Hacker News Reader

aplusbion How Harvey Mudd College increased the ratio of women in CS

What I find most interesting about this is that most of the changes they implemented weren't necessarily targeted towards women and benefited everyone (emphasis on group work, research projects, splitting the into classes by experience).

aplusbion High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

"Six-figure salary" encompasses everything from $100k to $999,999 (okay, that's a bit pedantic perhaps but you get what I mean). $185k is still low six-figures.

aplusbion Employee Equity Is Broken – Here's Our Fix

I agree with your general sentiment and I too pretty much ignore equity when considering a new position.

However equity becomes very important upon leaving a company. I think extending the exercise window to 10 years is an excellent idea as it reduces the amount of gambling that a former employee needs to engage in.

aplusbion Daniel Thompson, Whose Bagel Machine Altered the American Diet, Dies at 94

And I suppose that rice isn't Latin food because it originated in Asia?

aplusbion [dead]

Your numbers don't add up. Rounding up to 3 billion gallons/day comes out to just under 1.1 trillion gallons per year. I know you pulled those numbers directly from the links you provided, but clearly one (or both) of them is erronous.

aplusbion OCaml: Objects

OCaml objects are pretty neat, although I rarely ever end up using them. Although I also rarely ever use OCaml for that matter.

One issue with the article - the author confuses duck typing and structural typing. While they are similar, there are important differences. OCaml uses structural typing (which enforces type at compile time) and not duck typing.

aplusbion Is Social Psychology Biased Against Republicans?

>a lack of political diversity that was every bit as dangerous as a lack of, say, racial or religious or gender diversity.

The lack of young-earth creationists in science is very worrisome.

aplusbion Ten Years of Coding Horror

10 years of links to previous blog posts.

aplusbion Cervical cancer vaccine inventor to target herpes

HN isn't reddit, and jokes/puns generally aren't well tolerated here. The comments are supposed to be reserved for more serious discussion about the article and providing supplemental information.

aplusbion Indian School Girl Creates Washing Machine That Runs Without Electricity

Perhaps jxf should have written "dunk your hands up to the elbows". If you are washing clothes with gloves on, you can expect at least some water to make its way in through the top.

aplusbion What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

>I hardly think that office disagreements are the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with.

Actually I think that's exactly the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with.

aplusbion NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

You're missing the forest for the trees, but if it will make you happy, "congress shall make no law...abridging...the right of the people peaceably to assemble".

Illegal immigrants and visitors have the right to assembly because no laws may be enacted against people assembling, not just citizens assembling.

And perhaps more significantly, let's look at the 14th amendment (which I really should have started with in the first place):

>All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Here there is a clear distinction between citizen and person

aplusbion NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

The constitution makes a distinction between "person" and "citizen" and is careful to grant rights to "people" and not just "citizens". This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors and not just US citizens.

aplusbion FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

There is also this Reuters blurb: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...

aplusbion Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches

I haven't studied this law either, but look at what happened to David Miranda who was in a situation very similar to the one I proposed - he was transporting information but didn't know what he was carrying (and given the people involved, the hard drives were probably encrypted).

He was detained for 9 hours and threatened with arrest during that time, but this was under terrorism laws, not encryption laws. And ultimately he was let go (sans equipment).

aplusbion Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches

The assumption is that you are okay with having your laptop seized.

Obviously the best approach is to just not have your laptop.

aplusbion Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches

This obviously depends on your travel plans. For the US, for example, CBP can only search your belongings on entry into the US. If you are traveling from the US -> wherever -> US then you only need to secure your laptop for your return flight.

aplusbion Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches

Then change your password to something that you don't actually know.

Generate a random password before your trip and print out a few copies. Take one with you and secure the remaining ones. Before you fly through the UK, change the password on your computer to the random one and destroy the printout. When you get back home use the remaining printouts to change your password back and then destroy them.

aplusbion Humor: Interview with an Ex-Microsoftie Who Used to Name OS Folders

usr originally contained user files (http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/notes.html). I'm not really sure why or when that changed, but supposedly "Unix System Resources" is a backronym.

aplusbion Crosswords don’t make you clever

Student athletes have less time and energy to devote to school work. Speaking from personal experience, it's pretty hard to do homework when you have 2-3 hours of practice after school everyday. First, you lose 2-3 hours of time every day and second you get home exhausted.

aplusbion The Powerball Jackpot is $425M. Should you play?

It depends on which 0 is bigger.

aplusbion Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years

"Succeeded" sounds so much better than "rejected the null hypothesis."

aplusbion Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Sheremetyevo airport

That doesn't really answer the question. There has to be some incentive to justify the expense. Politically Venezuela has a lot to gain by offering asylum and almost nothing to gain (and plenty to lose) by actually giving Snowden asylum.

That's not to say I think they are being insincere. However there is no reason for them to go out of their way to get Snowden into their country.

aplusbion Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Sheremetyevo airport

Who do you propose pay for a private jet with a military escort?

aplusbion Alcoholism in Antarctica

http://www.usap.gov/jobsAndOpportunities/

And in particular:

http://www.gscgov.com/jobsmcmurdo.htm

aplusbion Why Snowden Asked Visitors in Hong Kong to Refrigerate Their Phones

I used to develop nintendo DS games and once received a very memorable bug report - something to the effect of "got error [error message] when playing the game in a microwave".

We weren't handling lost wifi connections gracefully so the user would get the wrong error message if their wifi dropped. The tester was simulating this by placing the DS in a microwave.

aplusbion [dead]

Depends on exactly what you mean, but I predict someone will seriously injure/kill themselves with a malfunctioning 3D printed gun in the near future.

aplusbion Kiera Wilmot, student who caused small explosion, won't face charges

Columbine had a major effect on the way US schools deal with violence, threats or even just weird kids.

9/11 had a profound effect on how the US deals with terrorism, threats of terrorism or even just brown people.

Certainly not the first, but probably the events with the most lasting effects.

aplusbion Does LinkedIn have a prostitution problem?

Nevada.

aplusbion The New Yorker Strongbox

I get what you are saying, but that issue has almost nothing to do with Tor. Tor doesn't ensure the secrecy of your content, it only attempts to hide its origin.

If you don't trust the recipient then it doesn't matter if Tor is run by the government or not.