Facebook to Offer Face Recognition for Photo Tagging - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-magid/facebook-to-offer-face-re_b_797413.html Just a few hours after Time magazine anointed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "Person of the Year," Zuckerberg's company announced yet another new service that will attempt to recognize pictures of your friends based on their facial characteristics.Starting next week, Facebook will start using face recognition technology to assist its users in tagging pictures of friends. <comment><USER2> Same story, different source:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011002> \- cnet.com - no comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011628> \- mashable.com - no comments</comment>


Linux Bagels - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1olHmKT6j5ApF3dUQ1fMP3HaC61bIc7ODjWPMRUvND40/ <comment><AUTHOR> Please comment any suggestions/corrections. I've worked on this with a few friends, but I'd like to add more.</comment>


Ask HN: What motivates you to join a commercial tech company's dev community? - <AUTHOR> Are you a passionate developer who is part of various dev communities? What (if) motivates you to join a commercial tech company's dev community? Given that product is partly open-sourced? <comment><USER2> I've been contributing to [sr.ht]([https://meta.sr.ht/](https://meta.sr.ht/)) for a while, which is a commercial project but fully open source, so any work I put in is beneficial to others. Additionally, Drew (owner/author) has proven himself a prolific open source contributor so I have no problem in donating some of my time to his projects since I know it will all be paid back via his work on this and other projects.

The project is still pretty young so it's easy to jump in and add some polish or implement new features you'd like to have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, that makes total sense for fully open source projects, but I'm particularly interested in understanding developers' perception about partly open-sourced organizations with open programs and everything but the company as a whole is commercial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I evaluate a project mostly the same regardless of the (non) commercial backing. A rough estimate says that I use more OSS (directly) that has a company behind it.

My main criteria are community, ecosystem, and documentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good, thanks for your insight</comment></comment>


DDoS Attack Used 'Headless' Browsers In 150-Hour Siege - <AUTHOR> http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ddos-attack-used-headless-browsers-in-15/240162777

<comment><USER2> These stories about mitigating DDoS-attacks often comes up, but there is seldom any actual details on how it was done. I guess it's because there often is a manual process, analyzing logs and banning IPs and/or IP-ranges. But for these more automated mitigating services, what technics are used? I guess some of the techniques are based on complex machine-learning algorithms and considered company secrets. But there must be some general, more well known, automated mitigation techniques / indicators? For application-level attacks is it enough to ban the offending IPs in the firewall? If so, how do one best identify these IPs? Assuming one have access to the access-log, I can come up with a few ideas:

\- Like mentioned above; banning IPs / IP-ranges originating from countries normally not associated with traffic to the site (i.e. build a statistical knowledge beforehand)

\- Simple request counting, per ip, and IP-ban users who are overly active (again based on the sites statistical profile)

\- More advanced request counting, trying to create a fingerprint of the users behaviour (time between requests, etc) - and comparing this to the sites average fingerprint.

\- Keep a global request-per-time-count and use this to measure the current load of the site - the mitigation techniques will only be activated if the site is under heavy-load / attack.

Any other ideas?

</comment><comment><USER3> I was entirely wrong when I thought that I understood DDoS attacks fairly well. There's actually at least three different types of attacks:

"Layer 3 and Layer 4 DDoS attacks are types of volumetric DDoS attacks on a network infrastructure. Layer 3 (network layer) and 4 (transport layer) DDoS attacks rely on extremely high volumes (floods) of data to slow down web server performance, consume bandwidth and eventually degrade access for legitimate users. These attack types typically include ICMP, SYN, and UDP floods."

"A Layer 7 DDoS attack is an attack structured to overload specific elements of an application server infrastructure. Layer 7 attacks are especially complex, stealthy, and difficult to detect because they resemble legitimate website traffic. Even simple Layer 7 attacks – for example those targeting login pages with random user IDs and passwords, or repetitive random searches on dynamic websites – can critically overload CPUs and databases. Also, DDoS attackers can randomize or repeatedly change the signatures of a Layer 7 attack, making it more difficult to detect and mitigate."

This glossary proved to be quite useful: [http://www.prolexic.com/knowledge- center-dos-and-ddos-glossa...](http://www.prolexic.com/knowledge-center-dos- and-ddos-glossary.html)

<comment><USER4> It raises interesting questions about how companies like Incapsula will integrate with their customers in the future.

Fairly easy for them to sit and monitor the low level networking kit dealing with Layer 3 + 4 attacks, but that's the wrong place to focus on Layer 7, right? They need to understand the web app and infrastructure it touches.

I'm sure they exist in some form or another, but it's likely we'll see more design patterns emerging to deal with mitigating application attacks. Combined with the network/protocol control you'd have application logic feeding down suspected attack data to block

<comment><AUTHOR> You raise an excellent point.

We have a lot of application awareness configurations and our signature pool (which is one of the tools we use for traffic profiling) holds over 10M variant, sometime as much as ~20,000 per user-agent type, to cover all scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fair warning - I just got pinged from corporate security that this site triggered an alert on our IDS: "the IDS reported the machine accessed a site containing a JavaScript known to contain hidden iFrames and malware redirects". He said it was named "tongji.js". Can't investigate further as I'm still on said network and don't want to re-ping it...

</comment><comment><USER6> >Incapsula was able to mitigate the attack.

I wonder how considering the packets would not necessarily be similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I actually work for Incapsula. For Layer 7 mitigation we use a multi- vector approach which' among other things, consists of:

Client Classification - comparing visitor's user-agent, IP, header parameters and etc to our pool of 10M signatures. Suspects will get CAPTCHA. (~0.01% false positives)

Visitor Reputation - we use crowd-sourcing to compile a list of suspected IPs. The list is updated in real time. Combined with other signals, this data allows us a better understanding of the incoming traffic.

Progressive Challenges - We check visitor's ability to retain cookies, execute JS and so on. In this case, the browser-based bots were able to evade those defenses. (These are also the most commonly used Layer 7 mitigation methods.)

Behavior Monitoring - We look at abnormal access rates, visiting patterns, etc. Here we also look for correctional of signals, to help us pinpoint suspicious behavior.

And so, by collecting and cross-referencing different types of data, the system is designed to distinguish between humans and bots. The process is mostly automated and is always seamless.

<comment><USER7> This is a great & informative answer. PhantomJS allows an attacker to get past any progressive challenge but it is nice that there is something else to go on. A properly-executed PhantomJS DDoS is a scary thing, it's great that you have some methods of mitigation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How would you differentiate the traffic coming form headless browsers from normal users ? with a proper user-agent and javascript enabled, isn't it almost impossible ?

<comment><USER9> No, it's not impossible. Basically, you detect anomalies, i.e. gather statistical information about your users and their behavior in advance and apply that as a filter during attacks. For example, if you have like 10 new refererless users per hour, i.e. without a cookie and a referrer, but suddenly there are 1000 of them and backend is already slow - you should probably drop their requests. Same with specific referrers and any other information you have about your users. But this is kind of preventative only approach, it won't work if your site is already under attack.

<comment><USER7> The Referer header is just one more thing that a sophisticated attacker will spoof. I think the GP is correct - with enough preparation, a concentrated PhantomJS attack will look _exactly_ like users accessing the website en masse, and it can be very, very difficult to tell who is real and who is not. That is why they use a tool as heavy as PhantomJS, which (from experience) is not very quick compared to more traditional methods. It is because it spoofs a real browser quite completely that it is so good for these methods.

For example, some pages might do a trick where they set a cookie, load another page, and redirect / drop based on whether or not that cookie is present in exactly the form it should be present. Maybe they set two, one expires immediately and the other contains some complex data. PhantomJS can handle that easily (as it is just Webkit + QT) but traditional tools do not.

<comment><USER9>
      > The Referer header is just one more thing
      > that a sophisticated attacker will spoof.

It doesn't really matter, as attacker wouldn't have your data. For example, you know that on average you have 10 users per hour from some specific referrer and that most of them are coming from a single country. And you know this for every referrer. But attacker doesn't, even if he tries to fake it, his requests are either not going to satisfy the profile (he won't get something right, like country, user-agent, etc) or he will reach the limit (by trying to send more than N requests per hour for specific referrer, as he doesn't know the limit either).

Of course you could make it very precise by using a lot more data points for each user: where users usually go after which URL, how long do they stay on each URL, how many requests do they usually make, do they have your cookie, how long, etc. And I'm talking about cookies as a sign of a user, who already visited your website in the past.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone else seen this Facebook phishing attack? - <AUTHOR>

Take a look at this: http://www.facstatim.com/login/clien.php
I've been getting a strange notification from some of my friends on Facebook recently. It says "x has invited you to try 'update facebook security'". If you click that notification it takes you to a blank Facebook app which immediately redirects to the link  in this post.
It is clearly a clone of the facebook session timeout page and is designed (as far as I can tell) to harvest users/passwords and spread itself. After you enter a user/password (even fake credentials), it redirects you to another page to take your credit card.
My friend actually fell for the first part of this and some of his friends have now been sent the notification.
I'm not sure about how to report this sort of thing to Facebook but this particular attack appears to be very convincing since it's not at all obvious (to most people) that the target site isn't facebook.
I've had a look at the root of this particular domain and it appears to be completely harmless. Strangely enough, when my friend got the link, his was on a completely different site, so it looks like someone has gained access to multiple sites to deploy a version of this scam.
If anyone knows anything else about this I would be very interested to know more. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.facstatim.com/login/clien.php></comment>


Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell by Erik Meijer - <AUTHOR> https://www.edx.org/course/delftx/delftx-fp101x-introduction-functional-2126

<comment><USER2> Wow, thanks for pointing to this. Erik Meijer is awesome, and full of insights.

Even if he was a bit disorganized in the Reactive Programming class on Coursera, he still was a treat to listen to. Would like to see what he does here.</comment>


Big Names Take Hit on Theranos - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-names-take-hit-on-theranos-1480379536 <comment><USER2> This con is mind boggling, especially because apparently she swindled _everyone_. It's not like a small group knew what was going on. It seems like no one knew anything but her.

<comment><USER3> At what point does ignorance === innocence? At at what point does _claiming_ ignorance === innocence?

What are some of the challenges in proving malicious intent in these kinds of, ultimately, financial transactions?

The way the last financial crisis was "concluded" and the way Theranos will likely conclude leaves me with little to no hope for our justice system.

<comment><USER4> How is a crime and not just a terrible investment in a charismatic individual?

<comment><USER2> When you claim that you have a machine that does X and you KNOW that's not true, that's fraud. Amazing how people struggle with this simple concept.

<comment><USER4> Ahh. So the difference is illustrating who knew what when.

Good to know, but it's hard to generate much sympathy in an investment BEFORE proof of concept.

I had assumed that would be a civil suit instead of criminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't feel sorry for these big names. What big guys do to pre-IPO companies is same as what hedge funds on wall street: take 5% position in a company and 'pump' it on media (CNBC, WSJ). And the retail follows, thereby increasing the stock price.</comment>


We Must Cancel Everyone's Student Debt, for the Economy's Sake - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/lets-cancel-everyones-student-debt-for-the-economys-sake.html <comment><USER4> I was a low-information student, first to go to college in family. Once I decided to go however, the entire equation was what college could I afford and the living costs. Loans never felt like an option. Because of that, I basically was forced to choose a state school and live off campus in cheap housing. Plus side is I came out with no debt, drawback is I didn't have much fun. I guess that biases my thinking, but student debt forgiveness seems ridiculous for most all of the people I know who went deep in debt for a non- economically practical degree.

<comment><USER5> If that's your perspective, I can understand why it would seem ridiculous. But consider other perspectives. Think of all the people who weren't the first in their family to go to college.

Imagine that you're 18, and everyone you know tells you that you need to go to school to get a good job. People are competing to get into better schools, and you get admitted to a relatively nice private college with a beautiful campus. Your parents went to a similar college, graduated, got jobs, started a family, and are encouraging you to do the same thing.

Except now, college is something like 5x as expensive as it was for your parents, teachers, and advisors, adjusted for inflation. Your job prospects after college are worse, too. Maybe you manage to pull in $15/hr and you think it's pretty good, but meanwhile rent is 50% higher than it was for your parents and teachers.

You feel like you were lied to, betrayed, and you feel trapped. As a society, we _created_ this problem. I'm not trying to take away agency from the people who chose to take out loans and study whatever they felt like, but we did send an army of teachers and academic advisers after our children telling them that college is what you need, and loans are how you pay for it.

The idea of a "non-economically practical degree" is a bit of a red herring, here. It doesn't matter as much which degree you get as an undergraduate. Sure, there are a few high-paying degrees like geology but in many fields you can get work with a range of degrees. Based on what I was majoring in, people would ask me if I was going to go into teaching, as if that were the only option for someone in my field. Yet here I am, working in industry.

<comment><USER6> Then the teachers, parents, and professors who lied to you about education should bear the cost, instead of the future taxpayers currently in utero.

<comment><USER5> Funny you should mention future taxpayers in utero, because it's the generation with student loan debt that's not having children because they're too busy paying off student loans. They're skittish about getting married because maybe you're in love with someone who's $50k in debt, and you're not sure if you want to deal with that kind of burden.

Also, the idea of taxing "teachers, parents, and professors who lied to you" is absurd at face value.

<comment><USER6> Why is the idea of taxing the people who created the problem absurd? One, they're the ones with wealth to tax. Two, their ignorantly optimistic mindset is responsible for the education bubble. Both generations prior and this current generation realized the value of working instead of pursuing higher education. Three, they benefited from it. The vast apparatus of higher education, professors, administrators, etc., aren't staffed with millenials.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what you mean by "taxing the people who created the problem". Do we just tax people based on their age, and assume that anyone over 50 probably had their hand in this? Or do we test people to see if they ever gave bad advice to children, and give them fines? Who, exactly, will be paying the tax, and how do we identify these people?

Maybe I'm missing something, because this seems a bit too obviously absurd.

<comment><USER6> You wouldn't literally tax people based in advice they gave; instead it's a matter of using different funding mechanisms that are incident disproportionately on different groups. Funding stuff with debt is a _de facto_ tax on future generations. Instead, you can e.g. tax 401k withdrawals above a certain amount, higher property taxes, taxes on pension withdrawals, etc.

You can say that not everyone who draws on a 401k contributed to the problem, but that's besides the point. If you forgive the debt, then _nobody_ who is going to bear the cost will have had anything to do with creating the bubble.

<comment><USER5> I think we're having parallel discussions here. It's painfully obvious that simply forgiving $1.3 trillion in debt without figuring out where the money should come from is not a good solution. So I guess what I'm saying is I don't think I hold the viewpoint you're arguing against.

I guess I misinterpreted your argument for taxing the "teachers, parents, and professors who lied to you".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Skyrocketing student debt like you see in this chart does not arise because students today are less virtuous or moral than their predecessors:

[https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/09/...](https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/09/09-student- debt-1.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.2x.png)

It is the result of deliberate policy decisions, such as excluding student debt from being cleared through personal bankruptcy.

These deliberate policy decisions magnify the advantage that accumulated wealth has on success. Deserving outsiders are thwarted from fulfilling their potential in the so-called "meritocracy", so that by and large social mobility is stilled and American "meritocracy" becomes a first-order approximation of aristocracy.

When the policy decisions which have led to this crisis are so vast and immoral, _why not_ consider an action as dramatic as forgiving all student debt?

<comment><USER7> > why not consider an action as dramatic as forgiving all student debt?

As someone who would like to see public education be free _for future students_ , I'll give you 3 great reasons why rewriting the past is an awful idea:

1\. It would treat someone who worked throughout college (and possibly learned less and earned worse grades because of it) in order to borrow less - <USER2> someone who didn't even attend because they couldn't service the debt - <USER3> same as someone who borrowed heavily. It rewards a poor decision, one that others handled better.

2\. It would treat someone who took on $30k/year in debt for a mediocre private school the same as someone who took on $10k/year to go to an in-state school (or nothing because they worked), or $30k/year to go to a top private school. At least 1 of those choices is a low-return decision.

3\. There's a lender on the other side of every transaction and they may not have had anything to do with the policy decisions you disagree with.

Finally, the paper covers many possible implementations. If by "forgiveness" you mean that the government should negotiate a payment to lenders (so taxpayers are paying off everyone's loans), here's why that shouldn't happen. There's a much stronger argument that _future_ education from public universities should be free. Until that happens, given finite resources, any money that would go towards debt should go towards future students, not retroactively rewarding what may well have then been a poor decision. Pay/fund public colleges, not lenders.

Basically, any retroactive move rewards a lot of people who made what were then poor choices, and penalizes those who didn't. Focus on making (public or otherwise verifiably cost-effective) education cheaper or free for future students.

Also, here's a deep link to the paper PDF: [http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/rpr_2_6.pdf](http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/rpr_2_6.pdf)

<comment><USER8> the point of this article is that moralizing about who "deserves" it more is a waste of time that is destroying the economy. Is it really worth it to hold back everyone else just so you can finger wag at people that wern't responsible?

<comment><USER7> > the point of this article is that moralizing about who "deserves" it more is > a waste of time that is destroying the economy

That was arguably the point of the NY Mag article, but the paper that the article is based on goes a lot deeper, and doesn't claim that student loan debt is destroying the economy.

> Is it really worth it to hold back everyone else just so you can finger wag > at people that wern't responsible?

The last part of my comment addresses that. If you believe that (at least cost-effective) college education can have a net positive impact on the nation's economy, as I also believe, then put the money one would put into eliminating debt into making future public college free (or subsidized in whatever way maximizes impact for the subsidy).

Since they're both very expensive changes, the chances that both can happen is unlikely. Moreover, until at least some college is free, future students would still need to borrow. They'd re-create the same debt problem.

(Less important: it's not "finger-wagging" to not want to change the game underneath someone. It's trying to create a set of circumstances that reward good choices. Large swaths of our society exist to try to make incentives reward good choices.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this the most effective and most moral way to spend a trillion dollars? The benefits of such a policy would accrue primarily to households that don't really need financial assistance, and would do little to help those who really do.

<comment><USER10> I imagine federalizing municipal pension obligations would be a better idea.

It would have to follow some sort of extremely firm commitment to overfund future pensions though (future residents getting a rebate from previous taxpayers is way less hazardous than future residents getting taxed for current services).

<comment><USER11> Both are financially feasible with reduced military spending.

<comment><USER9> Can you make that argument with numbers?

<comment><USER11> On my phone at the moment, so I'll have to come back with an in depth Excel spreadsheet later (and I need to do additional research on Illinois pension debt; numbers available show it somewhere between $130-250 billion).

Cliff notes are military spending is ~$550 billion a year. Halving that gives us ~$275 billion a year ($2.75T over ten years) to direct towards unfunded municipal pensions that need bailing out and student loan debt forgiveness (along with other policies such as reducing the interest on student loans to zero in the interim to give borrowers relief). I also assume that social security tax thresholds are removed, preventing the need for general fund transfers to top up Social Security.

My apologies if I made it sound like we could write a single check and this is all fixed. It's more the thought that we have ample resources to resolve both issues in a controlled, orderly fashion if orchestrated by competent government representation (a guy can dream).

Edit: we spent $2.4 trillion on Middle East wars

<comment><USER12> What repercussions do you think a 50% reduction in military spending would have on national security?

<comment><USER11> A reduction in readiness and force projection, but not sufficient enough of a reduction to put American soil in danger.

Other countries spend orders of magnitude less than the US on their military, and remain conflict free.

Our current path is unsustainable structurally, and we must switch course.

<comment><USER12> > A reduction in readiness and force projection, but not sufficient enough of > a reduction to put American soil in danger.

And your qualifications for making that assessment would be?

> Other countries spend orders of magnitude less than the US on their > military, and remain conflict free.

Those "other countries" are, in almost every case, under the defense umbrella of a country that _does_ have an adequate military.

<comment><USER9> Unless you have countervailing qualifications —- in which case you should talk more about them so we can ask good questions of you —- it's unhelpful to bring qualifications into the argument.

<comment><USER12> Nope, it doesn't work that way.

The military budget is set by those who actually do have expertise in the area, not me. I don't need to show expertise to accept the judgment of experts. The OP is disputing those experts, and thus does need to show expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The really gross thing here is the insane moral hazard that universities represent in this feedback loop.

Universities, particularly through the media, exercise strong influence over public discourse about education spending. They also benefit massively from that spending. Canceling student debt without penalizing that feedback loop likely accomplishes nothing or a negative.

Whether you forgive student debt or not, universities keep their huge gains that they've pumped into infrastructure, administrators, and influence.

</comment><comment><USER14> My solution: Make it dis-chargeable in bankruptcy. Since it's a for profit loan--albeit at lower rates, especially compared to 20+% a year credit cards-- the lender took the risk. The next time, they'll price this in and think twice before approving every loan.

The borrower that took the loan--you signed it, right, and you were 18+ years old ? --makes a calculated decision on whether to file for bankruptcy or not. It has costs for the filer, _at least_ for 7 years, and possibly for life (some jobs will ask if you _ever_ filed for bankruptcy).

Other than that, who cares: you are a big bank...sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You should treat a bank like it treats you, if you can get away with it, of course.

<comment><USER15> I think there's too much moral hazard there. A young person, with no real assets (you can't repossess a degree) would probably decide bankruptcy is a relatively good option, immediately after they graduate. And so the interest rates spike to cover the risk, which makes bankruptcy an ever better option.

This is one of things, like corporations being able to sue governments, that sounds horrific but has relatively clear benefits because if the risk is too high the business deal won't happen. A classic prisoner's dilemma, and the answer to that is always to change the rules of the game to try to make cooperation pay for both parties.

Not that both systems couldn't be improved.

<comment><USER14> Debt is debt, you tried to make a profit and x% of borrowers cannot fully pay it (they might stop paying after 6 years for example, so not all is lost). The idea is to curtail this kind of debt.

In bankruptcy court they are protections, you cannot have $2 mil in the bank or a $250k salary and try to get out of paying $92k in student loans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Student dept payments should be tied to income.

After person graduates, they must use x percent of their income to pay student debt. In this way the student avoids the debt trap in the case of unemployment, or personal difficulties. Some may be able to pay the debt, some may not, but it's the government that shares the risk and has stake in seeing people getting the education they need.

Implementation can happen trough government either guarantees for the loan or direct loans from the government.

I think Sweden has this kind of system.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't this just cause rapid multiplication of art history majors? Free four years of fun sponsored by the taxpayer since x% of 0 is 0

<comment><USER18> 4 years of fun is definitively worth the risk of being homeless for the rest of your life.

Seriously what the hell is wrong with HN?

Do you really think the vast majority people are this greedy and short sighted at their own expense?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We must cancel _everybody 's_ debt for the economy's sake, but we also have to do it in a fair way. Thankfully, we have Steve Keen, who has already worked out a solution:

[http://www.ideaeconomics.org/a-modern- jubilee/](http://www.ideaeconomics.org/a-modern-jubilee/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Cancelled debt is usually taxed as income. Which would simply create another liability.

One alternative, is to securitize student obligations. they have avalue which is non-zero. And allow them to be traded in an exchange. It would provide the reverse incentive that certain majors or career paths would obtain better terms.

But an even better option is to simply allow for direct corporate sponsorship at the undergrad level. If Apple needs 300 extra kernel hackers by 2022. They should begin recruiting right at the high school level. Offering full tuition, stipend and guaranteed employment upon successful graduation.

In other words, transfer education "risk" away from students. And provide some insurance mechanism in case of failure.

<comment><USER21> > simply allow for direct corporate sponsorship at the undergrad level

It's hard for me to express, but I really don't like this idea. It turns education into training.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm OK with cancelling anyone's student debt, IF they also get their degree CANCELLED as well. As in, when an employer calls to verify their resume, the institution will have to say they DO NOT have what they claimed.

Otherwise, what about the many people like me who didn't do something so stupid? We can't go back in time. They end up with a free degree for being stupid, we end up with nothing for being responsible?

</comment><comment><USER23> This seems dramatic. Why not just cancel the Clinton administration's sinister provisions Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (the 1998 HEA) which made student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy? They sold out all the students with that.

<comment><USER17> When people graduate from college, they basically have nothing yet. They haven't had time to acquire anything. This would make it trivial to get free education at the taxpayers' expense. Declare bankruptcy on graduation day, and then move on with your life.

<comment><USER23> That wasn't a big problem before 1998. There are many disincentives to bankruptcy which is why people who are not broke or those with prospects to earn aren't lining up to do it.

If a college actually prepares a student for the job market they would be insane to do this; if it doesn't they may have no recourse.

Very few forms of debt are excluded from bankruptcy. IMO it's far from humane to make college, of all things, in that category. Should those who pay huge $$$ for American degrees and then can't get jobs be forced to pay the bloated costs despite having to go back to a retail job where they can barely survive? The original act takes a civil liberty, which most people enjoy, from a vulnerable group. Young people just starting out who may have made a huge investment that didn't pan out... being unable to declare bankruptcy prevents such young people from getting back on sound financial ground for potentially decades. It's embarrassing that the Clintons haven't taken more heat for this, arguably nothing but an act of crony capitalism.

<comment><USER17> What sort of the job does a bachelor's degree in art history or classic greek literature prepare one for?

(A PhD in those fields could make one a professor, but a BA does nothing)

<comment><USER23> If lenders didn't expect to be repaid unconditionally, they would be less likely to lend money to college degrees that were likely to be financially worthless. This is as it should be. Before the modern financial aid situation, some people still managed to get degrees with more of a classical academic focus (i.e. without regard to market considerations). There were fewer of them, but then the odds they had to go work at Denny's afterwards were also probably lower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I find it difficult to understand how taking money from people who earned it, even if used to "forgive" loans borrowed with expectation of repayment, is a means to increase economic activity. How is this different than the broken window fallacy? The students, loans forgiven, are now going to spend their former loan payments, sure, but the former recipients of those payments will not be spending them. Sounds like zero-sum game with a feel good motive.

</comment><comment><USER25> I spent most of my 20s paying off my loans, I guess if this happens that would make me the biggest sucker alive.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article is clearly wishful thinking, but it struck me that they want to do a big debt forgiveness thing without worrying about why people rack up these debts and just leave that as something to be figured out after we've done this big expensive thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Addressing the "astronomically rising tuition" issue is equally important.

</comment><comment><USER28> People always bring morality into these discussions which then makes discussion difficult, since it becomes about how we all feel about it.

Rather than thinking about how much it's 'right' or 'wrong' to forgive debt, let's try to keep focus on the effect it would have on society. Positive? Negative? And, if it truly is deeply immoral to forgive debt, what effect would this have on society? Would the problems introduced thereby outweigh the benefits?

</comment><comment><USER29> No, this is just plain stupid. You (wherever student debt is so common) must prioritize early school education about personal finance and loan consequences.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yes, and everyone should be given free pizza for life and a new Corvette also.

People need to make responsible decisions, that's all.</comment>


Show HN: SeaUrchin.IO // Real-time insights for your site's search experiences - <AUTHOR> https://seaurchin.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, we've worked hard over the past year bringing enterprise-level insights to any search experience on the web. No code required.

Please check it out, and share your feedback / comments here. Thanks!</comment>


An Algorithm Identified West Africa's Ebola Outbreak Before It Was Announced - <AUTHOR> http://publichealthwatch.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/how-a-computer-algorithm-predicted-west-africas-ebola-outbreak-before-it-was-announced/

<comment><USER2> An algorithm that "identifies" outbreaks by assigning positive likelihood to each report from "local press" will: a) always identify outbreaks before WHO b) incorrectly identify substantially all cases by falsely indicating a positive c) be no more valuable to public health than a sensationalist supermarket tabloid

A misleading and inaccurate article.

<comment><USER3> I think you are under-representing what HealthMap is[1]. It is more than a Google Alert tied to Google Maps and, while still fairly new, it is an active research and development project from Boston Children's Hospital, with a large set of publications around the problem-space of using big data to identify disease outbreaks[2].

So, yes, TFA is sensational, but that doesn't mean the tool it's reporting on is useless.

1\. [http://healthmap.org/site/about](http://healthmap.org/site/about)

2\. [http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications](http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title of this link is a bit sensationalist. Keep in mind: "What makes it so extraordinary that HealthMap picked up on the outbreak before the WHO's announcement is not that the tool necessarily identified it first (it's doubtful that it did), but that the algorithm was able to detect such small bits of informal information and piece them together as soon as the first reports of an unknown hemorrhagic fever started spreading."

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how many of these sorts of algorithms are out there? We might be hearing about the guy that received 10 consecutive accurate stock tips.

</comment><comment><USER6> Smells like a press release. No actual information on "algorithm" except:

 _So how did a computer algorithm pick up on the start of the outbreak before the WHO? As it turns out, some of the first health care workers to see Ebola in Guinea regularly blog about their work. As they began to write about treating patients with Ebola-like symptoms, a few people on social media mentioned the blog posts.

And it didn't take long for HealthMap to detect these mentions. While social media isn't necessarily the most reliable source of news, HealthMap's algorithm is specifically designed to sort out the "noise" from the "signal" as it digs through the data, making the results far more useful._

</comment><comment><USER7> Having a predictive tool is interesting but is it (HealthMap) believed enough to influence decision making?

<comment><USER8> I doubt it. I thought about posting it to HN early on in the outbreak (when it was already in the news headlines) as a way to monitor events - I had gone looking for a tool like this, and was surprised not to find Google doing it in Maps - but I decided not to other because the Healthmap data seemed too 'fluffy' to be really informative. It's a great project but I'm not sure how you distinguish between real outbreaks and localized panics based on rumor.</comment></comment>


Hewlett Packard Enterprise Is Said to Plan About 5k Job Cuts - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/hewlett-packard-enterprise-is-said-to-plan-about-5-000-job-cuts <comment><USER2> I've watched the slow-motion trainwreck that is HP and HPE though the lens of working with ArcSight, a very expensive and formerly segment-leading enterprise SIEM tool.

HP spent a billion and a half dollars to buy them in 2010 and then immediately didn't seem to be able to do anything with it. They ignored needed updates while competitors got better every year. They didn't even seem to be able to actually sell the thing - I had a large client who wanted to upgrade to the latest version (more than a million dollars in licensing costs alone), and couldn't get anyone at HPE to return their calls to actually sell him the thing; after six months of trying to give them his already-approved budget, they gave up and bought a competing product.

Now they've sold it off to Micro Focus, who seem to be a company whose business model is milking dying software for support and professional services money.

HPE is an organization that has grown so dysfunctional that it's essentially incapable of operating. Somehow I doubt laying off 5k people is going to help that very much.

<comment> le-mark This is a recurring theme with a lot of these types of large companies (Microfocus, CA, Compuware, BMC) they'd buy up companies with niche or larger products, and the products would wither and die. If not simply disappear. One of my long term side projects has been an editor for fixed length files that uses cobol copybook to map the files. A common use for this type of thing is editing/viewing ACH files. There was at least one of these for PC's, but disappeared into one of these companies a long time ago. Note I'm looking for beta testers if anyones interested (email in profile).

<comment><USER2> Definitely - CA is particularly bad about this; I've always thought of it as a killing jar for companies.

Though with ArcSight, there really is no reason it had to go this way. When HP bought them, they were the undisputed market leader in an extremely lucrative and growing segment that has continued to grow in the years since.

If CA is a like a trucking company that buys old but still serviceable trucks on the cheap, and then runs them into the ground without maintenance, HPE and ArcSight is like buying a Ferrari at top price, leaving it to molder in the woods somewhere for a decade, then selling it for scrap. Just a ridiculous waste by a company that has nothing going for it but momentum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having previously worked at HP for 10+ years I can clearly state that HP is always in the midst of some layoff. After the first Carly purge of 2001 they decided to make it stealthy instead of big bang.

Edit: I decided to share what the Carly purge was like. We all knew that on a certain day we'd have the layoffs. Walk into the office. Conference room doors had windows on them, they were all papered over. Conf rooms had lots of boxes of tissues and bottles of water. You'd sit at your desk and someone would come by and tap you on the shoulder. It was pretty miserable. After that experience I think they decided that they'd announce stuff like this but do it much lower key, not all on the same day and very privately.

<comment><USER4> Wow. After something like that happened I'd start looking for a new job regardless of whether I was laid off or not.

Similarly, I started looking to leave my first job out of university when they started offshoring some of the engineer positions to Ukraine. They weren't laying anyone off in the US but it was clear that they were trying to hire more people in Ukraine, which might put downward pressure on the wage raises of the US-based workforce, so I started looking and got out of there within months. The offshoring never did quite work out for them though (turns out that it's hard to offshore _consultants_ ).

<comment><USER3> The economy sucked in 2001 and I was in that weird position where you're in between new college hire and experienced (2-3 years). I tried looking for a job, it was terrible. I ended up sticking around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "she said she's pushing to cut "layers" in the organization and become more efficient"

I hate this kind of nonsense. You can't just get rid of thousands of people then say "efficiency" and retain full productivity. At a place like HP that's bidding on 8 or 9 figure deals, you absolutely can't function without a sizable bureaucracy.

<comment><USER6> Sadly, there is another economic reality: most good businesses are actually very inefficient and could cut 10% without missing a heartbeat.

Here's the key: when businesses develop dominance in a market, they get fat margins - and they often just 'hire'. It becomes instinctive to think that 'people create value' and so they hire. Moreover - VP's, Directors, Managers are all trying to build their status, and they 'push to hire'.

I worked at a post-startup-stage high-growth company, and my VP was given directive to 'hire 100 people'. Completely not driven by business needs, or project needs, or ROI. 'Just hire'.

There is sometimes good strategic reasoning for 'just staffing' up i.e. scrape all of the talent in an area way from competitors, be a 'real company' to validate the upcoming IPO etc.. but it's really perverse.

Google, FB, MS - all guilty of this. Regular companies just the same.

I'll bet 1/2 of finance today could be replaced by computers - or frankly nothing. 1/2 of Hedge Funds could just put their money in indexes, drop their staff and get the same results.

Large successful companies often spend billions on 'new projects' that are doomed to fail - one could argue that 'failure' is part of the innovative process, yes, but it might be more efficient to invest/partner with startups.

When big, lumbering companies start to wane, well, they can't afford all the graft and have to start letting go.

It's an odd cycle, and it's surprisingly not as directly related to productivity as we might want to imagine.

I once worked with a large internal marketing team of maybe 25 people, they did almost nothing. Nobody was really sure what they were there for. They 'did stuff'. They were smart, nice. But they were very irrelevant - and I took pains not to discount their effort, i.e. not realize that they were 'important but unrecognized' cogs in the wheel. No. They were hired 'for hiring sake' and 'worked' for the sake of 'work'. This is common. A lot of big, entrenched industries are like this.

<comment><USER7> Don't you mean 100% of all hedge funds could drop their money in index funds and get _better_ results? That's the way I interpreted the outcome of the Buffet bet.

<comment><USER8> That'd be true if all hedge funds were actually trying to just beat the S&P. The vast majority, however, aren't trying to do that all; they're trying to create different risk/return profiles than you get by just indexing large-cap US companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do people keep putting forth Meg Whitman for a possible presidential run? Obviously, even a baboon would be better and more consistent than the current POTUS but HP has such a terrible reputation and seems like it's always in crisis mode, laying people off, etc. not to mention they can't even keep a support page up. I guess she's making money for someone and those folks would like to see her in office but maybe we should stop thinking that CEOs are qualified to run the country.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/71kkr0/thank_you_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/71kkr0/thank_you_hp_for_your_great_printer_support/)

<comment><USER10> Well unlike corporations, governments have completely different pressures than the market. Being president is much different than a track record of strong corporate performance. Since the US is an oligarchy, its about being well connected, the ability to source and channel political talent, and represent the voices of the elites.

<comment><USER9> Sad but good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You know, the thing that really gets me about these things is this: Most of the people getting laid off did nothing wrong; all most of them are guilty of is choosing the wrong company to work for. Meanwhile, the executives and managers are guilty of mismanagement, yet they're getting rewarded for doing this.

<comment><USER12> When engineers make mistakes in software, do we not want forgiveness? A chance to learn from mistakes?

I get the ire, but the world is a dirty place.

<comment><USER11> When I make mistakes in software, I don't get rewarded for it. And it sure as hell doesn't mean a lot of people lose their jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked for HP during their split. HPE paid some firm 500k for their new logo. Their logo is a green rectangle, something you could do in MS Paint in literally a second.

HP/E is way too bloated and IMO has very poor management. They have a nice patent portfolio, though.

<comment><USER14> So by your logic, the more you pay for something the more complex it should be?

<comment><USER15> pretty much. Or rather: the more you pay for something the harder it should have been to produce.

I think in almost every situation you shouldn't be spending a half-mil on a logo redesign. That's super excessive.

<comment><USER16> 99 percent invisible has a podcast discussing this issue with a designer who takes the opposite position. A main point is that a simple, reproducible logo is ideal.

[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/negative-space-logo- de...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/negative-space-logo-design- michael-bierut/)

<comment><USER17> Sure simple is good but a rectangle? Come on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article says that HPE has 50k employees. According to Wikipedia, they have almost 200k.

Who's right?

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

<comment><USER19> What we knew as Hewlett-Packard is now broken up and part of several companies. First there was HP, Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise with the bulk of the employees at HPE. Then HPE spun out the Enterprise Services division (now part of DXC Technology) and Software division (now part of Micro Focus). Those combined were a majority of the employees. What you have left in HPE today could be 50k people.

<comment><USER20> Warning: Rant coming.

Will MicroFocus retool their software support pipeline? I hope so, because I'm starting to advocate we drop all their software because their first line of support is utterly incompetent. For example, I had to submit a ticket recently about a product we use. On the form, I selected the closest option to the software we had, say Product X, though my exact product wasn't listed. My inquiry was extremely specific and could only possibly be about one thing. Yet the first tech just threw the ticket back at me asking "can you clarify what version of product X you're on?"

It made absolutely no difference what version of PRoduct X I was on, so I wasted a good 48 hours so far. Then I wasted another 48 hours educating this person on what the product I was using even did.

If you need enterprise support at this point with HPE/MicroFocus, you have to escalate your tickets immediately and act pissed off or you certainly will be by their inept first line because they make it rather difficult to actually get someone on the phone that knows their own products.

Edit: To be clear, this happens with everyone I've ever met that has to engage HPE software support. I'm genuinely curious if anyone has any positive experiences because I've yet to encounter one myself or by proxy.

<comment><USER21> What you are describing is not new -- I was at an HP partner for about 5 years and it was always like that. One way around it was to buy into their premium support plan, where you got a named support contact. There were very few competent support people, but the ones at that level were solid. Secondly, yes -- the moment you put in a ticket, you also make a phone call and you ask for your ticket to be escalated. It also helps to call your sales rep and let them know you need support. Often that was the key, as they would put a lot of pressure on from the inside. I don't know the current MicroFocus world as well, but it was also possible to buy support contracts from partners like my firm, where those official support partners would also work to back-channel things for you.

If your issues are with the BSM / APM stack, shoot me an email I'll be glad to help. Also happy to refer you to MicroFocus partners that I trust and would use myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As an HPE employee, we've been hearing of major layoffs for the last few months, and they're supposedly going to start in November...

<comment><USER23> Not that this is really any help, but an acquaintance of mine works for HPE and notified he was being laid off yesterday, and his last day is today. He was with HP (now HPE) for maybe 4-6 years.

<comment><USER24> How is that legal?

<comment><USER25> Why wouldn't it be legal? Virtually every US state has zero notice requirements -- tell your employee that they are being fired, laid off or otherwise no longer going to work here, pay them what you owe them immediately, and you're done.

"Two weeks notice" is a social nicety, good for maintaining good relationships and status. If you don't care about those things, you can quit or fire on the spot.

<comment><USER26> I hate that there is such a double standard with this. Corporation can eliminate my employment at any time with zero notice and suffer minimal reputational impact. If I decide to quit right now and walk out of my office, I have to worry about long lasting reputational issues and "burning bridges". I get why it's like this, corporations have all the leverage, just hate that the dynamic exists.

<comment><USER27> Almost all of the Indian IT companies have a 3 month notice period. If we were to quit before that, we may not get the service certificate which would be needed for a new job.

At the same time, they can fire us (usually being called into HR room and forced to resign) at will. Even if there is any compensation, it will be 3 months basic pay (basic is only a percentage of the full salary).

Thus we get to enjoy the bad things of capitalism without any of the protection it offers.

<comment><USER11> "Thus we get to enjoy the bad things of capitalism without any of the protection it offers."

As it is, I think you do have all the protection capitalism offers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> HP Alumni resources: [http://www.hpalumni.org/index](http://www.hpalumni.org/index)

Excellent resource for HP/HPE staff leaving the company.

</comment><comment><USER29> No wonder Meg wanted the Uber job.

</comment><comment><USER30> Just in time for quarterly earnings report.

</comment><comment><USER12> Last year before I graduated, I was offered a very lucrative software engineering position in Nowhere, Arkansas. It seemed interesting, but in my 10$/hour opinion I had other goals for myself, and there didn't appear to be a community that would help me grow where they wanted me to work.

On top of this, one of their VPs made a hard sell of the position, which, didn't make me feel particularly comfortable so I politely declined.

This article didn't mention Arkansas, or Software positions at all. I'm curious in any SME's opinion if I've dodged a bullet?

IBM is also building up a cloud provider solution, in addition to Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's solutions. I feel like a lot of shops are pretty entrenched in AWS, and HPE is kinda new and seems to be pivoting a lot. Somethings got to give in that market, no?

<comment><USER31> re: IBM, I'm not sure that SoftLayer/bluemix is getting a lot of traction. AWS: IMO they are the leader to be defeated by the competitors, doing well, cutting prices, making it easy for devs. Google: have heard positive signals especially around ML. MSFT: don't know a lot but I heard they are going to let you run your own Azure on-prem. HPE as a IAAS provider? I doubt it

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Maybe I'm just not as knowledgeable as the elite of the _hackerati_ , but I haven't noticed HP doing anything relevant in at least 10 years.

These days everyone I know codes on a Mac. Most bulk order desktops I see are Dells.

I ask seriously, with no intention to troll: what is HP good for these days?

<comment><USER18> This article isn't about the laptop and printer manufacturer, it's about a gigantic enterprise software consultancy.

<comment><USER32> The also still make enterprise hardware (servers, storage, networking).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have been contracting with HPE for some time now and I went through the HPE/HPI split and asset spinoffs to DXC & Microfocus. I did not realize until now that HPE headcount had shrunk to the point where 5000 layoffs represented a 10% reduction in the workforce.

</comment><comment><USER34> Meg is running this company into the ground. Carly helped kick off the process

</comment><comment><USER35> Any HPE software engineers looking hit me up at posix4e at gmail .com

<comment><USER36> Likewise, any cloud infrastructure engineers in the Bay Area that might be looking, shoot me a mail - sai at floydhub dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Could we be possibly be looking at HP taking HP/UX the same way that Oracle took Solaris? i.e. tossing it overboard?

<comment><USER38> God I hope so. The last time I touched HP/UX was 2001. I still have nightmares. It's a wretched UNIX. It was running veritas, another wonderful pos software.

<comment><USER37> Nothing like long-term legacy support contracts for a bit of cash injection...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The cloud market is super competitive right now. HP tried to develop its own OpenStack based cloud but AFAIK it didn't turn out very well at all.

I'm wondering what their strategy is going forward. Are they still in the cloud business or are they gonna stick to the hardware/server side of things.

<comment><USER40> Their mistake was buying this cloud company, Attunity, for $11 billion, and then realizing the company had completely defrauded them with fraudulent accounting. They had to do a 100% write-off.

<comment><USER41> I think you mean Autonomy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm in ArcSight/HPE now under Micro Focus. Does this news still affect us?

</comment><comment><USER10> I am glad I didn't accept their job offer. Nice people though.

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone know which division HP Labs falls into?

</comment><comment><USER44> Title should really be HPE, since hp is the consumer side, and the jobs effect the enterprise...

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, changed to HPE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Title should be HPE.</comment>


Show HN: An Open-Source Data Science Curriculum - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/datasciencemasters/go/ <comment><USER2> Well done! As a data scientist, I can say that your curriculum is spot on.

And I also think you're taking the right approach building/hacking/doing rather than going to an institution. This stuff is so new that I find myself spending 5-10% of my time just trying to stay up on the latest tech.

One thing I would add though, data science is really 3 things usually: business knowledge, hacking and lastly stats/machine learning. The stats piece is shockingly easy as more and more modules/packages/libraries make it possible to create/train a model in 2 lines of code. (Applying the right model to your data set is difficult.)

The other shocking thing is that really, 80% of my time is probably spent hacking, and most of that is just spent on getting data.

</comment><comment><USER3> The original post for this was what inspired me to create this: [http://afaq.dreamhosters.com/free-cs](http://afaq.dreamhosters.com/free-cs)

<comment><USER4> i like this. good job.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Any feedback would be welcome.

<comment><USER5> Is the best approach to just go straight down the list? Or should I do the first required course in each before moving on to the next?

<comment><USER3> However, within each category, it is best to take the required courses (or feel confident with the topic) before taking the electives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm biased as a non-technical analyst with an academic history, but I'm concerned that the curriculum doesn't meet the most basic needs.

Quoting the section 'An Academic Shortfall': "Academic credentials are important but not necessary for high-quality data science. The core aptitudes – curiosity, intellectual agility, statistical fluency, research stamina, scientific rigor, skeptical nature – that distinguish the best data scientists are widely distributed throughout the population."

In my estimation, none of those aptitudes are covered by teaching technical skills like databases, NLP, ML, graphical models, and the other topics this curriculum covers.

The "core aptitudes" generally boil down to asking the correct questions, establishing the correct answers, and correctly defending them. Academia doesn't automatically instill these skills, but it can do a great job of doing so.

Either way, inside or outside the ivory tower, an ace programmer who masters NLP, ML, Hadoop, and everything else could easily still come out without the required core aptitudes, and be thoroughly unprepared to do what data scientists are really expected to do: answer questions.

<comment><USER7> It's an open source curriculum, so you could get involved and help mold it to meet what you see are its needs as a curriculum, no? I'm not sure what I think of it yet as a curriculum, but I am bookmarking it and plan to come back to it for more resources. Personally, I think it's an interesting idea and something I want to watch to see how it unfolds.

<comment><USER6> I'm happy to share what I learned, but sadly, everything I learned was in a classroom lecture, and the course isn't available online. There may be something on one of the major MOOC hubs, though. I'll keep an eye out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I see many books on Python listed. It's a good language for data analysis and scientific computing, especially with scipy, but there are alternatives, of course. I like Fortran 95, which is available in gcc as gfortran. A relevant book for data scientists would be "Developing Statistical Software in Fortran 95" (2005).

<comment><USER9> Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Fortran?

Note: preemptive clarity: this isn't a language flamewar thing, I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER8> Arrays in Fortran 90+ are a powerful feature -- there are whole array operations and operations on array slices, as in Matlab and Python with numpy. It's easy to allocate multidimensional arrays. Compilers are good at optimizing code -- if it's easiest to do something with loops you can go ahead and not worry about vectorizing the code, as you might with R or Matlab. There is a lot of statistics code in Fortran, so it's good to have at least a reading knowledge of it.

<comment><USER10> This is why I'm so in love with pandas (pandas.pydata.org) -- Wes McKinney did the world a favor creating a library with powerful, manipulable multidimensional data structures

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel like lists of resources are OK, but with something like data science, which has its own branches and specialities, it would be good to have some kind of stack ranking of topics and information beyond just 'start here'. That way, a reader gets more and more conversant with the different ideas being thrown around.

Also, I don't have a list of these handy, but I've found long annotated notebooks/blog posts of worked data science examples very helpful for refreshing my memory on applied techniques. [http://derandomized.com/](http://derandomized.com/) is a great example, maybe other HN readers have some favourites we could add.

<comment><AUTHOR> The list is for beginners.Ofcourse data science is a huge domain and you can't actually make a roadmap to be a master in this field but I am sure this list will help people to get basic understanding of what to read and how to workout things.

<comment><USER11> I think the list is more helpful for someone a step or two beyond beginner. A true beginner is going to look at that and be scared. Once they've read a few introductory things, they'll be able to go back and make better sense of it, for sure. (I showed this to a friend of mine who's interested in learning data science and that was his reaction, so I am generalising, but I think it's a fair generalisation.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I do a lot of statistical work, but wouldn't call myself a data scientist. To that end:

> I geared the original curriculum toward Python tools and resources, so I've > explicitly marked when resources use other tools to teach conceptual > material (like R)

Why did you choose Python over R? Personal preference, a bent toward Python in the online courses you found, or is Python generally considered the de facto language choice for professional data scientists?

I imagine you could tackle these courses with any programming language, but if Python seems to be the way the data science community is going, it would be helpful to know that. Personally, I'm curious because I'm trying to decide if I should pick up Python on the side to supplement the knowledge I already have of R and various other programming languages.

Also, thanks for putting all this together. It's great!

<comment><USER13> Python is definitely not the de facto choice. Python and R both have strengths and weaknesses, and relative use depends quite a bit on community. A few recent surveys ([http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2014/01/in-data- scientis...](http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2014/01/in-data-scientist- survey-r-is-the-most-used-tool-other-than-databases.html), [http://www.kdnuggets.com/2013/10/rexer- analytics-2013-data-m...](http://www.kdnuggets.com/2013/10/rexer- analytics-2013-data-miner-survey-highlights.html), [http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2013/09/top-languages- fo...](http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2013/09/top-languages-for-data- science.html)) show strong growth for both R and python, and I expect that will continue in the future. There's no reason to limit yourself to one language, and knowing both R and python can only help. That said, you do need to be carefully about spreading yourself too thin, and you want to make sure you're an expert in at least one data analysis environment.

<comment><USER14> And lets not forget SAS, Matlab/Octave, Julia, STATA, SPSS, etc... There are a ton of choices out there. While not currently in vogue, there are a lot of SAS/STATA/SPSS jobs out there. Generally it is bigger, more established companies that use these software/languages, but if your goal is to get into a more stats focused position, these languages can be a good choice to learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I haven't been excited about my career in a while but I am getting more and more excited about data science. I have a new desire to learn and to actually finish my masters degree.

Thanks for putting these resources together.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be nice to have a clear list of assumed capabilities (for example, I am familiar with basic programming and have built a few websites, but I haven't taken a math class since senior year of high school, and don't think I remember enough about Calculus to do anything that assumes knowledge of it). Just a simple list of what level math, stats, and programming fluency this starts from would be great.

<comment><USER16> Data Science is still approachable through the "Edison"-style: only do as much math as your comfortable with, but keep probing discrepancies between different models. It's more debugging than architect-ing. Evidence: none of the top kaggle competitors is an academic/statistician to my knowledge.

<comment><USER5> I understand what you are saying, and I am not looking to become a mathematician or statistician. It has just been so long since I took a math class that before diving into any of these courses, I'd like to be aware of the minimal fluency expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On the entry "NLP with Python O'Reilly / Book", note that a second edition might be "in the works." There is an online edition of the work in progress (updating for Python 3 and NLTK 3) available here [1].

[1] -- [http://nltk.org/book3/](http://nltk.org/book3/)

</comment><comment><USER17> A resource I've found invaluable and that I can't find listed is videolectures.net

Particularly [http://videolectures.net/pascal/](http://videolectures.net/pascal/) has plenty of lectures and tutorials from their summer schools on very relevant topics for machine learning.

</comment><comment><USER18> thanks. this is a good resource :) I've explored most of these courses on Coursera over the last year before finally deciding to go to grad school. For me, the biggest factor was motivation (in terms of actually doing the assignments and projects), networking, and getting internship opportunities. However, I still am using the coursera lectures as a supplement to my courses and it helps a lot.

Regardless of any path you take, these are very exciting times to be in computing sciences. All the best to everyone and keep upgrading your skills and knowledge :)

</comment><comment><USER4> for the first course Intro to Data Science, the only access you will have are the videos. You can't see other resources like homeworks and other stuff. What to do about this?

<comment><USER19> The assignments are, in fact, available: [https://class.coursera.org/datasci-001/assignment](https://class.coursera.org/datasci-001/assignment)

You'll be required to login is all.

<comment><USER15> I'm logged in but get "Looks like you are not enrolled in this course!".

<comment><USER20> Google around, often times people have downloaded the lecture videos / homework assignments

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for putting these resources together, this is amazing

<comment><AUTHOR> All credits goes to the original author.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> that's kinda awkward, but something is wrong with my monitor when I'm on that website.

<comment><AUTHOR> surely awkward.... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> YES I support this.</comment>


Disseminating the New Kilogram: An International 'Dry Run' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2016/11/disseminating-new-kilogram-international-dry-run <comment> semi-extrinsic Fun fact: while mainly dealing with insane precision machines, NIST have also designed a LEGO watt balance that you can use to determine mass based on the new SI standard in the comfort of your own home:

[http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/83/11/10.1...](http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/83/11/10.1119/1.4929898)

(Open Access)

<comment><USER2> That's very neat. It relies on the accuracy of the electrical current measurements, though; it's not an absolute measurement from fundamental physics.

For that, NIST has a fundamental standard for the standard volt.[1] So the fundamental standards now are time (atomic clock), the speed of light in vacuum, and the standard volt. The meter is now defined in terms of the speed of light in vacuum and a time.

[1] [https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2013/04/primary- voltag...](https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2013/04/primary-voltage- standard-whole-world)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone here worked in a laboratory or other environment that uses these reference masses and requires this level of precision?

<comment><USER4> Not directly, but my research group has used referenced masses and a former colleague works on the NIST watt balance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's worth watching the video just for the sound effects.

<comment><USER6> Wow the was... bad. I can get scientists want to bring SciFi to life, but this is a stretch.

In the second Artemis Fowl book, there is a centaur who uses a human laptop (magical creatures live in a technologically advanced society underground), and the first thing he does is mute it. He complains that humans are unevolved and have some sort of compulsion to make their products emit sounds and and lights.

<comment><USER7> Foaly was the best!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why does the video have goofy sound effects?

<comment><USER9> It says under the video "All sound effects added; the actual process is extremely quiet."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> More about the whole process:

[http://www.nature.com/news/kilogram-conflict-resolved-at- las...](http://www.nature.com/news/kilogram-conflict-resolved-at-last-1.18550)

Kilogram conflict resolved at last (2015)

</comment><comment><USER11> it's embarrassing that we use such a fragile process to establish a standard that is supposed to be used everywhere.

<comment><USER12> I'm not actually sure what you're insinuating here. Previously the standard WAS the "international prototype kilogram", all of which have drifted since creation (see here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Stability_of_the_inte...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Stability_of_the_international_prototype_kilogram) )

The problem with this is it isn't even fragile, it's _not reproducible_. The worst part is that other SI units depend on the kilogram, so they all change as this drift occurs! After a certain amount of time, how will we know what a "real" kilogram is? See here for discussion of this SI problem: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Dependency_of_the_SI_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Dependency_of_the_SI_on_the_IPK)

The point of the watt balance approach is to make it possible for a lab to reproduce the kilogram without another kilogram reference. That's what this is about, and I don't really think it's embarrassing. I think it's very, very hard.

<comment><USER13> Why do we need these rare metals? Why not just use a block of ice generated from a known quantity of water, for example?

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure why ice would matter given that it should weigh the same as in the liquid form, but...

How do you measure a known quantity of water to within a few tens of parts per billion? Do you specify the proportion of light to heavy water? (For 'normal' water about 1 in 41 million.) What about contaminants in the water? There are so many uncertainties that it's impossible for all practical purposes.

The whole point of using 'rare' silicon is that we already have commercial processes for producing ultrapure, defectless, monocrystals of the stuff (for use in computer chips), so it's easy to reuse that technology for defining a kilogram.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Attention and Effort clause in employment contract - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I've recently received an offer from a large, well-known technology company. I'm pretty excited about it, but there's one clause in my NDA contract and offer letter that concerns me:
ATTENTION AND EFFORT. During employment, Employee will devote Employee's entire productive time, ability, attention, and effort to furthering [company]'s best interests and will not (without [company]'s prior written consent) carry on any separate professional or other gainful employment, including self- employment and contract work.
I think this clause is too broad. In an ideal scenario, I'd have the freedom to create technical projects in my spare time that could either make me a small passive income, or grow into something that I could work on full time. It sounds like this clause would prevent me from working on such things.
Is this something that's pretty standard in the industry, and do you think I can negotiate this out of my contract? <comment><USER2> In theory anything contained in an employment contract is negotiable. And, they have already signaled that this negotiable by including the clause

> and will not (without [company]'s prior written consent) carry on

One question is whether this is just wording to reassure people like you at the time of hire that it is indeed possible or whether that permission is granted fairly routinely. And, even when granted what is the cultural spin? Is branching out on your own after hours celebrated as proof of ambition and creativity? Or is that kind of after hours initiative viewed as disloyalty?

I think in some ways understanding the company culture and practice is more important that formal negotiations at this point. Because even if you get the wording changed or struck out of the contract you still might be viewed negatively even if you have the legal right to proceed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought of it that way, thanks for bringing it up. Yes, I'll have to ask to see how its viewed culturally.</comment></comment>


Finding A Perl Module's Path - <AUTHOR> http://symkat.com/174/find-perl-module-path/

<comment><USER2> slightly easier to remember (for me, at least)

perl -MData::Dumper -M<your-module> -e 'die Dumper(\%INC);'

</comment><comment><USER3> Or just use App::whichpm</comment>


Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Knowledge Workers - <AUTHOR> http://andrewmcafee.org/2011/03/mcafee-india-jobs-skills-outsourcing-technology-digitization/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AndrewMcafeesBlog+%28Andrew+McAfee%27s+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> My parental angst meter just pegged out.</comment>


GitLab Security Vunerability - <AUTHOR> I just got this email from GitLab:
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
We have discovered a critical security issue in all GitLab CE and EE versions from 8.2 to 8.7.
On Monday May 2, 2016 at 4:59pm PDT (23:59 GMT), we will publish new GitLab patch releases for all affected versions. We strongly recommend that all installations running a version mentioned above be upgraded as soon as possible after the release. Please forward this alert to the appropriate person at your organization and have them subscribe to Security Notices
The following versions are affected:
8.7.0 8.6.0 through 8.6.7
8.5.0 through 8.5.11
8.4.0 through 8.4.9
8.3.0 through 8.3.8
8.2.0 through 8.2.4 </comment><comment><USER2> I like GitLab, I like the UI, and their product. But a lot of companies treat GitLab like its their own personal GitHub and just shove it onto an internet accessible instance, and the only thing standing between their internal IP being stolen and safe is developer account passwords and GitLab's code quality.

This is why when I set up GitLab CE we set it up behind a VPN. Now an attacker needs to compromise both the VPN and GitLab itself to get away with any internal IP. It isn't unbeatable, but if you want developers to be able to work remotely it is the least you should do.

</comment><comment><USER3> GitLab VP here. We have a pre-assigned CVE id. I'm not sure whether I can share that. I'll update this post with anything I can share.

We'll likely publish some public statement on this on our blog post before Monday.

Edit: just to be clear. This is not a fake warning and we are releasing new versions on Monday.

<comment><USER3> CVE number is: CVE-2016-4340

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the full email: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587390](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587390)

Looks like someone got his hands on a bunch of email addresses.

<comment><USER5> We at GitLab sent this email. This email does not indicate a leak of email addresses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This feels like a nice attempt to troll HN - no CVEs, no statements from GitLab since ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER5> This email is real, we wanted to give our users a heads-up we'll announce a serious vulnerability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do I understand correctly that Gitlab 8.1.x and earlier is not vulnerable to this issue?

</comment><comment><USER8> Me too.

"CEO of GitLab checking in" ... @syste?

<comment><USER5> Thanks, see statement by our VP of Product in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587416)</comment></comment>


Chrome OS and the Outdated Perception of Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://jim-silverman.com/blog/chrome-os-perception/

<comment><USER3> I think it's a refreshing OS - at the same time, it's the exact opposite of the OS I have been meddling with (mostly in my head). My ideal OS embodies the core concepts of functional programming and the idea of the traditional web browser is nixed to an extent (the web is a wealth of knowledge but the way it's constructed + modern browsers just make it a distraction factory) - <USER2> are better ways of getting data from the web

The OS should help us be more productive - I think we've forgotten what people hoped computing could be 50 years ago. I wish the web were more like a book than one of those free magazines at the car wash, and I wish my OS was more geared towards productivity.

Sometimes a return to explore old concepts is called for. People mock web 1.0 geocities pages but... the information density of the web was amazing back then (hah web 2.0 could really be called the big bang then.. someone already coined the term it seems and has written about the topic at length [http://www.emilybinder.com/technology/web-big-bang-and- crunc...](http://www.emilybinder.com/technology/web-big-bang-and-crunch- part-2/) it even mentions the 'big crunch'

</comment><comment><USER4> When people say there are no native apps on Chrome OS, they are actually wrong. The native apps are just written in Javascript and HTML, Native Client, or in the near future, the Android Runtime. All these types of apps are already in the Chrome Web Store and run offline. So just like iOS or Android where you have to write your apps in a certain manner to have a native app, you have to do the same on Chrome OS.</comment>


Show HN: A simpler way to watch videos - <AUTHOR>

What do you think of videowatchr.com? Comments welcome. <comment><USER2> i like it. But could you explain what you mean by "simpler"? It certainly looks better than youtube in my opinion, but what makes it "simpler"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It refers to the simpler interface. Just the video thumbs, text links and responsive layout. It's still a work in progress though.</comment></comment>


Square's culture: "That makes us look really bad." - <AUTHOR> http://clayallsopp.com/posts/square-that-makes-us-look-really-bad/

<comment><USER2> The big question was whether the guy was a designer or not (the feedback sounds like a designer). I run a small design and dev agency and my partner (The creative director) won't let wireframe documents out the door that don't look _designed_ even if in any other way they're perfect.

This is the nature of designers, and doesn't, necessarily, reflect a corporate culture.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny, I wish Jack's other company would say the same thing right now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Excuse my ignorance, but what made square look bad? I was expecting something, uhh, embarrassing, and found... A twitter feed?

<comment><USER5> From what I can get, it's the design of the twitter feed. The article is attempting to show how deeply ingrained design and detail is in the company, along with being part of the team.

You'll often see internal tools will be the last place that design matters, because customers don't see it.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I'm not sure this is a positive thing about the company. I'm not buying design, I'm buying a service, and I am not sure design of an internal twitter feed would ever be something to blog about.

However, I am no designer, as it seems half of silicon valley is these days. Perhaps it matters more than I can see.

<comment><USER5> I think it is more about attention to detail than just design. It is just that design is how that attention to detail manifests in this example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a very misleading title.

<comment><USER7> That blog post is ridiculous and makes Square look bad, so I'd say it's accurate. It may not be what the author had in mind though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This observation reminds me a lot of my time at Twilio. I think it comes down to whether you have an owner mentality.

</comment><comment><USER9> Took me a while for the actual thing-that-makes-us-look-bad to snap into focus here. Initially I thought it was having banks of monitors around the place full of "We are so awesome". Turns out the hagiography was in the wrong font.

<comment><USER10> Not just the wrong font, the whole list box is a mess. The spacing is the biggest thing, maybe then the font.

I'm at the developer-who-knows-bad-design-when-he-see-it stage, which is frustrating 'cause I what doesn't work and sort-of why but I don't really yet know how to fix it. Well, at least partly...</comment></comment>


An Open Letter to Warby Parker - <AUTHOR> http://classicspecs.tumblr.com/post/18945992371/an-open-letter-to-warby-parker <comment><USER2> Why do startups do this? I've seen this a few times over the past few years, and every time I find it loathsome. Dirty laundry isn't something you just go around airing because someone sent you a C&D letter. It could have been a mistake, it could have been a rogue legal team member, it could have been anything. Does it matter to the general public? No. Should it? No. This is between two businesses, and should have stayed that way. It makes both parties look very unprofessional -- and that's about all it achieves as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER3> I've recently made a purchase from WP. During my buying process, I did not know that this other company even existed. Now I do.

<comment><USER4> bingo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Until Classic Specs gets a prominently-featured set of advertisements with a faux-intellectual, salt-and-pepper haired douchebag, Warby Parker can't cry foul.

I know this is going to get down-voted, but seriously, it is 2012. Who buys a monocle? I want to buy one and wear it around as a joke.

<comment><USER6> "faux-intellectual, salt-and-pepper haired douchebag"

The name of course is also a little to invented.

Nothing wrong with that but it reminds me of the way people used to name investment firms trying to sound all distinguished and "we've been around for 100 years". There are actually examples of companies that have scammed people using a particular type of made up name.

Here is how they made up the name:

[http://www.theparadigmcase.com/2011/07/the-case-on-style- war...](http://www.theparadigmcase.com/2011/07/the-case-on-style-warby- parker/)

<comment><USER5> If you want to see this taken to ridiculous heights, check this out: [http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/frontpage/products/our...](http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/frontpage/products/our- famous-red-wool-blanket)

When do you think this company was founded? Surely it was founded by an enterprising young frontiersman in the 1800's. 1850? 1900? Actually it was founded in 2009.

<comment><USER6> Wow. Thanks for pointing that out. They definitely get the "shovel the shit" award this week. They have axes that cost $250. I bought a fine axe at Lowes I think it was $30 maybe?

Watch this piece of work:

[http://www.bestmadeprojects.com/post/5427086342/peter- buchan...](http://www.bestmadeprojects.com/post/5427086342/peter-buchanan- smith-discusses-the-best-made)

Marketing like this is a few steps removed from the "pet rock" of the 70's. Wrapping an everyday product in some kind of crafty acceptability. At least with the pet rock everyone knew it was a gimmick.

Edit: Think our links show the same video?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I think this is a case where the founder is desperately trying to exploit demand for products whether it exists or not. I don't know how many axes he's sold, I hope he's sold a lot, but there is something about the copy and his messaging that suggests that he is falsely earnest about quality.

If nothing else, it is a blatant ripoff of Coudal's Field Notes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So Warby Parker might be jerks and Classic Specs definitely are jerks?

</comment><comment><USER8> If you ever find yourself writing an open letter like this, please stop. No one cares that your competitor badmouthed you. It doesn't need an open letter, it needs a normal letter, preferably from your lawyer.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. Open letters let customers know what is going on behind the scenes. No way am I going to buy from a company with this kind of attitude/culture.

<comment><USER10> Which one, WP or CS?

<comment><USER9> Not going to buy from WP. The content of the attached document clearly shows how ignorant they are. I hate ignorance. It's the lazy way out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To me, one paragraph in this post stands out far above the others in importance. I find it interesting that it is getting so few comments here. It is the "P.S.".

If one business sends a C&D to another, then they can't expect it to be kept private. You can argue about the wisdom of posting it, or what this says about the poster's attitude; however, Classic Specs is certainly within both legal and ethical standards in doing so.

But posting a customer's personal information without permission is unacceptable.

If anyone from Classic Specs is reading this: You need to remove that P.S., and you need to remove it _now_.

<comment><USER12> I could not agree more. If this story was meant to engender sympathetic feelings that last paragraph ruined any chances. However I doubt most people got that far...

<comment><USER13> Agreed. First, very uncool to mention the wife of your competition ordered a pair. Second, dick-maneuver to not send glasses that a customer ordered and to include a snarky card instead.

Much classier would be to have sent the glasses with a note saying "I hope you enjoy these glasses blah blah blah," and never have mentioned it in a blog post that's knocking your customer's husband's company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I guess that when you raise capital, the best use for it is to spend it on lawyers. Shame on Warby Parker.

PS: I'm now going to give classicspecs.com a try

</comment><comment><USER15> Bahaha... opinions aside on the legality bit, that "ps" (true or not) is pretty damn funny.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why blur out the charity donation? It was $2100.

<comment><USER17> Because it lets you estimate revenue? $35,000/month

Or sales volume? 389/month

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The most interesting part is in the NY Times link (reproduced below): so many companies are copying Warby Parker. Warby was first and at least FOUR other companies copy them, down to the marketing message, branding and products. There are several more copy-cats not mentioned in the article.

Lesson? Haul-ass once you find product-market fit.

the NY Times link within the post: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/fashion/eyeglasses-on- spec...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/fashion/eyeglasses-on-spec-online- retailers.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I read it, and it seems purposely vague enough so that you don't really know who was in the wrong. Is that the whole point of this, just to muddle an issue and then hope it disappears?

</comment><comment><USER20> Hipster fight!

</comment><comment><USER21> I have to wonder if there's much of a mid-to-long term market for these "NHS- style"* specs. Sure they're fashionable now but in a couple of years it'll be all brushed aluminium. Or green.

I've been buying that style of glasses for years from goggles4u for £20 a pop. Nice and cheap, look terrible but can take some punishment.

[*] NHS = National Health Service; it's a British expression based on the fact that the only glasses covered by the NHS are the cheap, thick and most of the time unfashionable frames/lenses.

</comment><comment><USER22> An open letter to warby parker & classicspecs:

there are a lot of us out there who don't wear "hipster"ish eyeglasses that pretty much all look the same. please offer more variety.

thanks.

<comment><USER23> lol! instant vote up.

but yeah, we need more than just bk-style :)

</comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit Before today: I've never heard of either of these sites.

After today: I'll never remember either of these sites.

and yes... the final dig was pretty funny.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure Warby Parker is justified in picking on them, but even without knowing that they're having a tiff I would have said that Classic Specs seems like a Warby Parker knockoff.

</comment><comment><USER25> This whole thing makes me so glad I got LASIK a few years ago.

<comment><USER26> [http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national- news/20...](http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national- news/2012/02/15/331686/Surgery-pioneer.htm)

Ray Tsai (蔡瑞芳), one of Taiwan's pioneers in laser eye surgery, said yesterday that he will no longer perform the procedure because it violates his medical ethics. ... He has observed situations in which visual acuity worsens suddenly and rapidly long after the LASIK procedure itself.

<comment><USER27> >He has observed situations

There are situations in which medical procedures fail, sometimes immediately, sometimes many years after the fact. That does not indicate a problem with the procedure.

<comment><USER28> Lasik's not all sunshine. I for example suffer from a fairly common and known complication, which is loss of contrast. That means that apart from being severely night-blind my vision becomes unpredictably blurry whenever lightning conditions change. I'm still counted as a success story but in retrospect I would trade my old impaired but stable vision for my improved but unstable vision.

<comment><USER25> Wearing contacts would have been impossible for me over the past decade, and I always had problems with glasses (specifically, waking up without good vision was a pain, and then there were various situations where I would want to see but not be wearing glasses...).

My assumption was that if there were long-term negative side effects, corneal replacement (or complete eye replacement) would become feasible within a decade or two. Corneal transplants are already done (using cadavers), and I don't think synthetic corneas are more than a few billion in research funding away with current tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know where the sizing charts are that are mentioned in the letter? Did classic specs change images?

</comment><comment><USER29> And...this is why I refused to complete purchase of my WP at home try on and went straight to CS.

</comment><comment><USER12> _jameiest_ are you a CS employee? I am curious if you guys made any changes to your website after receiving the letter...

</comment><comment><USER30> This is raw gold & diamond.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's fascinating to me is comparing the impression you get from the lawyers letter (wow, they really ripped off the warby parker website!) with the response (we're using off the shelf privacy policy, and industry terms.)

It shows just how deceptive selective phrasing can be. "Substantially identical" _implies_ that the text was a copy of copyrighted material, but the selectivity is the bias- they never show that the text was copyrighted or copyrightable, for instance.

You see this a lot when people want to spin something and they are very careful about what they say to give a false impression. I can think of lots of examples, but probably the best is every evenings nightly news. Whatever the story they are covering, political or not, they are putting spin on it. Even if the spin is just to heighten ratings or make the station itself look prestigious, its always there. Yet people live in a perception of reality where they think this is objective information, many times.

Imagine if that lawyers letter had been a blog post about how some YC startups website was ripped off? (much like the complaint 37 signals had about being ripped off...) that article would be the top post, and the rebuttals would be spread out thru the comments, and missed by most people.

<comment><USER12> From what I can see it says "substantially similar" not "substantially identical."[1] I am not a lawyer but it is my understanding that the relevant issue is "substantially similar."[2]

What do you mean "they never show that the text was copyrighted"? Do you know what is required to copyright content? There is no office where you file a copyright application. Using a (c) and/or other types of copyright notices is optional in a post-Berne American court.

[1] Is there a way to download the pdf of an embedded scribd asset? Reading the document is painful...

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity>

<comment><USER32> > Do you know what is required to copyright content

That content can't be a mere statement of fact, for one.

<comment><USER12> I'm not really sure what this means? The lawyer's letter was a list of allegations. Maybe you are not used to the writing style of legal documents? This is how they are written...

<comment><USER32> Let me clarify then:

1) The original comment you replied to noted that the lawyers making the allegations did not show that the text was copyrightable. This is a reference to the article pointing out that some of the text in question consists of mere statements of fact.

2) You replied with a sarcastic rhetorical question about whether the commentor knew what was required to be protected by copyright.

3) I replied to you that the content can't be mere statement of fact. This is the relevant characteristic in determining whether that content could be protected by copyright, not whether it was registered with the copyright office.

4) You got confused and started talking about the style of legal letters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, since the Warby Parker peeps will probably get around to reading this, I'd just like to mention that I love my SALT Topher's and will probably spend another $400 on another pair of SALT's for my spring wardrobe this year as well.

<comment><USER34> How's the build quality? I love the SALT glasses I've seen online but the one place in NYC that stocks them don't have many styles in stock. I'm leaning toward the Dumonts

<comment><USER33> I really like mine; they're solid. You can order them and have them sent to a shop without any obligation to buy.</comment></comment></comment>


jwz - PSA: Backups - <AUTHOR> http://jwz.livejournal.com/801607.html

<comment><USER2> "If you're using Linux, it's something a lot like that. If you're using Windows, go fuck yourself."

I love jwz.</comment>