Afton

This seems like an unrelated dig on Perl. There are many things that Perl did better than any contemporaneous language, all while having an ambiguous static parser.

That's the point of the article. Drinking water is from bottled water. Hot beverages are from the 'tap' water, and the requirements on the tap water are not as strict as the drinking water.

I assume that this is a just alarmist journalism, since water for tea/coffee is heated to boiling, and all the taps in the bathrooms say some version of 'non-potable'.

For those who hate clickbait titles:

""" a recently discovered backdoor Trojan used comments posted to Britney Spears's official Instagram account to locate the control server that sends instructions and offloads stolen data to and from infected computers. """

This is a repost of https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/a-veteran-teac...

Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8442067

Can you give flavor on this: "Now we need to remove our phone number as backup method. (If you're curious why it's important to not have a phone number on your account, see the (https://techsolidarity.org/resources/security_key_faq.htm)[s... key FAQ].) "

Unfortunately, the security key FAQ contains no info on why you shouldn't have your phonenumber. I assume it's because phone-number migrations can be used to take control of your accounts?

EDIT: Yeah. Perhaps reading the article instead of just coming to the comments might have been useful.

What if that same excuse has been used as far back as you choose to look for all sorts of discrimination? It's not that it can't possibly be right, but it's a hypothesis to be forced to, not to grab and promote above all others. And we just haven't been forced to it yet.

Thank you for adding to this conversation. This important point, that people make both typos and homonym errors, is a critical insight into this issue.

I'm not familiar with Unison, and have no idea how successful it is, nor where it falls down.

I wasn't involved in these design discussions early on, and Skydrive certainly didn't use rsync, this was just meant as an example of "this is essentially a solved problem, we just need some UI". It isn't, and presenting it as such just gets you into a bad situation.

You're point about the wrong impact is spot on.

I have a gift of getting good grades. I know what things will be on the test, I know how to answer questions so that I leave enough wiggle room to avoid exposing ignorance on a topic, and I know how to structure an answer to get partial credit if I really don't know how to answer a question. My GPA in my first undergraduate class was essentially all A+s (curse you intro to the philosophy of language!).

For my second undergraduate degree, I just flat out rejected that approach. I exposed my ignorance where possible (and typically as early as possible rather than on the final exam). What was surprising was how little impact this had on my grades. Some, but not much, and I learned a lot more. Now I try to pass that on to my kids, but the structure of school is such that everything in that system is oriented towards the wrong goal.

Really pushes me in the direction of homeschooling, I have to say.

> it shouldn't take Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon too much work to put out a comparable product and offer it for free

I worked on SkyDrive/OneDrive for a few years. That's what we thought too. This stuff inevitably starts out with "seriously, how long is it going to take to make essentially a wrapper around rsync" and ends up with "Hey, guess what happens when you cross filesystem errors with distributed systems errors when dealing with unmergeable files?"

This is a deceptively challenging space, particularly if you want to do sharing and group work in a reasonably intuitive way. Which is why Dropbox has managed to remain a company instead of simply being eaten up the first quarter that appl/ms/google decided to get into this business. Note that all three have an offering, and at this point I know that OneDrive is actually pretty good, but for years it was kind of an uphill catchup struggle.

Keeping the angle consistent is the problem with use a simple sharpening stone.

I recommend a jig that keeps the angle for you. I use a spyderco sharpmaker (https://www.amazon.com/Spyderco-Tri-Angle-Sharpmaker/dp/B004...), but there are others. I enjoy eating steak with a super sharp knife, so I have it out frequently for sharpening our set of steak-knives, and less frequently for our chef's knives.

I have to admit that I don't like the texture of poultry breast meat done sous vide. Maybe I should experiment with not vacuum sealing it (just leave it with minimal air). But if you have an instant read thermometer (or a stick-in-and-wires-out continuous monitoring kind), the key is temperature. Just use a low oven (225 say) and pull it out when its ~135-140.

My favourite thing to sous vide is steaks, which I finish on a steal plate on my grill. But I just use the beer-cooler sous-vide trick, so I can't really do e.g. 72 hour short-ribs.

If you're interested, head over to /r/griptraining. One of the most frustrating things about grip, is how specific each kind of grip strength is. Pinch grip (tripod pinch) vs static holds vs ulnar grip, all require specific training.

Edited to clarify that I mean for my description to be understood to occur at a 'gifted school'.

"gifted track" is rarely a set program. It's usually a mechanism for providing individually paced opportunities and resources [edit: added this phrase] _at a different/specific school_.

Where I live, you get tested whenever your parents want you to be tested, and if they pass the advanced learning at the point, they can choose to elect for the 'advanced school(s)'.

_edited for clarity_

> Wargame out plausible solutions to it if one didn't have your team's context on your particular situation,

My least favorite interview ever, was essentially "Implement this generic problem that our team had to solve, but you don't have the context of our infrastructure, and I'll criticize you every time you deviate from the actual solution we came up with because your solution wouldn't work in our context". It really felt like a "read my mind" type of problem.

No further point. Just glad to see you point out the relatively obvious point that you need to evaluate a question for someone who doesn't have your current context.

I love the idea, but I'm just not sure that this is the 'hard' part of the problem, so I end up feeling like these are solutions in search of problems. Maybe I just don't grok how these contracts are interestingly different from other types of contracts.

Incidentally, one of my friends is working on such a block-chain based app: http://www.agriledger.com/

I still don't understand it, even though it seems cool.

In the interests of anecdata, I went ketogenic for about 18 months. One of my reasons for doing this that my sister described in glowing terms how eating this way had all sort of positive mental health efforts (more muted emotional responses, mental clarity, lack of anxiety).

I had no effect of that sort. I can only assume that this is one of those 'some people respond well to this, others not so much'.

and unlimited time. So much advice of the form: "Really sit down with the child during a tantrum. Listen to their concerns, and make sure they feel heard. Only then engage with them in problem solving.". Uh. Sure. I'll just do that. I mean, dinner is going to burn, we'll be late for swimming, and I was on my way to wipe my other child's butt before helping my _other_ other child with their homework.

I can only assume that the people constructing the advice have a nanny and/or a housekeeper.

Classic "there's no upside". By providing feedback, you only provide leverage for a future lawsuit. Not only that, but if you give feedback some of the time, the mere existence of lack of existence of the feedback becomes a piece of evidence. Since only very rarely will the feedback turn into a future hire for the current company, the risk/reward ration is pretty clear.

Have a policy of 'no feedback' means that it is much harder for an applicant to gather evidence for a lawsuit. Sure can be frustrating sometimes though.

IANAL, etc.

Fresh out of my first year of computer science, I had fumbled my through some graph traversal algorithms. The guy (who I still remember!), said "Look, you seem like a smart guy, but it doesn't seem like you've done very much programming". I.e. I could figure out the problem, I just couldn't implement it very quickly or well.

He was right (and obviously. Like I said, one year of university). I took it to heart, and practiced programming. Nailed my next interviews. :)

I've never had any other constructive feedback from an interview, and at more than one company, I've been given specific instructions not to provide it (by the recruiting team).

There are levels and levels at which companies engage in Q.A.

1. There is none, and it's awful, once there are more than two developers.

2. There are dedicated QA people, who click on things in a more or less formalized fashion depending on the company, and sign off on releases. This is "pretty bad" at most places once you have a product that can't be easily verified by a couple of people in a few hours

3. You have dedicated Test Engineers, who are just software developers who write test automation. This can be good, but usually ends up with mid-low quality engineers filling this role for a variety of reasons.

4. Test Engineers are just Software Engineers who specialize in test-automation work. They write automation in high bug areas, and keep a larger overview of the product (set) to identify problematic areas and work with the product developers to solve those problems.

5. The article. Test Engineers write infrastructure for testing and reporting, (and possibly proof-of-concepts). Product developers are responsible for their own quality. Test Engineers may also act as consultants for product teams.

It's probably worth pointing out that 2-5 are all reasonable places to be for different sized companies, at different stages. We shouldn't assume that everyone should be at a company that is 'like Google', since things that make sense at Google scale may not make sense for your 20 developer startup.

edited for formatting only

The cost of the convenience is clearly entry in a reverse-lottery. You just hope it doesn't happen to you. The rarity of the event saps most people of the effort required to implement a backup solution that would alleviate the main pain points (lost contacts, lost google docs/photos/files).

StrongLifts is a perfectly good beginner program, as is SS, as is Ice Cream Fitness[1]. It's best not to quibble too much about which one is absolutely best, since for the vast majority of people, it just doesn't matter. The basic approach is the same, with (essentially) the same set of exercises. I'd recommend any of them to a beginner.

[1] https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/jason-blaha-ice-c...

Sure. I mean, that's what I did/do. But I also did lots of precise athletic training before hand, and I know from experience trying to "coach" people that there is a very big spread of people's proprioceptive abilities. You'd be surprised what some people can fail to notice about their own movements.

Besides which, if I had the time and money, I would absolutely hire a good quality strength and conditioning coach, and I bet I'd be kicking myself for not having done it earlier, since I've basically fixed all the things that I can notice and fix by introspection and film.

But basically I think we're in agreement on the big issues. :)

I have another reason that is less orwellian. Weight machines can be used by someone with no training other than the pictures on the side. Squatting (of whatever variety you prefer) requires coaching.

If a new gym member (NGM) comes in and has an initial training session with a trainer, imagine two scenarios:

1. The trainer explains that NGM will have to see them for extensive training for the next 3 months to really get a handle on the 6 exercises (and to work out/work around the mobility or injury issues that can arise).

2. The trainer shows NGM a dozen machines, walks through how to use them, and gives them a handout with two "workouts" on them, and tells them to come back in a month for a re-evaluation.

Which scenario is more likely to result in the NGM signing up for the gym, and continuing to see a trainer once a week to once a month? I'd argue that it's the latter, in most cases. People who even know what the normal weight training exercises are (except for bench press) are in the minority, and are unlikely to use a random gym trainer. If they do, they will come in laying out an agenda for training, and the trainer will probably adapt and train them as they wish to be trained (regardless of how skilled they are in basic barbell exercises).

There are a number of terrible disincentives for the trainer-NGM relationship, and I suspect that this is just one of them.

Shout out to /r/fitness and their faq. Kids today have no idea how hard it was to get good information when I was a kid.

Interesting question!

In this case 'Baby' is a standin for the baby's name. I would characterize this as 'reasonably standard' for spoken language, but a little odd in written language, but could help convey a conversational tone.

I originally thought this was an example of metonymy, but I don't think it is (this is more like 'role-instead-of-name'), so I don't know what the term for this is, and I'm finding it surprisingly hard to search for. I can imagine using it for a profession or job as well, but the contexts of use seem reasonably specific.

Can't really agree though. The issue with child services is that they can act faster than the criminal system. You might want to say that they couldn't act to remove or otherwise enforce parental restrictions until criminal charges are made (leaving other less adversarial actions available). An unintended consequence of this may be that charges are made much more easily for the purpose of unblocking child services.

Alternatively, it may be that we want to take the same 'rational' look at risk that we want the courts/child services to take. Maybe the few kids that get taken away 'unreasonably' are actually just the cost of having an otherwise sane system. Lest that come off as callous, I just mean that if you have a country of 300 million, you'll get some pretty far out scenarios played out. You don't necessarily want to add process to protect those very few scenarios that are outrageous because it may cost more (by e.g. tying CPS' hands so that they can't take actually at-risk children out of homes).

I guess I'm suggesting that this might, in the end, be much ado about nothing. It's hard to say without numbers and analysis.

I'm most interested in the enshrinement into law of these risk assessments, where if you disagree with the risk assessments you get flagged for CPS or criminal judgement. Even if you 'win', society just imposed a massive, massive cost on you (and your children) for disagreeing about the relative risk of an action.

There needs to be some way of walking this back, but I can't think what that might be except literally trying to get a law in place giving parents broad immunity. I can't even really imagine how such a law would be worded without completely gutting CPS and related organizations in other countries.