Algorithms Interviews: Theory vs. Practice - <AUTHOR> https://danluu.com/algorithms-interviews/ <comment><USER2> > a friend of mine once got a Google Code Jam World Finals question in a phone > interview with Google (...) I doubt there were more than a few hundred > people in the world who would've gotten the right answer to the question in > a phone screen and almost all of them probably would've realized that it was > an absurd phone screen question

Link to the question: [https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/2437491/dashboard#s=...](https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/2437491/dashboard#s=p2)

The gist of it is: You are given 4*N points on a 2D plane. Can you draw two perpendicular lines to separate them into N points per quadrant?

I think Dan's missing context is that google code jam questions always have a small and large dataset. In this case, small is N=10 which makes a lot of bruteforce solutions possible and not much different from any other bruteforce puzzles common in interviews. Being a geometry question is the more unfair part if this is a generalist role (but not unfair if your role involves graphics, computer vision, self driving car mapping, etc).

Expecting a solution for the large (N=2500) is ridiculous of course. See analysis: [https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/2437491/dashboard#s=...](https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/2437491/dashboard#s=a&a=2)

<comment><USER3> Another piece of contextual information that's important is that interviewers can provide hints during an interview.

For example, I was asked this question once: Given N points and 3 squares of side length L, what's the minimum L that allows you to cover all N points with the 3 squares?

I think this question is fairly unreasonable as an interview question, if you weren't given hints. In the context of an interview, however, I think it could be reasonable.

<comment><USER4> A similar situation happened to me, and the problem was not hints. I just wasn't happy with that particular problem because I knew how much time it took me the last day, when preparing, to solve it!

I was really not into doing it again, it was so traumatic.

The correct curse of action is for the interviewer to anticipate this and prepare a backup question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > When I ask people at trendy big tech companies why algorithms quizzes are > mandatory, the most common answer I get is something like "we have so much > scale, we can't afford to have someone accidentally write an O(n^2) > algorithm and bring the site down".

I think people who say this just don't get what's really going on here. If you look at these types of interviews, a big part of what they select for is: 1) Some sort of problem-solving skill that's a mix of raw intelligence and/or ability to solve problems by pattern-matching to things you've seen before. 2) Ability/commitment to work on something that may not be that intrinsically motivating, in the context of getting/maintaining a certain type of job.

These interviews select exactly for that. To pass, you usually have some mix of: \- raw intelligence. \- ability to pattern match to similar problems you've seen before. \- ability and motivation to spend time preparing for these types of interviews, even if they're not really what you care about doing.

That's really what they're trying to capture. It's not a perfect filter (you will still have some false positives and plenty, plenty of false negatives), but it works "well enough".

You really only need one Dan Luu per like 10 or 100 engineers at a FAANG. Most people aren't going to be optimizing at the level he is, they're going to be doing work that's mostly a mix of problem-solving by pattern matching, and ideally, they're motivated enough to have that job for as long as possible.

<comment><USER6> I think most interviews are designed to find people similar to the interviewers, whether they realise it or not. If you think it works "well enough", I think you're just fooling yourself.

I say that as someone who has gotten a job offer from every interview I've been interviewed, and done maybe 100 on the interviewer side of the table. I put far more weight onto pair programming and anything that resembles a work sample than anything else. And even then you don't really find out what people are like until like the tenth pull request or so.

<comment><USER5> Getting an offer from every interview is impressive, good for you (you don't cite how many but I'm assuming you've done a good number in different contexts). Even the smartest people I've known have had mixed luck with interviews, due to some combination of randomness, poor interview design, or just poor fit for that company. As for administrating 100 interviews, you'd prob rack those up in a 2 year stint at a FAANG (usually they'd start you around 6 months in or earlier and you'd do 1-2 per week thereafter).

Anyway, yes, interviews are prone to bias. So are work samples (in different ways). Pair programming can be better but logistically harder (i don't know any companies that have been able to do them at FAANG scale), but even then, like you said, you'd need a lot of it to really judge.

At the end of the day, the entire hiring process needs to work "well enough" and with reasonable cost to both company and candidates. For many FAANGs, these interviews (plus hiring committees, bar raisers, or something else) meet that criteria... Though honestly, they often fall short on diversity but that's a whole other topic.

<comment><USER6> I'm 40 (ouch!) and I've done about 6 serious interviews - other conversations over lunch and whatnot, that I didn't pursue - I'm not a serial interviewer, granted. Three job offers I declined.

Where I work today, I'm in the last round of interviews, to try and reduce the time consumption.

My real point is that a work sample is really hard to get in an interview, and it's really not fair to fire someone in their evaluation period because they're only average, and not extraordinary, with what they come up with in day to day work.

<comment><USER7> _Friendly reminder that 40 is not old_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Some companies will give very large out of band bonuses to people, but that > work wasn't for a company that does a lot of that kind of thing, so there's > nothing the company could do to indicate that it valued additional work once > someone did "enough" work to get the best possible rating on a performance > review. From a mechanism design point of view, the company was basically > asking employees to stop working once they did "enough" work for the year.

and

> This also happened in another way. As is common at a lot of companies, > managers were given a team-wide budget for raises that was mainly a function > of headcount, that was then doled out to team members in a zero-sum way. > Unfortunately for each team member (at least in terms of compensation), the > team pretty much only had productive engineers, meaning that no one was > going to do particularly well in the zero-sum raise game. The team had very > low turnover because people like working with good co-workers, but the > company was applying one the biggest levers it has, compensation, to try to > get people to leave the team and join less effective teams

are pretty important points to note.

Accepting that organizations are incentivized to extract the maximum amount of value from you means you should be: 1\. Aware of the value you produce 2\. Know how to sell it

This also comes up during promotion season in places that require that you perform at 50%+ of the next "level" to be eligible for a promotion. The unsaid part is that you will be under compensated for that 50% "next level" and when the promo comes, you'll be at the bottom of the comp band at the new level (no wonder people tend to quite shortly after a large promotion)

<comment><USER9> > to try to get people to leave the team and join less effective teams

From a director-level perspective it probably makes sense to have one or two of your best people on each team, rather than some wholly excellent teams and some wholly mediocre teams.

<comment><USER10> From the standpoint of providing skill-mentorship opportunities it makes sense. A few strong engineers on a team can really help everyone grow. Naturally personalities and preferences should be accounted for, however one of the best moves I ever made was to break up a "ninja squad" (what they called themselves) of high functioning devs when their big project wrapped up. The squad was small (3) and each person was very well liked by the entire engineering team (13). We had several green-field projects starting up, so none of them felt banished to the salt mines of legacy maintenance tasks for instance. The general quality and velocity improved across the teams and we gained more consistency in our codebase when it came to patterns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, amusingly, my referral hit rate at Google is like 1/10\. Worse, I _only_ refer people if they've told me that they're certain they wish to go through the terrible process.

When I say 1/10, I don't mean 10%, I mean I have entered about 10, and only one got an offer. In my opinion, all were qualified and should have been given offers. For comparison, I've done roughly 100 interviews or something (though not nearly enough SWE interviews, because I'm in San Francisco). As an additional _upwards_ bias, I actively discourage people from applying, so this is only the folks that said "I understand, refer me anyway".

All that said, Google is really more like dozens of independent companies now. There's Search/Ads, YouTube, Cloud, Photos, Android, Maps/"Geo", and so on. Your mileage will vary pretty drastically depending on how you're routed. Just like Dan was misdirected towards a software interview, I've had friends tossed into the _SRE_ hiring pipeline, asked how to operate large-scale distributed systems and so on, when their background is "Umm, I just did my PhD in CS in Graphics... I've never written a networked program in my life".

To all the other Google employees: find the job posting internally that your friends would _actually_ want, talk to the hiring manager to figure out what that maps to externally on the job postings page (it often doesn't), and then tell the assigned recruiter that you're serious about your recommendation. The recruiter may still override you in deference to their hiring targets / goals though (the one offer I've seen from my referral went this way despite my effort), so don't promise your friends that you can fix it for them.

I'm not here to excuse these hiring practices. Instead, be honest with yourself about why you want to apply, and how much hassle you're willing to put up with. In my experience, all other companies will decide more quickly on your hiring result, role, level, compensation and so on. I _believe_ that's because of the scale of the interviewing and hiring (>10k full-time employees per year for the last few years), except it's always been pretty bad at Google.

<comment><USER12> lol, it's actually much worse than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >"I've done maybe 40-ish "real" software interviews and passed maybe one or two of them"

I'd say that about mirrors my experience as well. Is this really that common? Here I was thinking that I'm just an idiot.

<comment><USER14> I'm almost 50. I pass about two-thirds of all my on-site interviews, but have 100% failed my FNG interviews (I got an offer from Amazon 15 years ago but declined because I didn't want to move to Seattle). I've failed Google 4 times, Facebook 3 times, and Netflix twice. I think my biggest problem is because I'm so old, their expectations are even higher than what I realistically am. I'm okay being hired as a "senior software engineer" and working my way up, but they insist on interviewing me as a staff level, which I clearly am not capable of achieving. I'm confident that if I were to get in, I would perform in the top tier of engineers, but it's those damn algorithm questions I just can't get past.

<comment><USER15> "Almost 50" means you're in your 40s. And you probably started interviewing in your mid-40s, at the latest, if you've already interviewed 4 times.

The gist of your comment might be correct, but I think we shouldn't perpetuate the mindset that mid-40s or even 50s is "so old."

In almost all knowledge-worker professions, age and experience is acknowledged as an asset. I think software companies are just _starting_ to realize that, as the "move fast and break things" companies are now weighed down under technical debt and imposing hiring freezes on recent grads and junior engineers.

I feel like I'm in my prime in terms of experience and productivity, and though I may not want to work 70+ hour weeks or chug beers at the office anymore, I'm a considerably better engineer than I was 20 years ago. I think many of us intuitively know that, and we shouldn't let ourselves become victim to self-defeating SV groupthink.

<comment><USER14> I started interviewing at Google since about 2005 so over 15 years. I've seen the entire gamut of interview style questions, from trivia questions, to brain teasers, to easy algorithm questions, to the algorithm arms-race where LeetCode hard questions are now being asked. It has only gotten harder and the expectations as someone with 25+ years experience is too much. That is the biggest problem someone my age faces. I'm easily the best programmer on the team, but it's hard to show when I can't memorize 400+ LC questions for the FANG interviews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > The most widely read programming blogger around (Joel Spolsky) was telling > people they need to adopt software practice X because Microsoft was doing it > and they couldn't compete adopting the same practices.

These days, it's amazing how much "We do X because Google does X" you see. But Google is the new circa 2003 M$, so it makes sense.

<comment><USER17> >"We do X because Google does X"

My standard response was "The most distinguishing property of Microsoft (Google) is they have a monopoly, copy that part first".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I actually suspect that one of the main purposes of the algo based interview process is a motivation check. It takes time to prep for these interviews. Lots of time. So if you get a candidate that is crushing problems, it can either mean two things:

1) They are exceedingly brilliant and they can program decently

2) They have studied hard, they can reason and code decently

Combine that with a system design portion and some behavioral questions, and the company is probably getting a solid hire. Does it mean that you're weeding out some false negatives? Absolutely. But large companies don't care. The system works well enough, and until it doesn't, I doubt much will change.

<comment><USER19> I still see it as an age experience filter the further you are form college the harder and more prep time is required to bring up seldom used skills backup to proficiency.

</comment></comment><comment> kris-s > At one point, after getting a promotion and a raise, I computed the ratio of > the amount of money my changes made the company vs. my raise and found that > my raise was 0.03% of the money that I made the company, only counting > easily quantifiable and totally indisuptable impact to the bottom line.

Would profit/revenue sharing help with this?

<comment><USER16> Except supply and demand drive your pay, not how much you make the company. Now, if you can't make the company at least as much as you cost, then you're out of a job.

Those "I made the company X" arguments are only interesting if it was an action/idea that you were uniquely responsible for. If it's something most equally qualified people would have done in that role, it's not that interesting.

<comment><USER20> Even if you were uniquely responsible and it's something extremely difficult hat few could accomplish, there is no way to prove it and the company usually treats you just like any other idiot hired at your "level".

<comment><USER21> if you have such unique and powerful skill that you can attribute to this level of value production, then your only option is to found a startup and extract 100% of that value from said skill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Its hard to believe that Dan Luu can't pass algorithm interviews.

<comment><USER23> It has a lot to do with psyche. If you have anxiety, it is entirely possible to even fail the most basic questions. And unfortunately, you can't just say "Sorry, I'm having a panic attack. Could we do this tomorrow?".

I think the best course is anxiety management. But unfortunately, some people get dependent on drugs just to calm their nerves before something important. I know people that can't hold meetings or presentations without taking beta- blockers and the likes.

<comment><USER24> Just FYI - in many interviews, you can just say "Sorry, I'm having a panic attack. Could we do this tomorrow?". One of my friends had a panic attack during her Google interview, left came back the next day, and got the job.

So, YMMV, but people are often able to be accommodating for things like this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone have articles or advice/experience to share on improving a company's interviewing process / culture? I work at a medium/large enterprise software company in SFBA that's well compensated (not quite FAANG level) and sometimes a final round interview will have 5 algorithm style whiteboarding questions which feels excessive and lazy.

I'm interested in:

a) standardization. Right now interviewers pick their individual questions and sometimes the question types. You can't apply a wildly inconsistent measure across anything and expect to have confidence in your findings.

b) interview question diversity. If people have varying strengths and our day to day work goes beyond just solving algorithm style questions (because it does for a huge majority of dev jobs) then a more diverse body of questions seems to be a better yardstick to measure others by. Examples of questions types that seem interesting to add include refactoring existing code, pair programming, small coding project and even weird things I haven't heard of before like the ability to give constructive feedback on design proposals, etc..

</comment><comment><USER26> This topic comes up pretty often, and I think most people agree algorithm interview questions aren't effective and screen for the wrong things. The question though is, what is a better way to interview? I don't think I've seen any consensus, let alone anything backed by data yet.

<comment><USER27> You could ask coding questions that are not algorithms? Realistic problems that are commonly found in web work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Opening statement:

> When I ask people at trendy big tech companies why algorithms quizzes are > mandatory, the most common answer I get is something like "we have so much > scale, we can't afford to have someone accidentally write an O(n^2) > algorithm and bring the site down"

In 20yeara I've never heard someone say anything like that.

<comment><USER29> If we are one query from bring down the site I don't want to be anywhere near that site.

<comment><USER30> If you haven't had a single query bring down a service at least once, you just don't have enough industry experience with services.

It's surprisingly easy to bring down complete complex services system with a unlucky degenerate case.

<comment><USER31> Like A site wide outage at StackOverflow being caused by an inefficient backtracking regex engine: [https://stackstatus.net/post/147710624694/outage- postmortem-...](https://stackstatus.net/post/147710624694/outage-postmortem- july-20-2016)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Eh, a lot work at Google is pretty heavy on algorithms. It's important to know how to write high performance code and algorithms and data structures knowledge is a large part in that.</comment>


A List Of Fallacious Arguments - <AUTHOR> http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html <comment><USER2> _Psychogenetic Fallacy: if you learn the psychological reason why your opponent likes an argument, then he's biased, so his argument must be wrong._

A good example of one of those sort-of fallacies. In reality, everyone is biased, and understanding those biases is part of politics. Politics is not a truth-seeking endeavor, and so fallacies are very much acceptable strategically. Someone who surrenders his own biases, and also surrenders examining his opponents' biases losses every time.

 _over-simplifying. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Political slogans such as "Taxation is theft" fall in this category._

Right, exactly. Actually, all taxation is in fact theft. The nuance that is missed by people who say that, is that some theft is positive-sum, even to the victim.

 _Similarly, a common justification for bribery is that "Everybody does it". And in the past, this was a justification for slavery._

"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those words.

<comment><USER3> _"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those words._

I am sure someone rationalized slavery to themselves like that. "All my neighbors have slaves, so I guess it's OK for me to have one too."

This is how I convinced myself not to go to class in college. "Nobody else is going."

<comment><USER2> Uh, again, no. At least in the United States, there was the _status quo_ which is not a matter of truth or falsehood, and then there were arguments. Slavery was always a matter of debate, and the South had lots of "good" reasons for the practice, and it was never "because everybody's doing it." That's a straw man, not that it matters.

<comment><USER4> And your argumentation falls under the Amazing Familiarity :)

Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries (according to Wikipedia), I doubt any of us know how every single person involved justified this enterprise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know who else made lists? Hitler.

<comment><USER6> The list is missing <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hate these fallacious argument articles, mainly because I think they miss the point.

Sure, if you're on a collegiate debate team it's great to be able to categorize the faults in your opponent's argument. But in the real world, we have discussions -- sometimes heated ones -- in order to advance some common cause. That means we should be working on each other's teams here. When somebody uses one of these, they're not "cheating" -- it's more like they slipped up into a simple response when a more well-thought out response was called for. Lists like this lead us to think we just point our finger and shout "ad hominem!" instead of actually engaging somebody.

Somebody can commit every logical fallacy there is and still have valuable and important information that you need to have. Heck -- they can actually have a better case than you do. If somebody runs in the room and shouts "you're such an idiot you probably don't even realize the building is on fire", the proper response is not to critique their argumentation skills.

I have the same problem with these lists as I do with design pattern books. The purpose shouldn't be to memorize the label and pattern, the purpose should be to develop enough critical thinking skills that you don't need the list, don't need the patterns book. Then the labels are just nice after-thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to know what the fallacious argument is called when someone cites an obscure logical fallacy in order to sound more intelligent, while ignoring the otherwise valid portions of the original argument.

<comment><USER8> It's a version of the Argument by Generalization: you show that one of the arguments is fallacious and generalize that everything the other has said must be fallacious. The generalization might be merely implied, by not responding to other arguments.

BTW, you are aware that 'cites an obscure logical fallacy in order to sound more intelligent' is something between an ad hominem and a red herring, because you draw attention to the supposed, morally questionable, intentions of the other, rather than face the fallacy head on?</comment></comment>


Poke at system files with Shortcuts - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1047599182901649410 <comment><USER2> Looking at the system version is always possible for any third-party app. If you have, say, the Pythonista app[0] for running Python code, running the following is the equivalent:

        with open('/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist', 'rb') as f: print(f.read())

But the apparently builtin plist parsing is a nice touch I'd say.

[0]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097?mt...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097?mt=8)

<comment><USER3> Neat, I didn't realized Apple started allowing interpreted code in developer tools [1][2]. It's surprising they even allow accessing the filesystem, etc.

1\. [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/07/apple_relaxes_devel...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/07/apple_relaxes_developer_rules/)

2\. Aside from the built-in JavaScript engine in WebKit which was always allowed?

<comment><USER2> Apple has always allowed interpreted code, apart from a brief period in the pre-iOS 4 era. What was new in 2017 was that apps can download that interpreted code on its own, instead of being user input.

It's not surprising at all, if you are in the iOS ecosystem and you are a power user/tinkerer. Pythonista is just one of those apps. IIRC I had quite some fun running Haskell on my iPad about five years ago.

<comment><USER4> There is a limitation on JIT compiling though which does not apply to the built in JavaScript vm.

<comment><USER5> It does unless you're running it in another process as part of a WebKit instance, via WKWebView or SFSafariViewController. Using JavaScript core directly still limits you to interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This brings back fond memories of being in secondary school (high school), and finding out you could circumvent the rudimentary "student friendly" restrictions of Windows 95/98/2000 by simply creating a shortcut to the C:/ drive on the desktop.

This allowed us access to CMD.exe and, well, it didn't take long for people to find a way to install games

<comment><USER7> Bypassing your school's computer restrictions in order to play games was a right of passage for the 90s computer nerd.

<comment><USER8> As was installing Linux on the unused secondary 2GB partition on every lab machine and enabling dual-boot so that you could come into the lab in the evening and launch a real operating system for the night's work and entertainment.

<comment><USER9> I used to carry a usb stick with knoppix on it

Most of my teachers had no idea what i was doing but actively encouraged it even though it was against most policies.

I'm super grateful for them</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Webinar: Journaling in 1.8 with MongoDB at 1pm EST - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Where?</comment>


Nokia Smartphone Sales Beat Analyst Estimates as Lumia Ships - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-26/nokia-smartphone-sales-beat-analyst-estimates-as-lumia-ships.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This reveals a bit of HN's biases. The news here isn't what the story that made the front page earlier said - that MS paid nokia 250M to sell phones. Rather, the story is that Nokia succeeded and sold 19M phones. While this still isn't close to Apple's 37M, it's a solid indicator that MS and Nokia may be down, but are definitely not out.

</comment><comment><USER2> The "Lumia" is actually 2 phones, one mid-to-high range and one low-to-mid range. I wouldn't be surprised if the lower end one sold more units.</comment>


Poll: 60% of Devs Will Soon Move to Win 10 Because of Bash - <AUTHOR> http://www.telerik.com/blogs/poll-60-of-devs-will-soon-move-to-win-10-because-of-bash <comment><USER2> a _twitter_ poll from a company that offers a .NET toolbox and whose customers include Microsoft, asked its twitter followers who watched the MS keynote if they would use Windows 10.

Sounds more like asking if existing MS-based developers will upgrade for Linux-like functionality.

I'm not sure what to call this headline and "article," but it's definitely not news or even interesting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Small population size, but a trend is starting to show

<comment><USER3> Small _sample_ , but thirty is infinity in Stats, so that's not a big deal.

On the other hand, results mean nothing because this is a convenience sample, not a random sample of _all_ developers. It only shows the intention of those who saw the poll and decided to respond to it.

Neither is independent of what the poll is trying to measure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Hoping the rest of the HN crew will help bring the bias out. It's an indication at best; not science for sure.</comment></comment></comment>


Weird Tricks That Fix React - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/two-weird-tricks-that-fix-react-7cf9bbdef375

<comment><USER2> This is a good article but the "Weird Tricks" title makes it look like spam.</comment>


Should Your Company Just Say "No" To Dropbox? - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2012/08/should-your-company-just-say-no-to-dropbox.php <comment><USER2> Your company should say "no" to any service it doesn't trust with its data.

Dropbox is awesome, but it's primarily a consumer product. Corporate IT departments are rightfully wary of its spread amongst staff, in case it doesn't have the security or other (often regulatory) requirements they need for their data.

</comment><comment><USER3> AeroFS, a yc alumni works great if you're concerned with where your data is stored. Nothing is stored on any cloud, because they use a p2p tech, or something like that. They also seem quite serious about security.

www.aerofs.com</comment>


Ask HN: Scariest startup hype you believed but learned not to be true? - <AUTHOR> <comment> apotheosis-neko The crypto currency crash of 2018 was a big one. While I bought in early I was deep into the Green. Swapped over to an alt-coin that was promising to make a Visa backed Crypto debit card for the whole world.

Took them too long, so I sold a lot then the crash happened and I sold more, never to return :)

Checked back on the project today and it seems it has not moved much since I last looked at it. No cards in other than one country! Seems like something easy to do: 'print plastic cards' that have a crypto backend, but apparently it is not.

</comment><comment><USER2> cloud gaming is a hype, which I have spent 3 years on.</comment>


Play the latest top-rated games on any PC - <AUTHOR> https://playkey.net/en/intro_know/ <comment><USER2> seems a shade pricey by comparison to other services most other similar services ive seen are around $30 for the top package this is significantly more expensive (the lowest package is more expensive than either parsec or liquidsky to name only a few) but doesnt seem to offer a reason why</comment>


Apple's secrets about the iPhone were revealed during Samsung lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2015/12/07/apple-secrets-iphone-ipad-samsung-lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10700128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10700128)</comment>


Apple Loses Bid to End App Antitrust Case in Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-allows-antitrust-suit-against-apple-to-proceed-11557757089 <comment><USER2> This is about the 30% that Apple charges developers for app store sales. This will be interesting to see if the courts will buy the argument that this is an abuse of monopoly power.

Not sure if this will succeed but happy if it does I think.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since this is public information, it's been covered by non-paywall sources as well: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/supreme-court-rules- against-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/supreme-court-rules-against- apple-in-app-store-antitrust-case.html)</comment>


Subtle Differences Which Distinguish an Entrepreneur from a Certifiable Nut - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkentre.org/2009/08/subtle/

<comment><USER2> the about page says it all: "This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.".

Or is finishing a proudct not one of the 'subtle differences' ?</comment>


Automated Inference on Criminality Using Face Images - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.04135 <comment><USER3> I thought this was a joke when I read the abstract, but it appears to be a genuine paper.

This paragraph in particular is one of the worst examples I've ever seen of researchers NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT THEY ARE DOING:

 _Unlike a human examiner /judge, a computer vision algorithm or classifier has absolutely no subjective baggages, having no emotions, no biases whatsoever due to past experience, race, religion, political doctrine, gender, age, etc., no mental fatigue, no preconditioning of a bad sleep or meal. The automated inference on criminality eliminates the variable of meta-accuracy (the competence of the human judge/examiner) all together._

Please, read _Weapons of Math Destruction_ and understand how excellent machine learning is at discovering and exploiting the biases in datasets.

Edit, no, sorry, it gets worse:

 _the upper lip curvature is on average 23.4% larger for criminals than for non-criminals._

 _the distance d between two eye inner corners for criminals is slightly shorter (5.6%) than for non-criminals_

<comment><USER4> First of all, I don't think this is satire. I'll admit that the use of a gmail account by a researcher at a Chinese uni is facially suspicious, but it's not _that_ odd given that cursory googling shows that both authors appear to be faculty members at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as claimed on the paper- though neither appears to have much, if any, background or expertise in machine learning.

I'm not much of a fan of a lot of the arguments made in _Weapons of Math Destruction_ , but I do appreciate that in summarizing you draw the distinction between the biases of the engineer or (illogically, but oft- claimed nonetheless) the algorithm itself and the data which is used to train said model, and I think it's quite a valuable concept in regards to this particular paper.

For instance, the data set they're using here is fairly small, and while, they did use 10-fold cross-validation, that's still a bit on the less than ideal side generally speaking neural nets, especially CNN architectures, which are usually pretty deep. Furthermore, the dataset itself seems fairly questionable to me. I'm not sure how much I trust the Chinese criminal justice system to adequately adjudicate culpability in the first place, but even setting aside such admittedly conspiratorial notions, it seems rather odd indeed that nearly half of their positive samples are not in fact convicted criminals but merely suspects. I do not find their attempts at devil's advocate persuasive as it's not readily obvious exactly how they used or obtained any of their testing with the three different data sets.

As for the appropriateness of the broader topic, I'm more or less of the persuasion that all questions deserve to be examined, and that provided the work does not cause direct harm, it's hard for me to support a prohibition on examination of a given topic. That said, I do think that the more controversial the question, the higher quality of research required, and, good lord, does this mess fall well short of the mark. Perhaps if there existed a hypothetical criminal justice system free of systemic biases or, more realistically, a method by which to exactly define those prejudices and account for them in the composition of a data set, this could be a potentially useful question to investigate, but even then it seems to me quite unlikely that there's any particularly significant relationship between one's upper lip curvature and criminal disposition.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I agree it's an entirely valid area of study.

But to do it you need _experts_ in criminology, physiology and machine learning, not just a couple of people who can follow the Keras instructions for how to use a neural net for classification.

For example, I think I remember reading a papers in the physiology field that show a link between increased testosterone and different facial features - <USER2> from memory (and I don't have the paper) there was no link between that and criminal offending.

In this case, the features they are finding don't seem to make any sense. A slight smile in the criminals seems more likely to be due to the way that set of photos are taken, and a number of the other features could possibly be explained by the fact the criminal set came from a single police department (in a single geographical area), while the other dataset was collected online. Given the small size of the dataset, if it included a single "family"-gang of criminals it is likely that would have been enough to taint the features.

<comment><USER5> China has 105 cities with over a million people each, and people there migrate frequently these days. A single gang?

<comment><USER3> Having dealt with some what similar datasets myself, there is a really, really good chance that the police department grabbed a days of arrests from one or two cities. There are only 730 positive cases - it's pretty easy to imagine that many of them could be from a single gang - either family or ethnically based.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This would be more useful if it were applied exactly the opposite way. What facial features is the court system or even society at large biased against?

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like they didn't split up the two training sets (criminal/noncriminal) into two testing and training sets?

Which would explain this 'paradox', it's just overtraining:

>The seeming paradox that Sc [the criminal set] and Sn [the noncriminal set] can be classified but the average faces of Sc [the criminal set] and Sn [the noncriminal set] appear almost the same can be explained, if the data distributions of Sc [the criminal set] and Sn [the noncriminal set] are heavily mingled and yet separable.

They're heavily mingled because they're identical and you're just testing your predictions with your training data.

<comment><USER8> they performed 10 fold cross validation

<comment><USER9> However, there is no independent data set used to validate the model(s). We have no idea how the models will generalize beyond this data set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Overall I do not think that the result is surprising. The large genetic deviations result in deviant behaviour and in deviant face. On the other hand it is next to useless for law enforcement since if it is applied to general population the majority of criminal-like faces belongs to law-abiding people.

The fact that we do not like the result does not make it false. For validation, see page 4, where they checked that a random labeling of images does not produce such a good distinguisher.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't think of a comment a that doesn't immediately invoke Godwin. This is like the setup to a Philip k Dick story. I wonder how many people outside of HN would think this is a perfectly normal result of a perfectly scientific study.

</comment><comment><USER12> People forget that arXiv is just an academic wikipedia. Anyone can post an "article" here. So a being "published" here is meaningless as to potential validity.

When referees at real journals actually do their jobs correctly, they check arXiv when given manuscripts to read & reject them if they have been posted to arXiv as violating the "no prior publication" rules at the real journals.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the abstract I gathered that average looking people are generally considered law-abiding whereas people with outlier features are more likely to fall into the criminal category: "The variation among criminal faces is significantly greater than that of the non-criminal faces."

Likening this to the "wage gap" where the XY chromosome is responsible for more outlier behavior: both the top of society and the bottom is both heavily dominated by male participants, whereas the female population is closer to the average and has far fewer outliers. Could this be related?

There's variance in XY chromosomes that cause men to swing wildly on the scale in both positive and negative directions. There seems to be an answer to the hypothesis that asserts that individuals with wildly differing attributes seem more often than not to fall on the outside of the law.

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't believe nobody has mentioned William Herbert Sheldon and his famous Somatotyping. This fell out of favor but he was systematically cataloging body features as a function of criminality.

</comment><comment><USER15> So people with more average characteristics are less likely to be convicted of a crime? Could mean they are at a disadvantage with juries.

</comment><comment><USER16> Fyi

Evidence from Meta-Analyses of the Facial Width-to-Height Ratio as an Evolved Cue of Threat

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132726)

</comment><comment><USER17> I haven't read the paper, and I don't really know much about ML, but this part stuck out to me from the abstract:

> All four classifiers perform consistently well and produce evidence for the > validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality, despite the > historical controversy surrounding the topic.

I realize the authors are intentionally skirting around this bit (it's not really the point of their paper), but the "problem" isn't that some physical features may indicate criminality, with some level of success. That's cool or whatever I guess, but hardly an issue or truly revolutionary I think from a social perspective (in person, people tend to understand "vibes" rather well, and bad vibes come from a number of things like body language or visual cues about a person. Humans have their own inference systems for these things, flawed as they are.)

No, the problem -- the "controversy" surrounding the topic -- IMO, is that, almost with 100% certainty, any implementation of this system will be completely left unchecked, will effectively be private, and will be totally unaccountable by any practical means.

Do the authors of this paper really think any implementation of this system would be open to the public in any accountable way, if used by say, LEOs? You know, as opposed to it being a big "every-criminal.sql" dump, based on hoarded data mining, and driven along and utilized by proprietary algorithms, created by some company selling to governments? LEOs in places like the US have already shown their hands with strategies like parallel reconstruction and the downright willingness to fabricate evidence out of thin air.

Really, who cares what some data science nerds think of their fancy criminal face models, and whether they think they're "accurate despite the controversy", when the police can just say "It's accurate, I say so, you're going to jail" and they can completely make shit up to support it? It's not a matter of whether the actual thing is accurate, it's whether or not it gives them a reason to do whatever they like.

It reminds me of rhetoric people said, about building walls around Mexico wrt the election. That can't happen. Who would build it. It'd be huge. Hard. Realistically? It'd be "easy". Humans have been building walls for a long, long time. It's not unthinkable. The difficult part is actually murdering people who would try to cross the wall by gunning them down -- and they will try to cross. I mean, you probably don't have to kill _too many_ people to send the message. Just, enough of them. The Iron Curtain was a real thing, too, after all.

This is similar. The algorithm is the "easy" part. It's "only" some science. No, the hard part is dealing with the consequences. The hard part is closing the box of Pandora after you opened it.</comment>


Stretchy electrode paves way for flexible electronics - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/2017/03/10/stretchy-electrode-paves-way-flexible-electronics/ <comment><USER2> Full paper, not paywalled:

[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1602076.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1602076.full)</comment>


Show HN: Q-Flavored JavaScript Preprocessor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tlack/jsq <comment><USER2> > I am distrustful of the newer JS standards and this lets me avoid learning > (parts of) them for as long as possible.

The mother of all invention.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been burned! Plus the harmony stuff never works in the browser you'd least expect..</comment></comment>


You can now help buy congress's data - <AUTHOR> https://searchinternethistory.com/ <comment><USER2> I understand this is fun activism, but I haven't seen a single "How" section on these things.

<comment><USER3> You have to give them your money to find out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't the only information legally available aggregate and non-identifiable?

<comment><USER5> I'd put "non-identifiable" in scare-quotes, but yes. This is a cute publicity stunt, but it won't work.

De-anonymizing datasets is generally possible to some degree, assuming the dataset has enough information value in the first place for someone to want it. (And it generally gets easier as more data becomes available with which to correlate.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ISPs will never let this happen. These people scratched the ISPs back and the ISPs will scratch theirs. No way will they sell their data.

Our data will be up for grabs though if the ISPs choose to sell it.</comment>


Ask HN: Determining how much you should contribute to your 401k - <AUTHOR> I have no first hand or second hand experience on 401k's, IRA's or other retirement accounts, so how do you figure out what's the right contribution rate for yourself?
4 out of my last 5 jobs have been 1099 employment. They were mostly contract-to-hire or contract with a low hourly pay (think, roughly 25% lower than the average local salary, with none of the taxes withheld). As you can imagine that made it very difficult to save money. I made sacrifices like moving back to live with my parents well into my 30's.
So I'm 33 now and looking to start a retirement plan. Currently I have 2 grand in liquid savings. I have no kids and not married or in a serious relationship. I'll try to get a job that gives me a 401k and figuring out what should I do to make sure my employer matches well. When I start, how much should I be contributing for someone in my situation? <comment><USER2> The standard advice for someone in your situation is, in the short term, to contribute enough to max out your employer match and build up your liquid savings to cover ~6 months of your personal expenses. After that point, you can ramp up saving your retirement. You're behind where you'd want to be at your age, but there is still plenty of time to fix that.

 _I 'll try to get a job that gives me a 401k and figuring out what should I do to make sure my employer matches well._

This is just a term in your salary negotiation, though it is probably less flexible than other numbers because they offer the same term in parallel to essentially all employees (by law). It will generally be phrased as "We will match $X with $1 up to Y% of your salary." You prefer lower Xs and higher Ys at the same level of salary, but when comparing between employers, you can just math out how much free money the company is offering per year and treat it as dollar-for-dollar equivalent with salary.

After you have ~6 months of living expenses in a liquid emergency fund, you should save substantially more than required to max out your employer match. How much more depends on your situation and goals. In your situation, I'd be shooting for probably 15~20% to set a nice high baseline for myself and burn in new good habits. People find it very difficult to adjust up to that number but if you start saving that much immediately out of every paycheck and don't have your lifestyle creep up to meet your new means, it is much easier.

Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I would suggest putting in at least as much as your employer matches. Preferably more than that, given that it seems you getting a later start on the 401k savings than many people.

This book may be helpful: [https://www.amazon.com/Yes-You-Can-Financial- Life/dp/1401911...](https://www.amazon.com/Yes-You-Can-Financial- Life/dp/1401911242/)

EDIT: As always, beware financial advice from random strangers on the internet. :-)</comment>


Mushrooms may 'reduce the risk of mild brain decline' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47554966 <comment><USER2> I seriously clicked on this thinking it was going to discuss shrooms and not the cuisine variety. Maybe I'm in mild brain decline, but kudos to BBC for writing a non-clickbait clickbait headline.

<comment><USER3> I expected the same, so it's not just you.</comment></comment>


What happens if you have too many jupyter notebooks? - <AUTHOR> These days there is a tendency in data analysis to use Jupyter Notebooks. But what happens if you have too many jupyter notebooks? For example, there are more than a hundred.
Actually, you start creating some modules. However, it is less convenient to work with them compared to what was before. It happens that you should code in web interface, somewhere in similar to the notepad++ form or you should change your IDLE.
Personally, I work in Pycharm and so far I couldn't assess remote interpreter or VCS. It is because pickle files or word2vec weighs too much (3gb+) and so I don't want to download/upload them.
Also Jupyter is't cool in pycharm.
Do you have better practices in your companies? How to correctly adjust IDLE? Do you know about any possible substitution for the IPython notebook in the world of data analysis? <comment><USER2> > what happens if you have too many jupyter notebooks? For example, there are > more than a hundred.

Like anything else, Jupyter Notebook is limited by the CPU and RAM of the system hosting the Tornado server and Jupyter kernels.

At 100 notebooks (or even just one), it may be a good time to factor common routines into a packaged module with tests and documentation.

It's actually possible (though inefficient) to import code from Jupyter notebooks with ipython/ipynb (pypi:ipynb): [https://github.com/ipython/ipynb](https://github.com/ipython/ipynb) ( [https://jupyter- notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/examples/N...](https://jupyter- notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/examples/Notebook/Importing%20Notebooks.html) )

> Actually, you start creating some modules. However, it is less convenient to > work with them compared to what was before. It happens that you should code > in web interface, somewhere in similar to the notepad++ form or you should > change your IDLE.

The Spyder IDE has support for .ipynb notebooks converted to .py (which have the IPython prompt markers in them). Spyder can connect an interpreter prompt to a running IPython/Jupyter kennel. There's also a Spyder plugin for Jupyter Notebook: [https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder- notebook](https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder-notebook)

> Personally, I work in Pycharm and so far I couldn't assess remote > interpreter or VCS. It is because pickle files or word2vec weighs too much > (3gb+) and so I don't want to download/upload them.

Remote data access times can be made faster by increasing the space efficiency of the storage format, increasing the bandwidth of the connection, moving the data to the code, or moving the code to the data.

> Do you have better practices in your companies?

There are a number of [Reproducible] Data Science cookiecutter templates which have a directory for notebooks, module packaging, and Sphinx docs: [https://cookiecutter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/readme.html#da...](https://cookiecutter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/readme.html#data- science)

Refactoring increases testability and code reuse.

> How to correctly adjust IDLE?

I don't think I understand the question?

"Configuring IPython" [https://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config/index.html](https://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config/index.html)

Jupyter > "Installation, Configuration, and Usage" [https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/projects/content- pr...](https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/projects/content- projects.html#)

> Do you know about any possible substitution for the IPython notebook in the > world of data analysis?

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_interface) :

> > "Examples of the notebook interface include the Mathematica notebook, > Maple worksheet, MATLAB notebook, IPython/Jupyter, R Markdown, Apache > Zeppelin, Apache Spark Notebook, and the Databricks cloud."

There are lots of Jupyter kernels for different tools and languages (over 100; including for other 'notebook interfaces'): [https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/Jupyter- kernels](https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/Jupyter-kernels)

And there are lots of Jupyter integrations and extensions: [https://github.com/quobit/awesome-python-in- education/blob/m...](https://github.com/quobit/awesome-python-in- education/blob/master/README.md#jupyter)</comment>


Create your own Justin.tv for $199 - <AUTHOR> http://jwz.livejournal.com/1297933.html

<comment><USER2> In the past 5 years, I've had quite a few moments that I thought 'Man, I wish I could have that as a video clip.' Unfortunately, it was just some random event and there's no way I'd wear this thing for months just to hopefully catch some 30 second segment of life.

But maybe others are less rational than I am and it'll result in a lot of awesome youtube clips.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would definitely consider buying something like this if it could be built into glasses to look less obnoxious. Additional bonus if a wi-fi hard drive could be added for longer recording times.</comment>


Spectral Representations for Convolutional Neural Networks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.03767.pdf

<comment><USER2> Reading through this paper, this is a logical extension of the recent work published by FAIR (Facebook AI Research) that proved that with careful implementation of FFT convolution that the speed up is very significant. The Facebook work though still had all the learning happening in the spatial not frequency domain. They are doing all the updating in the frequency domain, and have introduced a new type of pooling that uses stochastic resolution reduction in the frequency domain that seems very useful. Very interesting paper, I'm keen to try out the techniques myself.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.03767](http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.03767)

non pdf link</comment>


TSP in real life: Researchers Tell Umpires Where to Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=researchers-tell-umpires-where-to-g-11-08-18 <comment><USER2> Original paper: <http://moya.bus.miami.edu/~tallys/docs/umpires-inte.pdf></comment>


Ask HN: Have you done / plan to do any basic "prepping" (tinned food etc) - <AUTHOR> I have half an eye on NZ right now (waiting to hear from some friends of friends) and on the interwebs there are a few articles written by not obviously-insane people about how sensible it is to have a few stocks of this, first aid kits of that and so on.  I feel it's next in my list after getting the tax-efficient index savings going.<p>Is this a common thing and any advice? <comment><USER2> It's very sensible to prep for small or extended periods of supply-chain breakdown. My wife and I have taken the following precautions:

\- We have a few LifeStraw personal water filters [1]. These things are awesome -- one of them filters up to 1,000 liters of drinking water. Very reasonable price too ($20, you can get them for cheaper occasionally on sites like woot). I'd argue these are the most important items we own.

\- We have an abundance of canned goods. This isn't primarily meant for "prepping", but we always buy more canned goods than we need when we find them on sale.

\- This won't apply to everyone, but we have a large amount of heirloom seeds we've collected over the past few years. We have ~9.5 acres of land, so if things were to ever get rough (and plants still grew) we'd be able to get food that way.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.com/LifeStraw-LSPHF017-Personal-Water- Fil...](https://www.amazon.com/LifeStraw-LSPHF017-Personal-Water- Filter/dp/B006QF3TW4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=ketohunt-20&linkId=b2157e3851cfccad175aec7a61c608cb)

<comment><USER3> > we have a large amount of heirloom seeds we've collected over the past few > years.

Don't seeds get unviable (if that is the right word) after a few years? I've done gardening in the past, and seen that seeds a few years old sometimes do not germinate. Might want to test with a few of each kind and date range, periodically.

<comment><USER4> Seed viability is indeed the correct term.

Commercially bought seeds usually have a "best before" date on the packet.

There's some information here, but it's pretty technical: [http://data.kew.org/sid/viability/](http://data.kew.org/sid/viability/)

<comment><USER3> Had a quick look. Technical indeed :) But good to know - thank you. Heard of the Kew Botanical gardens in the UK. I guess that site will likely be a good resource for other related info and will explore it some.

<comment><USER4> Kew also runs the Millennium Seed Bank, which is keeping seeds from all over the world in a nuclear-bomb-proof vault in a relatively remote bit of southern England -- tests they run there is where the seed viability data comes from.

[http://www.kew.org/science- conservation/collections/millenni...](http://www.kew.org/science- conservation/collections/millennium-seed-bank)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One important thing that everyone seems to be missing is a firearm. What good is prepping if all of your goods can easily be seized? This is in addition to a firearm's utility as a hunting instrument, which could prove useful if your supplies began to dwindle. Regardless, owning a firearm is prudent whether or not your prepping efforts come to fruition.

<comment><USER6> This is terrible advice. I grew up with guns on the wall. My dad grew up on a farm, spent 26.5 years in the military, was awarded a purple heart. I grew up with gun culture and eating food dad killed himself.

If you are not actually going to become a hunter and seriously learn to shoot and become part of gun culture, don't go buy a gun "in case you need it, some day." That's utter insanity. It will just result in you helping to arm other people (that you don't want to arm, that will not be your protectors) and upping the stakes in the process.

I was a fine shot in my youth. I would be perfectly comfortable being around guns for the right reason, under the right circumstances. This is not it.

Instead of preparing yourself for some Mad Max bullshit scenario where you imagine you will play hero, having never done it before in your life, just work on continuing to improve supply chain, emergency response and so forth -- in other words, keep building a more reliable and more civilized civilization. That is your best bet right there.

If you actually are a part of gun culture and know what the fuck you are doing, I am not talking about you. So don't give me shit for telling ninnies to not do this.

Thanks.

<comment><USER7> > Instead of preparing yourself for some Mad Max bullshit scenario where you > imagine you will play hero, having never done it before in your life, just > work on continuing to improve supply chain, emergency response and so forth > -- in other words, keep building a more reliable and more civilized > civilization. That is your best bet right there.

I agree with this in part. Firearms proficiency is a skill that you need to acquire _and maintain_ if you want to be able to use a gun to defend yourself and your family without accidentally shooting them. This is a skill you can acquire with classes, but merely having the pistol/shotgun won't make you safer automatically.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for being the first reply that didn't wildly twist out of shape what I actually said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I feel it's next in my list after getting the tax-efficient index savings > going.

I have to admit that I chuckled a bit at the juxtaposition here. The concerns are both valid, yet they are preparations for two somewhat exclusive situations.

<comment><USER9> Isn't that the point of diversification?

<comment><USER10> Exactly. The risk-averse, in particular, should consider and plan for the full distribution of possible future circumstances, the less likely of which will sound far-fetched. (Of course)

This is why rich, old white men, with plenty to lose, are the most common preppers. (In greater proportion than their share of the populace.)

<comment><USER11> Actually I think it is some rich whites, countryside whites but not middle class city whites with the exception of Mormons and Jews for cultural and historical reasons.

The great irony is that the people in the cities surrounded by lots of competing mouths and only a few days supply of food at the shops are also the least worried about starving to death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I keep a weeks worth of freeze dried food rations/MREs, a couple of charged USB powerbricks, flashlights and batteries, body wash wipes, a basic bathroom kit. As I'm writing this I realized I don't have any water. I need to buy water and gas and put some stuff in my car.

Anyway, in 2008 I lost power for 15 days during hurricane Ike. It was an interesting scenario I'd never been in or considered. I still had to go to work 30 minutes away (Houston) which consumed gas, having to go to work during this might sound bad; but it was the ONLY place in miserably hot September in Houston where I could charge my phone and sit in an air conditioner because we had power. To buy gas I had to find a gas station and they all had insane lines (hours) if you could even find a gas station that was open AND had gas. All of those gas stations were 30+ minutes away from my house. Nothing in my part of the city (Heights, which is nearby downtown) was open at all. This might not have been an issue for some, but I had lived in the city for about a month and knew nothing but my neighborhood and now I couldn't use GPS or look up anything unless I was at work.

I had never really considered that some emergency like that would happen and that there still had to remain some normalcy of life (like waking up and going to work). I actually had to have my friend mail me food/items a few times because I was still able to get packages, I just had no idea when power in my area would be restored.

It was definitely an eye opener. Also property theft was incredibly rampant. There were times I had to sit on my balcony and watch my neighbors places because so many people left town and looters were looking for places with no people present. If you saw the popular "You loot I shoot :(" picture of the destroyed house from Houston during Ike, that was a block from my house.

I remember after about a 10 days the CVS down the block from me opened up as I was driving by. I ran in and left with about 10 boxes of Gushers and other random fruit chew type foods because all of their perishables were bad and candy was all that was left. But at least I had something to eat.

edit: TC Jester/Washington you loot I shoot image; [https://xnomad.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/17-09-08_1931.jpg...](https://xnomad.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/17-09-08_1931.jpg?w=980&h=980&crop=1)

<comment><USER13> The funny thing is..we lost power during Hurricane IKE too.... the jetstream went straight north then dropped down into cincy/dayton Ohio... we were without power for two weeks.. it's the only time I ever remember being touched by a Hurricane in land-locked Ohio. The nearest ocean is 15 hours away.

<comment><USER12> Ouch. I moved from Florida to Houston, so I was used to hurricanes and didn't even care. I remember watching the news and that guy in the bear costume dancing on Galveston beach before my power went out for the 2-3 weeks. The power went out and I just hopped on my phone and used it until the battery died. No concern at all for power conservation or anything.

Little did I know the entire TX power infrastructure is above ground and just ready to be decimated by wind.

[https://youtu.be/JLykQrCLKE8](https://youtu.be/JLykQrCLKE8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having lived on big fault lines my entire life (Salt Lake City and Seattle), I have been trained from kindergarten on about what to do in an earthquake.

In the closet of my 7th floor apartment I have 1 small-ish backpack full of a handful of useful things like a crank weather radio and some flashlights (all bought on clearance over the years). I also have an orange home depot bucket full of non-perishable, high-calorie food I got off Amazon. And a few cases of water. It takes up about 15% of my closet. I bet I could make the food/water last for a month if I had to.

So the answer is yes! But not everyone did earthquake drills four times a year during 12 years of public school... I am 33.

<comment><USER15> What does your food supply consist of? MREs, or things like peanut butter?

<comment><USER14> Similar to MRE, I guess. I honestly haven't eaten one. I got them via the advice of a sorta crazy friend of mine who has a bunker full of similar things (and guns) on his farmland.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We keep an emergency "go bag" in the front hall closet with tools necessary for basic survival. Included in that are 6 weeks worth of MREs for the family, water filtration system, water storage (fill it in a tub), rope, shovel, saw, first-aid kits, blankets, and so on.

Whatever the situation may be, whether natural, political, or zombie-related, we can grab that and hit the road knowing we have the basics.

<comment><USER17> How big/heavy is that bag? As someone that doesn't know much about this topic, that seems like an enormous amount of food!

<comment><USER18> My bag weighs 35 lbs. It's two weeks of food for two people, 3 litres of water and a bunch of stuff like a radio, flashlight, water purification kit etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I live in ruralish North Dakota so yes as having less that a week's worth of food in the winter is pretty poor planning. Get some stuff that you can eat without power. Plenty of places sell kits. Get something to purify water and get a radio and flash light (or lantern) with a dynamo and get a solar USB charger. Power bricks for USB are great.

If you own a home, get a Honda generator and keep some extra gas around (pour in car to rotate).

</comment><comment><USER20> 1) 3 days emergency food and water supply

2) Slowly building up a emergency cash fund. Every time I take money from the ATM, I peel off $5-10 and deposit in this fund.

3) Have financial, insurance documents with the emergency kit to be evacuated with me if required.

4) Hodge-podge of other things like caffeine pills, clean underwear, anti- inflammatory meds, feminine hygiene products, safety gloves, etc.

5) Offsite data back up for complete destruction of technical gear.

6) Recovery plan for loss of living accommodation & technology stored 1,000 miles away in my parents' fireproof safe.

7) Full estate plan in case I'm dead.

These are just some of the things I've got in place.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't have anything prepared. It doesn't seem necessary, either when I lived in the UK or now in Denmark. About the only natural disaster in either country is flooding, and that's usually a slow affair.

Does anyone in boring-no-disasters Europe make any emergency preparations?

I get the impression half the Americans here can't wait for some disaster; a chance to prove their mettle and lead their family into the mountains to survive for a week on army rations and purified water, while shooting wild bears and anyone who approaches.

<comment><USER21> I don't do any prepping myself, but I do not dismiss those who do. All of our systems are unbelievably complex and interconnected that I do not think it would take that much for things to go sour quickly.

Seems like the cause would be something that initially appears trivial. Less Zombie apocalypse or rogue government, more like infrastructure hack, big and sudden recession or drastic oil shortage. In the oil example, much of the systems of society would be put under sever stress. Perhaps we could endure it without any societal breakdown, but it would be tough keeping society running with mass food, transport and power shortages. Our governments make extensive plans to deal with these situations.

The stability of even first world countries is not so high as we might assume. "Every nation is about nine meals from anarchy"

<comment><USER22>
      Our governments make extensive plans to deal with these situations

Really? Look how long it's taken multiple layers of government (especially the Federal government) to deal with the Flint water crisis or the Animas river disaster... despite having no disaster-introduced transportation or resource barriers.

<comment><USER21> I certainly think they make plans thinking it will help. Whether or not their plans are any good, especially in regard to supreme complexity, is my point. I have serious reservations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We have fruit trees and berry bushes, the produce of which ends up canned and jarred and dried. We bake our own bread and as such generally have about 30kg of wheat flour in storage. In the barn there is about 100kg of oats, meant for horses but edible to humans. Add to that another 20-30kg of rice and pasta and we're set for carbohydrates. Cheese and eggs and (extruded) soy provide proteins (my wife is vegetarian so we generally don't eat meat, even though I'm the one mostly responsible for food preparation) but the forest is full of additional protein (deer, elk, boar, etc.) ready for the taking in case of emergency. Water comes from our own dug well which is not dependent on electricity. The house is heated using a wood-burning stove and a wood-burning cooking stove, also not dependent on electricity.

If power fails - which it does quite often here in the Swedish woods - we can live more or less like we're used to. If the power failure lasts longer than a few days we'd have to empty the freezers (containing fish and some venison, vegetarian wife notwithstanding - Bambi got stuck in the fencing so what could we do?) and salt the contents. Yes, we have a 30kg bag of (road) salt handy for those occasions, it doubles as dishwasher salt.

I don't consider what we do 'prepping', just common sense in that we reduce the amount of external dependencies to a minimum.

Someone mentioned guns but failed to mention his domicile. I assume that to be the USA given the insistence on having such. Sweden also has a fairly high number of guns (a bit more than 30 per 100 inhabitants) but the USA is in another league (more than 110 per 100 inhabitants) [1]. Most guns in Sweden are hunting rifles, the number of hand guns is relatively small. A hunting rifle is good for hunting but not that useful for threatening a group of people as the first shot fired will most likely also be the last. In the USA the number of hand guns is a lot higher and with that it is more likely to be confronted by someone carrying such, possibly necessitating a defence against this threat. Having a gun is not the same as being able and willing to use a gun. Having a gun but not being willing or able to use it carries the potential of having said gun being used against you. In that case you'd be better of without one.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country)

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's a site published by the NZ government. The advice seems fairly reasonable.

[http://getthru.govt.nz/how-to-get-ready](http://getthru.govt.nz/how-to-get- ready)

<comment><USER19> North Dakota DOT [https://www.dot.nd.gov/divisions/maintenance/winter- preparat...](https://www.dot.nd.gov/divisions/maintenance/winter- preparation.htm)

North Dakota Department of Emergency Services [https://www.nd.gov/des/get/severe-winter- weather/](https://www.nd.gov/des/get/severe-winter-weather/)

The photo on the last link tends to point out the problem

[edit: you haven't truly driven until you've attached a red flag to the front of your car (at an angle pointing forward) to warn people at a 4 way that there is a car]

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I evacuated a family of 4 for Katrina, handled antiterrorism for an aircraft carrier after 9/11, and deployed to Japan for Fukushima.

This will not be a 'canned food' sort of catastrophe. That's sillyness. People on this thread haven't thought through real catastrophes. Democracy works when we work together. Go talk to people. Make friends. That's what you're going to need. That's what we allneed.

</comment><comment><USER26> This will get downvoted into oblivion, but here is some advice:

\- Don't talk about prepping openly, you're making yourself into a target if things go south.

\- If you're going to prep make sure you have firearms, or don't bother. Know how to use them or you'll just be prepping for someone else.

<comment><USER27> > If you're going to prep make sure you have firearms, or don't bother.

That's foolish. Most scenarios you prep for (eg extended power outage) do not require firearms. That is an extreme situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Personally I have some canned food that I just don't find all that appealing, which I could eat if I needed to. Probably enough to get through a week. What I don't have, but I'd like to have, is a reserve of fresh water. A plastic 5 gallon carboy would be enough. I also have my hiking, camping, and skiing equipment which I could use inside my apartment if the heat went out in the winter for an extended period ... although after a day at -20 I'd probably start burning books and furniture. I also try to keep at least 1000 cash on hand at all times, and try to refill my meds when I still have 1 week left.

</comment><comment><USER29> The easiest thing to do is to get in the habit of buying an extra can of food every time you go grocery shopping. After a few months of this, you'll have a decent stockpile for emergencies.

<comment><USER19> ....and be a smart person and throw away what is expired. Check regularly.

<comment><USER23>
       ....and be a smart person and throw away what is expired

I understand what you mean but the advice to 'throw away what is expired' is just plain silly. Throw away what has spoiled, use the rest. Make sure to rotate your storage - first in first out - and use what you rotate out. Expiry dates are theoretical limits, not absolute cut-offs. This goes for not only food but also for medicines, most pharmaceuticals work just fine after the expiry date [1].

[1] [http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug- expiratio...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration- dates-do-they-mean-anything)

<comment><USER19> I had a friend who used a couple of cans in his emergency stash a while after the expire date. He then had two problems. It does pay to look after what you stash. If nothing else just rotate stuff so you don't run into problems.

<comment><USER4> Unless the seal is broken (and then you'd really know), old canned food is OK to eat. It might taste a bit dull, but it won't harm you.

At least in Europe, canned food is labelled "best before [date]" rather than "use by [date]".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You might want to check out /r/preppers, they're generally rational [https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/)

Evaluate the risks for where you live and have the appropriate supplies. In the Bay Area, for example, you should be ready for a large earthquake. You should also be ready for common scenarios such as extended utility outages.

</comment><comment><USER30> I do a minimal amount of prepping. I always have 1 weeks worth of bottled drinking water. I try to always have one weeks worth of tinned food. I'm thinking of buying MRE style long lasting self heating packs.

I have a couple of boxes of candles, and a couple of boxes of matches.

I have a very basic fist aid kit.

My county flooded a few years ago and it caused a bit of havoc, even for houses that were untouched by floods.

</comment><comment><USER31> People could learn a lot from Mormons. They haven't forgotten the importance of planning for survival. In the US the 3 main disaster scenarios with high likelihood are:

1\. New Madrid earthquake. If a 7.9 magnitude earthquake (same as quake in New Zealand today) hit's the New Madrid fault quite a few links between east and west would be severed that could take months to repair. Up to 15 nuclear reactors would go offline possibly permanently. This would cause long term power outages on a wide scale.

2\. A Carrington level CME.

3\. The end of the petrodollar slavery system.

Any of these events would cause major and probably permanent lifestyle changes for the survivors. Having food and water is important but having a plan to get more food and water is more important. Having a gun is useful not only for self defense but also so you have an easy way out should it come to that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Preparing for natural disasters and emergencies is a reasonable facet of life strategy. Disaster preparedness can be useful when more conventional strategies for dealing with life needs (education, a good career, saving) are temporarily less viable in the face of extreme conditions. I say this because prepping is part of a life plan not the entirety of a life plan.

Many of the lists that exist are useful places to start. 3 days of food and water, utility shut off tools, flashlights (don't forget the extra batteries) and the like are good basics. Prescription medications are often overlooked in preparations. Waste disposal and sanitation can also be issues if one has to shelter in place in an urban setting.

This post could turn quickly into a TLDR nightmare so let me throw out a few more specialized items I like that are beyond the basics:

1\. Auerbach's Wilderness Medicine. This massive two volume text is the gold standard for medicine in austere environments. It comes with online access which makes wading through it much easier.

2\. Powerfilm solar collapsible solar panel. The US military uses these panels. They are well made and durable. They are expensive but it's better to have one of these that works instead of a cheapy that doesn't.

3\. Multi-tool and sturdy folding knife. The ability to cut and shape things as well as apply torque can be extremely invaluable.

4\. There are a lot of engineers on this site. A basic HAM license is easy to get and in some areas HF is a reasonable alternative to modern networks.

5\. A friend who went through Katrina as a surgeon at a level 1 trauma center said sat phones lose utility quickly as media outlets tend to lock up bandwidth.

6\. Plastic sheeting - A few rolls of 8-10 mil plastic sheeting

7\. MSR Dromedary Bags - Love them. You can go a long time without food. Water not so much.

Don't forget your brain. Lots of smart people here on HN. Think about contingencies. How will I leave if there if there is no gasoline? Where will I meet my loved ones if we are separated? What do I have that will be valuable if for some period of time cash is not so valuable? Are my preparations easy to access and have I practiced with any items that require skill such as fire building or water purification?

Don't get lost in the rabbit hole. List the conditions you are realistically likely to encounter and plan for those. If you live in Hays, Kansas plan for tornadoes not terrorism.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just out of curiosity, what percentage of preppers do you think would share their horde of supplies with their neighbors?

How many of them would stick around and volunteer to help others in need rather than run away to their shelters to save themselves?

</comment><comment><USER34> One thing that's really useful is Weck Jars[0]. They're reusable glass jars with a rubber seal you put food in, then you boil them in water. This disinfects the food, and creates a hermetic seal. From what I've heard they've found Weck jars that were decades old, and when opened, they were still edible (even though taste suffered a little). They're also generally handy, because with some jars and a large stockpot for canning, you can have any dish within 15 minutes (cook noodles, drain, add butter to pot, add noodles back in, pour in 1 jar of goulash).

Disclaimer: They were founded in my home village of 150 people, so I'm a bit of a Weck shill.

Then there's staples that keep for a while. Rice, Beans, Flour, dry Noodles. Special mention to potatoes, which are delicious and rich in Vitamin C. Salt is also very handy.

Then, cans you can buy pre-canned. Sauerkraut, Pickles, etc.

Without using too much space, this can easily last you a month or two, and you can set up a revolving pantry. Most important, it adds convenience even without a disaster occuring.

Water prep is something that you generally don't have to do till there is a disaster. It's prudent to keep around some water disinfecting tablets or a jug of Chlorine. Interesting fact, if you're in a pinch, your hot water heater will contain up to 50 gallons of potable water. Shut off the inflow valve and open a faucet to access it.

Medical supplies are also something to think about. Antibiotics, gauze, suturing kits, disinfectant.

Tools. A full set of tools may come in handy in case of supply-chain breakdown. They're also handy in case of other breakdowns.

Power. You could look at getting a small gasoline powered generator. Or installing solar with some kind of powerbank. If you're going for full off- grid power, cooling&heating generally use the most power. Ditch the AC, install ceiling fans, replace your fridge with a chest freezer and a brewing thermometer.

Arms. You got yourself a gun, yo I'm living in these times behind enemy lines...decide whether that's something you need.

Knowledge. Go buy some manuals, keep them as physical copies or on an e-reader with a solar charger, or both. The entirety of the English Wikipedia can be compressed down to about 55GB[1]. Go take some courses.

[0][http://www.weckjars.com/products.php](http://www.weckjars.com/products.php) [1][http://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page)

<comment><USER35> What about oxidation (if you aren't doing something like nitrogen flushin)?

<comment><USER34> Flavor may suffer after a year, or 10. But there's no bacteria left to go through with the usual rotting process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Order some boxes of MREs. I think most people in the world should have have a month's supply or more.

<comment><USER36> You definitely don't want to eat MREs every day for a month. You can't only have MREs.

Just ask any guy who was stuck in some shithole in their service about what happens after you eat MREs for 2-3 days strait.

Commercial MREs should be fine, not military ones.

<comment><USER37> I took only ex-military MRE entrees with me as meals for six days of hiking in the wilderness. I'm alive, but I'm never doing that again. Yuck!

<comment><USER36> It's not so much what goes in, or what comes out.... more what doesn't come out.

MREs are for combat situations. Lots of the things you need to stay awake, run, fight, and survive. Not much of the stuff you need to live a day to day with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dictatorship of Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514591/the-dictatorship-of-data/

<comment><USER2> Spot on. If you start with the wrong metrics, and blindly chase any metric, you're on the road to disaster.</comment>


Emscripten: A JavaScript backend for LLVM (compile C++ to JavaScript) - <AUTHOR> http://syntensity.blogspot.com/2010/08/emscripten.html <comment><USER2> Some comments on this from two weeks back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644192></comment>


"Profession" (1957) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html

<comment><USER2> Ah, spot the anachronism - the 1950s view of the future 100s of years from now:

> "Now what's a Programmer going to be doing? Sitting all day long, feeding > some fool _mile-long_ machine."

<comment><USER3> What's the combined length of Google's data centers?

<comment><USER2> That thought had crossed my mind. An individual data center? I don't know, probably a lot less than a mile. Apparently they vary: [https://huanliu.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/amazon-data- center-...](https://huanliu.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/amazon-data-center-size/)

The whole lot put together, certainly larger than a mile.

Minimum size, in a few hundred years time? Definitely not larger than a mile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" There are ten thousand men like you, George, who support the advancing technology of fifteen hundred worlds. We can't allow ourselves to miss one recruit to that number or waste our efforts on one member who doesn't measure up."_

From Nine Tomorrows, as a final year student I remember reading this line from the short story prior to exams and relaxing for just a moment.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Tomorrows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Tomorrows)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've always loved this story. Reading it now, though, it's funny that it was written by the guy most famous for his robot stories. They seem like a pretty glaring omission. If you could program the job skills and knowledge onto a human brain, why not a positronic one? All the non-creative jobs would just end up being automated.

Which is basically the situation we're heading towards now in any case. Pretty prescient, I suppose.

<comment><USER6> Well, it might be cheaper to use a biological brain than to use a computer for many tasks, even a few centuries into the future. We're incredibly good at high level abstraction and problem solving. We're pretty flexible: you can "program" us with a few verbal instructions to do an enormous range of tasks and we fill in the gaps in the instructions. All that for the low price of US$10,000! (average cost of financing a human to adult age?)

I of course agree that human soldering is will hardly remain crucial to manufacturing.

That is, provided we actually needed to compete with robots at all (will depend on the demographic and resource situation of the future). It's likely most humans will stick to the most pleasurable tasks and only a few strategic activities will keep being rewarded for their raw productive value.

In other words, demography and resources equal, we're not really competing with move advanced tools: they should be just free our time and improving quality of life, provided we have some adequate scheme for distribution of resources.

That for me is one of the most interesting aspects to be explored by incoming changes: how will we manage our economy (among humans), and how will we manage our relation with machines as they gradually become more proficient at higher and higher level tasks? Will our definition of 'human' change in the process?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Such a wonderful story! There is so much emphasis on brilliant execution in software (and startups), but creativity is not celebrated enough. As with this story, it's not necessarily bad or good, but it is this way.

"You made this? That's cool bro, but how can we create a business out of it?"

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds stupid, but that's one of the reasons I'm working in software dev. Thanks, Isaac.

</comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps the story explains why so many people succeed greatly that don't finish college?

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the things I love about Asimov, is that no matter how much of his stuff I read, there's always something new out there.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. I was initially surprised I hadn't read this one before, but then when you remember how much he wrote there's no way I've read even a tenth of his stories. So I really shouldn't be surprised at all.

<comment><USER12> Profession and The Feeling of Power [1] always seemed like sister texts to me. They were written around the same time and explore very similar themes.

[1] [http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html](http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazing stories...

I found myself "struggling" in college (3.5 GPA in American, 26/30 in Italian) and I am surrounded by successful kids that have no answer to the question: "What you want to do ?" nor I see any effort on them to learn anything other than what its feed in our young brain...

I am going back to class to regain my humbleness...

</comment><comment><USER14> I read this maybe last year, but had totally forgotten that it was written by Asimov. Great writing, thanks for posting this here.

</comment><comment><USER15> great read. does this story reminds anyone else of The Giver (the highlight of 5th grade's conscripted reading)?

<comment><USER16> That was what I was thinking too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading asimov's short stories.

</comment><comment><USER18> This was a great story, thank you for posting it

</comment><comment> bra-ket super, I read it in Russian when I was a kid

</comment><comment><USER19> thank you!</comment>


You're Ultimate Guide to Grammar Errors - <AUTHOR> http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

<comment><USER2> Title of submission is currently "You're Ultimate Guide to Grammar Errors". I'm not sure whether I'm being trolled, the title is meant to be ironic, or both. :-)

<comment><USER3> And it's not even a guide to grammar. It's a guide to word usage. Why this is even posted to HN is beyond me.

<comment><USER4> The product guy in me is loving this. Seems completely relevant to me.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Teletext.Digital Emulator Resources - <AUTHOR> Https://teletext.digital <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all - I find myself going retro to avoid all the Covid insanity. I wrote a Teletext webpage generator in BBC basic and made this site. If anyone is interested I'll release the source. BBC Basic supports teletext in Mode 7 and it's a wonderfully fun and simple rabbit hole to go down!</comment>


Sed will write to read-only files - <AUTHOR> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.utils.bugs/18060 <comment><USER2> >This is not a bug, but rather a consequence of how the Unix filesystem works.

Yeah. this is something that really confuses new UNIX users.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with sed.

If you have write-access to a directory, you can delete any file in that directory. You can also create a new file in that directory with the same name as the old file. So write-permission on a directory is a bit like write- permission on everything beneath that directory.

The exception is the sticky bit... /tmp directories are traditionally 1777, meaning all can read, write and traverse, but the 1, the 'sticky bit' means that you can't delete or overwrite files you don't own.

With the sticky bit set, the directory functions the way most non-UNIX users expect; e.g. if I create a file and make it writable only to me, nobody else can overwrite it.</comment>