Hacker News: dibstern

New comment by dibstern in "Why MIT uses Python instead of Scheme for its undergraduate CS program (2009)"

dibstern — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 07:47:14 +0000

I couldn’t disagree more.

(1) Learning Java before you learn a procedural language, to me, makes no sense, and turns a programmer’s formative foundation of programming into an object-only one.

(2) The difficulty in getting over the ‘hump’ (usually about 5-6 weeks in to learning one’s first language) is what turned me off programming when I was 13, but given a great intro course I was able to get over it and I’ve developed a deep passion for it and I couldn’t imagine life without it. So to put the bar at 3 languages, to me, is insane.

(3) Many (most?) people don’t start off saying ‘Programming is or will be my career’. Instead, you try it out and see if you can do it and if you enjoy it. To me, this is a fundamental misunderstanding in how people view programming when they are learning their first language.

New comment by dibstern in "Healthcare.gov confirms hackers stole income, immigration and tax data"

dibstern — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 02:02:15 +0000

Dude wtf, we need this data to help treat patients and save lives.

New comment by dibstern in "We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them"

dibstern — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 10:58:23 +0000

Hahaha my god dude. First, he said it seems to indicate, not prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, you think it’s more likely that they filter every single request specifically for Zuckerberg, but do all of the other filtering later on in the pipeline? It’s much more likely that all the filtering happens at the one time, especially at a place like Facebook where most engineers seem to focus on optimising something for performance gains.

Occam’s Razor - it’s knocking on your door, asking to not be quoted when you’re not actually using it.

New comment by dibstern in "Google Home (in)Security"

dibstern — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 10:43:20 +0000

I hear that MongoDB is just deleting complete databases automatically, so you don’t even have to press a button!

New comment by dibstern in "Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning"

dibstern — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 17:00:12 +0000

I couldn’t agree more - I’ve made most progress in MOOCs whenever there is a set of relatively small but valuable, achievable goals. And I’m pretty sure the MOOCs I ran out of time for required big chunks of work.

New comment by dibstern in "Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning"

dibstern — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 16:57:31 +0000

I am highly skeptical of the research that shows low attendance causes poor grades. I attended 2/24 lectures for one subject, and I got the highest grade for the year, out of both semesters. And I have friends who don’t attend lectures often and do similar.

We focus on assignments - programming & software engineering assignments eat far too much time to get top marks and still attend classes. When I finish assignments, I binge watch lectures and write notes like a madman.

But yeah, I really doubt the attendance studies.

New comment by dibstern in "Where in the World Is Larry Page?"

dibstern — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 14:55:46 +0000

I don’t understand people on here complaining about the Senate demanding that the leaders of a business answer for its actions. Sending your lawyer or an underling is (1) a show of disrespect, (2) it shows you’re not taking responsibility for your company, and (3) when the person answering the questions isn’t really in charge, they can’t answer properly and they can’t commit their companies to behaving differently.

People just seem propagandistically pro-Google on here. You’re mostly pretty darn smart people. I don’t get it.

New comment by dibstern in "Where in the World Is Larry Page?"

dibstern — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 14:50:26 +0000

Not showing up here was the opposite of keeping a low profile though.

New comment by dibstern in "Where in the World Is Larry Page?"

dibstern — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 14:49:17 +0000

Completely disagree. I don’t know how you could say that. Business leaders have to answer for their companies actions, and senate hearings is one way we have of them doing that. And as wybiral said, it was a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

Maybe I’m jaded, but your response reminds me of those from Theranos employees on this very forum when it was criticised.

New comment by dibstern in "Breaking bad news"

dibstern — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 12:44:12 +0000

Great article! Loved it. Not sure if the author is posting this, but if you are, one small thing - it’s burying the ‘lede’, not ‘lead’. Thought you’d want to know :)

New comment by dibstern in "HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook"

dibstern — Sat, 18 Aug 2018 23:19:10 +0000

The problem is total exclusion, not targeting for sub-groups by campaign. If they wanted to target sub-groups by campaign, they could offer a service to advertise differently to different subgroups. But that’s not at all what’s happening - this is an exclusion of some subgroups, where the only feasible reason for their exclusion is their demographic, rather than the good/service being sold or the type of advertisement.

New comment by dibstern in "HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook"

dibstern — Sat, 18 Aug 2018 23:10:42 +0000

The issue is not focusing on demographics, it’s excluding demographics. The law states you cannot exclude certain demographics. Facebook is allowing that.

Nothing is preventing an atheist from reading a Christian magazine, or some non-expected audience member from reading an ad targeted at a general audience. The problem is when you control the viewers on an individual level, as Facebook does.

New comment by dibstern in "Duke Team Finds Missing Immune Cells That Could Fight Lethal Brain Tumors"

dibstern — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:39:44 +0000

I think they mean they found, in the bone marrow, an abundance of the missing T-cells (missing from the brain?)

New comment by dibstern in "Why ‘resilient dyslexics’ have good reading comprehension"

dibstern — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 18:06:00 +0000

It’s called dysgraphia, brother. Join the club!

New comment by dibstern in "Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign"

dibstern — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 01:49:46 +0000

You’re just arguing from Kant’s authority here. In my view (and in the views of many others, including many renowned philosophers and many important legal systems) Kant’s views are deeply flawed (anyone can argue from some authority). But this is my view because there are many situations in which otherwise ‘bad’ actions may be easily justified. Sure, ethics is currently a matter of opinion, but I think the fact that some opinions on ethics are more easily lambasted than others suggests that their quality differs. And yours is certainly a minority opinion, a good thing in my view.

New comment by dibstern in "Reinforcement learning’s foundational flaw"

dibstern — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 21:05:40 +0000

I don’t think throwing more computational power at the problem is the right answer to all ML problems.

New comment by dibstern in "Reinforcement learning’s foundational flaw"

dibstern — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:48:40 +0000

While I appreciate the sentiment, I thi k the fact that we can learn from fewer examples demonstrates that the learning process isn’t as efficient as ours, therefore it isn’t yet optimal. It seems like a goal should be for learning to be as efficient or more efficient for computers than for humans.

New comment by dibstern in "U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani"

dibstern — Sat, 16 Jun 2018 01:04:03 +0000

People were defending Theranos on HN... surely must have been an investor or an insider. Surely no one else would be so daft.

New comment by dibstern in "Alternatives to Google Products"

dibstern — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 00:55:23 +0000

Spark is notoriously bad for privacy. This is a really poor recommendation given the article.

New comment by dibstern in "The New Yorker has formed a union"

dibstern — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 16:08:36 +0000

Forced membership of a union!? Seriously!? How awful. I’d rather quit than have it forced on me. If I was at the New Yorker I’d almost certainly join, but only if I could do so willingly. Ugh.