The case of the 500-mile email - <AUTHOR> http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~ranga/humor/500_mile_email.txt <comment><USER3> Interestingly, this story actually helped me once. I was debugging an issue where some people in the multi-national company I work for (many offices) could connect to the server and some people could not, and it was thanks to this story that I seriously entertained the possibility that it had something to do with timing, due to the geographical distribution of the problem reports. Subsequent investigation revealed that for various uninteresting technical reasons, the server was setting a 200ms timeout on the SSL negotiation part of the connection, which closely matched the ping times of the participants, including the people who could sometimes connect and sometimes not. And I discovered this far faster by knowing I should be poking around on timing issues, rather than searching out something deeper.

(I am deliberately eliding other details not relevant to this aspect of the story. My point is merely that I am glad I had encountered it. Could easily have saved me a day or two.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Most interesting to me was the "units" utility. I didn't know it existed.

<comment><USER5> I think fewer people are aware of it these days when you can simply hit up google:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=.003+light+seconds+in+miles>

Though it seems they haven't gotten millilightseconds to work.

<comment><USER6> As always, WolframAlpha is your friend:

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+millilight+seconds>

558.8 miles or 899.4 kilometers

They even have "comparisons", e.g. for 30 millilight seconds:

~~ 1.4 x Amazon River length (~~ 6400 km )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This one has made the rounds on reddit a few times. I shared this personal story last time it came around:

In 2005 at my job we had a pretty severe problem just as unexplainable. The day after an unscheduled closing (hurricane), I started getting calls from users complaining about database connection timeouts. Since I had a very simple network with less than 32 nodes and barely any bandwidth in use, it was quite scary that I could ping to the database server for 15-20 minutes and then get "request timed out" for about 2 minutes. I had performance monitors etc. running on the server and was pinging the server from multiple sources. Pretty much every machine except the server was able to talk to the others constantly. I tried to isolate a faulty switch or a bad connection but there was no way to explain the random yet periodic failures.

I asked my coworker to observe the lights on a switch in the warehouse while I ran trace routes and unplugged different devices. After 45-50 minutes on the walkie-talkie with him saying "ya it's down, ok it's back up," I asked if he noticed any patterns. He said, "Yeah... I did. But you're going to think I'm nuts. Every time the shipper takes away a pallet from the shipping room, the server times out within 2 seconds." I said "WHAT???" He said "Yeah. And the server comes back up once he starts processing the next order."

I ran down to see the shipper and was certain that he was plugging in a giant magnetomaxonizer to celebrate the successful completion of an order. Surely the electromagnetic waves from the flux capacitor were causing rip in the space-time continuum and temporarily shorting out the server's NIC card 150 feet away in another room. Nope. All he was doing was loading up the bigger boxes on the pallet first and then gradually the smaller ones on top, while scanning every box with the wireless barcode scanner. Aha! It must be the barcode scanner's wireless features that probably latch on to the database server and cause all other requests to fail. Nope. Few tests later I realized it wasn't the barcode scanner since it was behaving pretty nicely. The wireless router and it's UPS in the shipping room were configured right and seemed to be functioning normally too. It had to be something else, especially since everything was working fine just before the hurricane closing.

As soon as the next time out started, I ran into the shipping room and watched the guy load the next pallet. The moment he placed four big boxes of shampoo on the bottom row of the pallet, the database server stopped timing out! This had to be black magic! I asked him to remove the boxes and the database server began to time out again! I did not believe the absurdity of this and spent five more minutes loading and unloading the boxes of shampoo with the same exact result. I was about to fall down on my knees and start begging for mercy from the God of Ethernet when I noticed that the height at which the wireless router was placed in the shipping room was about a foot lower than the top of the four big boxes when placed on the pallet. We were finally on to something!

The wireless router lost the line-of-sight to the outside warehouse anytime a pallet was loaded with the big boxes. Ten minutes later I had the problem solved. Here is what happened. During the hurricane, there was a power failure that reset the only device in our building that wasn't connected to a UPS - <USER2> test wireless router I had in my office. The default settings on the test router somehow made it a repeater for the only other wireless router we had, the one in the shipping room. The two wireless nodes were only able to talk to each other when there were no pallets placed between them and even then the signal wasn't too strong. Every time the two wireless routers managed to talk, they created a loop in my tiny network and as a result, all packets to the database server were lost. The database server had it's own switch from the main router and hence was pretty much the furthest node. Most other PC's were on the same 16-port switch so I had no problems pinging constantly between them.

The 1-second solution to this four-hour troubleshooting nightmare was me yanking off the power to the test router. And the database server never timed out again.

<comment><USER8> A "normal" person might have simple "turned it off and on again" and thus fixed it. Interesting how you wanted to understand what's going on and went through a lot of trouble to get there. I'd have done the same.

<comment><USER9> Well the first problem is to find the thing to turn off and on again. It's not always clear what device is misbehaving.

Also, frequently you'll need to report to the "higher ups" what went wrong. Saying "I dunno, I turned it off and on again and it works now. _shrug_ " makes you look like you don't know what's going on. It's much better to be able to explain what happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Relevant FAQ about the story by the author of the story: <http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> A lovely story (which I urge anyone reading this to go and read; it's much geekier than it probably sounds). But wait: isn't there a factor-of-2 error right at the end, and doesn't that rather spoil it? Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER12> The author admits to taking some liberties with the story, which he clarifies here (you appear to be concerned about #8): <http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Read it before, but enjoyed reading it again.

</comment><comment><USER14> This was posted a while back, very entertaining story: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068>

<comment><USER15> Just over 500 days ago...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fascinating, although I'm guessing the author isn't an electrical engineer, because for me, the timeout on the messages would have been the absolute first thing that I checked as soon as I'd confirmed the 500 mile limit. Although that's probably because I spent a certain amount of time at the start of my career detecting faults in fibre optic and copper installations using reflectometers to work out how far down the line the problem was...

</comment><comment><USER17> If you're running OS X, it pays to grab gunits <http://gunits.darwinports.com/>

Here's why:

      $ units
      500 units, 54 prefixes

      $ gunits
      2411 units, 71 prefixes, 33 nonlinear units

<comment><USER18> Can you provide an example of a nonlinear unit?

<comment><USER19> They mean that the conversion is defined by a function rather than a scaling factor.

The example that the manual gives is Centigrade to Fahrenheit, which, interestingly enough, _is_ a linear function. [http://www.gnu.org/software/units/manual/units.html#Nonlinea...](http://www.gnu.org/software/units/manual/units.html#Nonlinear- units)

<comment><USER20> It depends on your definition of linear. In some algebra contexts you would call it a linear function because it's a line, but in linear algebra you would not consider it a linear transformation because it doesn't pass through the origin[1]. It would be more accurate to call it "affine."

[1] More generally, being "linear" means that _f(ax+y) = af(x) + f(y)_ for constant _a_ and variables _x, y_. From this, it follows that _f(0) = 0_ for linear transformations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Recalling older versions of sendmail literally sent a shiver down my spine, we had something akin to a voodoo ritual whenever we needed to change some configuration.

</comment><comment><USER22> I like how the boss tried to figure out what's wrong before complaining. Now it's usually "AAA IT'S BROKEN GO FIX IT".

<comment><USER23> Me too. Though in this case the "boss" was a statistician.

The way the professor initially gathered data, instead of immediately asking for help like a normal user, made me think this was going to turn into a joke. Like the one that begins with, "a manager, an engineer, and a programmer are driving through the mountains..."</comment></comment>


In defense of Mr. Pernicious (Jason Fried) and Big Shoulders (Chicago) - <AUTHOR> http://spill.tanagram.com/2010/06/25/in-defense-of-mr-pernicious-jason-fried-and-big-shoulders-chicago/

<comment><USER2> Chicago does not make rocket ships. I love this city, but please keep it real. The downside to Chicago: you won't get funded. The upside to Chicago: you won't get funded.

<comment><USER3> Awesome discussion! This is the second time someone has pointed out that Chicago doesn't make rocketships. Tell me why this doesn't count as a spaceship? [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37?wasRedirected=tru...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37?wasRedirected=true)

What's your angle on this not being ours?

<comment><USER2> Boeing corporate moved to Chicago in '01, but its aerospace engineering and manufacturing teams did not. The heart of that company is still on the west coast.

<comment><USER3> Hi Tptacek, My point in the post was comparing corporate headquarters. I responded to a similar comment on spill. I'm pretty sure (though haven't researched) Gap and Levi's don't manufacture in SF. I've worked in Seattle with the fine folks at Boeing and agree they are the guts of the company. The money still comes from Chicago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm totally unclear how geography had a damn thing to do with Jason's advice on hiring. Nor is it clear why either of these posts had to degenerate into some sort of "my town is better then your town" penis waving contest

<comment><USER5> I will let you know why, but it will cost me karma and likely start another penis waving contest:

it is a Chicago thing.

Chicagoans (who live there) cannot stop talking about how great Chicago is. And it's a zero sum game. Chicago can't just be great on it's own... your town has to SUCK in comparison. No other other town has this problem. Even New Yorkers can admit that New York sucks from time to time, or will say that Miami is nice in the winter. No Chicagoan will ever say anything good about another city without also mentioning why Chicago is better. And you're lucky to get even that. Usually they will just tell you why where you live sucks.

-Signed, someone born and partially raised in Chicago and glad I don't live there.

<comment><USER2> It is _so_. _much_. _better_. than other US cities, though!

Seriously, though:

(1) People either _love_ or _hate_ NYC, and they _love_ or _hate_ SoCal. They _love_ or _don't care_ about Chicago. It's a biased signal.

(2) Chicago is the closest thing in the US you can get to NYC if you want "major urban center", "top population center", and can't actually deal with NYC. That's me. I can't deal with NYC, but I appreciate what everyone else does in NYC, and Chicago has 80% of that. This would be "just another thing people who like Chicago say about Chicago" except that "proximity to the NYC experience" is a _huge deal_ for city lovers.

(3) People, especially tech people, underappreciate just how small San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Portland, and even Greater Boston are. I say that not to put Chicago on a level above them, but instead to note that those cities have fewer boosters _just statistically_.

(4) That said, most of the "Chicago is amazing" stuff comes out in conversations with NYC-ers and SF-ers, and we tend to concede that, say, Portland is a nice place to live too.

Oh, and by the way? We didn't bring Chicago into this. That original douchey blog post did, with its commentary about how everyone in the third largest metro area in the country "works for or knows someone who works for the parks district". But now you know why 'tptacek thinks Chicagoans act like that.

<comment><USER5> See what I mean?

<comment><USER2> I'm imagining you hitting refresh waiting for the first reply to CTR-V that into. ;)

<comment><USER5> It's a slow evening with high chance of thunderstorms...

<comment><USER2> Seriously, I hear this all the time about Chicagoans, and easy as it would be to just take it as a compliment about the city and get on with my life... don't you think maybe there's a reason why Chicago generates this reaction?

Please note: I'm trying to give you reasons that don't just devolve to "it's because Chicago is so awesome". I'm saying, "deceptively huge number of people, not polarizing, and the largest genuine urban experience outside of NYC".

<comment><USER5> Yes, I am sure there are reasons why Chicago generates this reaction.

<comment><USER2> You just think one of them is "inferiority complex". =)

<comment><USER3> Seriously dude, your mama _is_ fat. :-P</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Forbidden Island, U.S.A. - <AUTHOR> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/12/05/forbidden-island-u-s-a/ <comment><USER2> A few more details about Ni'ihau that were left out of the article.

\- There was actually one other landowner, a native Hawaiian couple that the Robinsons had to buy out to own the entire island. The story goes that they didn't want to sell, but one of the Robinsons kept placing gold coins on a table until they gave in.

\- The Hawaiian that is still spoken on Ni'ihau is probably very similar to the one spoken there from the time of Western contact (James Cook in 1778[*]). However, it is a slightly different dialect than that spoken on the other islands that has become "modern" Hawaiian language.

\- The article briefly mentions the Japanese aviator who crashed on Ni'ihau after bombing Pearl Harbor. Some say this small side-story to WW2 had some sigificant impact on the decision to intern the Japanese on the US mainland during the war: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_Incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_Incident)

\- There is no electricity on the island, but the department of education has installed a solar PV system to run computers and refrigerators at the school. I imagine that other houses may be replacing kerosene lighting with solar PV as well now that prices have come down.

\- I do not think they have landlines or cell-phones, but I think there is a radio for emergencies.

\- I think the Helicopter tour runs about $300-$350, someday I may try it.

<comment><USER3> Having spent a bit of time on Molokai and visiting the Leper Colony late last year, Ni'ihau could be interesting. The diverse history of the islands keeps bringing us back.

For years, we've been spending time in Hilo with an old cattlewoman (recently passed) who introduced us to an amazing array of people who have connections with old Hawaii.

Yes, I've benefited from the tourism (being one), but whenever I hear stories of old Hawaii, I always get Iz's song Hawai'i 78 from the Facing Future album.

Thanks for the added details.

<comment><USER4> Hawai'i is flat-out fascinating. I'm lucky in that over the last 20 years, my pop has been moving in slow motion to the Big Island, so I spend a lot of time there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> After seeing the article about North Sentinel island, I wondered how long until a similar one about Ni'ihau. It is typically dubbed the "Forbidden Island" in the tourist literature, so it was bound to come up in someone's searches.

BTW, there are 2 significant "forbidden" islands in Hawai'i, and numerous small ones. The other large one is Kaho'olawe (due to unexploded ordinance and nominally belonging to native Hawaiians now). The small ones (around several islands) are bird sanctuaries. In fact another island near Ni'ihau is both a sanctuary and an active bombing range: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%CA%BBula](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%CA%BBula)

Yes, I find islands fascinating.

<comment><USER5> OT, but I'd love your thoughts as an island lover. Which do you consider to be the world's largest island?

(I've always said Australia, but it seems many people exclude it and go with Greenland.)

<comment><USER2> I think it's a rather pointless question because there are so many ways to define an island. If you say "land surrounded by water," then it's the EurAsiaAfrican landmass, if you look at geology (of which I am no expert), then you have a lot more nit-picky defintions such as continents, cratons, crusts, rifts, etc.

I just read a lot on Wikipedia, where island is defined as a "sub-continental land surrounded by water"[1]. But when you look at the definition of sub- continental, the continents are "generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria"[2].

So it's just convention that large islands like Greenland, Madagascar and New Zealand, which are "pieces" of continents, are not considered continents. Some pieces of continents such as New Caledonia[3] are much smaller than volcanic islands that rose out of the sea. For what it's worth, wikipedia follows the norm and calls Greenland the largest island[4].

And then there's the whole issue of sea level which varies, and as it does, it changes the size, shape, and connection of islands and continents.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent) [3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_caledonia#Geography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_caledonia#Geography) [4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Greenland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Greenland)

<comment><USER6> May be we should just have islands? Why so many names? it is confusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe that a monk seal was killed on the island recently, which would be a fairly serious crime.

The whole setup is weird and slightly discomfiting in a pure colonial paternalistic sense, but hey, it's obviously working in some ways.

For anyone looking for a good overview history of Hawai'i, I would recommend Gavan Daws' _Shoal Of Time_ [1]

[1] [http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-195-9780824803247.aspx](http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-195-9780824803247.aspx)

<comment><USER7> There have been monk seal killings on Kauai and Molokai, but I'm not aware of any on Niihau recently.

<comment><USER4> You're right, I just went back and checked the article in the _Times_ [1]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/magazine/who-would- kill-a-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/magazine/who-would-kill-a-monk- seal.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really wish I could get into the server and fix all these HTML errors.

The OCD in me is acting up.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious about the legal status of this land that was acquired prior to Hawaii even being a state. Are the native inhabitants considered US citizens? Does the Sinclair family have to pay property taxes on this land? I would think not. It's kinda of cool to imagine truly owning land that no one else can lay claim to, even historically.

EDIT: The native inhabitants may have originally claimed the land but does any government claim jurisdiction over it?

<comment><USER2> Ni'ihau is part of the County of Kaua'i, State of Hawaii, USA. Just because the king sold the land doesn't mean the king reliquished sovereingty over it. Then the sovereignty of Hawaii passed to the Republic, then to the Territory and State of Hawaii. So yes, this is incorporated territory of the USA, and the inhabitants are full US citizens--as opposed to the various statuses in unincorporated insular territories[1].

Oddly, I was recently reading about Liechenstein[2] where this was not the case. It was formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire (titular to the Emporer of such), but no one claimed it during the breakup (that's the short version, it's actually more complicated). So the princes of the territory found themselves to be sovereign--and then were able to somehow maintain sovereignty continuing today.

PS: Amazingly, there is still some unclaimed territory[3] in this world, or you could join seasteaders[4] out in international waters[5].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_area](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_area) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein) [3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclaimed_Territory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclaimed_Territory) [4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) [5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_waters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_waters)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, the nihau safaris look amazing -- a bit expensive, but I'd really like to go (with a camera or an 1886 Winchester) for boar, someday. Although I'd rather turn it into kalua pig rather than a trophy.

</comment><comment><USER11> This article and the previous one on North Sentinel certainly makes _Uncle John 's 24-Karat Bathroom Reader_ seem like a pretty interesting book.

<comment><USER12> It is awesome. I have 6 of them in my bathroom (they release 1 per year)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In this chain of forbidden places is also Gardiner's Island in New York at the end of Long Island. Apparently gifted to the Gardiner family by the Queen before the US existed. Signs surround it warning the public that they're not welcome. I guess it's not forbidden so much as privately owned.

</comment><comment><USER14> With the traffic on and off the island, I'd imagine the modern native population has a much higher resistance to Asian and European pathogens than even a generation ago.

<comment><USER2> The article didn't go into details, but there was originally much contact between Ni'ihau and the other islands, though mostly the nearest, which is Kaua'i. During the period of initial contact with Westerners, many Hawaiians on all islands did die of Western diseases, but their population did survive. It's only in the past hundred years that Ni'ihau has been mostly cut off-- though the owners and residents do come and go and mingle with the general population on Kaua'i. And nor have they been cut off from Western medicine, so I imagine they are all vaccinated like everyone.

Still, it is an interesting question whether this semi-isolated population has some lingering susceptibility to certain diseases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> why is it forbidden if someone can take a helicopter tour? Looks like its a private island.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really? King "Kamehameha"?

Am I supposed to believe that a Super Saiyan was once the King of Hawaii?

edit: This article is crazy interesting.

<comment><USER16> History, read it. Note: this is probably the dumbest comment I've ever posted to HN.

<comment><USER15> Hah! Yeah I realize it was idiotic, it was partly satire. Incidentally, I am also aware of the Dragon Ball series of anime to use weird words for character names. I think Goku and Gohan mean something in Japanese (as in, they're not normal names), and I always heard Vegeta meant "vegetable" but I'm not sure if that's true or not. By "always heard" I mean "read on GeoCities". :)

<comment><USER17> Gohan is "rice" in Japanese. Can't remember what Goku is, but might just be a wordplay on the original Chinese "Sun Wukong" character in the very famous tale that inspired Toryiama.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startups: If you take a hiring test... - <AUTHOR>

Recently, I came across a position at a Startup. Since it was a remote gig, the startup sent me a detailed problem to solve before discussing anything about the nature of the gig.
I liked the problem and hence, decided to solve it first and then talk to them. So I spent the entire next day taking a shot at the problem, carefully crafting a git repo to showcase my solution.
Once I submitted my problem, I was told that they would get back to me by end of the week.
Its been 2 weeks. I have no feedback whatsoever. I dont know what part of my solution they didn't like or if they simply found a local candidate.
I dont care if the reason for rejection is a local candidate. I understand that reasoning. It makes total sense for a startup to prefer a local candidate over a remote one.
But since they didn't reply at all, I am left wondering if there is something in my solution that didn't work for them. The 'developer' in me is very anxious around that.
If you give me a problem to solve, then I at least deserve to know if my attempt was right or wrong. Not replying/acknowledging at all is simply messed up in my opinion.
And I will not take 'things are usually crazy at a startup' as an excuse. If you are not investing in your culture, you are not investing in your business at all. <comment><USER2> A small organization may not be able to follow up in the anticipated time frame despite every intention to do so. The ground can shift day to day and a lean staff may have to radically shift priorities, e.g. suppose a term sheet needs review.

</comment><comment><USER3> Job searching can be tough, but don't get worked up about it. Email them or call them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tests are complete BS. Most often written by some dork trying to impress themselves how much they know about some esoteric crap, rather than trying to see what you can do.

</comment><comment><USER5> Did you send a follow up message?

</comment><comment><USER6> You are taking it too emotional, you won't have success that way no matter if they accept you or not.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems to me you are extrapolating an unknown and arriving at the worse case scenario ie they are so underwhelmed by your solution that they think it is ok to treat you in a shoddy manner by not following through on their promise.

That's one possibility. Another is life got in the way - for example your contact has taken leave for a family emergency or has even been hit by a bus.

<comment><AUTHOR> I sincerely hope it is neither of the two.</comment></comment>


Lightsquared network causing GPS interference. - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/10/uh-oh-lightsquareds-network-is-screwing-with-gps/

<comment><USER2> When the news first hit that Lightsquared was going to operate on a piece of spectrum that interfered with GPS, they raised a calming hand and told us all, "Don't worry, we've got technology that will prevent any inteference." Here we are, months later, and the story is now, "However, those solutions would likely be expensive for both the company and GPS device makers and could take years to complete."

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

</comment><comment><USER3> This was a known problem with their design and the FCC gave approval for them to go forward anyway. Maybe they could have saved LightSquared some money if the FCC asked them to fix the GPS issues before deploying. See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2199188>

<comment><USER4> Well, the problem is basically in the GPS receivers, which get interfered by out-of-band signals. There's really no reason for FCC to not approve Light^2. [http://tmfassociates.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/GPS...](http://tmfassociates.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/GPS-filters.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ouch. They've apparently launched a satellite: [http://spacefellowship.com/news/art23835/proton- successfully...](http://spacefellowship.com/news/art23835/proton-successfully- launches-lightsquared-satellite.html)

I wonder if it's the uplink, downlink, or both that's causing the interference. Anecdotal and probably coincidental: I live not too far from LightSquared's headquarters and my phone's GPS has had difficulty getting a lock the past few weeks.

I hope they work this out, because I'd probably be an end user of theirs. No wired internet access is currently available at my location.

Edit: Looks like it's the uplink from the base stations ([http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/two-government- agences-s...](http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/two-government-agences-says- lightsquareds-network-interferes-gps/2011-06-09))

</comment><comment><USER6> As someone who flies just recreationally, this is a huge deal. While losing your GPS in the car is a nuisance, losing it in the airplane can be dangerous. More and more airports have only GPS approaches published, which means that a pilot (or crew) can be flying in to land in minimal visibility conditions and in certain cases not be able to even seen the runway until 200 feet off the ground.

Loss of GPS signal in these cases is downright dangerous.

<comment><USER7> You're also never supposed to rely on GPS while flying (AFAIK). Has that changed?

<comment><USER8> What he means is that plenty of small airstrips have no ILS (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system>) and just publish GPS glideslopes... and if you're landing in zero visibility and you lose GPS tracking, landing is going to be dangerously hard.

<comment><USER9> Right - but GPS is never supposed to be relied upon for anything - it's secondary.

If there's no ILS and zero visibility - you should be landing somewhere else, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Guess who actually runs the GPS network? The US Air Force. Guess how much of a shit they give about civillian applications of it? Zero.

Back to the drawing board...

EDIT: I'd like to point out that this isn't really meant as a criticism. If I was in the air force's position I wouldn't give a shit either.

<comment><USER11> Huh? Do you mean USAF doesn't care if Lightsquared screws up the GPS reception for civilians? Or do you mean they don't care if Lightsquared gets screwed?

If the first, presumably it would also interfere with USAF uses of GPS. And I don't think they would be _entirely_ free from pushback, especially from commercial aviation and the FAA.

<comment><USER12> The US military GPS operates on a different frequency than civilian GPS, so it likely would not be affected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is some information from the US govt. on the situation: <http://www.pnt.gov/interference/lightsquared/>

<comment><USER14> The best part of this is when they say "Oh, we're setting up a working group to help resolve this problem" and follow it up with:

"Due to FACA, the work of the NPEF is limited to U.S. government personnel and contractors."

The problem is procurement:

<http://infovegan.com/2010/11/02/how-vs-what></comment></comment>


Obama Administration Set to Expand Sharing of Data That N.S.A. Intercepts - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-administration-set-to-expand-sharing-of-data-that-nsa-intercepts.html <comment><USER3> As Snowden stated, the data on nearly everyone alive's habits is kept 'safe and secret' by policy alone, and not by any technical or legal controls. There are few if any technical or legal limits to what the United States government collects about not only the world, but also its citizens. As policy changes, from period to period or president to president, the data too will be subject to ever-changing political controls. If no technical or legal safeguards are installed, then at some inevitable point along that pendulum swing, those in charge of keeping that data 'safe and secret' will not have your best interests in mind and will use it to harm your interests in pursuit of their own: "Turnkey tyranny."

<comment><USER4> This just isn't true. You can't, on one hand, claim the NSA has everyone's data, and on the other hand claim Apple has a legitimate case against the FBI -- if the NSA had that data, they'd share it with the FBI, and Apple would be tilting at windmills.

Edit: A lot of speculation and guesses in the replies here. If anyone's got actual evidence that the NSA "has data on everyone" or "wouldn't share their intel with the FBI", please post it. Otherwise, why make the claim?

If you all _really_ think the NSA can simply magic their way into an encrypted system, then why even bother? You're flying in the face of _every_ security expert's opinion on the matter. No one with expertise in this area is going to agree that the NSA has data collection ongoing for every person in the US, that's patently absurd. The Snowden leaks showed us what they're capable of, and while it was substantial, it wasn't universal. Not by a long shot, and especially not after so many fixes were made as a result of those leaks.

<comment><USER3> >if the NSA had that data, they'd share it with the FBI

No they would not. Different government agencies are tasked with different resources, different objectives, and different guiding laws. What is legal for some agencies is blatantly illegal for others. The NSA has no domestic mission and cannot generally operate on American soil - true of the entire US military [1]. This blurring of those lines is exactly the problem. By permitting the FBI to take on NSA-like capabilities, and giving the NSA FBI-like responsibilities one gives the military a role in monitoring its own citizens, and an adversarial law enforcement agency unlimited espionage powers - <USER2> dangerous precedents - digital or otherwise.

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

<comment><USER5> The FBI most definitely has access to intelligence databases and information:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/25/us/25stellarwi...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/25/us/25stellarwind- ig-report.html#document/p608)

A key part of the FBI's mission is "to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats" after all:

[https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/faqs](https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/faqs)

<comment><USER6> NSA is an agency of the Department of Defense. CIA is an independent organization. FBI is counted among the set of US "Intelligence" organizations, but if there's one thing media and memoirs tell us, it's that organization in different Departments have a history of not playing nice. Case in point, all the finger pointing around organizations not sharing information pre 9/11.

DOD and DOJ in particular I don't think have such a close buddy-buddy relationship.

<comment><USER5> Information sharing greatly increased post 9/11\. See my reply to the sibling comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _They said the government should disclose how much American content the > N.S.A. collects incidentally ..._

The NSA's lawyers have twisted the definition of "collection" to mean the accessing of information already present in storage. By any reasonable definition of the word, they already collect virtually everything they can on Americans. Not just metadata, but full content—everything.

Asking the NSA to disclose incidental collection on Americans would only reveal incidental _access_ to Americans' information in context of foreign- targeted operations.

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't anyone else furious about this? The entire system was built in secret and without the consent of the American people, at huge expense, with little- to-no oversight (secret courts), and now is being expanded to share our data among every 'security' agency in the nation (again without our consent)?

It still blows my mind we've spend such huge sums of money on what is effectively a very iffy interpretation of the law, designed to violate civil rights on a mass scale. The other top story in the news is how another security agency is essentially trying to get easy access to people's private data (phones) whenever needed.

<comment><USER9> You forgot to mention that there's absolutely no evidence that any of these sacrifices have paid off even one iota.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's their prerogative.

The public, though, is largely against these mass surveillance programs, and should be informed from the horse's mouth exactly what they are.

Former NSA Director Michael Hayden said last year that he was glad to see that as a result of the Snowden leaks the NSA only lost ease of access to their small 215 program, and didn't even lose the program entirely [1]

Mass surveillance and our right to privacy need to become _election issues_ if any of this is ever to change.

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2015/06/17/hayden-mocks-extent- post...](https://theintercept.com/2015/06/17/hayden-mocks-extent-post-snowden- surveillance-reform-2-years-cool/)

<comment><USER11> Even if it does become an election issues, we know the Dems are for it and from tonights Republican debate and their stance on Apple, I'm pretty sure its safe to say they also support the NSA surveillance initiatives. Anything justified as "protection from terrorists" will be supported by the government and sadly by most US citizens.

<comment><USER12> > from tonights Republican debate and their stance on Apple, I'm pretty sure > its safe to say they also support the NSA surveillance initiatives. Anything > justified as "protection from terrorists" will be supported by the > government and sadly by most US citizens.

Was there any doubt? One of the core pillars of the Republican party is massive defense spending while the party's opinion on Snowden is not exactly favorable (to say the least). Furthermore, a current Rubio ad is literally claiming we will enter into the Apocalypse (due to terrorism and economic collapse) if he isn't elected as the GOP nominee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The idea is to let more experts across American intelligence gain direct > access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will > recognize any possible nuggets of value

And in reality, increasing the very real possibility of a police-state at unprecedented levels.

> "Before we allow them to spread that information further in the government, > we need to have a serious conversation about how to protect Americans' > information," said Alexander Abdo, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer.

And as a non-American, this kind of things makes me want to scream. Why aren't we talking about human rights instead of just Americans' rights. It sounds like something out of "Animal Farm", i.e. everyone is equal in principle but Americans are "more equal" than the others.

<comment><USER14> Because the ACLU stands for "AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union?" They are campaigning for their userbase, which is already an unpopular stance in the media today given that these programs get pushed through anyway.

<comment><USER15> The point still stands. The vast majority of this discussion is in the context of "should the NSA be able to do this to Americans" as opposed to "should the NSA be able to do this at all".

<comment><USER16> Americans don't like to admit that the heinous policies of their government effect people around the world .. this would require that culturally they accept responsibility for the actions of their government, which is not something you can get an average American to do, easily, alas. It takes some shock to get an average American to _actually do something_. Alas, this shock is too often expressed as terrorism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How does a nation built upon the concept of natural rights in turn deny non- Americans those same innate rights?

It is a crime what the NSA is doing. Against Americans, the world and the first principles of governance (i.e. classical liberalism).

If Jefferson's notion of an Empire of Library was alive and vibrant today, the target would not be Canada but the United States government.

Jefferson on defending the concept of popular sovereignty etc all over the world-

"...we should then have only to include the North [Canada] in our confederacy...and we should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self government." \- Jefferson to James Madison, 27 April 1809

"where this progress will stop no-one can say. Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth" \- Jefferson to William Ludlow, 6 September 1824

<comment><USER18> The leadership does not believe in the Founding Fathers or the Constitution in the way Americans would like. At best they see it as a set of rules made by people just like themselves that they can adjust and change to meet the needs of the times. And that usually entails more control over the ever out of control masses, according to their perceptions.

The NSA or analogue in the late 1700s in the time of the Founding Fathers would probably lead to a revolution. The NSA of today is common news and no one cares that someone is always listening, not might be but is (it's being recorded somewhere), to everything they type or do and might share that with people who are literally out to get you if it's convenient to do so.

Ultimately this is to create a further atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and paranoia about anything you might do or say that could come back to haunt you later... to protect the government's fear, anxiety, and paranoia that the citizens are always doing something wrong and need to be found out.

Nefarious plans are always being hatched that can be prevented if the right agency just knew what everyone was doing at all times. And the specter of the panopticon keeps everyone from even contemplating doing anything wrong.

And maybe they are not wrong. But I hate living in a paranoid world like that, which can make people mentally ill if they think about it too much. The scene from the Simpson where Bart is on Focusyn comes to mind.

<comment><USER19> Playing on the population's fear of terrorism is just a tool used to consolidate power. The will to power of the government is not evil, but it must be constrained by an educated population.

The intent of the 4th amendment was to guarantee privacy in our personal lives. This protection has obviously been eroded as the the information of our lives has become digitally interconnected.

I think the real question is what do we do from here?

The same technology that binds us together could be used to create a true democratic system. It's time for us to evolve past the American democratic process, which was designed to protect against the "tyranny of the majority."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is all about bringing allies on side to the global spying cause, and addicting them to the information it provides so the USA isn't alone in the extent of its intrusive activities.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is a legitimate place for foreign intelligence collection. It's a pity that the US Government doesn't use the newfound (and unwanted) publicity of its SIGINT program to gain the public's trust through straightforward explanation rather than continue to maintain the facade of confidentiality through the usual rumors and press leaks.

</comment><comment><USER22> What are the names of the "other American intelligence agencies" involved? The CIA is mentioned, but I can't tell if it's already included or not, given the examples in the article.

Is the Drug Enforcement Agency one of them?

<comment><USER23> I think it's extremely likely the DEA, IRS, CIA, FBI, DHS, and a few other huge agencies will see either expanded data access or get access for the first time. The Feds are nothing if not very predictable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Privacy advocacy has not gained traction as a mainstream issue because its proponents continue to cite potential government overreach as the primary risk factor in a world of diminishing privacy. As a result, even though many people are convinced of the moral arguments against dragnet surveillance, they disregard it as an issue, because "government overreach" seems like a small risk factor. In other words, people hear "big brother is watching you" and think "sure, but he's not going to do anything to me."

Nobody _actually thinks_ the US government will suddenly implement martial law, extrajudicial detention, or unsanctioned executions. Nobody _actually thinks_ the US is on the verge of collapsing into totalitarianism. So why would anyone _actually care_ about the privacy debate?

The privacy debate promulgates fear of government overreach, and as a result tends to attract isolated clusters of libertarian idealogues rather than a grassroots distribution of everyday citizens.

To achieve mainstream viability, the privacy debate needs to shift direction to focus on more realistic risks of constant monitoring of metadata on the habits of citizens.

Do you know who's far more interested in your metadata than the government?: Private organizations that derive profit from actuarial models where you are a datapoint and a confidence interval. Who's going to have a better actuarial model: a century-old health insurance company that has access to your most basic metadata, or a modern insurance company with access to realtime intelligence on your consumption and fitness habits?

Insurance companies stand to benefit the most from collecting metadata paired with unique identifiers. The more accurate models an insurance company can develop, the more profit it can make as it hedges against its risk with greater certainty.

Of course, this isn't necessarily bad for the consumer. Imagine a healthy 22 year old who wears a Fitbit, connects with his college educated social network on Facebook, and pays only with Google wallet. As a 22 year old, he should be in one of the lowest risk categories for health insurance. But the health insurance company, without access to metadata, does not know for sure how healthy his habits are. But if he's healthy anyway, why shouldn't he opt into sharing his metadata with the insurance company? If he needs to surrender a little privacy to prove he's a healthy 22 year old, but he saves 15% on his insurance because of it, isn't that a worthwhile tradeoff?

Recent attempts at insurance startups are already doing this. In NYC for example, Oscar discounts your health insurance if you share your fitness tracker data with them. Who wouldn't take that deal?

But if you opt in once, what happens as you age? Will your insurance company increase your rates if you refuse to continue sharing metadata? Will such refusal, a desire to hide metadata previously shared freely, act as evidence in itself of poor health?

There are many questions to be asked and answered around the privacy debate, including what exactly _is_ the privacy debate? What is its cause? What will get people to rally behind that cause?

Clearly, it's not fear of the government. So maybe it's time to try inducing fear of higher bills.

<comment><USER25> _Clearly, it 's not fear of the government. So maybe it's time to try inducing fear of higher bills._

The problem with this approach is people honestly (but mistakenly) think that even these things only happen to "other people."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> So the NSA is going to give up one of its true roles, signal intelligence (which I presume includes analysis and filtering)? It's just going to be a router of that information?

<comment><USER27> They finally realized that they collect so much of it, even they don't know what to do with it and how to extract valuable data from it. But they came to the wrong conclusion: giving the data to even more agencies, when they should reduce the collection of the data to more targeted investigations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What could go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER29> After they share the data within, they will begin to sell the data to private corporations, or offer the data to them for next to nothing & as long as they share the output of their processing results. The Public - Private partnership will be in full swing in a few years.

Why are we analyzing this? Why aren't we telling our representatives that this is wrong & it must stop?

peace

<comment><USER30> Private corporations already have the data. Did you see the list of companies supporting Apple?

Nobody is worried about this. We think that companies have the right to keep dossiers on people, as long as they make a scout's promise that it's only for advertising. And selling to each other. But don't give data to the government, that would be unethical.

<comment><USER31> More think of you're bidding on a contract with General Electric and the guy across the table has been listening in on all of your conference calls and reading all of your confidential documents courtesy of your competitors mole at the FBI. And so he knows what your go no go point is to the penny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> that idiot definitely had a private screening of the zapruder film. i mean, come on. what a beautiful shill he is.

</comment><comment><USER33> I still cannot believe the free world gave the head of this Administration a Nobel Peace Prize.</comment>


Show HN: Margin Elo (MELO) – new ML algorithm for pairwise comparison - <AUTHOR> https://moreland.dev/projects/melo/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! So I wrote about this algorithm maybe a year ago, but I just finished developing and documenting the Python implementation and it is now available on PyPi.

What is this? Margin Elo is a new machine learning estimator which can be used to predict the outcome of pairwise comparisons. For example, given the time, team names and point spreads of sports games you can use the model to predict the distribution of _future_ point spreads for an arbitrary match-up.

This is of course just one example, and the model has numerous applications in ranking, estimation, and time series prediction.</comment>


How to Add Twitter's New Product Cards to your Shopify Store? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.virali.ca/2013/09/twitter-product-cards/

<comment><USER2> Tom... I took your approach and applied it to Magento. Thanks! [https://gist.github.com/tegansnyder/6586013](https://gist.github.com/tegansnyder/6586013)</comment>


45 year CPU evolution – one law and two equations - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00254 <comment><USER2> Paper highlights:

\- 22mn or 7nm are idle marketing. "The nodes were first defined according to the transistor channel length. The last nodes are more defined according to marketing criteria."

\- the memory wall... "The huge difference between CPU and DRAM growth rates led to the increased complexity of microprocessor memory hierarchies. Different levels of caches are needed to balance the differences in the bandwidth and latency needs of the CPU with those of the DRAM main memory."

\- Conclusion "When the end of the predicted end of the exponential evolution will be real or when non-Von Neumann architectures will prove to be more efficient for programmable applications, the situation will be totally different. Until that point, the two equations that have been discussed in this paper will be there to explain the evolution"

<comment><USER3> > \- the memory wall... "The huge difference between CPU and DRAM growth rates > led to the increased complexity of microprocessor memory hierarchies. > Different levels of caches are needed to balance the differences in the > bandwidth and latency needs of the CPU with those of the DRAM main memory."

The way to "solve" this is well known. You build buffers between the CPU and the Memory, and then execute as much as possible out-of-order. And that's the purpose of L1, L2, and L3 caches: to provide this out-of-order code enough data to work (while the CPU is waiting on slow, slow main-memory).

However, contemporary RAM is not designed to coordinate with the CPU very well on this front, at least compared to designs like HMC (a type of "stacked RAM", a competitor to a GPU's HBM).

HMC is interesting because its a packet-based system. You tell the RAM a memory-address to access, but then the RAM may return that memory out-of-order compared to other requests !!!

After all: RAM also has physical "latency" issues. When a bank is open, it needs to close, incurring a tRAS, tCAS, and tRC delay. (A "hit" to the same bank would incur only a tCAS delay). If RAM could execute "out of order", then the memory-controller could allow more efficient orderings of memory.

Juggling which banks are open and closed has been traditionally a CPU's memory controller job. But communicating this information over a many-cm long PCB trace incurs latency. So it makes more sense to put this logic as close to the RAM as possible (speed of light, capacitance, inductance, etc. etc. slow down the signal).

Furthermore: since CPUs are incredible out-of-order machines already, it wouldn't be a major hassle to make the memory also out-of-order. I mean, yeah, its complicated, but its no different to what CPUs already do with L1, L2, and L3 caches (and the programming constructs built on top: Atomic Accesses and whatnot to control the effects of memory-reorderings).

I haven't heard of any major computer use HMC yet however. Only $10,000+ FPGAs on occasion. Still, there exists RAM today which can execute requests out-of- order. When this RAM becomes mainstream (if it ever becomes mainstream), I'd expect systems to be able to get much faster.

<comment><USER4> FWIW DDR3 includes 8 banks each of which can execute independently of the others. So there is still parallelism there. DDR4 doubles this to 16.

<comment><USER3> > FWIW DDR3 includes 8 banks each of which can execute independently of the > others. So there is still parallelism there. DDR4 doubles this to 16.

Indeed. So there's some parallelism that can be captured, but they're managed by the CPU instead of the Memory.

Because HMC abstracts away the protocol into a packet-based innately out-of- order protocol, and because the "memory controller logic" has been moved to an area physically as-close-as-possible to the RAM itself, it can achieve much higher degrees of parallelism.

Case in point: a single stack of HMC has 128 banks of parallelism across 4-vaults (I would argue that a "vault" is roughly equivalent to a DDR4 channel): [https://www.micron.com/parts/hybrid-memory-cube/hmc- sr/mt43a...](https://www.micron.com/parts/hybrid-memory-cube/hmc- sr/mt43a4g40200nfa-s15?pc={8AD36F73-07F4-4ECD-A168-B5E899F1E650})

<comment><USER4> The bottleneck for DDR memory isn't really the memory controller but rather the memory bus itself. Moving the controller won't change that.

Its very rare to get anywhere close to 100% bus utilization. HMC's real advance is switching to independent serial links which we know how to scale better than parallel busses. Its this improved bandwidth that allows you to pack in more parallelism. We _could_ have more banks in traditional DDR memory but there isn't much point because the data bus couldn't feed it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


California lawmaker surprised to find genre of music cannot be outlawed - <AUTHOR> http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/12/california-lawmaker-surprised-to-find-genre-of-music-cannot-be-outlawed/

<comment><USER2> Fiona Ma, the legislator proposing the bill, came off slightly incoherent, Lee Liu (sp?) seemed to have a reasonable assessment of the ramifications of the law and the events.

My cynical self suggests that Fiona was proposing legislation for the sake of getting her name in the public awareness around a popular topic, whereas Lee Liu just fundamentally understood the issue, and is likely a much more effective harm reduction advocate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Idiot lawmaker over-reacts and writes law telling kids to get off her lawn, pull up pants.

"I believe with the new secretary, the new people appointed to these boards, more sophistication in terms of what raves are, the safer they will be," Ma said. "Can't wear gloves with lights, you can't walk around with stuffed animals."

Yes, let's save another 1 in 100000 lighted-glove, stuffed animal-related death.

I hate busybodies.

</comment><comment><USER4> The questions they should be asking:

\- Where were the girls parents in all this? \- Is this a problem we can solve through education, rather than by creating more restricting laws?

Instead, they go down the typical path of denying personal responsibility and creating unenforceable laws. I, for one, would be personally offended if that assemblywoman was getting any part of her salary from my taxes.

</comment><comment><USER5> And if some kid OD'ed on ecstasy inside a school (I'll bet that's already happened), would she want to make running a school a crime?</comment>


Agony to ecstasy: on taking children to museums - <AUTHOR> http://www.intelligentlifemagazine.com/culture/authors-on-museums/agony-to-ecstasy <comment><USER2> As someone who has also gone through all three stages, I think the key for children is choosing the museums and exhibits that they or you like and enjoying them instead of analyzing them.

For example, my 6 year old daughter enjoys the local art museum, but I don't think she has looked at any one painting more than 5 seconds. As a parent you have to be OK with missing out on a part of the experience for you and work on the experience for your children. The specific experience I suggest focusing on for young children is just enjoying it, or a specific part. Mostly that means letting them go quickly by that masterpiece and asking what they like about whatever they do stop to see.

<comment><USER3> That sounds sensible.

Kids - even bright kids - aren't going to be able to understand or appreciate art the way adults do.

So I mostly agree with the article. Dragging kids around museums they're visibly bored by to "improve" or "educate" them is a waste of time for everyone.

I used to love the Science Museum in London as a kid, because there were buttons to push and levers to play with and giant aeroplanes and spaceships. And sometimes, computers.

As an adult I really enjoy art galleries (and science museums.) But I can't imagine six year old me getting anything out of gallery visits at all. Art is too abstract and emotionally complex for pre-teens, and the history to give it a context is too distant from their experience.

<comment><USER4> You are free to correct me if I'm wrong, but in reading this I can't imagine you have kids.

As someone who does, let me affirm that children absolutely get as much out of gallery visits as adults do. It isn't a perfect overlay in subject matter, but they learn as much as you or I. At pre-adult ages, exposure is as critical as understanding, which will evolve only via experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have taken my children to the Prado several times, and also to the Thyssen and Reina Sofia. They enjoyed their visits, mostly because there were specially made for kids: they had a guide for a group of 10-12 kids, the visits had a theme like Greek mythology, and they only stopped in front of a few paintings.

I liked the Thyssen visits the most: only 5-6 paintings with a common theme like music, cities, people... and at the end the kids would do a craft based on what they just saw. The guides took a socratic approach to the visits, so instead of explaining they asked questions like What do you see here? Why did the artist did that? Who is this person in the painting? Was he rich? Is she happy?

We parents were with them but weren't allowed to speak before the kids, only to help when they struggled with a question. It was delightful to see the children's imagination run wild with their interpretation of the paintings.

Seeing only a few paintings but really being in front of them for a while was a new experience for me, used to the common mindset of having to see all paintings in a museum even if only for a few seconds.

</comment><comment><USER6> My father has a extreemly high IQ and his favorite hobby is learning something new. He is 77 years old and he still attends college classes at our state college (Free for anyone over 65).

He took all 5 of his kids to a museum at least once a month. We would drive 3 or 4 hours and then get there when it opened and more than likely be there when it closed. The number one person my dad would talk with was the security people. His thought was they had no real knowledge of the subject and had to work through all the steps so they can explain it better. He was right.

<comment><USER7> Maybe it was by virtue of you being his offspring that you could tolerate that, but I can tell you that if I were his kid he'd have been dealing with a seriously exasperated/cranky kid and would've started leaving me at home for his all-day museum visits.

Even now, the idea of spending an entire day at a museum makes my brain's gag reflex fire. Even for cool subjects that naturally interest me (history, engineering), there's only so long I can mill around staring at things in a receptive state before my brain says "ENOUGH".

<comment><USER6> Well to be honest all 5 of use would NEVER complain. We would leave restaurants and the people would say, "Oh your children are the best behaved children I ever seen." We would say later on to ourselves, "They didn't know what our father would threaten us with." He is a loving father but he would make it SO NOT WORTH IT to complain or misbehave. My children love to learn and don't complain but I don't threaten them :)

I think if you raise them to love what you do (For me it is learning, music and food) they grow liking the same things. My 9 year old at Disney World ordered the non-kid friendly Cheese Plate and the waiter sent out a second kid friendly appetizer just to be safe. He later asked her what her favorite thing she ate at Disney (Last night of 5 day stay) and she said the cheese plate.

<comment><USER8> The WORST part of my family's Disney experience was how the meal plan required my younger son to order from the children's menu. My one son was 11, and the other 9. The way the Disney meal plan works, 9 year-olds and under MUST order from the child menu. We kept dragging our kids back to Epcot to eat at the various nationality specific restaurants. Me, my wife, and older son would get a menu with lots of interesting choices, my younger son got to pick from chicken fingers or one other vaguely ethnic dish. He really hated being discriminated against in this way.

The one server who really understood the problem was at Epcot's Italian restaurant. We ordered various things, including one item from the children's menu, but our waitress just served everything communally, with no mention of what was the "child" item.

Sorry to vent, but you just triggered a painful parenting memory. :)

<comment><USER6> We ran into the same thing, but my 9 year old got adults meals half the time by us just asking. Also they feed enough for 1.5 people easily so my wife and I would give her part of our own meals.

I went on a Make a Wish trip with my son when he was 9 and he got the adult meal 100% of the time. Disney is awesome with Make a Wish kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was indoctrinated (with the best intentions) with a little bit of "museum guilt" as a child - when I visit a place, I sure as hell better visit all the big museums, as I needed to be a "citizen of the world" and it would be such a shame if I went all the way to a place and didn't see the museums.

I started enjoying travel a lot more once I got out of this mindset.

For me, now, travel is about walking everywhere, soaking up and trying to temporarily become one with the culture, people-watching and thinking about what life is like in this place, trying the food, admiring the architecture, breathing the air and just _being_ in another place. And visiting a museum or two, when it makes sense, especially if it provides some historical context to the place I'm in.

Sure, I'm not going to miss the Louvre or the National Gallery, but I'm not going to make myself spend more than a few hours there because it's "required viewing".

My 2 cents: By all means, visit museums. But don't make travel a negative experience for yourself or your kids "because we just have to get all these museums in".

<comment><USER10> I would expand this a bit and say: there is no point in trying to appreciate culture if you don't actually enjoy the experience. (And thus no point in trying to have your children appreciate culture if _they_ don't enjoy it.)

It's sad that a lot of aspects of culture (art museums, plays, orchestral music) have been labeled as boring, because people feel obligated to experience them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The museums with the most renown collections* are often the worst at telling the story of why those artifacts are special. Great if you're a historian, a useless collection of old broken things if you're a kid, and incompletely impressive artifacts for laymen.

*I'm looking at you, British and Egyptian Museums.

Slowly, a handful of museums are catching on. The Holocaust museum in Washington, DC may be the best use of a collection out there.

<comment><USER12> Have you ever been on a guided tour? I know that museums shouldn't rely on guided tours to be interesting, but for those museums that fail to capture a wider audience, guided tours can be a godsend.

When I went to the National Cathedral, we didn't get nor want a guided tour. The architecture was enough to keep us interested. There were enough tours happening concurrently that we could weave about the cathedral at our own pace while still getting most of the tour experience. For people without an inherent interest in the cathedral or its architecture, the tours sounded great. Perhaps the tours would be helpful for potentially interesting museums with awfully boring experiences.

<comment><USER11> That's a good suggestion. Guide quality runs the gambit so checking reviews of the licensed guides for a particular museum can save a few bucks. I've had guys recite the brochure and not even get it right.

Right now I'm taking the time consuming approach of reading a couple books on major destinations and hoping for the best. Next up, A Short History of Laos: The Land in Between.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The majority of museums in London have extra resources for children and they range from pretty poor 'trails'/paper-based games to interactive talks and workshops targeted at particular age groups. What you get highly depends on the people in charge at the particular institution. The goal of these resources is to facilitate alternative interpretations to allow people of all ages to appreciate the collection (and make maximum use of the funding). The idea that all people, even across the same age group, interpret art in the same way is wrong; the idea that one interpretation is better or more right than another is also wrong. Fortunately there are now numerous ways to enjoy museums and galleries and to 'drag' a child around is unlikely to be one of them. Surely that's obvious.

<comment><USER14> This idea of paper-based games is nice, but I hope they are slightly more involved than [can you find five pictures with a donkey in them]. It would be great (particularly at museums that focus on science, industry, etc.) if these games implicitly motivated young people to draw connections between different realms of knowledge.

For instance, the connection between transportation and resource extraction is obvious to adults, but a young person may find it helpful if a paper-based game motivated them to consider how the cool steam engines connect with the coal mining exhibit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _sigh_ Point of Fact: Felipe II married Mary Tudor, not Mary, Queen of Scots. How exactly did that get past the editors?

</comment><comment><USER16> It all depends on the individuals and what they're receptive to, regardless of whether you're talking about kids OR adults.

Sure, some kids are going to have a meltdown if you drag them through MOMA. Wait until they're older, or structure the experience with some preparation or get professional help (kid-friendly tours).

I don't think that the great museums should bend-over-backwards to appease cranky children. Many already do a great job providing age-appropriate activities and that's enough. How much more do we need from these museums?

</comment><comment><USER17> Kids would probably enjoy the interactive sculpture installations of a nice playground like Dennis the Menace Park - or an interactive science museum intended for all age audiences like the Exploratorium.

Depending on what age the kid is, a natural history musume or modern art museum would probably be wiser than something full of oil paintings. Kids with internet access have seen art. Show them the world, science, fun. Oil paintings are not fun.

[http://exploratorium.edu](http://exploratorium.edu)

</comment><comment><USER18> I was fortunate enough to grow up with the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall within easy driving distance. Some of my best childhood memories are seeing the t-Rex skull at the Natural History museum and the various space vessels at the Air and Space museum. I am extremely grateful to my parents for having taken us at least once a year.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wrote this somewhat tedious text about my relation to museums as I was embarking on a quest to visit and write about all of Amsterdam's museums (I stopped after 5).

[http://blog.goula.sh/post/76719719068/the- museumkaart](http://blog.goula.sh/post/76719719068/the-museumkaart)</comment>


Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/sep/20/fiction <comment><USER2> As mentioned in the article, this is just an adapted snippet of the full Kenyon College commencement speech in 2005. You can watch the video of full speech (which I recommend over the text version because Wallace' intonation makes the whole thing feel a lot more light-hearted and palatable without losing any of the sincerity or meaning) here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL- ydFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI)

It's well worth your time.</comment>


The irreconcilable acceptance of near-term extinction - <AUTHOR> http://guymcpherson.com/2013/04/the-irreconcilable-acceptance-of-near-term-extinction/

<comment><USER2> A quote: "I have absolutely no interest in attempting to persuade anyone of this conjecture being either true or false."

Be that as it may, you may want to think about how people respond to a rational appraisal of our present circumstances. Remember that evolution and natural selection are at work in the modern world, in human society. So, given that, your audience can be segmented into two groups:

* First, those who are intelligent, compassionate and responsible enough to take remedial action, i.e. stop having children. What? You thought there was some other solution to the looming environmental catastrophe? There isn't -- the relentless mathematics of population increase cannot be bargained with or ignored.

* Second, those who are not intelligent, compassionate or responsible enough will more than make up for the actions of the above class of people by creating the entire future human species. The result is that, as things on Planet Earth get worse, the intelligence and perceptiveness of the survivors will continue to fall.

The above is the simple version of present reality, but it cannot be used to rationalize eugenic or racist policies. We're all in this together and the problem is not which children, it's the fact that there are too many people -- of all kinds -- having children without thinking.

We're victims of our own biological success, and it appears nature has a sick sense of humor.

<comment><USER3> very felicitous summary of what i think about mankinds exponential growth in population. sad but true story.

there is a movie addressing this topic, which is called "idiocrazy". it's the funny version of a sad truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm clearly not the audience for this, as I think the case for near-term extinction of the human race is far from obvious or even likely.

Author sounds like an extrapolating drama queen. Humanity adapts, as does life.</comment>


D-Wave announces its next-gen quantum computing platform - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/27/d-wave-announces-its-next-gen-quantum-computing-platform/ <comment><USER2> I'm a D-Wave employee, hacker & graph theorist; I made the animation and helped design the circuit that it depicts. AMA?</comment>


Supreme Court Rejects Domino's on Blind Man's Website Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/domino-s-rejected-by-supreme-court-on-blind-man-s-website-suit <comment><USER2> It's time some big companies donated tech and resources to screen reader software.

Today's software is _terrible_ , and there are certainly massive improvements that could be made.

For one thing, a screen reader should actually _read the screen_ like a sighted person would. It shouldn't say text outside the viewport, hidden text, or 0 sized text. It _should_ read text in images (central to memes, adverts, photos of roadsigns, maps). It should understand common layouts, styles, and able to summarize verbose text.

A bit of machine learning could easily make a screen reader say "You are on BBC.com, the news headlines are X, Y, and Z, and each has more detail. There is a navigation menu at the top with links to Sport, Weather, and Local News."

<comment><USER3> CNN and NPR actually do a pretty good job of your final suggestion on their respective Lite and Text only sites: [https://lite.cnn.io/en](https://lite.cnn.io/en) [https://text.npr.org/](https://text.npr.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first thought was how such a large chunk of your web development resources now need to satisfy such a small population of pizza eaters. But I quickly realised, beyond the morals and ethics, this is just practically a good idea.

An interface that works for a blind person could be the same interface fundamentals that allow me to order a pizza while driving.

That also got me wondering: what if the Domino's site just led blind people to finding the right phone number to call? (I thought about this because naturally, if I was driving, I'd just say, "Hey Stupid Phone, call Domino's Pizza")

<comment><USER5> Or, hear me out, you shouldn't order pizza while you're driving. :)

<comment><USER4> Then what am I going to eat while enjoying this ice cold beer?

<comment><USER5> I guess this is a lesson for all user interface designers, you never know how many lives your streamlined pizza ordering funnel might save.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Apple's VoiceOver can't read your website, then yeah, you have some work to do. Because it isn't just visually disabled people who suffer (though they suffer dis-proportionally), it's the rest of us, too, who might benefit from some automation. An Apple Shortcut on my phone to just slam a $MY_USUAL in the queue with a button press or Siri command, for example. And if JAWS can't read it, VoiceOver can't handle it, then I'll bet Selenium doesn't have much of an easier time with it, so how much did you _really_ test this, and how much ongoing testing is there?

I could go on but at the end of the day, JFC, Domino's would rather let this go to court than add some alt-text? (Which all it would have taken to shut this guy up and made him go away.) I hope they lose just on the principle of their stubbornness.

<comment><AUTHOR> fyi,"just add alt-text" doesn't come as good comment as there is already too less awareness about accessibility related practices in web community but I guess you already knew it.

<comment><USER6> You're absolutely right in that it is not an educational comment. I guess I was considering that I was "preaching to the choir", or plainly, speaking to those who already knew what needs to be done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is actually a plus. While it might be expensive to make a site accessible now given the fact that it must be done due to the legal action the costs will fall since there will be a push to get it done at the lowest cost possible. The more it is done the cheaper it will get.

</comment><comment><USER8> JAWS is horrid. There needs to be better open alternatives sponsored by Congress.</comment>


Mojolicious + Bootstrap = Awesome - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.perl.org/users/joel_berger/2012/03/mojolicious-bootstrap-awesome.html

<comment><USER2> I've been doing stuff with Mojolicious with the YUI App Theme, but it sounds like using Bootstrap instead is the way I really need to go.</comment>


Show HN: A script in python to organize your images by similarity - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/groupImg <comment><AUTHOR> Just added multiprocessing to it.</comment>


Is your internet up to date? - <AUTHOR> http://en.conn.internet.nl/connection/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this is terribly misleading DNSSEC propaganda. It tells me:

"Protected from redirection to false IP addresses (DNSSEC)"

What does that mean? It means that whatever other DNS server I use seems to verify DNSSEC signatures (I use Google's DNS fwiw). Yet this doesn't provide any reasonable sense of protection, as the connection to that DNS server may very well be compromised.

This would very well show DNSSEC protection in an open public wifi if the provider decided to enable DNSSEC.

<comment><USER3> I thought DNSSEC was supposed to be verifiable by the _client_? If it isn't then it's pointless in the way that you suggest, but I find it hard to believe that hole was left.

<comment><USER2> Congratulations, you've understood the main hole of dnssec.

The thing is: you can verify dnssec on the client. In theory. It's just that 99,9% (rough estimate, may be higher) of people don't. You'd have to run your own resolver. Which might work, if your ISP isn't doing funny things with your DNS traffic. Which some ISPs do. Which means it can't be deployed widely.

This thing was built in the 90s when people assumed you have some dns that some admin you trust manages in some trusted network. Moving it to today's internet is pretty much impossible.

<comment><USER4> ( serious question - I might not know something )

If I run my own resolver, with a hardcoded [1] trust anchor, how could an ISP affect me regardless of what funny things it does with my DNS traffic...?

[1] [https://sources.debian.net/src/bind9/1:9.10.3.dfsg.P4-10.1/b...](https://sources.debian.net/src/bind9/1:9.10.3.dfsg.P4-10.1/bind.keys/#L35-L45)

<comment><USER2> Well, the traffic is not encrypted or otherwise protected, so a firewall trying to be "smart" could do all kinds of things. E.g. not letting you connect to other DNS servers at all or filtering all queries with unusual record types.

<comment><USER4> But the point of DNSSEC isn't to protect your ability to contact another server, just like the point of SSL isn't to be a substitute for TOR.

Are we on the same page that with DNSSEC activated on a local resolver one would either get an authentic answer, or nothing at all?

<comment><USER2> > Are we on the same page that with DNSSEC activated on a local resolver one > would either get an authentic answer, or nothing at all?

Sure. But it's not very relevant, because almost nobody does that. And that's unlikely to change, because getting nothing at all isn't a very desirable state of affairs.

And given that forcing local DNSSEC resolvers in an OS or a browser would likely mean that a large share of your userbase will get nothing at all this is pretty much impractial.

<comment><USER4> > And that's unlikely to change, because getting nothing at all isn't a very > desirable state of affairs.

It worked for HTTPS - more and more browser builds refuse to show you stuff, with no workaround, even if there is nothing wrong with the certificates ( cough-sha1-cough-or-cough-chrome-cert-transparency-cough ). Yet I don't see any users revolt.

Claiming that having an all-or-nothing HTTPS is a-ok, yet having all-or- nothing DNS is unacceptable is... inconsistent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Is Your Internet Up-To-date?

Of course it isn't. I live in the UK.

<comment><USER6> Mine is, and I live in the UK also. I'm not sure what joke you're making. Sure, we may not have the best bandwidth (although at my previous house I had 250MBit), but supporting IPv6 (etc) has nothing to do with being in the UK. Find a decent ISP, I recommend Zen (or if you can afford them, AA).

<comment><USER7> Depends where you live. In Storrington the internet is rubbish and no phone signal. This is 2017 UK. Driving to London from that region you lose mobile signal at least 5 times completely.

People act so entitled when they live in cities; I happen not to like cities which makes me a minority, but there are plenty of wealthy business people crying every day about their connection south of London (and probably in more places; most places around Exeter aren't great either).

<comment><USER8> My parents live in a Dorset village and have the same issues. I'm on Three and even in the nearest towns (Dorchester, pop. 20k and Weymouth, pop. 50k) there is usually no or a very weak signal. They finally rolled out BT Infinity last year, so at least that's something.

I live in Lithuania now and it really shocks me how bad the UK is for these things. Here I have 600/600 FTTH for €20/month and LTE is basically universal, even in remote parts of the country.

<comment><USER9> It's cheap in Lithuania and other countries because they were was no significant prior investment in telecoms infrastructure, and the costs of deployment are generally lower too (cheaper labour, easier planning- permission) - so when it comes to deploying Internet access to a previously disconnected community it only makes sense to roll-out the bleeding-edge technology (e.g. FTTH).

Whereas in the UK, BT was/is obsessed with squeezing every last drop of bandwidth from POTS connections - because the cost of upgrading everyone's last-mile connections from copper (or even aluminium in some cases) to fibre is very cost-prohibitive: look at the sheer cost the cablecos shouldered during the mass roll-out of coax in the early-1990s (and even then, it was only to boxes in the street, not houses) - I understand their near-bankruptcy from this move lead to them all coming together under NTL and Telewest, and then Virgin Media.

(The only thing that is inexplicable is how even modern, brand-new housing developments still have unshielded copper last-mile connections instead of FTTH: they don't even lay conduits to make it easier for possible future FTTH... idiocy)

Give the UK a few more years and there should be a mandate from above requiring FTTH and we'll see progress: maybe even 10Gig FTTH as standard, then the tables will turn and people in Lithuania will be stuck with their 1Gbps service until their next round of major infrastructure investment, potentially decades away.

(I'm aware that Fibre is generally more future-proof than copper, and a high- quality fibre line that handles 1Gbps today can easily handle 10Gbps, and potentially 40Gbps or even 100Gbps in the future - so my entire argument may be moot)

<comment><USER8> One of the things that really helped is that all passive telecommunications infrastructure is by law "common use" \- so things like ducts, pipe work, man holes, poles, etc can be used by any company. This has really helped to level the playing field so a single company doesn't have an unfair monopoly because it was there first ( _cough_ BT _cough_ ). Where I'm living right now cable and DSL was available (maybe up to 50mbit?), but last year fibre was rolled out by a different company. There are also guidelines on how the infrastructure should be delivered within buildings, so most apartment buildings have duct work going from the basement to the top floor, and space for the providers equipment for future upgrades.

Edit: Looks like Ofcom wants to do something similar: [http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/02/a-closer- look-a...](http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/02/a-closer-look-at- ofcoms-proposed-bt-openreach-duct-and-pole-access-fix.html)

<comment><USER10> Where I live in the states, telephone pole access is "common use" but the bureaucracy around actually being able to do so makes it pretty much impossible to add new lines (eg: needing to get a expensive environmental review for adding a wire to a pole that already has wires). Last I checked it took about a dozen permits which took ~12-24 months to get. After you got the permits, you then needed to pay for the inspection and full replacement of any poles found to be old/substandard that you wanted to attach to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If not, you can download the latest version here: [http://www.downloadmoreram.com/download.html](http://www.downloadmoreram.com/download.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Meanwhile irssi just removed support for DANE in the irc client which I believe means that there are now zero irc clients that will attempt to validate you aren't talking to a rogue irc server. Wasn't irssi the first and only to implement it?

DNSSEC is dead on arrival. Nobody actually wants it.

<comment> iso-8859-1 I wasn't aware that DANE support was removed, but you're right, here's the commit: [https://github.com/irssi/irssi/commit/5a04430998ada5ae800aa0...](https://github.com/irssi/irssi/commit/5a04430998ada5ae800aa0a88638206de51287ca)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not really reliable.

I have full IPv6 connectivity and it tells me the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER14> 0% checking in from Australia

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, my internet is up to date.

</comment><comment><USER16> The number of websites unreachable for not having IPv6 equals 0, so saying your internet is not "up to date" because you don't have IPv6 doesn't mean much

<comment><USER17> Two things. First, it is nice if you don't have to allocate ports on a NAT box to make a test system available. These days you can't really count on all non- production systems having public IPv4 addresses anymore.

Obviously that only works if all systems that need access have IPv6.

However, the main killer app for IPv6 is your ISP running out of IPv4 addresses. Carrier grade NAT boxes are expensive and introduce all kinds of issues. Better to move as much traffic to IPv6 as possible.

Finally, IPv6 seems to be catching on: [https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html](https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html)

If at some point IPv6 traffic is the vast majority of the traffic for a website, then IPv4 traffic engineering may start to suffer. So technically the site will be reachable over IPv4 for a very long time. But it may be that at some point performance will be a lot worse then over IPv6.

<comment><USER18> It appears that Google is seeing 16% ipv6 traffic at the moment, it was 10% a year ago, and 5% the year before that; so not quite on the Ogive climb.

Mind you on a country by country basis Belgium has cleared 50% with Greece clearing 30%.

Heartening to see Zimbabwe pass 7%, an anomaly for the whole of Africa, does anyone know whats going on there? Egypt is second with 0.50%.

The map isn't set up for the Caribbean, although if you check the json used for the website Trinidad comes is at 12%. An egregious omission .

[https://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/ipv6/statistics/data/worl...](https://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/ipv6/statistics/data/worldmap.js)

Perhaps I need to start a fantasy ipv6 migrarion website...

<comment><USER19> You're right, the Caribbean region was not covered by any of the existing links:

[https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery...](https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/geochart#continent- hierarchy-and-codes)

Should be fixed now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Andrew N G's machine learning course vs. Data Science Curriculum from Microsoft - <AUTHOR> I am a python programmer who is now interested in learning machine learning. I came across two courses. One is from Andre NG hosted in coursera https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning  and another one is Data Science Curriculum from Microsoft hosted in edx https://www.edx.org/microsoft-data-science-curriculum.. So which one is better for me to study? <comment><USER2> I completed Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera over this summer and thoroughly recommend it. The course is free unless you pay for the optional certificate.

Andrew's course makes extensive use of GNU Octave which is also free (you can use Matlab), but the material is easily transferable to other environments.

Andrew spends a lot of time explaining how and why the algorithms work, so you are fully prepared when it comes to implementing them for the assignments, rather than just showing you how to call a method or use a wizard.

This course will help you understand the mathematical principles behind the ML techniques that are covered, which I found particularly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am taking Microsoft's course at the moment. I find it as more statistics course and focused on data science. I cant comment anything on Andrew's course, but I heard it is pretty solid. I am beginner and have no programming experience, therefore I am starting with Microsoft's course to get some basic understanding. Hope this was useful to you.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's no rule that prevents a person from taking both.

Good luck.</comment>


Edward Snowden voted Guardian person of the year 2013 - Suraj-Sun http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/edward-snowden-voted-guardian-person-of-year-2013

<comment><AUTHOR> Two duplicate submissions in a row. I wonder if HN has had a software change that disabled the duplicate detector.</comment>