Hacker News Reader

ajayson Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

On the other hand: does the glut of tech workers drive down wages? If you strictly look at it from a supply/demand angle, one could argue that if these companies wanted more techies, they could just pay more. Being able to increase supply at will (i.e. import techies) will naturally drive down prices (i.e. wages).

The same argument is made about illegal immigration: these immigrants fill low-end jobs that don't pay well; but their availability ensures that these jobs will never pay well.

Please don't get me wrong: I'm not opposed to immigration or this bill.I'm just asking about the impact; I'm not taking sides, so no flames please.

ajayson The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio

Presumably because Deans are about the same level as full professors? I doubt that a fresh PhD would be appointed a dean anywhere.

ajayson Lyft, SideCar, and Uber all slapped with $20K fines from CA regulator

It's mainly because (a) sales taxes are much less than these occupancy taxes, and (b) socking it to the visitor has no political repercussions; they're not going to vote in the elections anyways.

ajayson Lyft, SideCar, and Uber all slapped with $20K fines from CA regulator

Do UPS, FedEx, etc. pay separately for the privilege to use these roads? No. The money to pay for these facilities comes from gas taxes (mostly), sales taxes, income taxes, etc., all of which are paid by the Uber/Lyft/Sidecar people too. Their cars don't run on air, you know. In fact, Uber's limos use much more gas than the Priuses that the cabs drive, so in fact at least Uber people are paying more for the use of these roads.

ajayson Why Coke Cost A Nickel For 70 Years

Who writes these things?

" In 1886, a bottle of Coke cost a nickel. . . . . In 1899, . . . Coke was sold at soda fountains. But the lawyers were interested in this new idea: selling drinks in bottles."

So was Coke sold in bottles in 1886 or not?

ajayson Lyft, SideCar, and Uber all slapped with $20K fines from CA regulator

The deck is stacked against Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. You have to realize that the taxi industry is a government-cab collaboration, with the customer getting fleeced. It is not as simple as "government grants license to cab operator, cab operator runs his cab and makes money". No. The government takes a cut from the daily action too. Use a credit card in the cab? The government takes a cut. Want to rent your medallion to someone else? The government takes a cut.

Right now, the financial impact of these outfits is minimal. But when they seriously start impacting government revenues, expect the lawmakers to come out swinging. They'll tag-team with the taxi union(s) and make life hell for the Sidecars, Ubers and Lyfts of the world.

ajayson Large Scale Distributed Deep Networks (by Jeff Dean et al)

Handwritten addresses aren't fully OCRed for the system to work. I worked on the first systems that were released (in the 90s), and the basic algorithm was as follows: first, try to read all the numbers in the address, and identify the ZIP and the street number. Now, given the ZIP and the street number, the number of possible street names is very small (on average, 4 or 5); this is done via the USPS's address database. Now the problem becomes one of matching the handwritten street name with one of these 4-5 names. (Of course, there's more to it, but this is the gist of it).

Last I heard, the percentage of handwritten mail successfully sorted by a machine had reached in the low 80s. The Russian company Parasoft (who also worked on Newton's online handwriting recognition) has been the leader in this field.

ajayson Large Scale Distributed Deep Networks (by Jeff Dean et al)

My NN knowledge is minimal, but from what I recall, the claim always was that you don't need more than 1 hidden layer; and too many hidden neurons results in over-fitting.

What changed?

ajayson Low-cost Aakash 2 tablet launched in India

Such a tablet would be great for travellers too. I have a friend who's planning on doing extensive travel throughout Asia, and I've convinced her not take her Macbook Air. However, I'd love to recommend something like this to her, so she can get 'net access easily without having to rely on shady internet cafes. Any recommendations for an inexpensive tablet? Preferably, one that can take a SIM card?

ajayson Why political journalists can’t stand Nate Silver

"Journalists get access to privileged information. . . , then evaluate, filter, and order it through the rather ineffable quality alternatively known as “news judgment,” “news sense,” or “savvy.” This norm of objectivity is how political journalists say to the public. . . .

The author uses the word "objectivity" when the right word is "subjectivity". 'savvy', 'news sense', 'gut feeling' are never objective. The author himself says so a few sentences later:

Where political journalists’ information is evaluated through a subjective and nebulous professional/cultural sense of judgment.

And yet, he concludes by going back to "objectivity" :

When journalistic objectivity is confronted with scientific objectivity, its circuits are fried.

The bottom line is: this is the age-old war between what I'd call 'science' (Silver, given his methods) and 'art' ( the journalists ).

ajayson Here's the simple rule you need to know when using a foreign ATM

A related question: are there any credit cards which don't charge exorbitant fees when used abroad? A friend of mine is planning on travelling extensively in East Asia, South Asia, Turkey, etc. for several months, and I'm looking for recommendations for her.

ajayson Yahoo to ignore IE10's "Do Not Track"

The only reason Microsoft is making DNT the default is because it will directly impact Google's bottom line (and Microsoft loses money in its online division, so they won't hurt as much). Since when did Microsoft really start caring about the users?

ajayson The island where people forget to die

Eat less meat. Exercise. Take plenty of naps. And have lots of social interaction.

ajayson How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran (2007)

This article was probably dug up because the movie Argo just came out.

ajayson Interview With Reddit Troll, 'Violentacrez' (video)

Why is he a victim? He chose to make his identity known to people! He attended Reddit meetups. People knew him.

Was he not aware that he was trolling and doing nasty stuff? If he was unaware, then I can understand him feeling like a victim; but he was fully aware that his actions were considered abhorrent by many people, and still persisted. So, naturally, people want to know who this person is, what makes him tick, etc.

ajayson Meteor releases authentication, accounts system, and new screencast

This looks very interesting, but can anyone tell me how scalable is this? All the examples I've seen are small scale; but can it support, say, 1000 clients? 10_000 ? Higher?

ajayson How Studying Body Language Changed the Way I Socialize

I hear you. I do feel that, like many other skills, this also can be learned and mastered. There have been times when I've been pretty adept at recognizing and responding to signals. But over the past few years, I have lapsed.

Just as an example: today, at a talk, I was talking to this woman and we had a pleasant conversation. Then, as the talk is about to start, she says something to the effect of "I'd love to learn more about your work". My response (with a mouthful of pizza)? "Sure!". And then I focused back on the speaker as he was about to start speaking. Much later I realized she wanted to continue the conversation later, and wanted my card or some contact info. But by then she was gone (she left early).

So, for me, it's not that I don't pick up signals; I do pick up many, but they have a much lower priority in the brain's CPU and my responses don't incorporate the signals. My brain finally realizes the inputs way after the opportunity has passed.

ajayson Pulse jet tea kettle

I drink (black) tea with milk. So here's a _very_ anecdotal/hypothetical thought: my brother switched to drinking black tea without milk. A couple of years later, he had a kidney stone; and the doctor claimed it was the tea.

Some of the tannins that give the tea its color are small enough to get into the blood stream, but get caught in the kidney, possibly leading to stones. So if you add milk, the big fat molecules of milk trap these, which prevents them from getting caught in the kidney; hence no stones.

I could be wrong...

ajayson Pulse jet tea kettle

This brought a huge grin to my face. I think I'll be smiling for the rest of the day, just thinking about it. It's wonderful to see people tinker and explo(r|d)e stuff!

ajayson Apple Apologizes for Its Maps Problem

I can't say for sure what Jobs would have done, but you can bet that Jobs would have known about Maps' limitations on Day 1, and he would have addressed the issue right away instead of waiting for 2 weeks like Tim Cook.

Remember: Jobs used the products extensively before they were launched. If Tim had done so, he would have seen the deficiencies in Maps, instead of just relying on his underlings saying "it'll be OK".

ajayson US Military Classifies Wikileaks As 'Enemy Of The United States'

It is interesting (in a sad sort of way) to see how this article is being flagged into oblivion. Even though it has 130 points in 3 hours, it has been relegated to page 3 of HN.

I would have assumed that this topic was of widespread interest, especially to the HN community. But some folks seem to confuse what the "flag" button means...

ajayson US Military Classifies Wikileaks As 'Enemy Of The United States'

We are not talking about leaking here; by declaring Wikileaks to be EOUS, _any_ contact with them is verboten. FTA: "the military is effectively declaring that any contact with Wikileaks or its supporters could be deemed "communicating with the enemy" -- which can be punished severely (even death)."

While our military is free to make port calls, joint maneuvers, etc. with PRC?

ajayson US Military Classifies Wikileaks As 'Enemy Of The United States'

There is a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. For example: whatever happened to the BoA emails they were going to reveal? Isn't it convenient that some "rogue" guy in Germany ran away with these emails? Given Assange's background and technical capabilities, isn't it surprising that he allowed it to happen?

ajayson US Military Classifies Wikileaks As 'Enemy Of The United States'

Just out of curiosity: are the Russians classified as "Enemy of the US"? How about the Chinese? Or the DPRK?

The Chinese military and government, for example, is way more actively trying to get military secrets out of the US, and not for altruistic reasons either. What makes them saints compared to Wikileaks?

ajayson Snapjoy Adds Brilliant "Copy" Feature

This reads like a PR release straight from Snapjoy (nothing against Snapjoy, of course).

Isn't there a law that bloggers (or news outlets) must disclose that they've been paid to run such pieces?

ajayson Give people an iPhone 4S, tell them it's an iPhone 5

And I still have mine from 3 years ago (a 3GS). I have never used a case; carry it around everywhere; and have never broken it.

16? Really? Then you must really, REALLY love the iPhone. At what point does one say 'enough is enough' and switch to some other phone?

ajayson We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say

Don't forget Greece.

ajayson We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say

1 year away? It looks like we _are_ in a period of global riots: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen. The sectarian violence in Iraq. Anarchy in Somalia, South Sudan. I don't think we've ever seen so many independent conflict areas.

ajayson SF's Rising Rental Prices beat NYC: $3500/month for single family homes

Let's not forget: AirBnB isn't helping either. No, not the AirBnB employees; but the loads of people renting out their spare rooms, when earlier they would have taken in a roommate. I just checked, and 2300 listings came up for San Francisco.

Plus, SF Tenants Union is very powerful. Once you are a renter, you can basically do anything and the landlord can't kick you out. Consider this example from today's paper: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Landlord-nightmare-in-... . As a result, some people are leery of renting.

In other words: while the demand has gone up, the supply seems to have come down.

ajayson Arduino Cell phone

Anyone else remember OpenMoko ?