bsaunder

Have you looked into profiling with strace? You should be able to see the actual system calls each of your tests are making. This will probably give you some good insights into what accounts for the speed differences.

D3 particularly excels at graph animations and data transforms (as might be helpful to facilitate graphing). Its one of the most comprehensive graphing libraries around. Well written code that uses it looks like pure elegance. Its amazing how much functionality you can get out of so little code. It does take some time and a solid understanding of javascript and scope.

Opiate addiction is an important, yet unrelated problem. With regards to UBI, its no different than a million other addictions (gambling, alcohol, social media, etc)... We, as a society should look at reasonable ways to address addiction issues of all sorts, coupling that solution with UBI implementation doesn't seem like a great idea.

As others have mentioned, I think requiring education would be a bit of fighting reality (with eventual automation outperforming humans in many tasks). I think, as in the current world, some people will naturally choose to produce and contribute while others will not. Largely this is okay... (open source software, wikipedia, school PTA groups, hacker news, ...). Encouraging people to contribute to society seems like an undebatable good thing, requiring them to do so, not so much.

I think for UBI to work, it has to be paired with a VAT/sales/transaction tax. Its also not a boolean: no UBI or gushing UBI. In fact it seems much more reasonable and palatable to start small with periodic up/down adjustments to keep the economy running (perhaps very similar to the current fed interest rate adjustments).

Surely at some modest level UBI is likely to greatly benefit the bottom (who will likely immediately inject the money into the economy). As with anything in life, yes, people will argue over it. That's probably a good thing.

This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".

Aren't your own thoughts similar to a CPU's registers or cache? One's thoughts seem to occur within the context of the brain and the billions of neighboring (to the ones inducing the current "thought") neurons. Its as obvious to me that you can't perceive another's thoughts just as surely as one CPU can't "perceive" the registers of another.

The perception of ones own thoughts seems very physical, as is the equally obvious (to me) explanation that you can't directly perceive the thoughts of another.

“You have to recognize realistically that A.I. is qualitatively different from an internal combustion engine in that it was always the case that human imagination, creativity, social interaction, those things were unique to humans and couldn’t be replicated by machines,” he said. “We are coming closer to the point where not only cashiers but surgeons might be at least partially replaced by A.I.”

I think the politicians will finally get it when income tax revenues start eroding (maybe as soon as this year?). I'd expect this to force a pivot to a sales/transaction tax model. Hopefully (but I'm not optimistic) this is paired with a final capitulation on the necessity of a UBI.

Its a NLP problem if your boss/client wants to talk with you. At the end of the day, they don't really "want" to TALK WITH YOU, they want the functionality they get as a result of talking with you.

If there are other ways for them to efficiently get the functionality, they are good with that (as much as they might like you).

Similar to you wanting a pizza. You could call and talk with someone (which you don't really want, it was a necessary step), or you fill out the right form/app. Either way, you want the result, not the process.

Your boss/client wants the result of your work, not the work process required to get it necessarily.

It seems likely to me that modern deep learning enabled tools will make it easier for your boss/client to get the result they want directly.

Deep learning + more graphically oriented data flow UIs seems like it will heavily erode the need for traditional programming as users will be able to more directly achieve the functionality they are looking for.

I didn't think would be possible without someone very skilled in photoshop going over the images

And this is similar how deep learning will likely erode the need for programming (IMHO).

Deep learning won't necessarily write programs (any more than this AI manipulates images via photoshop). Folks that say, don't worry, we can't write programs easily with AI are missing the vector. Writing programs isn't necessary for there to be widespread disruption.

Most programming is essentially hooking up I/O (of which UIs are a subset) to APIs, data stores and data manipulation. The "goal" of programming is not the code, but the functionality it provides.

AI's don't need to learn to code any more than they need to learn to use photoshop. They need to learn to provide functionality (or in this case manipulate image data).

Yes, codec licensing costs are one of the reasons people choose to not use the better codecs. Also, yes there is a CPU trade off as well.

The decision is more complicate with many trade offs. But in general, the OPs issues are either fundamental network ones or an intentional choice of one of his providers (typically for cost reasons - manifested in some manner).

If you're audio sounds great for a network game and crappy for a phone call (to the same person you are playing a game with), its because some one (your ISP, your VoIP software, the other parties ISP, or VoIP software, or any network hop in the middle), is intentionally choosing poor quality codecs for you to lower your bandwidth utilization.

I've heard directly of novice VoIP engineers unintentionally taking out corporate networks trying to "help" improve audio quality, by picking a higher quality codec. It worked great when they tested phone calls in the middle of the night maintenance window. It really sucked the next day when packets started colliding. Crappy sounding codecs sound a heck of a lot better than 50% packet loss.

Old fashioned PSTN lines would secure the full bandwidth needed end-to-end when the original call was established (which was really in efficient from a data utilization perspective).

With VoIP you are:

1. Beholden to the bandwidth/latency issues of the crappiest link in your end-to-end path.

2. Intentional use of poorer quality codecs (by your ISP and/or VoIP software to reduce aggregate bandwidth use). Ironically this can be inverted, there are codecs that sound much better than PSTN calls (but use more bandwidth).

Sorry to down vote, but that's completely the wrong vector. Its a network issue (of some sort - bandwidth, latency, throttling).

So VoIP can be better... at the expense of needing more bandwidth. During the session initialization the two VoIP endpoints handshake over which codecs will be used (kind of like the Accepts header in HTTP). Just like images, higher quality codecs tend to use more bandwidth (though like images its much more nuanced than that). Similarly like image formats there's different amounts of loss in the encoding/decoding of the voice data.

Voice has a major difference though. Its generally a real time protocol (its data packets are called RTP and sent over UDP generally). With images you can afford to wait longer for high quality images to load over a slow network. In a phone call that delay gets a bit annoying (to put it lightly).

Most people would rather trade quality for timeliness. You ISP would rather throttle your bandwidth and may not care about your quality (to a point).

Its quite a bit more complicated than that, but in a nutshell with VoIP, "higher quality" = "more bandwidth". If you don't have the bandwidth you'll have a very hard time getting better quality. If you have the bandwidth locally, then your provider or some network link along the way either doesn't have the aggregate capacity or may be actively throttling your rate to limit usage.

I think there will be a growing need for things like this if housing spaces continue to get smaller (and cheaper). I think a service that offers several revenue streams would do well (and able to adapt to a changing market). Perhaps food and necessities could be sold, maybe part entertainment space (part arcade, coffee shop, sports bar, movie theater). Sort of a public living room. Maybe a modern take on the old fraternal clubs.

May be a bit early yet for this though. Would tend to displace other "hang-out" locations and businesses, so might be best to fit in with what's there (bars?), but offer something new and different (so people have an idea to anchor on rather than going entirely new concept).

The internet isn't a vice. Over use of social networks and various applications on it may be. The internet in many forms has become the primary means of human communication.

Communication is a fundamental need of human societies. I view excessive social network usage (to the point of unhealthy) to be analogous with over eating and the obesity it leads to. Underlying both is a basic need. We do better collectively to encourage others to behave responsibly with moderation and enjoyment.

In the extreme we should guard our freedoms, yet penalize harmful abuse.

I highly recommend Kanos. I backed them on kickstarter and got Kanos for each of my kids. They all got them assembled and running and started working through the programming exercises with them. For some it inspired other follow on programming explorations.

Lately I've reset the learning process focusing more on basics (networking, files, processes, utilities, etc) rather than programming.

Apple hardware does suck (now) AND its over priced. The OS and apps are starting to suck too (IMHO). I switched a month ago from MBP. I commented elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318525) on this thread with more details and my reasons and new hardware specs.

I am such a developer. Just moved from an older MPB to a (soon-to-be) Linux (Ubuntu) laptop. Always preferred Linux as my primary OS, but liked Apple hardware and OSX when I didn't feel like fiddling with things. For me it was a complex calculation (in no particular order):

  -Increasing annoyance by subtle changes to various native mac apps.

  -Migration of OSX towards more of a Windows, hiding details from the user.

  -Wanting a machine with NVidia GTX 1070 to explore 3D and ML.

  -Apple's migration towards a fully soldered machine.

  -Removal of ports and DVD drive.

  -The Apple premium is too out of whack.

Essentially:

  -i7 CPU

  -NVidia GTX 1070 GPU

  -16B RAM (now 32GB, with $100 of RAM)

  -1TB HD

  -256GB SSD

  -1920x1080 display

  -CD/DVD burner

  -11 ports for stuff

The downsides:

  - its a beast (almost 10 pounds, and 18" - not sure it will fit under an airline seat, needed to buy a larger backpack).

  - its a "gamer" laptop... with all the tacky red lights and styling deemed necessary by marketing.

  - the display isn't as nice, but more than sufficient for my needs

Ideally I'd like to just by a laptop with a preinstalled and supported hypervisor where I could trivially install any OS image I'd like (preferably in a way that would let me seamlessly run in either a cloud (AWS) or my local device). If I can slog though it, my ultimate plan is to get things running on here with a minimal arch linux as the hypervisor. Not looking forward to dealing with all the driver pain.

Hi Fred,

This is a challenging post, you seem to be getting knocked around with it quite a bit here. Hang in there. As you point out in your since published comment, treat this (and all your vignettes) as a learning experience. To help start you on your path for this post, I'll offer my 2 cents.

First, try to write posts with positive messages (this one has an overwhelmingly negative tone despite your intentions). Perhaps recast the examples as learning experience. Think long and hard about the situations you describe and try to learn something. Then write a post on what you learned. Life's hard. Help others learn from your interactions (and learn yourself).

Second, keep your issues to the real ones. It's okay to make a long list like this in a brainstorming session while a post is in the early draft stage, but try to trim down the stories to a handful of substantive ones (each with a lesson and reason for being there).

In general, it seems you've been in some stressful situations (for yourself and others). People (even the most vaulted professionals) get cranky when things aren't going well - by whatever definition of well is for the context).

You do seem to believe that transparency is a fundamental right. Its not. Noble, sure, but not ubiquitous or even always a good thing. Many times management will shield their reports from the disaster unfolding above them. Some times this is a good thing. It might be very distracting if everyone had perfect knowledge. I find its very important to have a good working relationship with your manager. Understand what motivates them and deliver on the tasks you are asked to (things can get messy when you "help" others (especially at the expense of your assigned tasks)).

Much more to say, but I need to go deliver on some of my tasks now. Hang in there. Good luck. Write a second post with a positive spin on the major things you learned from this one.

I like the assertion that the US has 2 economies that are lumped together for statistical purposes.

I would imagine there should be some supporting artifacts of this in various reports. Where would one look to see data to support this (two clustered groups experience the world significantly differently).

I would imagine that publicizing this data would help people validate their concerns that no, things aren't going as well as I've been told.

I think you make some good points.

When reality diverges from perception (as you and the OP seem to suggest, and I agree), it feels to me there a sort of economic potential energy there that may provide an opportunity for someone to capitalize on. Perhaps we need some scrambling unicorns to pivot and see how they could help improve democracy and level the playing field between the disconnected establishment and the general populace.

As an individual, I frequently sigh at my ability to impact the momentum of things. The world may not be as I'd like it, but I see little I can do about that. I get that small changes by many individuals can have a big impact in the aggregate.

Perhaps what would help would be a social amplifier app that would allow users to plan/schedule and participate in small changes in mass that could send louder social signals to the establishment. Maybe folks would to listen to us more frequently than once every 4 years.

I'm sure there are other opportunities and the devil is in the details. I'm not saying this is easy, but society needs some new tools. The folks here on HN are precisely the right people that should be doing something about this.

I agree with the premise that machines will increasing exceed our capabilities (and are improving quicker than we are). This seems so obvious as to be not debatable.

I also think there are a lot of merits to online-education and Udacity seems to have the right general idea. On-line education needs to be more engaging and entertaining than simply videos and online collaboration.

However, this whole "people need more skills" and "we need more jobs" meme feels like a losing fight with reality. In fact this push for increased human skills seems like it will only widen the gap between the uber skilled and the 99%. In our current economic model, this seems like increased pain for most of us.

IMHO it would be much better if we could stop this denial. We need to pivot our economic system towards a basic income model. I think a much better strategy would be for us to start focusing our best and brightest on full automation of our needs and basic wants so that we can provide most essential services to people with minimal human and resource cost.

For the open facebook alternative, I believe I was thinking about Diaspora (apparently it's still alive and kicking).

https://diasporafoundation.org/

Maybe its worth investigating.

As for the "failed because it was open" comment. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that it failed because it was open. Merely that it was open and failed (apparently maybe not so much failed).

I had thought it failed for the obvious reason: not attaining the necessary critical mass that a social network needs. One of its primary propositions was an open data policy. Apparently this might not have been sufficient to launch it into success. Again, there's still something there so maybe its still rumbling on.

In some ways, it may be worse than the OP suggests as we apparently race towards mobile apps. Seems about the right time for PointCast+. Its the proverbial technology pendulum. It seems obvious that we'll continue our momentum and maybe even abandon the generic browser and revert to the (now mobile-based) fat client past.

Much of the article seems devoted to concerns about proprietary protocols and closes with a plea to keep protocols open with a published specification. I think this is a reasonable concern and a noble plea, but yet also an (unfortunately) unreasonable request. Companies are developing their protocols to support their needs, not yours.

Its reasonable to want access to the data companies are collecting. Its valuable data. But these companies are not in the data services business. And if they were, its reasonable for them to charge a handsome price for the access you are looking for. Imagine the black eye a company would get for trying that approach.

Perhaps there's a view that says, users freely give the data so they should be able to freely get it back. But there's a counter argument that users are "compensated" for contributing their data in the form of free access to the services it provides. Given the amount of time people spend on social apps, its reasonable to think they value the "free" service highly.

IIRC there was a start-up that attempted to build an alternative social network based on open standards... It didn't go very far. Perhaps people need to learn to vote with their actions. Maybe we need to try that again and convince more of the influential technical folks to jump ship. Maybe through competition the non-open establish players can be shown the value of openness.

It's about creating value. It always is. Whether an individual employee, or a company.

The problem is "value" comes through a subjective lens. Different employers value a given work product differently. The OP's big-co employer is likely to value process and documentation.

In this start-up environment, speed is also relevant. Make lots of value quickly.

edw519's 90 pitch works largely because he presents himself in a manner for his customer to clearly see the value he would create. He spelled it out.

Its less about talking about yourself and more about talking about them.

The key thing the OP needs to do (and should have been doing) is networking (outside of work). As others have pointed out, with that much experience, you also should have a network of folks to reach out to.

It can take a long time to build a network. Fortunately, there are tons of opportunities in tech to do so. I'd imagine one of the best paths might be to fine a moderately significant trending (but not trendy) open source project and start getting involved in the community (in whatever way the community needs (maybe not coding initially)).

Learn the code base inside and out. Read the forums, discuss things with people. Create value! Find something needed and do it!

You'll meet people (virtually) along the way. Build a public reputation (very important), and maybe find a job. At least you'll be able to reference your relevant skill in said open source project. You'll then be an older developer, but with very relevant job skills to someone out there.

I kept wondering if the author applied any of the text/image steganographic techniques discussed to the paper itself, in a self referential sort of way. Had I been the author, I'd have felt obligated to do so.

The problem is, there's no friction (as the article states) for the board. What would the board push against to adjust itself? In the Segway, the wheels touch the ground and provide something for the motors to act against. This is more like an astronaut in space (if I'm understanding the situation correctly).

I like the idea (my kids would love it). It certainly has marketing value and calls up dreams of an amazing future, but there do seem to be some real practical problems (as the parent alludes to). Stopping seems particularly exciting.

Could you be more specific on who "we" is (anonymous user created 3 hours ago)? Rather than asserting trust is gained from simply open sourcing the project.