Rogerh91

I really like this collection of resources--it's perfect for people really trying to get into the basics of data science.

Thanks for this! :)

New extension to this idea: retarget people who visit your landing page. Frequency effect loop.

Welcome Mohamed.

"This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place!"

Don't feel out of place. You may just be suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The smartest people for me are those who can drop all pretensions and learn as much as they can. You're well on your way.

Maybe I'm biased, but I upvoted based on the title alone.

Bill C-51 is a lowering of standards for what can be considered terrorism in Canada. It extends the power to our domestic security agency to arrest people who "may" commit terrorism rather than "will"--what that means is a open question. It also establishes more powers to quell "terrorist propaganda", including the cited website takedown powers.

I think of two things when it comes to this question: the notion that you should regard relationships as "lines and not dots", and how to get meetings with people too busy to see you.

Steve Blank has a great article about how you need to provide value to even begin getting into somebody's space. http://steveblank.com/2013/08/12/how-to-get-meetings-with-pe...

Now you might say, I'm a student, what could I do? But there's a lot you can offer, from your story and perspective to the skills you have. Even just writing from the perspective of somebody offering value rather than just trying to take it makes it easier for you to get meetings with the mentors too busy to see you--the kind of mentors you should aim for.

Starting a relationship is always easier than maintaining it. You want to make sure you could grow with the person you're reaching out to, and that ideally, the conversations you have with them will be mutually beneficial. After a while, you'll be learning from them and they'll be learning from you as well--if you plan for that relationship rather than sitting back and trying to grab a "mentoring" session you'll start seeing your thinking about mentor dots evolve into long-lasting line relationships.

My last note on this is that it's also a lot easier to learn from people if you're working for them.

To sum up

1) provide value to everybody you talk with 2) think long-term 3) work for people you REALLY want to learn from

I believe one of the key metrics for startup success is how efficient a company is at getting together a great team. There's such a balance between the time you need to spend here and the results you get, but if you maximize the results and score an awesome team, that'll make all of the difference in the world.

I should clarify: I don't think Github should link to the article directly (which is banned since Bloomberg has been banned ever since they published that article)

A plain-text mandarin version in a repo somewhere would suffice to challenge the Chinese government's perception on what it really takes to censor the Internet. I honestly think it would just highlight how much they're losing against an organization of 300.

Failing that, I'm going to resort to my default plan of finding the best way to donate money and time to help support Github, but I thought it was an idea worth entertaining.

Github should have a huge call-to-action banner for every China-based web visitor that leads to this article translated into Mandarin.

Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes of Elite

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-29/xi-jinping...

Maybe add a Trollface gif while they're at it.

I think the way to look at this is that America is an effective force multiplier. You can agree or disagree on the extent of its' success.

Mr. Garneau,

My name's Roger, and I'm a constituent of your riding. I've had the pleasure of meeting Margaret, and I want to thank you both and your team for the great work you do for the riding.

I'm writing because with each passing day, revelations are getting worse and worse about the surveillance capabilities of security agencies. Just today the Guardian revealed that the GCHQ, our British allies, collect webcam recordings en masse, including sexually explicit material shared between two consenting individuals.

We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes.

I write this in the hope that you are aware of this issue, and to inquire as to what you and your party are doing with this regards, and what active efforts you will be making in the future to shed awareness about this creeping invasion on our privacy. As Canadians, we should be protected under Section 8 of the Charter with regards to reasonable expectation of privacy, but I do not want this to constantly shift because security agencies continually push us down the slippery slope Senator Church so eloquently warned Americans about during the Church Committee:

"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

Let me know how I can contribute to any efforts with this regards. I hope you are well, and eagerly await any response you have on this topic.

I think every citizen in the Five Eyes network (AUS/NZ/CAN/UK/US) should send letters to their elected official highlighting how concerned we are on the issue of privacy. I'm based in Canada, and I'm already drafting an email to my MP. I just don't think people can sit back at all now.

The friend who wrote this says he doesn't give a fuck.

The Canadian startup scene to me is something where you get an interesting flavor for every city. I'm based in Montreal, and you definitely get a social enterprise and creative view that might be different compared to other ecosystems. The startup scene can only benefit from more money and resources flowing into areas where different perspectives and innovations can thrive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/russ-tice-nsa-obama...

"Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst who in 2005 blew the whistle on what he alleged was massive unconstitutional domestic spying across multiple agencies, claimed Wednesday that the NSA had ordered wiretaps on phones connected to then-Senate candidate Barack Obama in 2004.

Speaking on "The Boiling Frogs Show," Tice claimed the intelligence community had ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats."

definition of irony

"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago."-Pentagon Papers Whistle-Blower Daniel Ellsberg

The New York Times, which has stood up countless times for freedom of speech and constitutional principles (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan regarding free reporting of civil rights violations without fear of libel, and New York Times Co. v. United States regarding the free dissemination of the classified Pentagon Papers) has once again, delivered a masterclass in defense of Edward Snowden.

I know some of you may have doubts as to the ties between the media and the government, but the historical record does indicate that the New York Times has had a flagship role in challenging government abuse on many levels. I don't see why it would not have a similar role in this debate.

I had recently thought about this very topic, and having spent just a bit more time than Krugman on it, and knowing a bit more about bitcoin, I find it somewhat interesting that we arrived at drastically different opinions about the morality of it. I have a rather more positive (haha, pun intended) take on it given what has happened with the conventional monetary system, one that Krugman and any mainstream economist would probably agree with: the system is (largely) broken, and we must look for solutions. If Bitcoin is the technologist's experimental solution, it is worth embracing because it delivers on change. Krugman's solutions will focus more on government force as a constraining framework, instead of extensions of innovation---but I believe at the core of it all, the "libertarians" he decries are also the same people he would agree with on the utter folly of our current banking/finance dominated economy.

My expanded thoughts can be read here: https://medium.com/technology-meets-policy/fd097809f88f

I like it. Definitely gets the point of "KISS".

You know, I was just reading a WSJ special on how returning PTSD-afflicted veterans were lobotomized...

Reading back on what happened to Turing and countless other homosexuals gives me those same chills.

What a simple pleasure it is to live in the era we do now. No, not everything is perfect, but so much has improved, and it's up to all of us to improve things even further, and to keep the momentum going.

I think you need to open yourself to exploring the option of starting your own company. Start by looking for a good co-founder on the side: once you find the right person to work with, the idea will be secondary, and this is something you can do job or no job. It'll let you start cracking at what I think is one of the hardest, if not hardest tasks in a startup setting: deciding whether to go it alone, or deciding what team one wants to work with.

The day that we realize that all human beings are worthy of the same fundamental protections we take for granted, and act on this impulse, will be a great one indeed.

The problem as I see it right now is that capital-holders are treated very well because capital can slip through borders, while labour is a bit more tricky, because it comes with the implication of having an extra person around...

In an open border world, the balance would be more equalized, but that is more theoretical than practical at this point.

The recent rounds of QE are a great example of this. Those were basically made to inflate asset prices for capital-holders, because economic policymakers are conditioned to placate capital. Case in point: 90% of shares in public markets are owned by 10% of Americans. The hope was that some of this benefit would trickle down, as the infamous term goes---unfortunately that hasn't happened, so far.

So now we live in unequal times not seen in America since the late 20s.

pre bust: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/15gilded.html?pag...

post bust: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/income-inequalit... (big ups to Shiller)

There's a couple of ways to go about resolving this, from heavy handed government intervention to restrict capital, to loosening government restrictions on labour movement.

There's outside the box thinking too, from how Iceland forgave those holding good homes rather than those holding bad debt to opening the pool of capital to a wider pool of people in the vein of equity crowdfunding---

this is a very pressing issue, and there are tons of solutions out there. I think the one constant is that if technology is going to play a role in solving this, people need to be given equal access to that technology, and the knowledge required to understand it. discuss and spread code!

Depends on the context of the situation. In a culture that stigmatizes receiving help this can be quite difficult, but in an open and collaborative setting that values everybody helping one another, I can see this flourishing. The experiment in Switzerland to move towards this will be interesting to watch.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/swiss-in-forefront-with-basic-i...

I'm aware of the formula, the historical boundaries upon which they were set, and how section 4 could be updated beyond relying on preclearance for historically discriminatory districts. I do acknowledge that the formula is flawed and Congress could do a better job (especially in extending protections to areas not designated historically discriminatory that might be now). However, my specific point on bringing that up is that Scalia can't be counted on to hold to his own originalist views, so I emphasized his deferral to other branches of government instead as the sticking point, as well as his general dismissal of the right to privacy. Any combination of these factors make him pretty hopeless on this case, regardless.

I made a mistake blindly sticking Alito in there, without considering his views on privacy. However, he does have a very strong deference to executive power that would place him in that bucket of deferring to national security agencies (and indeed probably drove his majority opinion on Clapper v. Amnesty).

"One troubling memo concerns domestic wiretaps - a timely topic. In the memo, which he wrote as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Judge Alito argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he illegally wiretaps Americans."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/opinion/24sat1.html

While I have this comment thread going, I'll clarify what I meant by wildcard. I never intended to note this being a special instance for the court, but rather I wanted to emphasize how this particular forum (a hub for technology leaders) can get involved in a deep policy issue like this, and have their views be well-respected. That doesn't happen that often. It was my call to action to this forum, rather than any particular critique of the court.

I do think a current justice is much more qualified to talk about how the court views and understands technology then we are...

Regardless, in this case, a well-written amicus brief from technology leaders could also shape some of the ideology that would come to play, and I think it would be respected because they would be subject experts.

I generally agree with you on RT, but it was the first that popped up with regards to the technology quote.

I also agree that it's not as simple as liberal v conservative, but given the liberal bloc tends to vote together on issues like this---and many issues, I thought it was the easiest way to frame it. If people have more details to add, I'd be glad to have that be part of the discussion. I'm not a professional SCOTUS-tracker, and by no means claim to be one: just a hobby of mine. I wanted to start a discussion though, and hopefully some action with what I do know about the situation.

I think in this case Scalia strongly leans to that position. He himself said: “The consequence of that is that whether the NSA can do the stuff it’s been doing ... which used to be a question for the people ... will now be resolved by the branch of government that knows the least about the issues in question, the branch that knows the least about the extent of the threat against which the wiretapping is directed,” Scalia said.

That seems to indicate a certain degree of deferral to both legislative and executive branches in this matter.

As for garbage law in, garbage decision out, Scalia can't be counted on to rely on his own purported originalist thinking, lest we forget that the Voting Rights Act overwhelmingly re-approved by Congress had Section 4 knocked down by an opinion Scalia joined.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/scalia-doma-...

That's not my opinion, it's that of Justice Kagan.

"The judges who sit on the US Supreme Court have little knowledge of Facebook, Twitter, email, or other modern capabilities, despite society's widespread use of such technology, according to Justice Elena Kagan.

“I think we’re going to have to be doing a lot of thinking about that,” she replied, adding that the judges often seek out younger clerks to assist with questions about technology. “It’s a challenge for us.”"

This is why I think there is a huge role to play for leaders in the tech field in this debate.