avsbst's comments

Would refer to the guidelines [1] for this site:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments

Right on cue: "Meta.org will sunset March 31, 2022: Meta will be supported through March 31, 2022. In the lead up, we will work with you in transitioning to alternative open services. Read more."

11:45ish they will put a banner up saying it's going to be shutdown end of May next year

Unfortunately archive.org is capturing the SVG logo from the site not the actual site so I can't prove the current state of the website but you can look at the last valid capture from 10/22: https://web.archive.org/web/20211022094334/https://www.meta....

They started the process of shuttering it ~6 months ago. My partner worked there for ~3 years. Despite meeting all their metrics for user growth and activity it was a decision that came out of the blue. Guess we know why though? Can't have it conflicting with the brand.

I remember that two weeks before the decision came down, and she and her team got blindsided, she told me how a bioeng researcher emailed her telling her that without their tool they never would've found the connections and research needed to solve the problem they were working on. Not sure why they didn't just rebrand the tool and team, but it's probably just a blip to the facebook execs.

The title and lede state they are "Russian-Owned" and a Czech company. Perhaps NYT edited title after publishing or original poster misread the title.

Russian-Owned Software Company May Be Entry Point for Huge U.S. Hacking

Russian hackers may have piggybacked on a tool developed by JetBrains, which is based in the Czech Republic, to gain access to federal government and private sector systems in the United States.

> The problem is that this agreement is expressly unconstitutional

I would disagree with that phrasing, and your final paragraph contradicts that statement. There is nothing unconstitutional about states entering into compacts. They merely require congressional consent to do so as the language of Article 1 Section 10 makes clear.

Additionally, even without congressional consent the supreme court has ruled multiple times since the late 1800s that as long as an a compact is not:

> "directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon. . . . the just supremacy of the United States"

Then congressional consent is not required. [1][2][3]

The argument then is whether the NPVIC violates that rule and encroaches on federal supremacy or grants additional power to the states. However, the power in question here relates to how states appoint electors. This is a power explicitly granted to the states under article 2 section 1 clause 2 [4]:

> Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors

Therefore, in my opinion, any compact regarding the power to select electors does not pass the tests laid out by previous case law, and the compact does not require congressional approval. Of course our opinions don't count, only the supreme courts opinion matters, but there is no indication from any case law that this compact is "explicitly unconstitutional" or "in a certain way illegal". If anything it is borderline, but supported by current caselaw. The supreme court will most likely take up any suit involving the compact for clarification, but they would need a novel justification for deciding that states exercising a power explicitly granted to the states somehow increases the power of states.

Additionally, all of this is entirely moot if congress grants approval.

For further reading I would look at the NPVIC's own FAQ which has detailed citations and caselaw supporting their argument as well as detailing counter arguments [5]. For an independent review of interstate compact caselaw see [1], [6], or [7].

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Interstate_compact

[2] https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_v._Tennessee_(1893)

[3] https://ballotpedia.org/New_Hampshire_v._Maine_(1976)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...

[5] https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.16#myth_9.16.5

[6] https://www.csg.org/knowledgecenter/docs/ncic/caselaw.pdf

[7] https://ballotpedia.org/Congressional_consent

I would urge you to reconsider your stance on this as "a PR issue". Having readily available realtime aerial imaging data involves numerous ethical and safety concerns. Stating that people who have these ethical concerns are "few" and that you would "like to brush them off" shows a lack of consideration for how your technology could negatively impact others. Based on a recent paper [1] , "the results show that Europe is 83.28 percent covered with an average of one aerial photography every half an hour and a ground sampling distance of 0.96 meters per pixel".

Assuming 30m intervals and a 1m GSD I can know when someone is or isn't home based on whether or not a car is in their driveway. For people living in the vicinity of an airport where the GSD and intervals would presumably be much higher I could track individuals to and from their home or office from the comfort of a coffee shop.

Either of the above capabilities has ramifications for things like:

- stalking and harassment (no need to follow someone physically)

- home invasion and theft (can determine when someone is out of the house)

- targeting of dissidents (can track who showed up at a meeting)

- kidnapping and rendition (can know when someone is isolated without committing physical surveillance resources)

Those are just a few of the things I can come up with off the top of my head.

Even if you limit your tools to governments and businesses what prevents illegitimate organizations from using shell companies [2] or other means for establishing legitimate accounts to your services, and what prevents individuals within legitimate organizations from accessing the tools for personal means? [3]

Calling this a "PR issue" grossly understates the potential damage a technology like this can cause in the wrong hands.

[1] "Aerial Imagery Based on Commercial Flights as Remote Sensing Platform" 03/2020 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339988238_Aerial_Im...

[2] https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/09/news/shell-companies-crime/...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveil-lance-watchdo...

*edited for formatting

So when one of Badyaev’s undergraduate students, Clayton Addison, noticed that the male finches on campus in central Tucson were not singing a rapid trill that’s essential for attracting females in the nearby desert, the lab was able to dig into the data for answers. Comparing the beak sizes, bite forces, and diets of the two populations, the researchers showed that the urban finches rely so heavily on feeders that their beaks have adapted: they’ve become longer and deeper to accommodate the sunflower seeds typically on offer, which are much larger and harder than the small cactus and grass seeds that rural finches eat. This adaptation has altered not only how urban males sing, but also what urban females prefer in a mate. It’s a pattern that Badyaev has since found in other places where finches live in the shadow of humans, the same large beaks arising from a surprisingly diverse array of developmental pathways. Such varied routes to an identical end—a beak strong enough to crack sunflower seeds—may be one way that nature hides variability from the swinging axe of natural selection.

Evolutionary theory aside, however, I was stuck on one point: There’s such a thing as a finch Brooklyn accent—thanks to feeders like mine.

The current headline, "Stanford adopts JavaScript, drops Java for its intro to CS curriculum" is incorrect. Stanford is piloting two new classes one in JavaScript and the other in Python to determine the effort, benefits, and downsides of moving the introductory class away from Java[1]. The main introductory class, CS106A, is still being taught in Java[2].

[1] From a Facebook comment posted by one of the CS106* instructors: "We are running some experimental CS1 offerings. One of them is "106J" in JavaScript. Another, likely in Python, will be tried next winter. None of these replaces 106A; they're offered concurrently as smaller experimental classes because instructors wanted to try out other approaches. If one of these approaches proves to be really awesome, maybe someday we'd consider switching A to it. But we have no plans to do such right now. There are some rumors about this based on one misquoted news article, but they are false."

[2] http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filte...

While I disagree with the author, I believe his intent was to claim that bird watchers, Paleo dieters and minimalists are similar in that talking about their respective activities is just as important as participating in it.

  "And, as with watching birds or going Paleo, talking about [minimalism] is just as important as actually doing it."

I think the original commentor's skepticism, while possibly too concerned with sample size, is still valid. This study is trying to draw connections between two large and hard to understand systems, marriage and cardiovascular health. While the sample size may have captured enough variance in a certain population to generalize the results I doubt they can be generalized world wide, nation wide, state wide or possibly even city wide.

For example, how did they find these participants? Did the researchers just pull married couples from the BYU campus or from across the city? Given BYU and Utah's population are they mostly LDS couples? What about their race given that the LDS is significantly more caucasian than the US overall? What about diet given that LDS members generally don't consume alcohol or caffeinated beverages? What about geography? Perhaps temperature or altitude affected the cardiovascular markers or measurements were taken under different conditions for different groups?

All of the above things I've mentioned may or may not affect cardiovascular health, and I doubt they captured or had the time and resources to control for all these factors and any additional ones I didn't bring up. So I think being skeptical is okay. Until this study has been reproduced multiple times or we understand the entire pathway connecting marriage and heart health (a highly unlikely occurrence) I will remain skeptical because that's how good science works.

Notepad++, granted they were called out on it hence the apology:

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/response-and-apology-4-sex...

Because the assignments, section material, grading infrastructure, handouts, teacher training material, and institutional knowledge for this class are all built around Java when the class switched over in the early 2000s. In the past, couple years the process of changing just one assignment out of the six or seven assignments was difficult for everyone involved (teaching staff and students). Changing the entire class would require monumental effort, and it would have to be driven by a majority contingent of the half dozen professors / lecturers involved in the introductory CS community at Stanford.

Given that the class has been successful at teaching programming methodology to tens of thousands of beginner students over the past decade there's no pressing need to restructure the entire course, even though everyone does acknowledge that Python or some other language could be better for new students. It's basically like any other large software project, yeah it could be rewritten from scratch and modernized to make small gains, but if it ain't broke, why fix it, especially when the professors and TAs have other projects that have far more interest in, like this paper.

Also one thing that many people don't know is that CS106A actually changes the language environment as well as providing a modified version of Eclipse to remove some of the less useful overhead in Java (for example removing main, and the beginner confusion surrounding keyword static, arrays and arguments). Also there's a much simpler introductory class called CS105/101 that uses Python.

Source: I taught sections and managed the TAs for the introductory classes over the course of four years while I was a student at Stanford.

One of the authors wrote a nice article in Grantland about this paper with some more cool visualizations: http://grantland.com/features/department-of-defense/

Attempting to use sarcasm as an ad hominem attack on the author doesn't add to this conversation at all. Attending Stanford doesn't change the fact that she went through a certain set of negative experiences she feels compelled to write about. Given Stanford's proximity and close interconnection to the tech scene in the United States, and it's general reputation as a forward thinking university, it should concern us deeply as members of the tech community that sexist attitudes are still being perpetuated in places we generally assume to be safe spaces.

As for your three questions:

1) How is this relevant? This is a conversation about sexism in tech not an attempt to discredit the author's opinion by claiming she's been brainwashed by the media

2) Probably, although nobody here can really give an answer except her so you should ask her in the article comments

3) Sounds like she has some legitimate complaints so no I don't think this has anything to do with your implication that she is somehow fishing for attention.

So in a case like this assuming the defendant is able to suppress any information used against him with respect to his location. Does it even matter for his case? The police now know who he is and assuming DNA evidence, rape test kit evidence, etc. come back and implicate him won't he still be found guilty? Or is all of that suppressed because the police wouldn't have found him otherwise without violating the 4th amendment?

Edit: Made my first question more specific

Came here to make sure that this article was posted. It's an engaging and well written examination of the followup to the Columbia's loss. Thanks for linking to it!

There are dumb ideas, and it can be useful to point out their weaknesses in a constructive manner. However, using the word retarded to describe something in a negative way is both childish and derogatory.

Here's an eloquent description of why what you said is inappropriate. When saying retarded, “What we mean is that he is as stupid as someone who is mentally handicapped, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense. The implication is that the only characteristic of mentally handicapped individuals is their stupidity."

2011-2012 Salary Survey from the Stanford Computer Forum

CS/EE Undergrads

Data: I received 135 responses which described 380 job offers. 95% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 5% were from the Midwest and East Coast. 10% of the job offers were from start-ups.

Salary offers ranged from $65,500 to $92,000. The average salary offer was $79,360. The median salary offer was $ 78,750.

About 70% of students were offered stock options. About 80% of students were offered signing bonuses. And about 60% were offered relocation assistance and there were others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply to them. Relocation assistance ranged from $3,000 to $10,000 with an average of $3,500. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 with an average of $5,700. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.

Students who replied averaged about 2 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The average student who replied to the survey all had some job experience, nearly all of it through summer internships and averaged 3 summer of work. Location, scope of work, salary/benefits, environment/culture, company were the important factors in accepting the offers for the undergrads.

CS/EE Masters

Data: I received 150 responses which described 345 job offers. 94% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 6% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 15% of the job offers were from start-ups.

Salary offers ranged from $70,000 to $105,300. The average salary offer was $98,246. The median salary offer was $87,650.

About 78% of students were offered stock options. About 66% of students were offered signing bonuses. And about 43% were offered relocation assistance and there others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply to them. Relocation assistance ranged from $3,000 to $8,000 with an average of $2,500. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $35,000 with an average of $6,325. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.

Students who replied averaged about 3 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The Masters had a little more summer experience than the undergraduates, an average of 3 summer internships.

Like the undergrads, location, scope of work, company, and salary/benefits, and environment/culture seem to be the important factors for the MS grads.

CS/EE PhD's

Data: I received 30 responses which described 75 job offers. 80% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 20% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 30% of the job offers were from start-ups. 5% of the job offers were from a university.

Salary offers ranged from $133,250 to $146,980. The average salary offer was $143,083. The median salary offer was $140,115.

About 50% of students were offered stock options. About 50% of students were offered signing bonuses. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $19,500 with an average of $7,200. Relocation assistance ranged from $5,000 to $10,000 with an average of $6,500. However, they may not have reported on all the benefits they received. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.

Students who replied averaged about 3 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The PhDs had about the same amount of summer experience as the Masters, an average of 2 summer internships and with the exception of 2 full-time experience.

Like the undergraduates and masters, location, company, environment/culture, salary/benefits, scope of work seem to be the important factors when it came to accepting their job offer.

I'm curious, what do you feel "Google's offerings" are when it comes to education?

I'm asking because besides search, and the ability to search effectively, which I think is a very necessary skill for a modern education, I've never considered Google as company with educational offerings.