in your windowless basement, with no communication in or out. That isn't realistic, and is especially unrealistic in the age of the Internet.

<comment><USER10> >Otherwise the First Amendment, for example, would protect ... shouting fire in a crowded theater,

But that is protected speech, and the SCOTUS case it refers to was overturned long ago because it set a terrible precedent. Holmes used that analogy to support the prosecution and conviction of Charles Schenck under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft during World War I.

[https://www.aclu.org/blog/foreign-policy-exception-first- ame...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/foreign-policy-exception-first- amendment?redirect=blog/free-speech/foreign-policy-exception-first-amendment)

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that case, but if you falsely shout "fire" in a crowded, dark theater, I'm pretty sure you will be breaking the law. It probably would be breaking the law if you did it in a well-lit conference hall. (Whether you are arrested or just thrown out probably depends on if anyone gets hurt, physically or financially.)

<comment><USER10> [Brandenberg]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio)) is the case you want to look at. The court held that, to be unprotected "incitement," speech must meet three requirements. The speaker must intend to cause violence. The violence must be the likely result of the speech. And the violence must be imminent. So, if equivalent circumstances are established, yes, the shouter might well be in trouble.

Before you quote the "fire in a theater" precedent again, please go and look up [Schenck]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States)) as well, since that's the origin of the quote, and because it's apparent that there is very little distance between "speech that will cause immediate harm to people isn't protected" and "speech criticizing wars isn't protected when we're at war" when you're a SCOTUS chief justice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Would you like to share you location with this site?" holy shit that's malicious.

On an article about surveillance, no less

<comment><USER12> Would you rather not be asked?

<comment><USER13> Frankly, yes. The presumption that _any_ website should be able to access location information should be taboo.

If it's necessary to determine _a_ location for the purposes of a query (e.g., "where is a pizza restaurant (and personal information feed front-end to personal data tracking, FWIW) near <address> or <postal code>?"), then allow the user to state where they're interested in this.

I've got precisely the same gripes against Google (Maps, etc., Android), Apple, and any given mobile phone provider.

<comment><USER14> > then allow the user to state where they're interested in this.

Which is precisely what is happening here.

We do not let computers decide whether the purpose is nefarious or good.

<comment><USER13> No it's not.

If I'm actively engaging in something, and there's the option to specify (note: _not_ be interrupted by a pop-up) for location, manually input, that's within the realm of acceptability.

Though it's distantly possible I might have no idea of my location within, say, a 1km resolution at a point in time, that is an exceptionally distant and rare likelihood for me. And I've no interest in leaving a set of high-time- resolution location tracking datapoints across a slew of data repositories and "information partners".

<comment><USER14> > _that is an exceptionally distant and rare likelihood for me_

Congratulations on not getting out much? Please remember you're not everybody. For a lot of people, websites being able to ask for a location is a useful feature.

Keyword: _ask_. They're not just _getting it_ , they're asking. If you don't want to "leave a set of high-time-resolution location tracking datapoints across a slew of data repositories", you can click no, just as I do almost all the time, except when it's useful.

Because it's useful.

<comment><USER13> How, specifically, is the OC Weekly having access to your GPS / ICBM coordinates useful _to you_?

As for my generally excellent sense of geographic location, I make no apologies.

<comment><USER14> There are other websites. If your beef is with one website, take it up with the website.

<comment><USER13> You're dodging the question.

<comment><USER12> Your question was a bad one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The chances of a specific geek squad 'operative' chancing upon a 'target' the FBI is interested in is so low and minuscule one has to wonder how its worth it unless they are operating a dragnet or the FBI has too many people on staff.

If the bar is so low one has to wonder how many high value companies are not infiltrated by FBI, NSA and other 3 letter agencies.

When commentators here suggest the answer to privacy or surveillance is 'technical' it comes across as false empowerment. How can individuals or groups win against nation state actors with near endless resources, time, influence, power and armies of bureaucrats and engineers working 24/7 to achieve objectives? It's a nonstarter and the solution has to be socio- political.

The law doesn't stop them, if anything they are adept at skirting around laws, misleading judges, working the system and banding together to protect themselves. Even worse there is zero consequence when things blow up, and its those leaking information who are hounded.

<comment><USER16> You might be surprised.

I've worked in large scale IT and I'm aware of investigations and convictions of people having this shit on corporate devices. For a national chain like BestBuy serving the general public, they probably have an incident weekly.

This article was light in details. Seeing this type of material is traumatizing, and it's important to give employees clear protocols to follow so there's as little question as possible about what to do. I find the compensation for tips potentially troubling, but there isn't much context. There's a lot of smoke in this article, but not a ton of fire regarding specifics.

<comment><USER15> This is not smoke, it's a smoking gun. Protecting employees from child porn and trauma is no doubt a sensitive issue but given the article does not even touch on that this just muddies the waters.

The focus here was on FBI's illegal data collection methods, misleading judges and recruiting operatives in best buy.

These geek squad staff are for all essential purposes FBI operatives and as detailed in the article at one time there were 8 operatives including the manager in a single location! It will be amiss to expect more evidence or 'context' than this.

If the FBI can expend so much energy and time on lowly geek squad how much time do they expend on Facebook, Google, Intel, Amd, Linux, VC Funds, security standards, industry standards. The list goes on. Things are seriously broken but many of us seem to be in a kind of denial quick to think the worst of others while failing to hold ourselves accountable to the same high standards.

<comment><USER16> Read a better article.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/if-a- best...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/if-a-best-buy- technician-is-a-paid-fbi-informant-are-his-computer-searches- legal/2017/01/09/f56028b4-d442-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html)

There are details missing in the story posted here. For one, the Louisville facility is a large service facility where at least some employees specialize in data recovery. This isn't a case of the whole service department in a BestBuy being deputized.

BestBuy also specificly stated that they do not condone employees accepting payment.

I'm not justifying what is or isn't happening. Just pointing out that there are a lot of holes in the story.

<comment><USER17> > BestBuy also specificly stated that they do not condone employees accepting > payment.

"Do not condone" is different from "you're fired if you do that". BestBuy's position needs to be that it will fire people for this kind of stunt. If nothing else, it's tarnishing the brand's image.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How long before some disgruntled geek squadette plants illegal content on an innocent person's hard drive? From time to time analogous incidents occur in food preparation (contaminating food), medicine (injuring patients), and even law enforcement. The problem with digital crime is the difficulty in determining who did what, when, with certainty.

<comment><USER19> > How long before some disgruntled geek squadette plants illegal content on an > innocent person's hard drive?

Negative time isn't a thing.

<comment><USER20> It certainly is, but your point is well taken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you're repairing someone else's computer and come across child porn, aren't you obligated to report it? (if only to cover your own ass, as technically you are now in possession of cp).

<comment><USER22> Yes, if you come across anything illegal while repairing somebody's computer you are obligated to report it. However, you're not allowed to go looking for illegal stuff while repairing a computer.

And if the FBI is advertising cash rewards for "accidentally finding" illegal content, that sounds a lot like an illegal search.

<comment><USER23> Can you cite the specific statute? I have never heard of a legal obligation for non-healthcare workers to report crimes.

<comment><USER24> It's called misprision of a felony[0]:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

[0] [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I sent my Macbook into the Apple Store's Genius Bar to be fixed (yay unibody design). They wanted the drive's encryption password so that they could "backup" my data and add it to a new drive if needed. It looked as if they just store this password in the "notes" field. Of course I didn't give it to them, but it pays to be extra paranoid, even about services from companies you think you should trust.

<comment><USER26> This is exactly why the right to repair your own equipment is so essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just want to post a few excerpts from court documents that always seem to be missing from these articles. Warning, descriptions of sexual imagery of children.

>The picture in question was "of a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." (Dkt. 152 at 7.) Presumably in the form of thumbnails, Agent Riley also saw "partial images of genitalia of young girls" and states that "[i]t appeared there was a lot of [child pornography] as the tech didn't have to scroll, the window popped up with image after image of [child pornography] and child erotica/grooming images." [1]

>A later search of the iPhone revealed alleged child pornography that is charged in Count 2 of the Indictment. [2]

On the classification of Best Buy workers as CHS

>During 2007 and 2008, I am aware of four employees of Best Buy Geek Squad in Brooks, Kentucky, who contacted us regarding child pornography on customers' devices. To best track the relationship with these individuals and document contacts the FBI had with them, we classified these individuals as confidential human sources ("CHS's"), though they were simply employees at the Best Buy Geek Squad who happened to be in a position to report child pornography that technicians had come across on devices during the course of repair. [3]

1\. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 173 / Filed 12/19/16

2\. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 76 / Filed 10/30/15

3\. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 176-1 / Filed 01/05/17

<comment><USER27> The key question for me is whether the CHS's were trusted and spontaneous.

Trusted in the sense of there existing a chain of evidence that doesn't depend on the CHS's.

Spontaneous is the sense that BB staff weren't running scans carte blanc for the FBI on every HDD that passed through their facilities.

Trusting CHS's is debatable. The lack of spontaneity is damned scary, though.

<comment><USER3> It sounds like the techs were not on a fishing expedition, but came across the images in performance of their normal duties.

>The hard drive arrived at Best Buy's Brooks, Kentucky facility on November 25, 2011, and an initial search was performed by a Best Buy employee at 9:00 p.m. on November 28, 2011, revealing that the "drive appears to have been restored, underlying data visible." (Bates 853.) Best Buy called Rettenmaier less than thirty minutes later; he authorized "Level 2" repair and identified "[p]ictures, excel files, quicken files, text and word documents" as the most important files to recover. (Id.)

>On or about December 20, 2011, Best Buy technician John "Trey" Westphal observed what he deemed to be inappropriate content on the hard drive. (Dkt. 152 at 4.) His discovery occurred after the data recovery repair for images—"to determine that the repair was successful [Westphal] must access the files to verify that the files were recovered intact." (Bates 823.)

The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue.

<comment><USER10> >The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue.

As abhorrent as CP is, the more important question here is whether the FBI's investigative tactics comply with our civil rights. It sounds exactly like the FBI set the Geek Squad on a fishing expedition. None of the stuff you added refutes that. Just because they found child pornography evidence independent of that discovered by the Geek Squad does not mean that we should be satisfied with their investigative tactics. You need to weigh this against the possibility that the FBI's "lists of targeted citizens" is obviously problematic. There are almost certainly people on that list who are in fact innocent of a crime. What if this list had been made public by a Best Buy employee? Simply having one's name on the list with [person recently prosecuted] for [abhorrent crime] could ruin a person's reputation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> To my knowledge, Geek Squad had a shaky reputation to start with, I can't imagine this is going to help.

<comment><USER29> Next thing we know, their store will be blown up by a rogue undercover female agent who loses her mind to a nefarious villain, but everyone will be saved by the local Geek Squad weirdo, his sleazy friend and irresponsible, lazy yet remarkably likeable slacker who has somehow managed to become store manager and whose best friend is a reluctant covert CIA agent with remarkable athletic and mental abilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Best Buy is in trouble PR wise. Even non-tech people on NextDoor in my area are telling others to avoid Geek Squad for computer repairs due to this.

<comment><USER31> Don't most people just go along with it and say "I have nothing to hide".

<comment><USER32> You say this, but I've noticed "servalince-fetegue" on (surprisingly) non-tech people. I think the general populace are starting to wise up to what is happening; perhaps not on a large enough scale to effect anything, but it's happening nonetheless.

I think the future might not be as bleak as it currently seems. Talk with people. Explain what's going on and why it's bad. Despite the common rhetoric of people not caring, many do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13358287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13358287)

</comment><comment><USER34> > shared lists of targeted citizens

Wait, what? The story says this and then nothing more about it. What do we know about this? Where are these lists?

</comment><comment><USER35> Went to Best Buy to purchase a laptop for my Mom. Geek Squad had installed the "free anti-virus" that came with the laptop. They opened a brand new factory sealed laptop. I noped right out the door.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder what "'not exactly' child porn" means.

I mean, some child beauty pageant stuff seems iffy. Consider JonBenét Ramsey: [https://goo.gl/images/50otkX](https://goo.gl/images/50otkX)

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if that's how they bugged Sharyl Attkisson

[https://sharylattkisson.com/reporter-wars-my-secrecy- battles...](https://sharylattkisson.com/reporter-wars-my-secrecy-battles-with- federal-government/)

</comment><comment><USER38> This story is shocking and deserves public exposure.

The OC Weekly seems like the bizarre indie magazines available at a Communist coffeeshop in Berkeley, CA. Maybe it's just the illustrations. Either way, the medium distracts from the message.

</comment><comment><USER39> So they watched Chuck on NBC?

</comment><comment><USER40> Like Best Buy doesn't have enough problems. What a shame.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wouldn't hand my computer over to anyone, Geek Squad or not. It's handing the keys to your life over to some person whose motivations you have no idea of. Rather than repair my computer, I would buy a new one. I recommend everyone do the same. Think of it as insurance for your livelihood, and the most guaranteed insurance at that. Well worth the money, especially considering the average lifetime of a laptop.

</comment><comment><USER42> Posse comitatus act for the 21st century.

"And the meek shall inherit the earth"

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone know if apple's geniuses work with the feds?

</comment><comment><USER44> That's nothing. The Buy More in Burbank has a joint CIA/NSA lair hidden beneath it and the Nerd Herd are operatives. There's even this one guy with some kind of Database (possibly NoSQL) installed in his brain.

<comment><USER45> Haha, I actually did a search on the page for "chuck". Well done!

<comment><USER46> Same! As soon as I read the title, I did a 'Chuck' search.

<comment><USER47> me too</comment></comment></comment></comment>


XPS Developer Edition "Bloatware" - <AUTHOR> Hello, I recently had the chance to use a Dell XPS Developer Edition - gr8 m@chine
However, a few things about the expserience left me saying "hm"
For example - Firefox did not come pre-installed - but Chrome and Chromium were.
Additionally, Ubuntu Software Center did not come pre-installed - a special edition called Ubuntu Software was installed instead - that pushed Transmission as it's marquee app (and was otherwise faulty).
Have we really come full circle here? Is this old news? Has any one seen something similar? <comment><USER2> _> Additionally, Ubuntu Software Center did not come pre-installed - a special edition called Ubuntu Software was installed instead_

That's not because of anything Dell did. As of Ubuntu 16.04, Canonical retired the old Ubuntu Software Center app and replaced it with a re-badged version of GNOME Software ([https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software)), which is the "Ubuntu Software" app you mention. (See [http://www.pcworld.com/article/3017152/linux/ubuntu-16-04-lt...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3017152/linux/ubuntu-16-04-lts- will-dump-the-ubuntu-software-center-for-gnome-software.html) for details.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, regardless of the OS that it comes with, I don't consider a computer mine until I perform a clean install. (I also like to know that my installation media works.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I got one a few weeks ago and the most crazy thing was that they install some software which disables the windows key (super). You have to remove dell- super-key. Something to do with licensing issues. Other than having chrome instead of FF, I've not noticed other vendor customisations.

I'd suggest as others have that a fresh install is better!

</comment><comment><USER5> it takes literally 10 minutes to wipe it, download an iso burn it to usb, stick in the jab drive and reboot and click next a few times..

<comment><USER6> A bit longer than that in my experience, but yes, it isn't a major job. Unless you have lot's of settings and big backups you need to bring back...</comment></comment>


Big Data Is Not Truth - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/why-big-data-is-not-truth/ <comment><USER2> This is true of any statistics, and I wasn't aware that anyone believed that big data was going to somehow eliminate subjectivity from the world. More data and faster processing means more opportunities to analyse and a bigger sample size, but as the adage goes, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. The article seems like a bit of a straw man.

And regarding myth 3 and 6: you can't really hold these views simultaneously. If you can opt out, then that's a built in form of discrimination. Whether that's actually relevant probably depends on your domain.

<comment><USER3> Many of the vocal cheerleaders have probably little experience or training in statistics, and so such nuance is beyond the scope of their understanding. Sure this seems self evident to those of us with the exposure, but think about all the folks who stop at college algebra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Before Big Data disappears into the background as another fact of life, Ms. Crawford said, "We need to think about how we will navigate these systems. Not just individually, but as a society._

<http://xkcd.com/1215/>

<comment><USER5> There should be an xkcd about reposting xkcd when you can't add something meaningful to the conversation yourself.

<comment><USER6> It's true it isn't high-effort. That said, referencing xkcd (if not done solely for the humor) can be a nice way of succinctly presenting an idea that you would have made a mess of explaining yourself.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you. It takes nearly no effort to digest, and xkcd has a strong selection of 'debate-memes' to choose from on making intelligent points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The whole piece reeks of FUD to me.

What I would gather from taking the article at face value is: According to Myths #2 and #3, big data is classist, racist and sexist. According #5 and #6, Big Data is actually Big Brother. #1 points out that Big Data isn't The Next Big Thing, because it's actually old news.

There's plenty of genuine problems with Big Data, but the article seems to be more concerned with playing on people's fears regarding it than actually providing any concrete arguments about its failings.

<comment><USER9> FUD is probably the wrong word.

Quentin Hardy has spent his life in the publishing industry. He's likely a strong verbal thinker.

That's exactly the sort of person who hates statistical reasoning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Data (of whatever size) is never truth. It is a means of testing hypotheses.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's articles like this one that make me wonder why anyone is submitting pieces from the NYT, et al. Their audience is simply not HN's audience.

</comment><comment><USER12> ...but the hype cycle is and articles like this one are merely a product thereof. I really feel that opinion pieces ought to come from someone whose opinion is or should be highly regarded in a given field.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very light article. Seems like they put up a strawman of a marketers over- simplified view of the world, and then attacked it.

Most serious practitioners realize this is tough business.

</comment><comment><USER14> Privacy? There is none! Deal with it.</comment>


My Angry Letter to My Ex-Employer - <AUTHOR> http://angrylettertoexexployer.blogspot.com/ <comment><USER3> Rather than continuing with the passive aggressiveness, the professional thing to do would have been to exchange a firm handshake, make the usual nonspecific promises about looking forward to mutually beneficial opportunities in the future, and parting amicably.

[Edit to add: Even supposing sending the letter was a good idea, it is terribly written, and it is entirely the author's fault that (quoting the last line) "I'll be surprised if anyone except IT reads this far".

Here, let's try this again:

Subject: Why Project X Has Missed Its Deadline

Dear Boss 1 and Boss 2:

Project X is currently 4 weeks past its planned deadline, $87,000 over budget, has 20% of the feature set yet to be implemented, and performance is 30% worse than the legacy system it replaces. These circumstances were preventable.

Functional code was repeatedly discarded during development, resulting in delays and cost overruns. This occurred as late as two days before the predicted shipping date, at which point a rewrite was guaranteed to negative impact the schedule. The technical justification for replacing the functional code did not advance company objectives.

Management of X was apprised at the time that the team was unable to resolve their difference of professional opinion as to whether to keep the functional code or reimplement for aesthetic reasons. Management was apprised that the decision to reimplement would negatively impact timely deliverability of X. Please find attached supporting memos #41 (request from team member to reimplement authentication), #47 (opposition by self to team member's request to reimplement authentication), #49 (decision by manager to reimplement authentication), #51 (warning by self that schedule would be negatively impacted), and #73 (request for authorization of 3 man-months to address slippage).

I am writing you out of professional courtesy. Management is aware of all facts in this memo. I recommend action to avoid further cost overruns to the company in the future; no reply to myself is required.

Respectfully yours,

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, like they have memos or anything more than a verbal communication and private notes in that company. I could have referenced commit hashes, but decided that legally it'd be more prudent not to.

I did consider the succinct route but decided against it. Yes, I understand that makes it less likely that management will read it all or that it would come off whiny, but I think it shows more involvement and seriousness.

The executives already know everything is weeks behind schedule. I wanted to give them an idea why.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, the executives also know I was unhappy with the situation and attempting to make a ruckus, though I'm not sure they understand what parts I was ruckussing about. There is some point behind the exposition, though admittedly much of it is venting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> People get fired all the time for the stupidest thing, this including, but writing angry letters is a complete waste of time (other than venting your anger, nothing will change) and it hurts your credibility and reputation. Move on.

<comment><USER5> Venting anger helps. Often when I was pissed off at my client I wrote angry letter pinpointing all the inadequacies in his behavior. After I wrote it I was calm enough to write another letter where I proposed constructive ways to alleviate the problems we had.

Of course I was just sending the second letter because only useful purpose of the first one was to help me calm down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's never a good idea to write an angry letter to your ex-employer. Just find a new job and move on; it doesn't do any good to burn any potential bridges. This letter sounds like something I could have written to my last employer, but I didn't, and I still have a good relationship with them and my company is doing contract work for them. In fact, they are paying my outsourcing company more now than they paid me to work there full time.

<comment><USER7> This, to me, speaks to the issue more than all the other responses here. Yes, it's stupid to burn bridges and Yes, it accomplishes nothing. But more important than all of that is you never know when someone from your past is going to pop back up or in what capacity they'll be when they do. You risk making yourself a liability to a new employer if you've made enemies out of people they might want to partner with, hire, etc...

<comment><USER6> _you never know when someone from your past is going to pop back up_

Very true. In some cases, you may be the one to pop back up. I left my old company in part because I was brought on specifically to work on a number of projects that were later shelved because of the economic downturn. I eventually left to pursue them on my own, and they may be interested in buying the finished product. That possibility would be off the table if I had written a nasty letter when I left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Write it. Never send it. Don't look back. Politely respond "sorry, no thanks" if they call.

Moving forward is the best (and oddly easiest) solution.

<comment><USER9> "Moving forward is the best (and oddly easiest) solution."

The best revenge is to live well. (Making it big rubs it in ;-) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Employers that are stupid enough to make these sorts of mistakes are too stupid to deal with even constructive criticism, let alone a round of firebombing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that may or may not be true. The only reason we have those people in IT is because the bosses don't know better. Everyone is really scared of the bosses; they both have tons and tons of money, and rumors circulate about the ruthlessness of at least the primary administrator. I don't know if anyone has ever given them a plain overview of the situation, so I decided to see where it would go since I had nothing left to lose.

I hope something good comes out of it, though I realize that the probability of such is quite low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I sympathize, but this really seems like one of those times where you should have deleted the letter after writing it, instead of mailing and definitely instead of posting it where others can read it.

</comment><comment><USER12> You needed to say these things _before_ separating from your employer. In fact, you needed to say these things _as they came up_ , rather than letting them pile on and form into a huge rant like this. I'm actually having a hard time following each and every point you have, even though some of the ones I can pick out seem pretty valid. It is overwhelming, and overwhelming usually means nothing is going to get done, because no one knows where to start.

I agree with the other comments so far that this shows a certain degree of passive-aggression which isn't particularly appetizing.

However, I will _strongly_ disagree with the point in a couple of the other comments that the acceptable alternatives are: shut up, do as your told, and detach from your job as much as you possibly can while still performing it; part ways politely without indicating anything was ever other than you expected it. These take an adversarial stance that you and your employer have nothing more to offer one another than what was strictly agreed to as the job duties and wage, and that any such attempt at offering will only result in bad outcomes for the weaker party.

When did we get so fucking bitter and jaded? And when did we decide that this outlook was _optimal_? I honestly wonder if this sort of attitude contributes to polemics like this, because we insist that people have an seemingly infinite ability to remain stoic and bottle their frustration. The alternative of trying to separate emotionally from a job never, _ever_ works. Doing bullshit for eight hours a day to fund eight hours of "recovery time" is not zero-sum; the effects are real, as much as people want to blame those effects on the mere state of being alive. _You are not preprogrammed to be depressed; this is not a least-energy state!_

The other option is to quit, but employees usually don't until the get to the polemic-spewing boiling-point of their frustration. It sneaks up on them, because they've been bottling it so long. Writing it and then deleting it is therapeutic, but doesn't accomplish anything. The next job will likely be the same, like a self-perpetuating prophecy, because a lot of employers suck, because a lot of employees within are trying every day to convince themselves they don't care. This is least-energy for the employer, _not_ the employee.

If you really want to step off this cycle, perhaps it is time to admit what you've known all along: you _do_ care what you are doing 8 hours a day, and who you are doing it for.

<comment><USER5> From my experience I learned one thing.

AVOID DUMB PEOPLE.

Never work for dumb people. Never work with dumb people. No matter how beneficial for you the deal is (or seems to be) so far, if you notice that people you rely on are dumb, just quit as soon as you can.

Dealing with dumb people almost always backfires hurting you financially and psychologically.

I don't say that you have to quit as soon as somebody around you does something dumb, but you definitely should quit as soon as you learn that someone you rely on is dumb, even if he hasn't been dangerous for you so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is somewhat of a side note, but I don't get why people who certain could do better, choose to work in "IT" (vs. in an engineering department of an Internet or software firm). There's much less challenge (writing internal applications in PHP), the people you work with are neither passionate nor particularly bright and I am guessing the pay or career options aren't great either.

I don't mean it in an offensive way, could somebody explain some of the reasoning behind why people might want to make that choice?

<comment><USER12> I can only surmise, but I have thought about this same question every time I end up in an engineering department that turns "IT" underneath me -- it has happened a couple of times now. I have left both times, after making attempts to push the organization back the other way hard enough to be threatened with termination.

People make this choice because they have convinced themselves they never had a choice. They remain there because they are convinced they still don't have a choice.

The explanation is usually a story of falling or being forced into a position followed by stating the tautology of it being a job. They are willing to take a painful known quantity over an unknown quantity elsewhere -- which is assumed to be at least as painful --, all the while saying to themselves repeatedly "I need to be stronger than the pain for the people who rely on me." Sometimes this will become even more self-fulfilling, and they will assume they have no other options, painful or not.

Along with this, they will provide rationalizations about how, even if they had a choice, it really would not matter. The purpose of a job is money. Full stop. If you make it anything else, you are martyring yourself to your employer. Thus, it doesn't matter where you work, so long as you are. Any desire you have to make those hours of your day more meaningful need to be bottled away, because they never will be. Those who don't accept this are ignorant of the facts of life, which are assumed to be true by means of circular logic and a desire to rationalize one's own rut in life.

Humans are amazingly good at rationalization, even when it starts from the usually faulty premise that where they are now is the best things can possibly get.

Hope this provides some insight about your question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> ranting and anger are never appropriate in the workplace. They have a job that needs to get done and money they are willing to pay, either you can get that money or you can't. Don't get so involved in a job, save the emotional energy for your own work.

<comment><USER15> Unless you're desperate and have to work with malignant people, why shouldn't you care about your work?

I agree that in a bad situation it's best to move elsewhere, because people almost never change.

<comment><USER14> Most companies are about making money and most jobs offer very little ownership. They're hiring you to get something done on THEIR project. When we get emotionally invested, I think it is typical to want to see things done our way. If it's some early stage startup where you get to help set the direction, this is different but rare. This doesn't mean you should be apathetic, of course you should care about your work. However, I think everyone should have their own goals and most jobs should just be a means to an end.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, but it's hard not to get attached to something you dedicate a lot of time building, even when it's on a strictly for-pay basis. That's what happened here; it was bad when I left, but coming back and seeing what became of the system I spent so much time designing and looking after in the beginning was really difficult. They really did a lot of bad things to a good base.

People get emotionally involved in things by nature, and it's generally for the better. I just wish I could find an employer with some amount of comprehension on these things.

<comment><USER14> I agree that it is difficult and I have been there myself. The thing is - <USER2> it's a typical work relationship, it's theirs to do with as they wish, even if you built it. That is the difficulty of doing creative work for hire. I think it is a tight rope walk, balancing sufficient investment to do a good job without becoming overly invested. It helps me to think of everything in terms of a means to an end. I still feel the same emotional attachment, but I run all my actions through a filter of whether that particular action is beneficial. Writing such an email and sending or publishing it simply cannot ever do you any good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quit dancing around the issue. Tell us how you _really_ feel.

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't white knight this situation.

You quit. You got fired shortly into a 60 hour contract. Your losses are small, you planned on leaving early, and the contract should have protected you from something like this.

Move on, very little to gain by attempting to show them their wrong ways. You can't make changes from the outside.

</comment><comment><USER18> You projected your desire of getting work done onto the company's desire to keep people working.

Full time employees need to be 'busy' all of the time to justify investments the company makes in each person (opportunity to learn on the job is the biggest investment). If you go there and finish all of the work, there won't be anything left for the FTEs to do.

You're better off giving FTEs (full time employees) learning opportunities and telling them they are really bright.

And don't burn bridges - just fake it and pretend to be nice - life sometimes works out in really strange ways.

</comment><comment><USER19> Gosh, I had heard jokes about naming conventions resulting in religious wars, but I had thought they were only jokes.

<comment><AUTHOR> How I wish that were true. This is the second time in my relatively short professional life that I've come across an otherwise competent programmer that got so caught up in style conventions (opening bracket on new line or same line, etc.) that he was unable to see any value in or provide any value to anyone else on the team.

At the other place, the guy was boss of IT/engineering and just resorted to hiring designers and giving them on-the-job programming training so that he could mandate the habits before they were set instead of trying to counteract extant tendencies. And that guy refused to even produce a formalized style guide. I quit after about a month.

The programmer has in both instances been a relatively successful "lone wolf", self-taught programmer; he's built a successful business on his own right out of the gate, either as an independent freelancer or the technical savior to a struggling ad firm, and as such, has almost never been exposed to other styles, conventions, or thought processes, except those present in the (obviously unsatisfactory) systems he was hired to replace. I'd avoid bringing guys like this on anywhere without leadership willing and able to teach professional etiquette, courtesy, and mutual respect on the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I must be even more blunt than I thought, because this didn't really sound all that angry to me. More "frustrated."

<comment><USER21> Most people, I think, would have to be quite angry before they would bother writing all this about a place they were never going to set foot in again, so we assume he's seething, even though the tone isn't even as angry-sounding as Zed used to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Never, ever, burn your bridges.

<comment><USER23> Why not? There are many more programming jobs than there are qualified programmers.</comment></comment>


Typing with pleasure - <AUTHOR> https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/ <comment><USER3> Great to see this quantified! My pet peeve is laggy interfaces. I'm not surprised to see Atom on there, because browsers do seem to have a big problem with this. Ubuntu seems to have a big problem with this too, e.g. in the native "gedit".

Back in the Ubuntu 4.0 days (2006 or so), the default terminal was really slow. I didn't really know how to use Linux then, so I would SSH into with Putty on Windows, and use the terminal/Vim that way. This was actually more responsive than a local terminal!

Does anyne else feel a sense of raw power when they switch to a native terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1) ... ?

<comment><USER4> Try out mosh. Local buffers really make a difference for that latency.

<comment><USER3> Well I was saying that using a shell or vim via Putty/SSH from Windows (and a fast corporate network connection) was actually MORE responsive than sitting at that computer, and using GNOME terminal or whatever it was!

I've heard of mosh though -- it sounds cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a terrific writeup about the latencies of text editors. Now the next step is to research the effects of latency on cognitive strain, typing accuracy, and typing speed.

Without that, the latency numbers themselves don't mean much. Some 100 ms latencies are readily noticeable (video game input), others are not (pushbutton responses).

This paper ([http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140137608931531](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140137608931531)) seems to suggest that typing speed does decrease at higher delays, but recovers after a short time. I can't access this journal though, so I don't know what kinds of delays were tried, and I don't know how long the recovery time actually is.

</comment><comment><USER6> And here I am, working over SSH -- every stroke requires a round-trip. Over a high-latency link, that's sometimes a few seconds between a batch of characters appear :-)

<comment><USER7> Give Mosh [1] a shot! From the site: "Remote terminal application that allows roaming, supports intermittent connectivity, and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes."

Great for being on an intermittent and/or slow link.

[1] [https://mosh.mit.edu/](https://mosh.mit.edu/)

<comment><USER8> "and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes."

I've always pushed for this to be in the remote terminals by default as my prototypes took almost no effort to implement. With plenty of benefit, too, for anyone that values instant feedback! That was a throwaway, though. Thanks for the link to a real app doing it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really enjoyed that write up. The only piece I would love to see added would be the addition of emacs and vim in a native console.

<comment><USER10> Yep, I once had just a native console open when installing linux freshly and the lag was so low that I immediately felt how much better it was and that it made me think about lag.

<comment><USER11> I use terminal based Vim exclusively and now I'm completely spoiled. Every other interface seems ridiculously "laggy". I don't know if it's just a psychological thing or something more like the SpeechJammer, but if I type at a co-workers computer I will sometimes completely lock up and be unable to type for a second or two.

<comment><USER12> I really don't think that is a psychological thing, i ben using emacs in the terminal for years and only within Apples default Terminal application because iTerm is really laggy on linux i prefer terminology that is really really fast

<comment><USER13> +1 for terminology. Fast even on the cubieboard that I (also) run it under, and somehow, in my opinion, it does font spacing really well even under Ubuntu. Better than the standard terminal in both Unity and (especially) Gnome where kerning can be weird even on mono font.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Terrific data (okay, so it confirms a preexisting bias on my part). I would like to see the numbers for Visual Studio -- I've completely sworn it off at my day job in favor of Sublime Text + command-line MSBuild, for typing latency alone. I'm curious if my perception aligns with reality.

</comment><comment><USER15> The improvement with intellij with zero latency on is insane on Linux, I never noticed how slow it was until that point as I generally don't pay much attention to that stuff unless it's horribly slow.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is related to a problem we have to deal with all the time in LaTeX - <USER2> delay between typing the source and seeing the typeset output, especially when running as a SaaS at [https://www.overleaf.com](https://www.overleaf.com)

I think the quality of the output you're aiming for matters - we as authors (and I speak based on my experiences both running Overleaf and in writing research papers) seem to put up with more latency / compile delays if we feel it's 'worth it' (however badly defined) for what we're looking to produce.

I personally find I do my most creative writing late at night, but my most polished / error free during the day. Whilst I wish I could say I split my work up accordingly, I've never found a way to do this effectively. Anyone else have this / found a solution?

</comment><comment><USER17> _I used Classic theme in Windows because, as I pointed out earlier, Aero's compositing increases drawing latency and enforces V-Sync._

This is an interesting datapoint in the argument between those who prefer the classic theme and those who use Aero, with proponents on both sides saying "it's faster". Perhaps compositing has higher throughput, but non-composited has lower latency. I personally use classic because it does feel more responsive. That extra ~15ms is definitely perceptible.

Another thing I've noticed is that when input latency is high, such as using SSH, I tend to keep typing ahead instead of waiting.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a really cool writeup. It's probably worth noting that humans don't notice latency under about 100ms and the table at the end shows all the editors surveyed coming in under that number. That said, I've noticed severe latency problems while trying out Atom, and almost never have problems with Vim (unless I try to edit a massive file in it). But for me the latency problems I notice usually aren't typing ones, but rather other interactions with the editor such as opening new files or trying to move around text.

<comment><USER6> You perceive sensory inputs within a 100ms window as occurring simultaneously. That does not mean that you cannot notice the difference between a 10ms latency and 50ms latency. Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level as a delay. The author asserts that high subliminal latency leads to higher discomfort and decreased productivity. I cannot find any studies on this right now, but it should be pretty straightforward to measure experimentally.

<comment><USER19> > Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level > as a delay.

I agree. If you "want" to feel it consciously don't type text on a keyboard but play a melody on a midi keyboard. A latency of 10 ms, let alone 100 ms, feels horrible. For instance, a 1/16 note at 140 bpm has a duration of 107 ms!

I find it quite fascinating that recording midi in, say, cubase is possible at a lower latency than editing a text file in Atom.

<comment><USER6> I will always remember the smooth feel of an old SparcStation 20 I got in the late '00s. It was engineered so that hardware interrupts wouldn't get in each other's way. Regardless of the puny specs, the responsiveness was amazing, compared to any then-new x86 machine, where the console would stutter every time the OS felt like writing a large block to the hard drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would have loved to see a few more heavy ide such as visual studio and xcode and a few others. Though it was still quite great

</comment><comment><USER21> Something very strange I've noticed: a bluetooth keyboard connected to my Mac doesn't have any perceptible latency... but the same keyboard connected to my iPad has extremely obvious latency (500ms or more.) Anyone know what the deal with that is? Do iOS devices sacrifice Bluetooth latency for battery life somehow?

</comment><comment><USER22> What surprised me on the human side was how easy it was to learn another layout. So it seems that re-association is not the same thing as actually learning the keyboard the first time around. Watching the brain learn was a fun process. Would recommend it!

<comment><USER23> Went through this switching from a European layout to a US one, it took me around 4-5 days to be really comfortable with it, now it takes just a few minutes to switch between the two mentally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anyone have thoughts on keyboard switch type?

[http://xahlee.info/kbd/keyboard_switch_mechanisms.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/keyboard_switch_mechanisms.html)

Most keyboards (rubber dome, scissor) require the user to press a key to the bottom (i.e. A hard stop). Mechanical keyboards (e.g. spring, MX Cherry) register a keypress part way down. Cherry Blues, for example, have a pronounced sound and tactile feedback. Do these features make people better typist?</comment>


Understand Lucene to Understand ElasticSearch - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/understand-lucene-to-understand-elasticsearch-85037d5b7577#0a2a-6f579ef7ae80 <comment><USER2> This is the barest overview of license indexes and no relation to elastic search except a summary sentence at the bottom. If you have ever opened an indexreader in license you know more than this article

<comment><USER3> Lol...came here to say the same thing. Beat me to it.

<comment><USER4> Do you guys have some more enlightening resources? Thanks.

<comment><USER2> Any lucene book ever

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like English is this person's second language and writing a blog is a good way to practice. However, there are quite a few spelling and grammar errors. I can really recommend "English Grammar in Use" by Raymond Murphy on the subject. It is impeccable until the intermediate level and "Essential Grammar in Use" is great for advanced speakers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Probably best way is to spin up your own Elastic stack locally and attempt to import And search a very large data set.

</comment><comment><USER7> all the slight differences between lucene, lucene ports, Solr, ElasticSearch - thats the reason it will die. any reasonable database ecosystem just has enough velocity to kill it in the medium, if not short-, term. e.g. postgres with json fields.

<comment><USER8> The Lucene ecosystem has been around since the early 2000s.. it's old enough to vote if not drink.

Maybe eventually RDBMS systems will have full-text search out of the box that makes it unnecessary, but until they do, any predictions of death are certainly premature. (also, the lifecycle of indexed documents is different enough from transactional records that it's not as easy as it sounds).</comment></comment>


Gfycat - Jiffier gifs through HTML5 video conversion - <AUTHOR> http://gfycat.com/about <comment><USER2> Try MediaCrush. It's been on HN a couple times, and it also does the GIF->HTML5 thing, but it's open-source and has a lot of other benefits, like browser extensions and a nice API.

[https://mediacru.sh](https://mediacru.sh)

Prior discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6773039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6773039) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6189397](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6189397)

Open source: [https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush](https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush)

Browser extensions: [https://mediacru.sh/apps](https://mediacru.sh/apps)

API: [https://mediacru.sh/docs](https://mediacru.sh/docs)

</comment><comment><USER3> If someone can create a simple Firefox/Chrome addon that takes imgur .gif links, and automatically converts the URL from this:

        http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/666/838/7fb.gif

To this:

        gfycat.com/fetch/http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/666/838/7fb.gif

I'm sure it would easily become a top 20 addons hands down.

<comment><USER4> Extension is now published, though there is no fancy art yet:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autogfy/aleldfepmn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autogfy/aleldfepmngfpemelpfkjcpbnegeliad)

Enjoy!

<comment><USER5> This extension works really well.

Feature request: I would like to be able to use some kind of wildcard/regex system to select which websites or domains it works on.

<comment><USER4> I will look at this later on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Been using this on reddit for the past couple of weeks, and it works wonders. It's especially handy on mobile, where bandwidth can be scarce.

But what has really struck me about the mobile experience is that using HTML5 video significantly improves the performance. This is important for GIFs/videos with a high resolution, which as GIFs would not render in real time on my phone (which has an S800, so I can only imagine what the experience must be like on other phones).

<comment><USER7> I imagine it's because your phone has hardware H.264 decoders, while GIF is being done in CPU.

<comment><USER8> No, every mobile can process a 80ties picture format in tiny resolutions. 90ies computers could do that without a problem without any allocation an needed only a fraction of their cpu. Now we have quadcore cpus clocked at >1 GHz in our mobiles. It's just the saved bandwidth. And, btw, hardware allocation is a way overrated. There is a HEVC software implementation for the iphone. Just compare the complexity of HEVC to GIF.

<comment><USER9> The problem isn't the peak capability of the hardware: it's the strategy used to handle the content. In most web browsers animated GIFs are treated as images, which depending on the browser causes a whole host of potential side- effects (kept around or animating when offscreen, all frames kept in memory, etc.)

Video is video and is in general more properly streamed, evicted from memory, and halted when offscreen.

<comment><USER10> Yep.

"... But in the worst case all your elements might be grouped into a single layer and the browser has to repaint every single element. And, when it's done, it still needs to upload everything to the GPU. All of this is work occurs for every GIF frame..."

[http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/speed/animated- gifs/](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/speed/animated-gifs/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Imgur should do something like this when people are viewing gifs at the Imgur site itself (as opposed to viewing a hotlinked gif file), automatically replacing the embedded GIF file with a video. I imagine they could save a lot in bandwidth costs

<comment><USER12> As long a imgur promises to never play audio, I think everyone would be very happy with that feature.

<comment><USER13> Or just to play audio only on a second level of activation, like Vine does now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> GIF is a terrible format for video, but OTOH it's fairly lightweight for the browser for simple animation. Historically, playing video in the browser has required loading plugins, increasing the attack surface of the browser quite a bit, as well as inflating memory usage, increasing fragility, etc.

HTML5 video is also blocked by my flash blocker. Up until the latest version of Firefox, animated gifs were blocked by my use of image.animation_mode:once in about:config. Providing the element is clickable, the flash blocker makes it easier to play back the desired video on demand.

<comment><USER15> Is OTOH really an acronym people are using now?

<comment><USER16> Earliest usage of the term I can of the term on newsgroups is 1988.

I was certainly using it in the early 90s.

<comment><USER15> Weird. I've been online since the mid 90's, mostly on IRC and newsgroups, and have never seen it. TIL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That idea originated from [https://mediacru.sh/](https://mediacru.sh/) \- I read that article and considered doing my own "gfycat" site, it looks like someone had the motivation to go through with it after all :)

<comment><USER18> Look at the whois records

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > The problem is that html5 video doesn't work everywhere (we actually encode > six different videos to cover the most browsers)

Six different videos?? Anyone knows more about html5 video fragmentation and why six videos are required?

<comment><USER7> They offer the ability to playback in reverse, so I imagine it's three different formats, doubled so that there's a reverse copy of each video.

If I had to guess, they're probably encoding MP4/H.264, WebM/VP8, and Ogg/Theora.

<comment><USER20> So close:

> Note that there are 6 separate encodings -- mp4, webm, and reduced mp4, for > forward and reverse

<comment><USER7> That makes sense - looks like WebM/VP8 support in browsers is a superset of Ogg/Theora support [1]. It would be silly to serve up Ogg/Theora unless it yielded better quality/bitrate (and I'm not up-to-date on how those two compare in quality at the same bitrate).

[1] [http://beta.caniuse.com/#search=video](http://beta.caniuse.com/#search=video)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the naming scheme (AdjectiveAdjectiveAnimal) you have used, and wonder whether or not it could hilariously backfire (e.g. the Scunthorpe/Buttbuttinate problem)

</comment><comment><USER21> For a cross browser solution that just needs one video file, supports mobile browsers and still has a much smaller file size than GIF try jsmpeg: [http://phoboslab.org/log/2013/05/mpeg1-video-decoder-in- java...](http://phoboslab.org/log/2013/05/mpeg1-video-decoder-in-javascript)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is like the old ImageShack and PhotoBucket days. The most important thing in deciding between all these competing services is figuring out whose links will still work five years from now.

I guess the pg question here would be: What happens, if imgur decides they want in on the action?

</comment><comment><USER23> I cobbled together a similar service [1] a while back, but lost interest since I figured it wouldn't be profitable. FWIW the tech behind doing something like this is pretty simple, in my case a small shell script that uses imagemagick to dump the frames of the GIF as well as its framerate and then pipes into ffmpeg compiled with x264 and libvpx support.

[1] [http://www.qwikgif.com/](http://www.qwikgif.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is excellent. I've been dealing with weather radar images lately, and they're all terrible animated gifs. This sizes them down nicely.

A service like this really needs to support oEmbed. The oEmbed spec is pretty simple and it would make this more widely usable by popular blogging platforms, and make it easier to use on responsive websites. [http://oembed.com/](http://oembed.com/)

<comment><USER25> > I've been dealing with weather radar images lately, and they're all terrible > animated gifs

actually, weather radar is an ideal use-case for GIFs. they have limited colors, only a few dozen frames which may need to be delayed for a few hundred ms.

you should really try compressing the gifs using something like gifsicle [1], you'll be astounded by the resulting size (use lzw compression), quality and performance (use a global color palette). it will surpass any video you can make.

what GIFs are terrible at is photographs and video. for the majority of graphics and animations they're awesome sauce.

[1] [http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/](http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/)

<comment><USER24> You're correct: Radar is pretty well suited for a gif. But, it can still lead to 400kb images that are 150kb when h.264 video. For a mobile connection, that's worth caring about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> yes that thanks. gif takes 10x more bandwidth than modern compressed video average (because generally its lower quality)

so fuck gif, really. ive been annoyed by this for a while. even saw sites that find it smart to replace flash videos with gif.

</comment><comment><USER27> Thank god someone is doing this. I'd been looking for a way to dedicate a core of my laptop to animated gifs.

</comment><comment><USER28> What format are you converting the GIF to?

</comment><comment><USER29> The reason for GIF is simple: It autoplays on mobile web reliably.

There is no other reason not to use video.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is there any way of doing this offline for large animated GIF collections?

<comment><USER31> you could look at the source of mediacrush for this. [https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush](https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush)

Edit: It uses ffmpeg

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> we badly need a copy pastable video format just like gif. The default html5 video is too video-ish not gif-ish enough.

</comment><comment><USER33> +1 Go F __* Yourself Cat

</comment><comment><USER19> Handy tool for Reddit users

</comment><comment><USER34> that's one hell of a sample video

other than that: awesome

<comment><USER35> Are you feeling sorry for the kid or the cat?

<comment><USER36> Both? The parents (or whoever shot that video) are obvious assholes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> gfycat is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER37> you guys will be acquired by imgur</comment>


Sass Language Design: Philosophy & Approach - <AUTHOR> http://chriseppstein.github.com/blog/2010/08/16/sass-language-design/

<comment><USER2> I've been using haml and sass for a while now, and I have to say that once you start using them, it's hard to go back. Sure, the major upfront benefit is less typing involved. For sass, there's no longer the long-winded

#main #content .post .title h3

CSS associations that you have to manually type out (or copy paste) each time you want to declare a style for something. More importantly though is that it creates much more readability. I can go back to code that I wrote months ago and see exactly where a style that I need to change is located in sass, whereas in CSS I'll have to poke around a bit. The tab delimited hierarchies will be a godsend when first you use them.

The variable declarations can be nice as well, although I haven't used those to their fullest capacity yet. Even without them though, I'd still use sass. That's not to say it doesn't have downfalls. It is another level of abstraction that you have to deal with. If you're building a server that's hosting .sass files, you'll need a sass compiler - not something you necessarily want to think about on a deadline. Then again, you can always just compile them before you deploy your packages, but you have to remember to update the .sass files if you ever make any on-the-fly changes on the server. That can always be remedied though by having a dedicated stylesheet server, although I typically only use one of those for development. I have a blank haml/sass template that I use for styling front ends, and will direct any site I'm currently making, regardless of the language, to the stylesheets hosted by that project. Even if you don't think you'll use it, I'd still give it a shot if you haven't played with it already.

<comment><USER3> I actually used sass last week for the first time and was sold on it within a day. Maybe next week I'll look at haml.

None of my work is in ruby, so I'm not sure of the utility of haml, though.</comment></comment>


Auto-parallelizer: #pragma loop - <AUTHOR>

I just discovered that MSVC++ can automatically run each iteration of a loop in parallel in separate threads.  Add "#pragma loop(hint_parallel(8))" and "#pragma loop(ivdep)" before the loop, and compile with the /Qpar option.  This simple change sped up my cryoablation simulation code by 4x. <comment><AUTHOR> A lot of the radiology software that I write involves iterating over a 3D grid. The auto-parallelizer lets you easily process each 2D slice on a different processor core. My laptop has 2 cores x 2 hyperthreads per core = 4 virtual cores, so 4x speedup.

</comment><comment><USER2> You might also be interested in OpenMP, which does similar things for more compilers than MSVC++.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll look into this. I also use g++ on Linux, so a cross-platform solution would be nice.</comment></comment>


Hackers promise to begin disclosing security bugs in MySpace every day next month - <AUTHOR> http://momby.livejournal.com/ <comment><USER2> I have learned to embrace myspace just as I have learned to embrace Walmart. It might be cesspool to some, but it is what it is, which is mainstream. It is just a relection of our society, not something to be hated at all.

As far as the cracks go, they'll have little to no impact on their operaitons at all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129933-pg,1/article.html></comment>


Watch Hungarian MP-S Silenced in the Parliament - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/Indexhu/videos/762528177413685/ <comment><USER2> So what if you aren't on facebook? Silenced?</comment>


Oort Online – a next generation voxel MMO - <AUTHOR> http://oortonline.com/

<comment><USER2> This looks great, my child would love it!</comment>


Week 1 of My App in the Slack App Directory - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@guillegette/week-1-of-my-app-in-the-slack-app-directory-a310a9ebae8#.v1pw0ed61 <comment><USER2> Great report. Do you know of anyway to monetize slack apps?

Also, I like the icon, where did you get it?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! At this point I dont have an idea on how to make money, as my app lives entirely inside Slack it could be tricky but I can probably build a set of features and sell a PRO version or something around those lines.

For the icon I took the basic from here [http://www.flaticon.com/free- icon/checking-item_65778](http://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/checking- item_65778) and then I drew the container.</comment></comment>


How to Make an Impressive Resume - <AUTHOR> http://selfmaderenegade.net/how-to-make-an-impressive-resume/

<comment><AUTHOR> I came up with three rules that I've found allow my students have better resumes than 80% - 90% of their competition. Would love your thoughts.</comment>


Google using romance novels to train its AI to write fiction - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/05/15/google-ai-romance-novels/#DRoZSsxkz8qY <comment><USER2> After six novels of Federico Moccia, Google's AI commited suicide, demonstrating self-awareness.

</comment><comment><USER2> Jokes aside, nearly all romance ovels follow nearly the same patron.

Does the Google AI parse grammar and syntax as a natural language parser?</comment>


California State Senator Proposes Funding Open-Source Textbooks - <AUTHOR> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/05/1615210/california-state-senator-proposes-funding-open-source-textbooks?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I think the whole CONCEPT of a "textbook" needs to change:

1\. It should be open-source or available on your nearest "App Store" for a REASONABLE price

2\. It should be interactive. If I have a history textbook describing a battle, I want to be able to watch the battle unfold (even if it's just a diagram). If I am reading a chemistry textbook, let me play with the molecule. When I need to learn about the D3 group in Abstract Algebra, show me a triangle rotating and flipping as the group operations fade in and then drop to the bottom in a chain illustrating a composition. Let me swipe over to the Cayley table and touch a composition cell and watch the triangle dance. Whatever.

3\. Textbooks should share a common ontology that can be extended for each book. But if I have two textbooks on my device and each has registered its ontology, I should then be able to cross reference concepts from one book to the other, or to appropriate entries in Wikipedia, for example.

4\. All Chapters, headings, subheadings, and definitions should link to global, school, and class-level discussion forums about the topic where everyone can ask questions and have good answers upvoted in a stackexchange- like manner. These discussion nodes should be linked to the ontology, rather than the brand of book. That way ANY textbook with a section on "Limit Points in Rn" or "The Three Branches of US Government" would link to the same discussion node.

5\. When appropriate, texts should be constantly updated, classes should always use the "latest stable version", and that update should be free after initial purchase (like an App).

<comment><USER3> I think you're missing the fact that textbooks are written by people. They don't magically appear. Writing a good textbook requires the passion of a single expert author, who must dedicate years of his or her life to write it. There are very few shortcuts. And crowd-sourcing is definitely not one of them.

A more innovative approach, I think, would be for the government to buy out leading textbooks at a premium and after holding an auction to determine the fair price. This gives you the best of both worlds -- rewards for individuals' efforts but the ability to use the published material in an unrestricted way in the future. Plus you avoid the loss associated with monopoly rights granted via copyright and wasted duplicative textbook efforts.

This ideas has been proposed more broadly for patents by Prof. Michael Kremer of Harvard. Its logic is pretty compelling:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2000/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2000/01/the_motherinlaw_of_invention.html)

<comment><USER4> My kids are in California. I assure you, the textbooks are reference standard awful. People magazine is more compelling.

I am entirely certain the average parent of a kid in our school would be able to turn out better material, to say nothing of all the professors and leading experts in California who would love to contribute directly to their kids' education.

The question in my mind is how to construct this. The law seems like a last resort. Maybe some YCers can work on this cracking this nut.

<comment><USER5> WikiTextbook. Adopt the Scholarpedia model where there is curation of particular topics. Put it under a Creative Commons license and make it easy to download.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In some Philadelphia schools, students share textbooks -- 2, 3, or even 4 kids to a book -- and homework can't be assigned out of the book because there aren't enough books for kids to take home -- god forbid they lose another! It creates a lot of extra work for teachers, who have to make extra photocopies of readings and assignments. And it kills me, because it's an artificial scarcity. Instead of $5 to $10 per book, the cost of its materials and manufacturing, schools pay upwards of $100 a book, because of the enormous premiums paid to the content creators and publishers. For the cash-strapped Philadelphia schools that is an excessive burden. You can replace "Philadelphia" here with another rust belt city or even, say, a city in California or Nevada, but the story remains the same. And it kills me even more, because there are academics, experts and writers the world over who'd love nothing more than to freely provide high-quality educational content to students. There is no better evidence of this than the hard work done by Wikipedians, but there is plenty evidence besides. Sorry for the rant, but I think it's important to recognize what an utterly simple and necessary step the open-sourcing of textbooks and curriculum is. Good for State Senator Steinberg, and although I'm sorry it's just for colleges and that the K-12 initiative failed, I hope that this program passes, it is successful, and its success forces districts all over the country -- cash-strapped or otherwise -- to consider open-source textbooks. They'll switch because they're cheaper and stay because they're better.

<comment><USER7> This seems like a failure on the part of the publishers to collect all the money they could. There are large fixed costs to produce the first textbook, but relatively low marginal costs to produce the next million. If the publishers had some sort of "budget-impacted schools" program, under which schools that would otherwise share textbooks among students could buy textbooks at a relatively small markup over marginal cost (as opposed to the full amortized total cost), then they'd still be making more, and the schools would get the benefit of the use of the textbooks.

<comment><USER8> Price discrimination is hard. I've heard of Americans picking up crappily bound but reasonable priced big name texts, like Norvig's AI book, or CLRS's algo book produced for India.

276 RS < $6 US [http://www.dealsandcoupons.in/resources/3986-discount- book-I...](http://www.dealsandcoupons.in/resources/3986-discount-book- Introduction.aspx)

The publishers don't want to risk shaking up big profits to sell near cost to the low end. If you sell cheaply to the poor schools, what prevents the poor schools from reselling the books to the rich schools 20 miles away?

<comment><USER9> A big green stamp on the side (closed pages) of the book saying "BUDGET BOOK PROGRAMME"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems so obvious that it's painful to think that it hasn't already been done.

It would be awesome to see a non-profit started which provided a repository for textbook content, a platform for mixing and matching content to meet the curriculum of a particular district, and a toolchain to produce digital copies of the books in the format used by the district - all open source and released under broadly permissive licenses.

If even a handful of school districts funded a project like this instead of purchasing moore textbooks, I would imagine this could be sustainable.

<comment><USER11> > repository for textbook content, > a platform for mixing and matching > > content to meet the curriculum

This would be awesome indeed, but there are some problems. From the things that i have seen so far, (ex: cnx.org), the content is predominantly of low quality. Simply put, ask the average person to explain something to you and he/she won't do a very good job. The other thing is that modularization completely brakes the flow of narration, and narration is a big thing to keep the reader engaged (story telling instinct).

In my work, I try to have two kinds of "nodes" -- one is generic lesson node where the explanation of some concept happens and the other are linker nodes where narration happens. Despite being a single author, and using space-age tools (dokuwiki with the include plugin;), I still find it hard to make things modular and easily composable.

I would venture to say that a small number of authors would be better at writing a book rather than a whole collective.

For corrections/feedback/exercises... BRING ON THE CROWD!

<comment><USER10> Agreed. I think it would even make sense to hire accomplished authors, editors, and academics for the narrative portions of chapters/lessons. It would likely make sense to have fairly coarse units which would be the responsibility of a particular author.

I skimmed through some of the CK12 content. While some of it might be good (I am not qualified to determine whether or not the content is high quality or affective) - the presentation is really poor. In addition to authors, I think you need designers who will present the information in an attractive and engaging way.

<comment><USER12> Hi there. My name is Doug, I work at ck12.

If you're interested in learning more, contributing, or giving feedback please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com I'd love to hear from you (or anyone else). Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I missed the "Funding" details.... How will the textbook writers get paid?

One-up contract? Write me a book for $100k (one year's worth of work) and keep it updated every year for $20k with typo fixes and new exercises?

This would create the right incentives, since 100k is probably more than any textbook publisher will give you -- even if you make it big, and your book is used in many universities.

</comment><comment><USER13> I started working on a Computer Science textbook about a year ago.

I found out that people were not interested in using it.

This is what I had made so far:

<http://opentextbook.info/>

Interestingly enough, I posted this info on Slashdot and it was removed almost right away.

<comment><USER14> The domain is non-descriptive, and .info is typically associated with spam. It also looks like you're in a flux state of completion, with not a lot of detail. I'd suggest limited your scope and making a smaller, but more polished product, before trying to attract more contributors.

<comment><USER13> I picked this domain because I had hoped that when this book was complete, we could work on another. At the time I thought that it would be better if it was generic.

I started working on it but realized that I might put in hundreds of hours of work only to have nobody use it at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The solution is stop enforcing this dogma of requiring a specific book for subjects which clearly do not require the latest annual edition of a specific textbook. Teachers would instead recommend books they feel are good to use to pass their course. Without the exclusive book contracts, publishers couldn't easily and blatantly maintain a cartel on textbooks.

The basic economics of why school textbooks are so expensive is dead simple: The teachers and the schools grant publishers a cartel by forcing kids to purchase their specific new editions every year. _Why_ anybody is suprised that prices are so high is beyond me.

<comment><USER16> _Teachers would instead recommend books they feel are good to use to pass their course_

They do this now. They recommend (require in fact) their OWN books.

<comment><USER15> Teachers do not do this now. They have a specific book or set of books that almost all of the time is required to take the class.

The problem is it's a requirement and they often test directly from the book because it removes effort from teaching to the test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wait, What? Anyone know what this might mean?

FTA: "In some ways these guys are looking outdated. File-sharing as a means to pirate content is becoming yesterday's technology,"

<comment><USER18> Obviously, the sophisticated pirates of today use telepathy now and thus have no need for files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Israeli universities don't usually use textbooks, partly because Israelis go to university after their mandatory army service. Some students are already married with kids and can't afford to buy textbooks. Every course has an official textbook, which the school has copies of.

The system works because (at least at my university) all lectures and recitations videos are available online. Good luck doing that in K-12.

</comment><comment><USER20> New Jersey resident proposes California State Senator stay out of education and focus on reducing his state's budget deficit.

Open-Source Textbooks ARE a good idea. However, just like Wikipedia didn't need the government to get started ... this gem doesn't require the government either. It'll happen once eBooks become more prevalent and there is nothing the government should do to help or stop it from happening.

<comment><USER21> Normally I'd agree with you, but since the government is by far the largest purchaser of text books...

The state of California spends millions on buying text books, think of all the money they'd save if they paid to develop open source text books instead.

<comment><USER22> This can probably be fixed with a little spin, like "California schools band together to save taxpayers money by writing their own textbooks".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wouldn't this essentially just be WikiPedia? Granted, text Books have more of a narrative.

</comment><comment><USER24> Standardized textbooks for standardized curriculum. What a novel idea. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> The state of textbooks is so fucking sad. I still don't get how Bill Gates or another richy-rich hasn't realized how fucking great it would be to pay 100k to an awesome professor for writing a textbook and publishing it under a CC license. If you did that with all subjects, and paid for translations, and made it all digital, it would cost next to nothing in the large scheme and be more beneficial to humanity than the cure to polio or malaria or heck even cancer. It would have an exponentially awesome effect.

Accelerating the rate at which humanity is educated is fundamentally more important than anything going on today, and it's always pushed back because the generation that's currently being educated doesn't have a fucking say in the matter.

Someone should take some of their money out of their hedge fund and drop it on this shit pronto.

<comment><USER26> I've felt the same way, but it's worth pointing out that this would be possible with low-tech, uncomplicated paper books.

A large school district could surely save a bundle, and improve the quality of its education besides, by paying a qualified individual to write a textbook just for them, then having it printed just for them. And they could give away the text to other interested districts if they wanted, saving the other districts even more money.

This has been true for decades. No internet, no computers or e-readers, and no fancy newfangled CC licenses would be required for such a plan.

Yet it mostly has not happened.

So there must be a reason. This infamous story by Richard Feynman suggests that it's a matter of an entrenched culture of laziness, lobbying, bribery, and in effect regulatory capture:

<http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm></comment></comment>


AI's Language Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602094/ais-language-problem/ <comment><USER2> > Google is already teaching its computers the basics of language. This May > the company announced a system, dubbed Parsey McParseface, that can look at > syntax, recognizing nouns, verbs, and other elements of text.

"is already teaching" ? This is a dead giveaway that the author is utterly lacking of experience with machine learning. Syntax parsing has been around for years, Google just released a more up-to-date implementation.

Why can't they proofread these articles with actual ML people?

</comment><comment><USER3> duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254504)</comment>


Is Udacity's AI Nanodegree Worth It? - <AUTHOR> I want to get into professional ML/AI. I'm working as full time software engineer for 3 years now and I'm looking to pick up some high-end skills in AI/ML after going through the basics in Coursera, Edx. I'm looking for a review of the past term in the program since it is VERY costly for someone from eastern Europe so I want to make sure I'm not making a stupid move by paying for the AI nanodegree in which I have been offered a place. <comment><USER2> As someone who recruits and interviews ML engineers, specifically for computer vision applications, I only barely look at your educational background.

I look for actual projects you have contributed to, published research, OSS contrib etc... that shows you can actually build something deployable and robust (mod your experience). Why? Most ML researchers are terrible at actually deploying products using ML.

School work can be relevant if it is part of a thesis, or research effort but in that case it's really still just [goto contributions].

At the application/implementation level you won't be making a new version of eg. gradient descent (and if you are you shouldn't be in industry as that's probably* a waste of resources), you'll be implementing existing ML systems and optimizing parameters. The most important thing you should be able to do is identify sources of data, structure data inputs flow and manage variability for the data you are using for both training and classification.

This doesn't answer your question directly, but it answers the implied question: What skills should I have to be a professional ML engineer?

<comment><USER3> I can validate this. As someone who built a production CV system and interviewed graduates. Finding the magical ML graduate who can also code and make a production system is almost impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't have anything certain, nor have I seen anyone answer this certainly - though this question has come up often. Obviously MOOCs will eventually be the way - huge companies are getting behind the movement; courses taught by best- of-best (eg Thrun, Ng); sustainability, etc. But I don't think we're quite there yet - I'd give it 3yrs. A recurring answer by hiring managers and recruiters is that they don't (yet) respect nanodegrees, at the various companies they recruit for. A Masters is much more respected (and looks like the majority minimum required degree for a decent ML job; no need for PhD, good luck with a BS). One option I'm very seriously considering is Georgia Tech's online MS "OMSCS" [https://www.omscs.gatech.edu](https://www.omscs.gatech.edu). It's a legitimate accredited MS at $7k (more expensive than Udacity, but _much_ less expensive than most MS programs). TMK it actually uses some Udacity courses in lieu of actual courses - they're partnered (hey, it might actually just be a nanodegree disguised as a university MS). I think it's sort of a transition from academia-proper to MOOCs, and it's respected by employers. So that would be my personal recommendation.

I'm going to be doing a lot more research in coming weeks. I'm going to publish my findings to my podcast [http://ocdevel.com/podcasts/machine- learning](http://ocdevel.com/podcasts/machine-learning) and maybe drop what I find here too. Hopefully there will be some more answers here to pool from.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm mainly looking to acquire the knowledge and less the academic 'prestige' part of things at the moment altho I definitely agree that a Msc would be much more appealing to a recruiter as you said they are in a somewhat 'transitioning' stage or rather they are starting to have some faith in MOOCs

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've done Udacity's ML and doing the SDC in free time.

Short answer: Yes - I would do it again.

ML (Mid 2016): Cost-wise you may be able to gather the similar quality of materials for free, nothing are too unique and in many cases additional intensive research are still required. But, the Udacity provides nice structure and helps you to keep motivated.

SDC (2016): Much better experience for students, the quality of materials are higher, and amount of support from the peer group are extraordinary. Just one of the five projects in the first term are more complex than the whole ML nanodegree.

Haven't tried the AI nanodegree myself, but because it's a part of the new batch of programs I believe the experience would be quite positive (closer to SDC).

If you will decide to proceed with self-learning path, here is a nice multi- month study plan: [https://github.com/ZuzooVn/machine-learning-for-software- eng...](https://github.com/ZuzooVn/machine-learning-for-software-engineers)

In any case I strongly advice to take a look into Andrew Ng's coursera courses and Andrew Karpathy's CS231n on CNN ([http://cs231n.stanford.edu/](http://cs231n.stanford.edu/)) as a supportive materials.

Also, if money is the main concern, you may want to apply to sponsorship, or maybe discuss this with your current employer.

Feel free to PM me on twitter (same nick) if you have any other questions, would be glad to assist.

<comment><USER4> How has it fared for you so far in the job market, have you started seeking yet / talking to recruiters or employers?

<comment><USER5> I'm not looking for the job, so hard to tell. Everything depends on your unique situation, but most likely the nanodegree alone will not be enough to get a senior technical position. The good experience with algorithms is still important. Some books which I usually suggest: "Gayle Laakmann McDowell - Cracking the Coding Interview - 2016" and "The Algorithm Design Manual Second Edition 2008".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm in the AI Nanodegree now and I have a Udacity Data Analyst nanodegree.

I also hold a traditional Engineering Masters and Engineering bachelors from colleges so I have that perspective as well.

You can read my take on the AI Nanodegree and other programs here.

[http://canyon289.github.io/DSGuide.html#DSGuide](http://canyon289.github.io/DSGuide.html#DSGuide)

In summary I think Udacity is the best value per dollar for education but you can't rely on a Nanodegree, or even a regular degree, to get you a job. Like mentioned below most people care about your practical work. Udacity helps you get there but it doesn't get you all the way. But I think it's still worth it. Plus Udacity is pretty cool and offers scholarships which is relatively unheard of in this MOOC space as far as I know

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the detailed post on your experience. I've also wondered about the value to the different online courses. Seems to be that the bottom line is getting thru the material. Motivation is the key. Any advice on that?

<comment><USER6> Pretty much, the main differentiator I think is, do you just want to learn the topic, or do you want to get a job in the topic. One requires a lot more work than the other

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say only marginally. Even actual degrees are worth less than your portfolio of your actual works. "Non-accredited" certificates like nanodegrees (as opposed to "real" certs like CCIE that companies take seriously) can give you an edge when you say you have a certified coursework if you're pitted against someone who is similar to you. However, it won't be much of a leverage against someone more matched for a job or more experienced than you.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone that has taken the Udacity self driving course have comments on the 2nd and 3rd modules?

There isn't as much information available on those.

</comment><comment><USER10> no</comment>


5G in rural areas bridges a gap that 4G doesn't, especially low- and mid-band - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/09/5g-03-rural/ <comment><USER2> I've seen so much conflicting information around 5G that it's frankly a little bit bewildering. Just earlier today I was reading that 5G showed no considerably-higher download speeds than 4G...

From what I can surmise, it seems like the labels 5G and 4G are a bit misleading. It seems like 5G is focused on improving reception in less populated areas, while 4G is still the general standard. Is that right? Or am I still missing something?</comment>


Death and the PH Drug Industry: From China to the Streets - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkingpinoy.net/2016/08/six-steps-on-how-to-be-drug-dealer-in.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> This is an interesting article but I wonder if jister can help me understand something.

The numbers from the WHO say Philippines had a low rate of drug addiction. So, to an outsider this looks like an extreme solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

What is going on? Why were voters so concerned about drugs they voted for desperate measures? Is there more drugs than the stats show?

People talked about voting for him because they wanted change. A satisfied voter doesn't vote for ectreme change. What are voters so unsatisfied about?</comment>